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With U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan this week advocating for transparency for teacher evaluations that include, in part, standardized test scores, the National Education Association weighed in today, asking members how they'd like to be measured.NEA staffer Kevin Hart asked teachers to reply on the union's Facebook page, and reported some interesting answers.
"They believe a well-designed process can help them improve at their jobs and will ultimately benefit students," Hart wrote on the union's NEA Today website. "But teachers believe any evaluation process should be fair, consistently applied, and take into account the realities of their profession."
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Did Bill Gates waste a billion dollars because he failed to understand the formula for the standard deviation of the mean? Howard Wainer makes the case in the entertaining Picturing the Uncertain World (first chapter with the Gates story free here). The Gates Foundation certainly spent a lot of money, along with many others, pushing for smaller schools and a lot of the push came because people jumped to the wrong conclusion when they discovered that the smallest schools were consistently among the best performing schools.Related: Small Learning Communities and English 10........
States like North Carolina which reward schools for big performance gains without correcting for size end up rewarding small schools for random reasons. Worst yet, the focus on small schools may actually be counter-productive because large schools do have important advantages such as being able to offer more advanced classes and better facilities.
Schools2 All of this was laid out in 2002 in a wonderful paper I teach my students every year, Thomas Kane and Douglas Staiger's The Promise and Pitfalls of Using Imprecise School Accountability Measures.
In recent years Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation have acknowledged that their earlier emphasis on small schools was misplaced. Perhaps not coincidentally the Foundation recently hired Thomas Kane to be deputy director of its education programs.
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Search by name, position, school district or salary range to find what Missouri taxpayers pay the state's teachers, principals and other educators. The data is current as of July 2010. The data shown here is the data released by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. Errors should be reported to individual school districts and/or DESE. Teacher salaries are influenced by years of experience and education. Some people are listed twice because they work part time at more than one school.
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Paul Fanlund, via a kind reader:
In fact, the changing face of Madison's school population comes up consistently in other interviews with public officials.Related: the growth in outbound open enrollment from the Madison School District and ongoing budget issues, including a 10% hike in property taxes this year and questions over 2005 maintenance referendum spending.Police Chief Noble Wray commented recently that gang influences touch even some elementary schools, and Mayor Dave Cieslewicz expressed serious concern last week that the young families essential to the health and vitality of Madison are too often choosing to live outside the city based on perceptions of the city's schools.
Nerad says he saw the mayor's remarks, and agrees the challenge is real. While numbers for this fall will not be available for weeks, the number of students who live in Madison but leave the district for some alternative through "open enrollment" will likely continue to grow."For every one child that comes in there are two or three going out," Nerad says, a pattern he says he sees in other urban districts. "That is the challenge of quality urban districts touched geographically by quality suburban districts."
The number of "leavers" grew from 90 students as recently as 2000-01 to 613 last year, though the increase might be at least partly attributed to a 2007 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that greatly curtailed the ability of school districts to use race when deciding where students will go to school. In February 2008, the Madison School Board ended its long-standing practice of denying open enrollment requests if they would create a racial imbalance.
Two key reasons parents cited in a survey last year for moving children were the desire for better opportunities for gifted students and concerns about bullying and school safety. School Board member Lucy Mathiak told me last week that board members continue to hear those two concerns most often.
Nerad hears them too, and he says that while some Madison schools serve gifted students effectively, there needs to be more consistency across the district. On safety, he points to a recent district policy on bullying as evidence of focus on the problem, including emphasis on what he calls the "bystander" issue, in which witnesses need to report bullying in a way that has not happened often enough.
For all the vexing issues, though, Nerad says much is good about city schools and that perceptions are important. "Let's be careful not to stereotype the urban school district," he says. "There is a lot at stake here."
The significant property tax hike and ongoing budget issues may be fodder for the upcoming April, 2011 school board election, where seats currently occupied by Ed Hughes and Marj Passman will be on the ballot.
Superintendent Nerad's statement on "ensuring that we have a stable middle class" is an important factor when considering K-12 tax and spending initiatives, particularly in the current "Great Recession" where housing values are flat or declining and the property tax appetite is increasing (The Tax Foundation, via TaxProf:
The Case-Shiller index, a popular measure of residential home values, shows a drop of almost 16% in home values across the country between 2007 and 2008. As property values fell, one might expect property tax collections to have fallen commensurately, but in most cases they did not.It will be interesting to see what the Madison school District's final 2010-2011 budget looks like. Spending and receipts generally increase throughout the year. This year, in particular, with additional borrowed federal tax dollars on the way, the District will have funds to grow spending, address the property tax increase or perhaps as is now increasingly common, spend more on adult to adult professional development.Data on state and local taxes from the U.S. Census Bureau show that most states' property owners paid more in FY 2008 (July 1, 2007, through June 30, 2008) than they had the year before (see Table 1). Nationwide, property tax collections increased by more than 4%. In only four states were FY 2008's collections lower than in FY 2007: Michigan, South Carolina, Texas and Vermont. And in three states--Florida, Indiana and New Mexico--property tax collections rose more than 10%.
Madison's K-12 environment is ripe for change. Perhaps the proposed Madison Preparatory Academy charter school will ignite the community.
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Students are returning to school this week. But they're not heading back to class -- they're walking straight into a war zone. Our kids have become cannon fodder for two rival ideologies battling to control America's future.In one camp are conservative Christians and their champion, the Texas State Board of Education; in the other are politically radical multiculturalists and their de facto champion, President Barack Obama. The two competing visions couldn't be more different. And the stakes couldn't be higher. Unfortunately, whichever side wins -- your kid ends up losing.
That's because this war is for the power to dictate what our children are taught -- and, by extension, how future generations of Americans will view the world. Long gone are the days when classrooms were for learning: now each side sees the public school system as a vast indoctrination camp in which future culture-warriors are trained. The problem is, two diametrically opposed philosophies are struggling for supremacy, and neither is willing to give an inch, so the end result is extremism, no matter which side temporarily comes out on top.
Both visions are grotesque and unacceptable -- and yet they are currently the only two choices on the national menu. Which shall it be, sir: Brainwashing Fricassee, or a Fried Ignorance Sandwich?
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TJ Mertz makes a great point here:
Last up, is "Next Steps for Future Board Development Meetings and Topics.' Board development is good and important, but with only 2/3 of the term left I hate to see too much time and energy devoted to Board Development.Charlie Mas continues to chronicle, in a similar manner to TJ, the Seattle School Board's activities.I keep coming back to this. Every year about 1/3 of the time and energy is devoted to budget matters, that leaves 2/3 to try to make things better. Put it another way; it is September, budget season starts in January. Past time to get to work.
This just leaves the closed meeting on the Superintendent evaluation. Not much to add to what I wrote here. My big point is that almost all of this process should be public. I will repost the links to things that are public:
In my view, the Madison School Board might spend time on:
Update: I received the draft Madison School Board ethics documents via a Barbara Lehman email (thanks):
Presently we do not have a policy that describes expectations regarding the performance of School Board members. The Committee developed this list on the basis of similar policies adopted by other Boards as well as our own discussion of what our expectations are for each other. The Committee members were able to reach consensus on these expectations fairly quickly.How might Number 10 affect an elected Board member's ability to disagree with District policies or activities?Expectation No.4 refers to information requests. We realize that current MMSD Policy 1515 also refers to information requests, but our thinking was that the existing policy addresses the obligation of the superintendent to respond to information requests. We do not currently have a policy that addresses a Board member's obligation to exercise judgment in submitting information requests.
Expectation No. 10 is meant to convey that School Board members hold their positions 24-hours a day and have a responsibility to the Board always to avoid behavior that would cast the Board or the District in a poor light.
These paragraphs are a modification from existing language. Although the overall intent appears to remain similar to existing policy, I recommend the existing language because I think it does a better job of expressly recognizing the competing interests between the "beliefstatements" and a Board Member's likely right, as an individual citizen (and perhaps as a candidate for office while simultaneously serving on the Board) to accept PAC contributions and or to make a statement regarding a candidate. Perhaps the langnage could make clear that no Board Member may purport to, or attempt to imply, that they are speaking for the School Board when making a statement in regard to a candidate for office. That is, they should be express that they are speaking in the individual capacity.
The Board functions most effectively when individual Board Members adhere to acceptable professional behavior. To promote acceptable conduct of the Board, Board Members should:
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After serving on the Pajaro Valley Unified School District's Governing Board of Trustees since 2006, I've decided not to seek re-election. My years on the board have been an amazing experience, but it's time for me to step aside and allow a new community member the opportunity to offer his or her leadership to the school district.As we head into the election season and what will certainly be a climate of overheated rhetoric about what's right and what's wrong with our school district and what ought to be done about it, I think it's appropriate to lay out the duties of a school board member for the sake of voters and those who seek to serve on the board.
The California School Board Association spells out the role of a school board member very clearly: School board members are locally elected public officials entrusted with governing a community's public schools.
Along with the superintendent, board members set the long-term vision for the district so students will reach their highest potential. Board members are responsible for maintaining an efficient structure of school district operations by employing the superintendent, setting policy for hiring other personnel, setting a direction for and adopting the curriculum, and establishing budget priorities. Board members ensure accountability by evaluating the superintendent and district policies as well as monitoring all aspect of the district's operations. School board members must
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For the past 120 days I have pored over economic reports, commerce data, home sales across America, stats on inflationary trends and sales tax reports by state (when they can be found). I've sorted the data by date published, then prioritized it by importance to the economy, and looked for correlations positive or negative.The federal government's most recent debt expansion will provide K-12 districts with additional funds. Will these monies be used for:But no matter how many times I read over the data, I can come to only one solid conclusion: We have now finished changing into a two-tiered economy.
This change didn't start with the downturn of the past two and a half years; instead, the completion of our segregation into two financial classes is what directly caused the downturn. No longer is the belief that "there's the 20 percent of the population that live in poverty and then there's the rest" a comfortably distant concept.
The discomfort line now divides those who "feel afraid" that they live in poverty-like circumstances, or soon will - even if they are gainfully employed - from "the rest." And instead of a 20/80 split, have-nots to haves, today it may well be 60/40.
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Indianapolis Business Journal:
Tony Bennett, the state's superintendent of public instruction for nearly two years, deserves accolades for shoving education reform toward the top of Indiana's agenda.Unlike his predecessor, Suellen Reed, who seemed little more than a cheerleader for schools, Bennett is pushing hard-nosed reforms.
And while at times he's unfairly cast the state's powerful teachers' union--the Indiana State Teachers Association--as a villain, Bennett wisely struck a more productive, collaborative tone during his State of Education address Aug. 23. The New Albany Republican avoided the rhetoric that scores political points but does little to actually improve schools.
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Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey has fired his education commissioner, Bret D. Schundler, in the midst of a controversy over the state's failure to win a $400 million education grant, the governor's office announced Friday.Fascinating. Administrative accountability.A clerical mistake in the state's grant application had led the state to come up short by just three points in the high-stakes competition, known as Race to the Top. Mr. Christie had defended his administration's actions on Wednesday, in part by insisting that Mr. Schundler had provided the correct information to federal reviewers in an interview two weeks ago.
But federal officials released a video on Thursday showing that Mr. Schundler and his administration had not provided the information when asked. Mr. Christie, asked later Thursday about the videotape in a radio interview, said he would be seriously disappointed if it turned out he had been misled.
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JOE WILLIAMSRelated: John Nichols notes that Madison Teachers, Inc. endorsed Ben Manski in the 77th District Wisconsin Assembly
Executive Director
Invites you to a reception honoring three emerging education reform leaders:State Senator Lena Taylor
4th Senate DistrictAngel Sanchez
Candidate for the 8th Assembly District
Stephanie Findley
Candidate for the 10th Assembly District
These candidates have committed to support all children in all Milwaukee schools. Please help us show them that education reform supporters in Milwaukee recognize their efforts. With your help we can elect and re-elect committed leaders who will fight for real reform and support more quality options for children and their parents.Please join us whether you can give $5, $50 or $500 to each candidate!
When: Monday August 30th, 2010
Where: The Capital Grille
310 West Wisconsin Avenue
Time: 5:00 pm-7:00 pm
Refreshments will be served.
Free Valet Parking Provided.
RSVP: Ptosha Davis, DFER WI, 414-630-6637 or dferwisconsin@gmail.com
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No surprise that most of the assortment of supplemental school levies on the ballot had a tough time capturing the voter enthusiasm of past school-funding requests.The state Legislature's abdication of its education-funding responsibility hit a low point this spring when lawmakers authorized some districts to ask voters in the August primary for additional funding beyond regular levies. The result was mixed: a supplemental levy in the Marysville School District failed, a similar request in Everett clings to life and two levies in the Edmonds and Northshore school districts passed narrowly.
Primaries are tough for funding requests anyway as voters go on vacation or lose interest midway down the ballot. More than anything, though, the levy results signal a noteworthy shift. People are pinching pennies. They don't love their children's schools any less, and I suspect most still agree education gets the best bang for public bucks. But the lingering scent of recession is forcing most of us down a new, more subdued path.
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WXYZ:
A new report by Excellent Schools Detroit is highlighting the best and worst Detroit's schools.The report is a report card of sorts about almost every school in the city. It ranks the schools from best to worst based on MEAP test results for elementary and middle schools and ACT results for high schools.
The report is meant to be used as a guide for parents who want to find the best school for their children. The authors recommend parents examine the data on their child's current schools and then look at the data from other schools that they could attend.
Among the best elementary schools in Detroit are the private Cornerstone School - Nevada Primary and Martin Luther King Jr. Education Center Academy, a charter school. Also included are the Bates Academy and Chrysler, both of which have special admissions requirements.
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I had the craziest dream last night, Louisiana, a state that is a leader on all the things that the administration says are priorities didn’t get Race to the Top funding…oh wait…
Anyway, New York never disappoints, the Patterson presser is one for the ages. ‘Race to the cock?’ What the hell?
Big takeaways beyond the RTT issues below, are that the odds of seeing consistent and deep change across all Race to the Top winners got a lot longer with this round of selections. But the two fundamental questions basically remain the same and can’t be answered yet: How durable will the many RTT-inspired policy changes prove to be and will those changes actually improve student learning?
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The Obama administration will ask Congress for another $700-800m next year so it can continue its Race to the Top education reform scheme, says Arne Duncan, the US education secretary.The scheme, which saw another 10 reforming states receive $3.4bn in funding on Tuesday, has proven wildly popular as many states face budget crises.
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Anna Fifield; video:
Arne Duncan, US education secretary, tells Anna Fifield, the FT's US political correspondent, that the "Race to the Top" programme has led to a "quiet revolution" with 36 hard-up states implementing reforms simply in the hope of receiving federal funding. Despite opposition from teachers' unions, Mr Duncan says the administration will continue to push for change, although it will not raise the proportion of education funding that comes from the federal government.
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A report released Tuesday ranks cities not in terms of best-performing schools but on their openness to outside ideas and education reform.Complete Study: 9.9MB PDF:Education entrepreneurs - the sort of people who want to open a new charter school, or have an innovative way to get talented new teachers into schools - would do well to head to New Orleans. Or Washington or New York.
At least that's the judgment of "America's Best (and Worst) Cities for School Reform: Attracting Entrepreneurs and Change Agents," a study released Tuesday that's attempting to rank cities in a new way. It doesn't look at how well their students perform, or even on the programs their districts have put in place, but on how welcoming they are to reforms and new ideas. The education version of the World Bank's annual ranking of the best countries for business, if you will.
Enter the education entrepreneur, a problem-solver who has developed a different and--it is to be hoped--better approach to teaching and learning, either inside or outside the traditional school system. He or she may provide, among other things, a novel form of brick and mortar teaching, an alternative version of teacher recruitment or training, or time-saving software and tools that make for more efficient instruction and surer learning. Which cities would welcome and support such problem-solvers by helping to bring their ideas to scale, improve their odds of success, and nurture their growth? Put another way, which cities have the most reform-friendly ecosystems?
To answer this question, analysts examined six domains that shape a jurisdiction's receptivity to education reform:Human Capital: Entrepreneurs need access to a ready flow of talented individuals, whether to staff their own operations or fill the district's classrooms.
Financial Capital: A pipeline of flexible funding from private and/or public sources is vital for nonprofit organizations trying to break into a new market or scale up their operations.
Charter Environment: Charter schools are one of the primary entrees through which entrepreneurs can penetrate new markets, both as direct education providers and as consumers of other nontraditional goods and services.
Quality Control: Lest we unduly credit innovation per se, the study takes into account the quality- control metrics that appraise and guide entrepreneurial ventures.
District Environment: Because many nontraditional providers must contract with the district in order to work in the city, finding a district that is both open to nontraditional reforms and has the organiza- tional capacity to deal with them in a speedy and professional manner can make or break an entrepreneur's foray into a new market.
Municipal Environment: Beyond the school district, is the broader community open to, even eager for, nontraditional providers? Consider, for example, the stance of business leaders, the mayor, and the media.
Drawing on publicly available data, national and local survey data, and interviews with on-the-ground insiders, analysts devised a grading metric that rated each city on its individual and collective accom- plishments in each of these areas.
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Where is stimulus money for education going, and how much has been spent? Here's a new website that provides tracking for these significant, multi-billion dollar questions.Kudos to the Education Writers Association for taking on this huge data gathering project, and to Bill and Melinda Gates who are funding it for the next two years.
When it comes to following the money, the flow of dollars is impressive: For example, Milwaukee has been allocated $202.6 million so far in stimulus money for its approximately 90,000 public school children; 58 percent, or $117.7 million, has been spent. Meanwhile, Madison has gotten $21.8 million in stimulus funds, and has spent around $12 million, or 55 percent for almost 25,000 students. I was also curious about smaller Dane County districts and their information is available too from Edmoney.org. For example: Sun Prairie, celebrating the grand public opening of its gorgeous new high school August 28 (go here for information about the festivities and school tours), has been awarded $6.6 million in stimulus funds and has spent $5.6 million of that. Middleton? $3.5 million awarded; $2.8 million spent. Verona? $4.9 million awarded; $4.3 spent.
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This definition of courage has become something of a theme for Obama's Education Department -- despite its reputation for gritty reform-mindedness. Earlier this summer, Maura Policelli, the department's senior adviser for external affairs, told state officials to stop worrying about funding and "to see how [stimulus] funds can help alleviate layoffs." She explained that this "require[s] some courage because it does involve the possible risk of investing in staff that you may not be able to retain in the 2011-12 school year." When one official asked what would happen if a state had "unspent [American Recovery and Reinvestment Act] money after 2011," Policelli said: "You will be fired." Looks like courage is not just about spending, but about spending quickly.All of this might be laughable if the feds weren't making it harder for states and school districts to prepare for rough seas ahead. When asked by the Associated Press what happens if districts use this money as a short-term fix and stand to get hammered next year, Duncan replied, "Well, we're focused right now, Donna, on this school year. . . . We're hopeful we'll be in a much better spot next year."
Well, while Duncan can hope to his heart's content, the reality is that things will get much worse for schools before they get better. Scott Pattison, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, notes, "There are so many issues that go way beyond the current downturn. . . . This is an awful time for states fiscally, but they're even more worried about 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014." Property taxes account for about a third of school spending, but property-tax valuations tend to lag property values by three years -- which mean school districts are on the front end of a slide that's got several years to run. And, as the authors of a recent Rockefeller Institute report note, "Even if overall economic conditions continue to improve throughout 2010, fiscal recovery for the states historically lags behind a national economic turnaround and can be expected to do so in the aftermath of the recent recession."
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Fewer than one percent of Oregon students are enrolled in online public schools. But for nearly five years, the funding, quality and financial management of these virtual schools have been dominating conversation in State Capitol hearing rooms and school district board rooms.In Oregon, education dollars follow the students. And this issue pits parent choice against school district stability.
Initially, each of six members of the state board suggested slightly different solutions. After nearly three hours of discussion, however, most board members said they would support parent choice but only if there was a cap on how many students could leave an individual school district.
"Parents should have the option to transfer," said board chairwoman Brenda Frank. "I don't believe the district has all the answers. But I think there just needs to be a gate."
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A tragic crisis of enormous magnitude is facing black boys and men in America.The complete PDF report can viewed here.Parental neglect, racial discrimination and an orgy of self-destructive behavior have left an extraordinary portion of the black male population in an ever-deepening pit of social and economic degradation.
The Schott Foundation for Public Education tells us in a new report that the on-time high school graduation rate for black males in 2008 was an abysmal 47 percent, and even worse in several major urban areas -- for example, 28 percent in New York City.
The astronomical jobless rates for black men in inner-city neighborhoods are both mind-boggling and heartbreaking. There are many areas where virtually no one has a legitimate job.
Related: They're all rich, white kids and they'll do just fine.
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New Jersey has become the first state to ever be charged with civil fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC on Wednesday charged that in the course of selling municipal bonds to investors "the State misrepresented and failed to disclose material information regarding its under funding of New Jersey's two largest pension plans, the Teachers' Pension and Annuity Fund ("TPAF") and the Public Employees' Retirement System ("PERS")."State governments usually sell bonds as a way to raise money to fund specific projects. They borrow from investors with the promise to repay the debt later, plus interest. As a protection to investors, all bond issuers, state governments included, are required to provide investors with the information necessary for investors to make an informed decision regarding the level of risk associated with the investment.
New Jersey sold over $26 billion in bonds between 2001 and 2007, but the SEC charged that the state failed to inform investors that the state has not been fully funding its pension funds and cannot fully fund them in the future without raising taxes or cutting spending, which could impact the state's ability to repay these bonds. According to the SEC, New Jersey's
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UW researchers have found that despite the spoken commitment of state officials and lawmakers, teachers in math and science earn less than other high-school instructors.Jim Simpkins, Marguerite Roza, Cristina SepeResearchers at the University of Washington have found that despite the spoken commitment of state officials and lawmakers, math and science teachers earn less than other high-school instructors.
The way Washington and many other states pay teachers -- with more money going to those with more years of experience and graduate degrees -- has led to the uneven salaries.
Jobs that pay better at nearby high-tech companies may also be a contributing factor, because math and science teachers may be recruited away before they have a chance to reach the higher rungs on the pay ladder, said Jim Simpkins, a researcher on the report, with Marguerite Roza and Cristina Sepe.
Washington State recently passed a law (House Bill 2621) intending to accelerate the teaching and learning of math and science. However, in the two subject areas the state seeks to prioritize, this analysis finds that nineteen of the thirty largest districts in the state spend less per math or science teacher than for teachers in other subjects.Existing salary schedules are part of the problem. By not allowing any differential compensation for math and science teachers, and instead basing compensation only on longevity and graduate credits, the wage system works to create the uneven salaries.
The analysis finds that in twenty-five of the thirty largest districts, math and science teachers had fewer years of teaching experience due to higher turnover--an indication that labor market forces do indeed vary with subject matter expertise. The subject-neutral salary schedule works to ignore these differences.
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With the economic outlook weakening, they argue that big deficits are looming for the next academic year and that they need to preserve the funds to prevent future layoffs. Los Angeles, for example, is projecting a $280 million budget shortfall next year that could threaten more jobs."You've got this herculean task to deal with next year's deficit," said Lydia L. Ramos, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest after New York City. "So if there's a way that you can lessen the blow for next year," she said, "we feel like it would be responsible to try to do that."
The district laid off 682 teachers and counselors and about 2,000 support workers this spring and was not sure it would be able to hire any of them back with the stimulus money. The district says it could be forced to cut 4,500 more people next year.
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The Board of Directors of Seattle Public Schools has four primary functions... and they fail to fulfill each of them.The Board, first and foremost, are the elected representatives of the public, but this Board doesn't represent the public at all. This Board doesn't raise the public's concerns, doesn't relay the public's wishes, and doesn't voice the public perspective. I almost never hear the Board members talk about the public or their constituents saying "People are concerned about.." or "People want..." or "People see it this way...".
The Board doesn't voice the public perspective and certainly doesn't advocate for it. Worse, the Board doesn't advocate for the public to have a voice for themselves. The Board is no champion of community engagement. The Board regularly approves motions with inadequate community engagement and regularly approves motions with NO community engagement. The Board hasn't demanded improved engagement from anyone and hasn't even demanded that the staff provide the community engagement that they promised to do. The Board's own community engagement is just about the worst of any workgroup in the District. Their primary community engagement practice is testimony at Board meetings and they never respond to the people who come and speak to them there.
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In 1983, a presidential commission issued the landmark report "A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform." The report warned that despite an increase in spending, the U.S. public education system was at risk of failure "If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today," the report declared, "we might well have viewed it as an act of war."New York City Schools Chancellor Joel Klein often quotes the commission before discussing how U.S. schools have fared since it issued its report. Despite nearly doubling per capita spending on education over the past few decades, American 15-year olds fared dismally in standardized math tests given in 2000, placing 18th out of 27 member countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. Six years later, the U.S. had slipped to 25th out of 30. If Americans have been fighting against mediocrity in education since 1983, they are losing the battle.
What could turn things around? At a recent event that I organized at the Columbia Business School, Klein opened with his harsh assessment of the situation, and researchers offered some stark options for getting American education back on track. We could find drastically better ways of training teachers or improve our hiring practices so we're bringing aboard better teachers in the first place. Barring these improvements, the only option left is firing low-performing teachers--who have traditionally had lifetime tenure--en masse.
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The state Senate Education Committee will meet on Monday to discuss a measure that would revamp New Jersey's charter school regulation system.State Education Commissioner Bret D. Schundler, who supports the expansion of charter schools, is scheduled to attend the hearing to outline the Christie administration's priorities regarding education in New Jersey.
The meeting will also focus on bill S-2198, a measure sponsored by Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Teresa Ruiz (D-Essex) and Senator Sandra Bolden Cunningham (D-Hudson), which would enable Rutgers University to authorize charter schools. The bill is designed to expedite the approval of charter school applications, and permit the authorization of special purpose charter schools.
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New Jersey School Boards Association is reporting that recent teacher contract settlements have dropped sharply since January, with annual salary increases averaging 2.03% since January and 1.58% from April to June.The latter figure includes, according to the press release,
23 districts where teachers have agreed to a wage freeze for the 2010-2011 school year. Overall, since January, 42 teachers' groups have agreed to a one-year pay freeze for the 2010-2011 school year, and an additional 43 districts have agreed to other givebacks and concessions.
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In June 2010, the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) offered the nation two sets of English language arts standards: one set called "college and career readiness anchor standards," and the other, grade-level standards that build towards these anchor standards. With few exceptions, both sets of standards consist of content-empty and culture-free generic skills. Why are they so bereft of substantive content? In large part because they reflect a faulty diagnosis of why many American students are unprepared for authentic college-level work. The misdiagnosis comes from CCSSI's reliance on the results of ACT surveys to guide the development of its standards.Several years ago, ACT surveyed thousands of post-secondary instructors to find out what they saw as the chief problems in their freshman students. Not surprisingly, the chief complaint was that high school graduates cannot understand the college texts they are assigned to read. Without an explanation for its reasoning, ACT leaped to two conclusions: (1) college students are not expected to read enough complex texts when they are in high school; and (2) they are not given enough instruction in strategies or skills for reading complex texts in high school.
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Patricia Bailey and Robert Femiano
The Seattle Public Schools administration is proposing to tie teacher evaluations and employment to student test scores -- a bone of contention in current negotiations with the Seattle Education Association. Guest columnists Pat Bailey and Robert Femiano, past union board members, argue that the district's approach is wrong.Clusty search: Robert Femiano and Patricia Bailey.The Seattle school district is proposing to tie teacher evaluations and employment to student test scores.
The current teacher evaluation includes student growth as a factor but the district wants an easier path and quicker time frames for teacher dismissals. The district officials' plan is to use test scores to fire those teachers they claim are responsible for the poverty and racial academic gaps and reward those with high improvements in scores. History shows this carrot-and-stick approach not only fails to reduce the achievement gap but is ultimately unhealthy for good teaching.
One result of high-stakes testing is clear: The inordinate focus on test scores narrows what is taught. Diane Ravitch's "The death and life of the great American school system" documents this and other unintended consequences. In order to keep their jobs, teachers will teach and re-teach to the test. Lost are the arts, music, PE, civics, science and even recess. Early-childhood experts point to rich school environments as crucial to healthy development, so who wants to cause the opposite?
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Congress is showering schools with $10 billion to bring back teachers who've been laid off. States are rushing to submit their applications to qualify for this unexpected summer windfall for school districts. The Education Department estimates the measure will save 160,000 jobs. The GOP says it's a gift to teachers' unions.
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As legislators and lobbyists congratulate themselves on the 2300 pages of legalese drafted to reform Wall Street banks and the financial services industry, not one paragraph addresses a major reason why the meltdown occurred: how American consumers learn to manage money. According to several mortgage banking studies, nearly 70 percent of the victims of foreclosure admit they did not understand the terms of the deal they signed or the long-term impact on their lives.Congress had plenty of chances to address this problem. More than 30 bills focused on financial literacy have been introduced since 2006. All of them died in Senate or House committees. None were included in this recent reform bill.
Money, like sex, is supposed to be taught at home but in a 2008 Charles Schwab study, 69% of parents interviewed reported they were more prepared to discuss sex than money with their children.
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Last week I noted that Fordham had offered up the Gadfly as a platform for an argument, made by guest columnist Eugenia Kemble, that the next logical step after establishing national standards is a single national curriculum.Well, my post has drawn a sharp response from Kemble. Of course, she disagrees with me on the substance (the merits of a national curriculum and the badness of teachers' unions) but that goes without saying. More interestingly, she accuses me of not addressing her argument on the merits, but only being concerned with the significance of her piece having appeared in the Gadfly. The indictment has two counts. First, she accuses me of not offering an argument for my position that "common" standards adopted by the states are really "federal" standards (i.e. controlled by the federal government.) Second, she accuses me of practicing "guilt by association" by insinuating that if Checker publishes a union piece, he must embrace the entire union agenda.
To the second count I plead not guilty. I didn't insinuate that Checker agrees with the unions about everything. I insinuated that his position in favor of national standards was having the effect - whether intended or not - of advancing the unions' agenda in one respect. And that the appearance of Kemble's piece in the Gadfly clearly demonstrates that those of us who have been saying this all along were right. And I stand by that insinuation.
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California has long been a destination for those seeking a better place to live. For most of its history, the state enacted sensible policies that created one of the wealthiest and most innovative economies in human history. California realized the American dream but better, fostering a huge middle class that, for the most part, owned their homes, sent their kids to public schools, and found meaningful work connected to the state's amazingly diverse, innovative economy.Recently, though, the dream has been evaporating. Between 2003 and 2007, California state and local government spending grew 31 percent, even as the state's population grew just 5 percent. The overall tax burden as a percentage of state income, once middling among the states, has risen to the sixth-highest in the nation, says the Tax Foundation. Since 1990, according to an analysis by California Lutheran University, the state's share of overall U.S. employment has dropped a remarkable 10 percent. When the state economy has done well, it has usually been the result of asset inflation--first during the dot-com bubble of the late 1990s, and then during the housing boom, which was responsible for nearly half of all jobs created earlier in this decade.
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As the Iowa governor's race takes shape, some of the sharpest differences have been about the state's education system, which accounts for roughly 60 percent of Iowa's $5.3 billion budget.Both Democratic Gov. Chet Culver and Republican Terry Branstad said education will be a priority, but they have made it clear that they favor different approaches for the state's elementary and secondary schools. In fact, a key difference relates to children who haven't even started kindergarten.
Culver speaks repeatedly about his success in making state-paid preschool available to nearly every 4-year-old in the state.
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St. Cloud residents will vote in two elections Tuesday to narrow down candidates for school board seats.For the first time in St. Cloud history, two of the candidates are Somali. One is running in a primary election that will narrow down the candidates from seven to six to get in the general election in November, while the other is running in a special election (that will narrow the candidates from three to two to replace a resigning school board member.
Hassan Yussuf has been living in St. Cloud since 2001. He has been closely following the problems that the St. Cloud school district has faced in recent months. The U.S. Department of Education is investigating allegations that school administrators ignored complaints of racial harassment. And in June, the superintendent resigned with one year remaining on his contract. The superintendent said he couldn't deal with the school district politics anymore. Yussuf said he's concerned about what he sees in the district.
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The White House, concerned about the country's lagging college-graduation rates, is pushing a plan aimed at helping an additional eight million young adults earn college degrees in the next decade.In a speech at the University of Texas at Austin on Monday, President Barack Obama will tout a series of measures, many implemented over the past year, designed to put more Americans through college, according to White House officials.
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I asked the candidates about their views on the role of state government in K-12 public school districts, local control, the current legislature's vote to eliminate the consideration of economic conditions in school district/teacher union arbitration proceedings and their views on state tax & spending priorities.
Video Link, including iPhone, iPad and iPod users mp3 audio; Doug Zwank's website, financial disclosure filing; www search: Bing, Clusty, Google, Yahoo.
View a transcript here.
Video link, including iPhone, iPad and iPod users, mp3 audio Brett Hulsey's website, financial disclosure filing; www search: Bing, Clusty, Google, Yahoo
Thanks to Ed Blume for arranging these interviews and the candidates for making the time to share their views. We will post more candidate interviews as they become available. More information on the September 14, 2010 primary election can be found here.
Candidate financial disclosures.
View a transcript here.
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With an additional $30,000,000 to come to Marc Tucker's NCEE from the USED's "competition" for assessment consortia grants, his hare-brained scheme for enticing high school sophomores or juniors deemed "college-ready" by the results of the Cambridge University-adapted "Board" exams that he plans to pilot in 10 states (including Massachusetts now) comes closer to reality. The problems are not only with this scheme (and the exams NCEE will use to determine "college-readiness") but also with the coursework NCEE's America's Choice is busy preparing to sell to our high schools to prepare students for these "Board" exams. (Try to find some good examples of the reading and math items and figure out their academic level.)
First, some background. NCEE's scheme was originally financed by a $1,500,000 pilot grant from the Gates Foundation. It will now benefit from a sweetheart deal of $30,000,000–all taxpayers' money. Having Gates pay for both NCEE's start-up and the development of Common Core standards certainly helped America's Choice to put its key people on Common Core's ELA and mathematics standards development and draft-writing committees to ensure that they came up with the readiness standards Gates had paid for and wanted NCEE to use. NCEE has a completely free hand to "align" its "Board" exams exactly how it pleases with Common Core's "college-readiness" level and to set passing scores exactly where it wants, since the passing score must be consistent across piloting states.
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Seattle Public Schools wants teacher evaluations and student performance joined at the hip, but the teachers' union is taking issue with how the district plans to fuse those two factors.I was impressed with Susan Troller's recent article on Teacher Accountability and the Madison School District, particularly her inquiry to Lisa Wachtel:A proposal that would tie teacher evaluations to student growth prompted a 2,000-word refutation e-mail from the Seattle Education Association earlier this week, a sign of friction in ongoing contract negotiations.
"Their mechanized system is one of minimal rewards and automated punishments," union leaders wrote to members Wednesday.
That statement was sent in response to an e-mail teachers received this week from public schools Superintendent Maria Goodloe-Johnson. She detailed how the school plans to roll out parts of its bargaining proposal -- specifically factors related to how teachers' performances are evaluated.
The district is proposing an four-tier evaluation system that would roll out over two years. Teachers who chose to be evaluated base on to "student growth outcomes and peer and student feedback" would be eligible for perks, including an immediate 1 percent pay increase, eligibility for stipends and other forms of "targeted support."
The district's recent decision to provide professional development time for middle and high school teachers through an early release time for students on Wednesdays is part of this focus, according to Wachtel. The district has sponsored an early release time for elementary school teachers since 1976.This is certainly not the only example of such spending initiatives. Jeff Henriques has thoughtfully posted a number of very useful articles over the years, including: Where does MMSD get its numbers from? and District SLC Grant - Examining the Data From Earlier Grants, pt. 3. It appears that these spending items simply reflect growing adult to adult programs within the K-12 world, or a way to channel more funds into the system.She admits there isn't any data yet to prove whether coaching is a good use of resources when it comes to improving student achievement.
"Anecdotally we're hearing good things from a number of our schools, but it's still pretty early to see many specific changes," she says. "It takes consistency, and practice, to change the way you teach. It's not easy for anyone; I think it has to be an ongoing effort."
I believe it is inevitable that we will see more "teacher evaluation" programs. What they actually do and whether they are used is of course, another question.
Ideally, every school's website should include a teacher's profile page, with their CV, blog and social network links, course syllabus and curriculum notes. Active use of a student information system such as PowerSchool, or Infinite Campus, among others, including all assignments, feedback, periodic communication, syllabus, tests and notes would further provide useful information to parents and students.
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Congress took a decisive step Wednesday toward finalizing a $26 billion bill offering aid to states, a surprise win for Democrats keen to demonstrate they're taking action on an economy showing signs of weakness.Related: Forget Your Vacation, Come Bail Out Public Education, EduJobs Clears Senate While Schools Are Rehiring and the spotlight on city pay widens in California.The bill, designed to prevent teacher layoffs and help states with their Medicaid payments, comes after months of foot dragging by Congress. Lawmakers have proven reluctant to spend money on everything from stimulus projects to additional unemployment insurance, amid increasing voter concern about the size of the U.S. budget deficit.
But Wednesday's action, which won the support of two Republicans, suggests members of Congress are sufficiently concerned about the mixed signals from the economy that they're willing to approve narrow spending bills, particularly those with political resonance ahead of this year's midterm elections.
Wednesday's 61-38 vote in the Senate overcame a filibuster and made final passage in the Senate likely as soon as Thursday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) responded by taking the rare move of calling House members back from their summer recess next week to pass the bill and send it to the desk of President Barack Obama.
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Stop me if you've heard this one: How is the MPS budget situation like the BP oil spill?In the same way that BP has needed both to place a temporary cap on the well and drill a relief well to shut down the leak permanently, MPS--and Wisconsin's public schools generally--needs immediate help as well as a significant revision to the school funding formula that can provide long-term stability and relief.
The immediate help can come in a couple of different ways. One is through work by some members of Congress to get additional emergency funds to states to address school budget shortfalls and rehire laid-off teachers. (Wisconsin, you are probably are not surprised to learn, is hardly alone in having a school funding crisis.) This one-time payment would offset some of the disappearing stimulus funds and hold back the flood of the estimated 300,000 teacher layoffs expected for the fall nationwide.
The amendment's prognosis is poor, with a deficit-conscious Congress anxious about too much more spending.
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For many years, critics of the SAT have cited a verbal question involving the word "regatta" as an example of how the test may favor wealthier test-takers, who also are more likely to be white. It's been a long time since the regatta question was used -- and the College Board now has in place a detailed process for testing all questions and potential questions, designed to weed out questions that may favor one group of students over another.But a major new research project -- led by a scholar who favors standardized testing -- has just concluded that the methods used by the College Board (and just about every other testing entity for either admissions or employment testing) are seriously flawed. While the new research doesn't conclude that the tests are biased, it says that they could be -- and that the existing methods of detection wouldn't reveal that.
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There appears to be a lot of support, right now, among politicians, the media, and rest of the "opinion-making" class, for Education Reform.I understand that. The Education Reform movement has a lot of very attractive bumper-sticker type slogans that appear to make a lot of very good sense. Who wouldn't be in favor of firing bad teachers? We've all had a bad teacher who should be fired - haven't we? Even if you haven't had a bad teacher, you've heard the horror stories about them. Who doesn't think accountability is a good thing? Who wouldn't support innovation and choice? It all sounds really good and worthy of our support. Morover, anyone who opposes it, such as teachers' unions, must be doing so for their own selfish purposes.
It's only when people go past the bumper-stick slogans, get past the anectdotes and myths, and begin to consider the realities that the elements of this vaunted Education Reform start to break down.
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President Barack Obama on Thursday delivered a fresh call to hold teachers accountable for student achievement, defending his administration against complaints from unions, civil rights groups and Democratic lawmakers.These groups, usually backers of the president, have objected to the administration's Race to the Top program, which seeks to drive change at the local level through a competition for $4.3 billion in federal grants.
To qualify for funding, states are encouraged to promote charter schools and tie teacher pay to performance. Unions have questioned both goals.
Mr. Obama, defending his administration's approach in a speech before the National Urban League, said teachers should be well paid, supported and treated like professionals but those who fail should be replaced.
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As encouraging as it is to see California in the running to win a Race to the Top grant for its schools, we can't help wondering how great a price the state will pay for the possibility of receiving as much as $700 million.The U.S. Department of Education announced last week that California is one of 19 finalists in the second round of grant applications. Should it succeed -- and the odds are decent, because officials say that more than half the finalists will receive grants -- many of California's neediest schools will receive infusions of new money. Even so, we see this potential win as mixed news.
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Kai Ryssdal: State education officials around the country are having a busy day. Today's a key deadline in the Obama Administration's Race to the Top. That's the $4 billion pot of federal money that states can get -- get, if they agree to certain policy changes. One of those changes -- and this is today's deadline -- is to sign on to a national set of common curriculum standards. That could bring the education marketplace from widely fractured and segmented with dozens of different standardsinto something resembling coherent.Christopher Swanson is the vice president for research and development at Education Week. Welcome to the program.
Christopher Swanson: Glad to be here.
Ryssdal: It's a mistake to talk about a national education market, I suppose, but this drive to get some uniform core curriculum standards does kind of change the market dynamic for things like testing and textbooks, doesn't it?
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The following was sent this morning from NEA headquarters in Washington, DC:David Rogers:Subject: URGENT REQUEST FOR MEMBER MOBILIZATION TODAYMessage from John Stocks
Deputy Executive Director
National Education AssociationSenator Harry Reid has filed for a cloture vote on the Reid / Murray amendment to H.R. 1586 scheduled for today @ 5:30pm. This amendment contains the Ed Jobs and Federal Medical Assistance (FMAP) appropriations we have been fighting for all year. Senator Reid is determined to get an up or down vote on these issues before they recess.
Senator Reid has asked us to mobilize as much support as possible in support of his effort to pass FMAP and Ed Jobs today.
With a Senate vote slated for Monday evening, the White House shows signs of a late-breaking push behind a $26.1 billion aid package to help state and local governments cope with revenue shortfalls due to the continuing housing crisis and slow economic recovery.Last year's recovery act helped fill the gap, but as the stimulus funds run out, Democrats fear more state layoffs, beginning with teachers just months before November elections. Cash-strapped governors are promised $16.1 billion to pay Medicaid bills next year and ease their budget situation; another $10 billion in education assistance would go to school boards to help with teacher hiring -- a top priority for Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
"There is a tremendous amount at stake here," Duncan told POLITICO. And even with the House gone until mid-September, he insisted that Senate passage would give local school boards "a real sense of hope" that federal dollars will be coming in time to avoid layoffs impacting tens of thousands of teachers.
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Via a Kate Gladstone email:
A handwriting program called "Handwriting Without Tears"
(at http://www.hwtears.com -- see model-samples at
http://www.hwtears.com/files/HWT_Alphabet.pdf ) has begun aggressively lobbying to make every detail of its own particular instructional method and writing styles legallly *required* as the sole method in all USA schools, by piggybacking on current White House efforts to create and impose a detailed national curriculum for all USA schools.The founder of HWTears, Jan Olsen, began announced this publicly 7 years ago (that her firm would eventually be doing this) during her organization's training and recruitment workshops.. People unaffiliated with her program tried to warn others in the handwriting field, but almost nobody thought Jan Olsen meant it.
Specifics:
HWTears has created, and is fully funding and operating, an innocuous-sounding Washington lobby-group called "Handwriting Standards" at http://www.handwritingstandards.com (note the teeny-tiny copyright notice at the bottom of the page, to see which handwriting program owns that lobby-group!)
The lobbyists' web-site is designed to sound neutral on the surface, but if you dig deeper and actually read their proposed standards, these are verbatim quotes of particular details of the HWTears teaching sequence and even stylistic features and they are very closely tied in with the HWTears.com web-site's own descriptions of the same endeavor -- to the point that, if the "Handwriting Standards" lobbyists succeed, no other program but HWTears will conform with the details of teaching method/style that their lobbyists are trying to have written into law.
In other words: the proposed national standards for school handwriting tie in very closely with HWTears program sequence, to the point that they are basically a step-by-step, practically verbatim summary of specifically that program's sequence/curriculum/practices.
This is clear if you make yourself familiar with the HWTears program materials/lesson plans/teacher-training sessions, and if you then read the lobby's proposed "Handwriting Standards" for yourself in the level-by-level blue links at http://www.handwritingstandards.com/handwriting-standards as well as
reading their full document at http://www.handwritingstandards.com/sites/default/files/Standards-20k-4_FINAL.pdf.Of special note: the proposed standards' stylistic requirements (which are HWTears requirements) mean that the program would make it illegal to teach certain programs that have been popular homeschooling choices for many years.
For example, all the cursive-first programs that so many homeschoolers are using (such as Abeka) would be forbidden (because the proposed standards require print first and cursive later) and so would be all the Italic programs (such as Getty-Dubay) that are also widely popular homeschooling choices (because the proposed standards for cursive require 100% joined and looped cursive, as well as specifically cursive-stle capitals, which Getty-Dubay and the other Italic programs do not use. Therefore, these and many other successful programs would not be allowed).
Therefore, if the lobby-group wins it will affect many of the people who are receiving this letter (and who are -- I hope -- sharing it with their children and passing it on to others of like mind). It would affect anyone who uses a program that would be banned by this not-so-neutral "standards" organization.
(There are 200+ handwriting programs in the USA -- with a few strokes of the pen, 199+ of them would be criminalized. Ethical concerns therefore come into play.)If you care even a little bit about this, e-mail me at handwritingrepair@gmail.com (subject-line should include the words "lobby" and "handwriting") and/or phone me at 518-482-6763 (Albany, NY) to decide what we must do, and how. We must act now.
I have my own favorite handwriting program -- it's the one I designed -- and I don't hide that fact (see my signature below!) ... but I'd never try to get the other programs outlawed. A handwriting program must stand or fall on its own merits, not because Big Brother tells you what your handwriting (or our students' handwritings) should look like.
Please send this letter to everyone whom you would like informed on this issue. If the lobby leads to a bill, we must prevent the bill from becoming a law.
Yours for better letters, Kate Gladstone
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
and the World Handwriting Contest6-B Weis Road, Albany, NY 12208-1942
518/482-6763 - handwritingrepair@gmail.comBETTER LETTERS (iPhone handwriting trainer app) -- http://bit.ly/BetterLetters
SONGS OF PENDOM -- http://stores.lulu.com/handwriting
POLITICIAN LEGIBILITY ACT Petition --
http://www.iPetitions.com/petition/PoliticianLegibilityTwitter -- http://www.twitter.com/KateGladstone
Facebook -- http://www.facebook.com/KateGladstone handwriting program called "Handwriting Without Tears"
(at http://www.hwtears.com -- see model-samples at
http://www.hwtears.com/files/HWT_Alphabet.pdf ) has begun aggressively
lobbying to make every detail of its own particular instructional
method and writing styles legallly *required* as the sole method in
all USA schools, by piggybacking on current White House efforts to
create and impose a detailed national curriculum for all USA schools.The founder of HWTears, Jan Olsen, began announced this publicly 7
years ago (that her firm would eventually be doing this) during her
organization's training and recruitment workshops.. People
unaffiliated with her program tried to warn others in the handwriting
field, but almost nobody thought Jan Olsen meant it.Specifics:
HWTears has created, and is fully funding and operating, an
innocuous-sounding Washington lobby-group called "Handwriting
Standards" at http://www.handwritingstandards.com (note the teeny-tiny
copyright notice at the bottom of the page, to see which handwriting
program owns that lobby-group!)The lobbyists' web-site is designed to sound neutral on the surface,
but if you dig deeper and actually read their proposed standards,
these are verbatim quotes of particular details of the HWTears
teaching sequence and even stylistic features
and they are very closely tied in with the HWTears.com web-site's own
descriptions of the same endeavor --
to the point that, if the "Handwriting Standards" lobbyists succeed,
no other program but HWTears will conform with the details of teaching
method/style that their lobbyists are trying to have written into law.In other words: the proposed national standards for school handwriting tie in very closely with HWTears program sequence, to the point that they are basically a step-by-step, practically verbatim summary of specifically that program's sequence/curriculum/practices.
This is clear if you make yourself familiar with the HWTears program materials/lesson plans/teacher-training sessions, and if you then read the lobby's proposed "Handwriting Standards" for yourself in the level-by-level blue links at http://www.handwritingstandards.com/handwriting-standards as well as
reading their full document at http://www.handwritingstandards.com/sites/default/files/Standards-20k-4_FINAL.pdf.Of special note: the proposed standards' stylistic requirements (which are HWTears requirements) mean that the program would make it illegal to teach certain programs that have been popular homeschooling choices for many years.
For example, all the cursive-first programs that so many homeschoolers are using (such as Abeka) would be forbidden (because the proposed standards require print first and cursive later) and so would be all the Italic programs (such as Getty-Dubay) that are also widely popular homeschooling choices (because the proposed standards for cursive require 100% joined and looped cursive, as well as specifically cursive-stle capitals, which Getty-Dubay and the other Italic programs do not use. Therefore, these and many other successful programs would not be allowed).
Therefore, if the lobby-group wins it will affect many of the people who are receiving this letter (and who are -- I hope -- sharing it with their children and passing it on to others of like mind). It would affect anyone who uses a program that would be banned by this not-so-neutral "standards" organization.
(There are 200+ handwriting programs in the USA -- with a few strokes of the pen, 199+ of them would be criminalized. Ethical concerns therefore come into play.)If you care even a little bit about this, e-mail me at handwritingrepair@gmail.com (subject-line should include the words "lobby" and "handwriting") and/or phone me at 518-482-6763 (Albany, NY) to decide what we must do, and how. We must act now.
I have my own favorite handwriting program -- it's the one I designed -- and I don't hide that fact (see my signature below!) ... but I'd never try to get the other programs outlawed. A handwriting program must stand or fall on its own merits, not because Big Brother tells you what your handwriting (or our students' handwritings) should look like.
Please send this letter to everyone whom you would like informed on this issue. If the lobby leads to a bill, we must prevent the bill from becoming a law.
Yours for better letters, Kate Gladstone
http://www.HandwritingThatWorks.com
Handwriting Repair/Handwriting That Works
and the World Handwriting Contest6-B Weis Road, Albany, NY 12208-1942
518/482-6763 - handwritingrepair@gmail.comBETTER LETTERS (iPhone handwriting trainer app) -- http://bit.ly/BetterLetters
SONGS OF PENDOM -- http://stores.lulu.com/handwriting
POLITICIAN LEGIBILITY ACT Petition --
http://www.iPetitions.com/petition/PoliticianLegibilityTwitter -- http://www.twitter.com/KateGladstone
Facebook -- http://www.facebook.com/KateGladstone
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I read with great interest Laura V. Berthiaume's July 25 Local Opinions commentary, "Who really controls the Montgomery schools," about the Montgomery County Board of Education's relationship with its superintendent and staff. While there are many differences between our systems, Ms. Berthiaume succinctly captured a core shared tension when she wrote: "In the balance of power between the board of education and the bureaucracy, the superintendent and his staff hold all the cards. They outwit, outlast and outplay."
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Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
State leaders keep throwing Wisconsin's broken school financing system into the too-hard-to-fix pile.Related:There's so much money involved, and so many powerful interests, that just about any attempt to force change faces fierce criticism and a slim chance of success.
Yet that's what leadership is about: Pulling people together, usually in the middle of the political spectrum, to find workable solutions.
State Superintendent of Schools Tony Evers just stepped up to try to provide some of that leadership on the vexing issue of how to pay for schools. Evers wants to change, in ways big and small, how Wisconsin distributes billions of dollars in state aid to schools each year.
Some of his ideas merit consideration. Others are less convincing. And some are missing.
K-12 Tax & Spending Climate: A Look at Wisconsin Gubernartorial Candidate Positions
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A Tory minister has publicly attacked the education secretary over his beleaguered academies expansion plans, it emerged tonight.Theresa Villiers, the junior transport minister, has written a furious letter to Michael Gove, the education secretary, for turning down a school's application to become an academy in her constituency.
Gove has said all schools rated outstanding by inspectors will be fast-tracked to become academies - schools run outside of local authority control - if they wish.
But despite being outstanding, Ravenscroft school in Barnet, north London, has had its academy application rejected by the government.
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America's recession is exposing societal fault lines, as various groups fight over increasingly smaller pieces of the pie. Tensions are particularly flaring between government workers and employees of private businesses.John Schmid:David Walker, the U.S. comptroller appointed by President Bill Clinton who continued in the role under George Bush, on Friday gave a bracing indictment of the pension and salary benefits being rewarded to government workers at the federal, state and local level. Walker said that public sector workers are growing prosperous on the back of private sector workers.
"There is a huge gap. State and local plans on average ... are much more lucrative than typical plans for employees. State and local government employees, on average, have greater job security than people in the private sector. And state and local government employees, in the middle of government, in many cases make more money than their private sector counterparts," Walker said during a speech at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. According to Pew numbers provided by the Chamber, the budget gap to cover state employees' benefits totals $1 trillion.
Newly released U.S. census figures show that Wisconsin, often derided by its own residents as a "tax hell," stayed out of the top 10 highest tax states for the third consecutive year in 2008, the year of the latest available data.State and local taxes claimed 11.8% of total state personal income, landing the Badger State 13th among the 50 states, and slipping a notch from No. 14 a year earlier, according to an analysis of census data from the Madison-based Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance.
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I am a veteran of the math wars. I was there in 1995 when the shiny new California Learning Assessment System (CLAS) test told graders to award a higher score to a student who incorrectly answered a math problem about planting trees - but wrote an enthusiastic essay - than to a student who got the answer right, but with no essay.Much more on poor Math curriculum, here.The genius responsible for that math question explained that her goal was to present eighth-graders with "an intentionally ambiguous problem in which no one pattern can be considered the absolute answer." Gov. Pete Wilson's education czar, Maureen DiMarco, promptly dubbed new-new math "fuzzy crap."
I was there in 1997, when a trendy second-grade math textbook featured a lesson called "fantasy lunch," which instructed students to draw their fantasy lunch on paper, cut out the food and place their drawings into a bag.
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The math is simple: California schools have less money than most other states, but their teachers are the most highly paid in the nation.Related: Study: California Classroom spending dips as ed funding rises; A Look at Per Student Spending vs. MadisonPer pupil spending, on the other hand, trails the national average by about $2,500.
Until the financially troubled state government finds more money to invest in its public schools, which make up more than half of its general fund spending, something has to give.School budgeting has become a zero-sum game.
California school districts spend more than half of their dollars on teacher pay and benefits. In better times, when education funding rose each year to keep pace with the cost of living, so did salaries. But the state now gives schools less money for each student than it did
Spending in California classrooms declined as a percentage of total education spending over a recent five-year period, even as total school funding increased, according to a Pepperdine University study released Wednesday.The report mentions that California's average per student expenditure is just under $10,000 annually. Madison's 2009/2010 per student spending was $15,241 ($370,287,471 budget / 24,295 students).More of the funding increase went to administrators, clerks and technical staff and less to teachers, textbooks, materials and teacher aides, the study found. It was partially funded by a California Chamber of Commerce foundation.
Total K-12 spending increased by $10 billion over the five-year period ending June 30, 2009, from $45.6 billion to $55.6 billion statewide. It rose at a rate greater than the increase in inflation or personal income, according to the study. Yet researchers found that classroom spending dipped from 59 percent of education funding to 57.8 percent over the five years.
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Powerful interest groups have paralyzed China's macro-economic policy, with ominous long-term consequences. Local governments consider high land prices their lifeline. State-owned enterprises don't want interest rates to rise. Exporters are vehemently against currency appreciation. China's macro policies have been reduced to psychotherapy, relying on sound bites and small technical moves to scare speculators. In the meantime, inflation continues to pick up momentum. Unless the central government bites the bullet and makes choices, the economy might experience a disruptive adjustment in the foreseeable future.The dependency on high land prices for property tax revenue is certainly not unique to China. Madison's 2010-2011 budget will increase property taxes by about 10%, due to spending growth, declining redistributed state tax dollars and a decline in local property values.The first key point is that local governments have become dependent on the property sector for revenue as profits from manufacturing decline and spending needs to rise. Attracting industry has been the main means of economic development and fiscal revenue for two decades. Coastal provinces grew rich by nurturing export-oriented industries. But the economics has changed in the past five years. Rising costs have sharply curtailed manufacturers' profits, and most local governments now offer subsidies to attract industries. The real revenue has shifted to property.
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The State Board of Education is voting Monday on adopting national K-12 curriculum standards in a package that includes an obese, unteachable eighth-grade math course.Back in May 2009, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Board of Education President Ted Mitchell and Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell pledged to adopt the then-not-yet-created national curriculum standards only if they "meet or exceed our own."
The pledge these public officials took was wise and honorable. California has K-12 academic-content standards that are widely praised as the best in the nation. For example, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found on July 21 that California's standards in both English and mathematics are the absolute best in the nation and better than the national standards. Clearly, Fordham's expert reviewers did not agree with the calls we sometimes hear that we must ditch our standards because they are inadequate.
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Charter schools were the main topic at Palm Springs Unified School District's board of education meeting on Tuesday.A school dedicated to abused, neglected and foster children asked to set up in the district, while union members protested the language in Cielo Vista's charter, which was amended on Tuesday.
The Father's Heart Charter School made its first presentation to the board on Tuesday, asking to open a school for 25 students at Father's Heart Ranch in Desert Hot Springs.
The ranch serves 6- to 15-year-old boys who have been abused, whose parents are in jail or who are in foster care.
Most of the boys attend district schools, but they often are in trouble regularly and fail academically.
"In traditional schools, it's just really hard for teachers to be able to accommodate what these kids need," said Susanne Coie, a consultant with Charter Schools Development Center.
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It's a simple question, isn't it? The Board Directors, if asked, all claim (rather indignantly) that they DO enforce policy. The state auditor says they don't. I can't find any evidence that indicates that the Board enforces policy. More than that, I can't even think of HOW the Board enforces policy.No Board member alone can speak for the Board. So no Board member, on their own, can direct the superintendent to do anything. So if an individual Board member, such as Director Martin-Morris, were to discover that a policy, such as Policy B61.00 which requires the superintendent to provide annual reports on District programs, wasn't being followed because there is no report on the Spectrum program, what could he do about it? I suppose he could ask the superintendent, pretty please, to provide the report, but what if she didn't? He could not, on his own, compel her compliance with the policy.
If the Board, as a group, wanted to enforce a policy, such as Policy C54.00 which requires the superintendent to get input from the community before assigning a principal to an alternative school, they would have to meet to do it. Any meeting of a quorum of Board members would be subject to the Open Meetings Act, and would require the posting of an agenda in advance and minutes afterward. There are no minutes from any meeting that describe the Board as taking action to enforce policies.
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In a recent poll a majority of Americans said they thought Barack Obama, president, was a socialist. It is safe to say that America's teachers were not among them. At the annual convention earlier this month of the National Education Association, America's largest teachers' union, the body's president accused Mr Obama and Arne Duncan, his high-profile education secretary, of spearheading the most "anti-educator, anti-union and anti-student" administration he could recall.To a degree that almost nobody anticipated 19 months ago, Mr Obama, who will on Thursday give a set piece address in Washington on education reform, has alienated the largest single historical provider of cash and volunteers to the Democratic party - namely the teachers' unions.
Yet Mr Obama's reforms, which have been taking place at the state level and often in the teeth of union opposition, have brought about what even critics concede is the most rapid school reforms America has seen in a generation.
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Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jerry Brown unveiled an education reform plan Wednesday that calls for a wholesale restructuring of California's public school system, from changing the way schools are funded to revamping the state's higher education system.The eight-page plan touches upon the major issues facing the state's education system, from the increasing cost of college to the state's dismal dropout rate. Some of the proposals, such as changing the way schools are funded, would take years. Brown urged patience.
"There is no silver bullet that will fix everything," he wrote. "Education improvement takes time, persistence and a systematic approach."
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The big question in the final days of Alabama's runoff election for the GOP gubernatorial nomination isn't just who is going to win the tight race between Bradley Byrne and Robert Bentley. It's the mystery of who's behind a largely bogus TV ad attacking Byrne.A group calling itself the "Conservative Coalition for Alabama" is airing an ad that falsely accuses Byrne of a host of offenses. It says Byrne "took a 500 percent pay raise" (that's misleading); steered government contracts to "cronies" (there's no evidence of that); lost millions of dollars in the state's prepaid college savings plan (so did nearly all other state plans); and ran up the taxpayers' tab drinking "expensive wines" (false) and traveling in "style" (not entirely true).
Byrne suspects that the Conservative Coalition is a front group for the Alabama Education Association. He has good reason. AEA Executive Director Paul Hubbert (who also is co-chairman of the state Democratic party) admitted that he used "True Republican PAC" as a front group to attack Byrne during the June 1 primary fight.
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Students in Sun Prairie are preparing to enter a new state-of-the-art high school this year, but some residents of the city are upset with the amount their taxes could go up.There's no doubt Sun Prairie has been growing. School district enrollment has gone from nearly 4,800 to almost 6,800 in 10 years, WISC-TV reported.
Now, the district has a high school to fit those students, but the taxpayers will be footing the bill.
Teacher Scott Kloehn's chemistry room just got a lot more high-tech with one of the many interactive whiteboards that are now in every Sun Prairie High School classroom.
"My job is to educate my kids the best way possible with the best means possible, and if that means using the technology in my room that I'll have easy access to, it's certainly what, as a good teacher, I'm going to go ahead and do," said Kloehn.
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Barack Obama on Thursday said education was "the economic issue of our time", linking America's declining public schools with its struggles to remain competitive. Pointing out that America has been dropping steadily down the international league tables, particularly in mathematics and the sciences, Mr Obama made a coded plea for America's teachers' unions to comply with the controversial "Race to the Top" reforms he is pushing.Frederick Hess has more.He pointed out that America now ranks 12th in the proportion of its people who graduate from college compared to first place a generation ago. "If we want success for our country, we can't accept failure in our schools," Mr Obama told the National Urban League in a speech. "I know some argue that during a recession, we should focus solely on economic issues. But education is an economic issue - if not the economic issue of our time."
The president's address comes amid a growing restlessness among ordinary Americans, who tell pollsters they fear the recovery from the recession will fail to create the high-paying jobs to which people were accustomed in earlier decades. Mr Obama's economic advisers concede it will take years to build "new foundations" for the American middle class who were suffering their own "personal recessions" - in terms of stagnant or declining incomes - way before the 2008 financial meltdown.
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In August 1818, Thomas Jefferson authored a report for the Virginia Legislature that laid out the topics to be included in the curriculum of his newly founded University of Virginia. Like so many foundational documents, Jefferson's report resonated with such clear and specific language that it serves to this day as an accurate summation of his educational vision -- and a blueprint upon which his intellectual heirs may continue to build.Massachusetts, like Virginia, is among the great pioneers in American education, from Colonial times to the present. But last week's decision by the state Board of Education to adopt national Common Core standards is an object lesson in how not to pursue education reform. It's stuff that would have driven Jefferson to laughter or scorn, and should provoke nothing less among Massachusetts taxpayers.
What was approved, and how, make clear that this state's educational leaders need refresher courses in the pursuit of educational excellence.
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Erasing years of academic progress, state education officials on Wednesday acknowledged that hundreds of thousands of children had been misled into believing they were proficient in English and math, when in fact they were not.Related: The WKCE.The bar for what it means to be "proficient" has now been set substantially higher. For instance, last year more than 77% of New York state students in grades three through eight reached proficiency in state English exams. Under the new standards, only 53% were considered proficient this year. The difference amounts to nearly 300,000 students across the state.
"We are facing the hard truth that the gains in the past were simply not as advertised," said Merryl Tisch, the chancellor of the state Board of Regents, during a news conference announcing the new standards.
In New York City, the number of students scoring proficient in English fell to 42% this year from 69% in 2009. In math, 54% of city children scored proficient this year, down from 82%.
The huge drops across the state raised questions about how much of the academic gains touted in the past several years were an illusion.
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The latest state audit of Seattle Public Schools didn't tell me anything I didn't already know: The district is stuck in a culture of lax indifference when it comes to taxpayers' money.There's a great deal of citizen activism underway in Seattle, including: a successful lawsuit that overturned the District's adoption of Discovery Math, a recall drive for 5 of the 7 school board members and a lawsuit regarding the New Student Assignment Plan. Melissa Westbrook offers additional comments.Despite the last decade's phalanx of highly paid budget and money managers overseeing the district, few inroads have been made in transforming this culture.
Let's start with the audit's biggest discovery for the 2008-09 school year. The district overpaid at least 83 employees to the tune of $228,860. The district says the number of accidentally overpaid employees could be as high as 144.
Repayment plans have been set up for most of the employees. But others left the district, requiring costly measures, including collection agencies, to recover the money. Expect this debacle to reverberate as tax implications and impacts to the state retirement system unfold.
Spending and governance questions are not unique to Seattle.
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Darren A. Nichols and Francis X. Donnelly:
The nation's education czar joined a growing chorus of public officials who believe residents should decide whether Detroit Public Schools is placed under the mayor's control.For that to happen, however, the City Council has to place the question on the November ballot. The council will weigh the matter during its meeting today.
On the eve of the meeting, and a week after Gov. Jennifer Granholm supported such a move, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he also favored the ballot initiative, said a spokesman.
"We don't see it for every city," said spokesman Peter Cunningham. "But Detroit has struggled for a long time."
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Education Secretary Arne Duncan was being too modest when he said in a speech Tuesday at the National Press Club that the Obama administration is playing a "modest role" in sparking a "quiet" revolution in education.There is nothing modest about the administration's role in driving reform, and there is nothing "quiet" about the change process, not in Washington or in state legislatures that rushed to change laws for a chance to win federal dollars.
The administration is Bigfoot, driving change with billions of dollars in the Race to the Top competition. In fact, Race to the Top, which started with $4.35 billion, is doling out the largest pot of discretionary federal education money ever. How's that for modest?
Duncan announced the finalists for Round 2 -- 18 states and the District of Columbia -- each of which will send teams to Washinton, D.C., in August to explain why they deserve to be on top.
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mention on what was going on in the contract talks between SPS and SEA. I received this e-mail from the SEA. I post without comment.SEA Bargaining Update July 23, 2010
SEA and District Far Apart in NegotiationsDear Michael,
Your SEA Negotiations Team met with the District team on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. We continue to be far apart on issues that you have told us matter most to you. The district is holding fast to their major proposals on:
• tying student growth based on MAP scores, MSP scores, and end-of-course assessments to certificated employees evaluations;
• use of evaluations as the lead factor in reduction in force, as opposed to strict seniority.There has been very little to no movement on what you have told us are your two most important issues:
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A tussle over the Jersey City schools superintendent's $280,000-a-year contract is headed for a showdown involving New Jersey's education commissioner, putting a spotlight on one of the state's most troubled school districts.Charles Epps has been superintendent for the past 10 years. Twenty-six of his 37 schools failed last year to make "adequate yearly progress," according to federal standards, and one middle school---where only 32% of children are proficient in English and 25% proficient in math--has fallen short of the federal goal nine years straight.
Late last month, the local school board voted to forgo an outside search for a new superintendent and to begin negotiating a new three-year contract with Mr. Epps. That enraged some local activists, who have filed a petition with the state to overturn the board's vote.
"There's a window of opportunity to stop rewarding failure," said Steven Fulop, a Jersey City council member who is helping to spearhead the opposition. "Nobody in their right mind would rehire someone who has failing performance without even a cursory look at who else is out there." The petition accuses the school board of failing to give 30 days' notice and opportunity for the public to voice their opinions before the vote.
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New Jersey's largest school district will create a special enterprise zone for education in September, bringing together seven low-performing schools for an ambitious program of education and social services provided through a coalition of colleges and community groups led by New York University.The Newark schools -- Central High School and six elementary and middle schools -- will be part of a Global Village School Zone stretching across a poor, crime-ridden swath of the city known as the Central Ward. The zone is modeled after the Harlem Children's Zone, a successful network of charter schools and social service programs, and represents the latest in a growing number of partnerships between urban school districts and colleges.
While the Newark zone will remain part of the city's long-troubled school system, which has been under state control since 1995, its schools will be largely freed from district regulations and will be allowed to operate like independent charter schools. Decisions about daily operations and policies will be turned over to committees of principals, teachers, parents, college educators and community leaders, and the schools will be allowed to modify their curriculum to address the needs of students.
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The recent layoff of 80 police officers in Oakland could be the harbinger of things to come as government officials find that public employee pension deals made when the stock market was booming are helping bust their budgets today."It's regrettable, but we had no choice," said City Council President Jane Brunner of the layoffs that were Oakland's response to a growing public pension crisis.
Forced to make a $30.5 million budget cut - Brunner said that's more than the city's discretionary spending - Oakland had asked police officers to pay 9 percent of their salaries toward their pensions and accept a later retirement age for new hires.
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California's public school system has finally found itself at the top of a list. According to a new report, its academic standards are the highest in the country. But in less than two weeks, California's State Board of Education will vote on whether or not to swap them out for new national standards-and there may be good reason to do so.California's academic rigor may be high, but its student proficiency rates still trail behind many states with less stringent standards. Consider the state of Maryland. According to a study released by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, an education think tank, Maryland's standards are less rigorous than California's. But a separate report by Education Week ranked Maryland first in the country for overall quality, with high marks for the indicators that measure academic achievement and a student's success from school to the workforce.
Supporters of the switch to the Obama administration's so-called "Common Core Standards," including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, say that the new framework makes more sense because it focuses on building critical grade skills and abilities rather than touching on a long list of academic materials.
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Few U.S. citizens would agree to cutting special education funds. After all, students with an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) obviously learn differently and need increased time and attention from educators in order to ensure they are attending to and learning the academic standards. However, another group of students who learn differently and need time and attention to guide their learning of the academic standards are being denied this year. These are the gifted students.According to the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) Policy Insider, the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee met to draft the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 budget for the Department of Education. Although the budget has increased 3.2% since FY 2010, the budget completely eliminates the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Student program. "The 20 year-old Javits program is the only federal program that supports the unique learning needs of America's three million students with gifts and talents."
Portland schools may not feel an immediate impact from the loss of the Javits Program. However, this program provides scholarships to the disadvantaged gifted student and research support in the area of effective instructional practices for these students who learn differently than their peers.
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People in other big-city school districts around the country have a hard time thinking of Portland Public Schools as a truly urban district.Portland's 2010-2011 budget is $653,796,298 = $13,910.55 per student. Madison spent $15,241 per student during the 2009/2010 budget.Not only is Portland tiny (47,000 students, compared with 700,000 in Los Angeles), but only 43 percent of its students are poor (in Chicago, 85 percent are). A majority are white (in Philadelphia, 13 percent are). What's more, middle- and upper-income professionals in Portland do something their counterparts in Detroit, L.A. or Washington, D.C., rarely consider: They send their children to central-city public schools.
But there is one way in which our small, mostly white, heavily middle-class school system is statistically right in line with some of the grittiest urban districts in the nation: A shockingly low share of Portland's high school students earn diplomas.
As The Oregonian reported on the front page recently, just 53 percent of Portland's high school students graduate in four years.
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In his much-discussed recent Wall Street Journal op ed, Virginia Senator James Webb makes some good points about affirmative action and race, but also some key mistakes and omissions. On the plus side, Webb's article highlights the contradictions between the "diversity" and compensatory justice rationales for affirmative action. He also correctly suggests that slavery and segregation inflicted considerable harm on southern whites as well as blacks; it is therefore a mistake to view these injustices as primarily a transfer of ill-gotten wealth from one race to another. On the negative side, Webb is very unclear as to his own position on affirmative action. He also seems to blame racism and the historic economic backwardness of the South on the machinations of a small elite. The reality was more complicated. Low-income southern whites were often much more supportive of racism and segregation than economic elites were, and Jim Crow might have been less virulent without their support.Clusty Search: James Webb, Ilya Somin.I. Competing Rationales for Affirmative Action.
One of Webb's best points is that affirmative action has resulted in preferences for groups that cannot claim to be victims of massive, systematic injustices inflicted in the United States:
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Ten candidates filed this month to run for five open at-large seats on the Rockingham County Board of Education.Voters will chose among them during the November general election to address Rockingham County Schools' biggest issues and opportunities. These include an expected tough budget in 2011-12, academic performance and technology in schools.
The candidates:
Corey Brannock, 32, of Eden, works as a wastewater treatment plant operator in Mayodan.
He has never run for elected office but decided to after volunteering at Central Elementary and witnessing crowded classrooms and stressed teachers.
"I just want to know if I can help change that," he said about his decision to file. "I'm just trying to make a difference."
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via a Dan Dempsey email, 7/25/2010 483K PDF
The first finding of the Audit Report is "The Seattle School District did not comply with state law on recording meeting minutes and making them available to the public". Id., p. 6. The auditor found: "We determined the Board did not record minutes at retreats and workshops in the 2008 - 2009 school year. Id. These retreats and workshops were held to discuss the budget, student assignment boundaries, school closures and strategic planning". [Emphasis Supplied] Id., p. 6. The school board's decisions regarding student assignment boundaries and school closures are the subject of the Commissioner's ruling denying review in the Briggs and Ovalles discretionary review proceedings and in this original action.Related: Recall drive for 5 of 7 Seattle School Board members.The Auditor described the effect of these violations to be: "When minutes of special meetings are not promptly recorded, information on Board discussions is not made available to the public". Id., p. 6. The Auditor recommended "the District establish procedures to ensure that meeting minutes are promptly recorded and made available to the public." Id., p. 6. The District's response was: "The District concurs with the finding and the requirement under OPMA that any meeting of the quorum of the board members to discuss district business is to be treated as a special or regular meeting of the OPMA." Id. p. 6. Thus, the school board admits the Transcripts of Evidence in the Ovalles and Briggs appeals contains no minutes of the discussions relating to student assignments and school closures, even though the law required otherwise. Additionally, there is no indication of what evidence the school board actually considered with regard to the school closures and the new student assignment plan at retreats and workshops devoted to these specific decisions.
The fifth finding of the Auditor's Report was: "5. The School Board and District Management have not implemented sufficient policies and controls to ensure the District complies with state laws, its own policies, or addresses concerns raised in prior audits". Id., p. 25. In a section entitled "description of the condition" the report states: "In all the
areas we examined we found lax or non-existent controls in District operations. ..." Id., p. 25. With regard to the Open Meetings Act the Auditor noted continuing violations of state law and that "the District did not develop policies and procedures to adequately address prior audit recommendations." Id, at p. 27.
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Since the start of American public schools, both well-meaning and not so well-meaning people have tried to reform them. Movements have ranged from the introduction of "teaching machines" to the current political cry for increased testing, market-model accountability and school choice.Until recently, most reform efforts have been relatively benign, with no serious threat to the concept of public education. That was changed during the George W. Bush administration and it continues under President Obama. His plans are punitive, counter-productive to real reform and insidious in intent. They do pose serious threats to the very existence of the American public school system.
Fresh from his hard-earned, well-deserved victories in health-care reform and financial regulation, Obama is now redirecting his energy toward education reform. This time, though, he is acting on bad advice, misinformation about education and denial of valid research that rebuts the plan he supports. Race to the Top (RTTT) is the name of President Obama's plan, spearheaded by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Under it, states submit an application to the federal government with their "best blueprint" for reform. Duncan has devised a model for the states to follow that's composed of several elements, each given a point value. The total number of points possible, if all criteria are met, is 500.The model includes provisions for taking over "failing schools" and encouraging the establishment of charter schools, many of which are funded by such organizations as the self-serving Gates Foundation. Recent national studies have found no significant difference between the education students receive in charter schools and public schools -- but the studies are ignored.
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The state's public worker unions are at war with Gov. Chris Christie, but they have not ramped up their political spending.The Wisconsin Education Association Council is the top lobbying organization in the state, outspending #2 by more than two to one.The New Jersey Education Association's political action committee spent $234,788 in the first half of this year, according to reports released today by the state Election Law Enforcement Commission. At this point last year, when there were far more state-level political races, the union had spent $426,200. This year, the NJEA has raised $797,841 and has $1.2 million on hand.
The PAC for New Jersey's largest state workers union, the Communications Workers of America, has taken in $77,000 so far this year and has spent $78,169, the reports show.
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Wisconsin's approach to funding schools relies on a confusing and frequently misunderstood formula under which the state picks up the bulk of costs while capping how much districts can collect in state aid and local property taxes combined.Wisconsin K-12 spending via redistributed taxes has grown substantially over the past 20+ years, as this WISTAX chart illustrates:Districts have complained the caps, which are based largely on the number of students a district has, have not kept pace with expenses. In recent years, the state has reduced its share of aid to schools from two-thirds of total costs to slightly less than that, forcing districts to choose between two unpopular options: Cutting programs and services or raising property taxes.
MMSD is one of the most expensive public school districts in the state (per pupil spending is highest among the largest school districts). It has been for decades. However, the annual rate of increase in per pupil spending has been very close to the Wisconsin average. While per pupil spending for the average Wisconsin public school district has increased at an annual rate of 5.10%, it has increased by an annual rate of 5.25% in MMSD (see table below). That MMSD costs have risen more should be no surprise, because of cost of living, the loss of students to the growing suburbs (subsidized by state taxes), and the relative portion of special education needs and classroom support needs have risen significantly.The "great recession" has certainly affected many organizations, including public school districts via slower tax collection growth and flat or reduced property values (which further increases taxes, such as the 2010-2011 Madison School District budget, which will raise them by about 10%).
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On Thursday at 10:30 AM an appeal of the Superintendent's one-year contract extension to June 30, 2013 will be filed at the King County Courthouse.Related: Governance, or Potted Plant? Seattle School Board To Become More Involved In District Operations and a view from Madison.At 1:30 PM filings initiating the recall and discharge of each of five Seattle School Directors will be filed at the King County Elections Office. Directors Sundquist, Maier, Martin-Morris, Carr, and DeBell are the subjects of these five recalls. Directors Smith-Blum and Patu are not subjects of recall.
Each of these filings rely heavily on the Washington State Auditor's Audit issued on July 6, 2010 for evidence. See Seattle Weekly's coverage of the audit here.
If you wish to volunteer to collect signatures...
please contact: .. dempsey_dan@yahoo.com
using the subject line "RECALL".We expect to receive authorization to begin collecting signatures within 30 days of initial filing. Signatures will be gathered from voters registered in the City of Seattle. We hope that most voters will choose to sign all 5 petitions. Approximately 32,000 valid signatures will be needed for each director to bring about a recall election. A 180 day maximum for signature gathering is allowed and the election is scheduled 45 to 60 days after the required number of signatures has been submitted and verified.
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A proposal from Gov. Chris Christie to overhaul teacher contract negotiations has gained support from management while further angering the state teachers union.More here:As part of his proposed toolkit to reduce property taxes statewide, Christie is calling for the move back to allowing "last offer/best offer" in negotiations. The system would allow Boards of Education to unilaterally impose a contract on a local union in the event negotiations broke down. The system was allowed in New Jersey until banned by law in 2003.
Frank Belluscio, a spokesman for the New Jersey School Boards Association, said the proposal would provide assistance to school boards by allowing them to impose final offers when negotiations drag on. Current policy allows boards and teachers unions to go to a binding arbitration, which Christie and municipal leaders have said resulted in larger compensation awards to unions.
Associations representing state teachers and school boards have expressed opposition to a proposal in Gov. Chris Christie's property tax toolkit to increase state oversight to contracts negotiated between school districts and local unions.The proposal would set a four point criteria for county executive superintendents of schools to review local contracts, with the governor's goal to keep property taxes below the two percent cap Christie signed into law earlier this month.
The criteria, as outlined in a preliminary proposal to the New Jersey School Boards Association from the governor's office earlier this month, would include county executive superintendents reviewing all contracts that have the total compensation and benefits exceeding the cap, did not allow subcontracting of such services as food and maintenance, did not allow employee contributions to health benefits and did not set a minimum number of instructional hours and days. The proposal was drafted when the cap was the two and a half percent constitutional amendment and not the two percent statutory cap, Christie negotiated with the legislature.
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"SCHOOL reform chaos?" asked a frowning satchel depicted on posters plastered around Hamburg. "No thank you." The sorrowful satchel was the mascot of a citizens' rebellion against a proposed school restructuring in the city-state. Voters rejected the plan in a referendum on July 18th. The stinging defeat for Hamburg's government, a novel coalition between the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Green Party, has national consequences, as it may make the CDU-Green alliance a less appealing model for a future federal government. Ole von Beust, Hamburg's mayor, announced his resignation before the result, saying he had done the job for long enough. He is the sixth CDU premier to leave office this year. Chancellor Angela Merkel, who leads the CDU, must now promote a new generation of leaders.More important are the implications for schools. Hamburg's plan was a bold attempt to correct a German practice that many think is both unjust and an obstacle to learning. In most states, after just four years of primary school children are streamed into one of several types of secondary school: clever kids attend Gymnasien, middling ones Realschulen and the slowest learners Hauptschulen, which are supposed to prepare them for trades. (A few go to Gesamtschulen, which serve all sorts.) Early selection may be one reason why the educational achievement of German children is linked more closely to that of their parents than in almost any other rich country. Children at the bottom often face low-wage drudgery or the dole.
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Numerologists may have to be called in to explain the historic magnitude of the year 2010. After 60 years of doubling down on their spending, 2010 became the year governments from Greece to California hit the wall. (That Athens became the symbol of the democracies' compulsion to spend themselves into oblivion is an eeriness we'd rather not ponder.)In the distant future, some U.S. historian in kindergarten today will write about Congressman David Obey's contribution to the splitting apart of American liberalism's assumptions about the purpose of government. Mr. Obey of Wisconsin is chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, the spenders. People have said for years that government robs Peter to pay Paul. Now brother is ripping off brother. Mr. Obey plans to send $10 billion to school districts to avoid teacher layoffs and will pay for it in part by taking money from several school reform programs, such as Race to the Top.
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Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker proposed a plan he says would potentially save school districts and local units of government more than $300 million in health care costs.Locally, the Madison School District's use of WPS has long been controversial due to its high cost versus alternatives, such as GHC, among others.Walker, a Republican candidate for governor, said his proposal would allow local units of government to switch from health plans that have high premiums to the state's lower-cost employee health plan.
Walker said his proposal could save school districts $68 million and local governments up to $242 million annually in health care costs.
He cautioned, however, that the savings estimate for local units of government is impossible to estimate because there is no central database of what municipalities pay for health care. To make his projections, he used data of the potential savings at school districts and applied those figures to the state's more than 200,000 local public employees.
Walker said the biggest reduction would come from Milwaukee Public Schools, which he said could realize $20 million a year in savings.
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Spending in California classrooms declined as a percentage of total education spending over a recent five-year period, even as total school funding increased, according to a Pepperdine University study released Wednesday.Complete study: 1.1MB PDF.More of the funding increase went to administrators, clerks and technical staff and less to teachers, textbooks, materials and teacher aides, the study found. It was partially funded by a California Chamber of Commerce foundation.
Total K-12 spending increased by $10 billion over the five-year period ending June 30, 2009, from $45.6 billion to $55.6 billion statewide. It rose at a rate greater than the increase in inflation or personal income, according to the study. Yet researchers found that classroom spending dipped from 59 percent of education funding to 57.8 percent over the five years.
Spending on teacher salaries and benefits dropped from 50 percent of statewide spending to 48 percent over the same period. Spending on administrators and supervisors, staff travel and conferences all increased faster than teachers' pay.
This is not a big surprise, given the increasing emphasis on, ironically, in the K-12 world, adult to adult spending, often referred to as "Professional Development". Yippy Search: "Professional Development".
The report mentions that California's average per student expenditure is just under $10,000 annually. Madison's 2009/2010 per student spending was $15,241 ($370,287,471 budget / 24,295 students).
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Sheila Byrd Carmichael, Gabrielle Martino, Kathleen Porter-Magee, W. Stephen Wilson:
he K-12 academic standards in English language arts (ELA) and math produced last month by the Common Core State Standards Initiative are clearer and more rigorous than today's ELA standards in 37 states and today's math standards in 39 states, according to the Fordham Institute's newest study. In 33 of those states, the Common Core bests both ELA and math standards. Yet California, Indiana and the District of Columbia have ELA standards that are clearly superior to those of the Common Core. And nearly a dozen states have ELA or math standards in the same league as Common Core. Read on to find out more and see how your state fared.Wisconsin's standards (WKCE) have often been criticized. This year's study grants the Badger State a "D" in Language Arts and an "F" in Math.
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As Massachusetts nears decision time on adopting national education standards, the Boston Herald takes state leaders to task for their support of the Common Core standards, which some analysts say are inferior to current state standards. But fear not, says Education Secretary Paul Reville. If the national standards are inferior, the Bay State can change them. "We will continue to be in the driver's seat."If only national standardizers -- many of whom truly want high standards and tough accountability -- would look a little further than the ends of their beaks.
Here's the reality: Massachusetts will not be in the drivers seat in the future. Indeed, states aren't in the driver's seat right now, because it is federal money that is steering the car, and many more DC ducats will likely be connected to national standards when the Elementary and Secondary Education Act is eventually reauthorized. And this is hardly new or novel -- the feds have forced "voluntary" compliance with its education dictates for decades by holding taxpayer dollars hostage.
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The charter-school movement appears to be catching up to the teachers union in political giving to Albany.With the help of hedge-fund managers and other Wall Street financiers, charter-school advocates gave more than $600,000 to Albany political candidates and party committees since January, according to the latest campaign filings. That's more than twice as much as in prior reporting periods, according to allies of charter schools, which are publicly funded but privately run.
Pro-charter donations appear to have surpassed the $500,000 or so that candidates raised from teachers unions during the six-month period.
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Increased housing commitments swelled U.S. taxpayers' total support for the financial system by $700 billion in the past year to around $3.7 trillion, a government watchdog said on Wednesday.The Wisconsin Budget Project ("An Initiative of the Wisconsin Council on Children & Families").The Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Relief Program said the increase was due largely to the government's pledges to supply capital to Fannie Mae (FNMA.OB) and Freddie Mac (FMCC.OB) and to guarantee more mortgages to the support the housing market.
Increased guarantees for loans backed by the Federal Housing Administration, the Government National Mortgage Association and the Veterans administration increased the government's commitments by $512.4 billion alone in the year to June 30, according to the report.
The Wisconsin Budget Project is a WCCF initiative engaged in analysis and education on the state budget and tax issues, particularly those relating to low and moderate income families. The budget project seeks to broaden the debate on budget and tax policy through public education and the encouragement of civic engagement on these issues.Clusty Search: Wisconsin Budget Project & WISTAX (Wisconsin Taxpayer's Alliance).Quick Facts about the Wisconsin Budget:
- Based on the most recent national data (from 2007), Wisconsin ranked 29th in total state and local spending (measured as a percentage of income).
- Contrary to the perception that our state has a large government bureaucracy, Wisconsin ranked 44th (7th lowest) in 2008 in the number of state employees relative to population, and 41st (10th lowest) in total state and local government employees relative to population.
Setting a great example for our political class, British Prime Minister David Cameron flew commercial on a recent trip to the United States. Congressional use of military jets continues to be controversial (to his credit, US Senator Russ Feingold can often be seen flying commercial).
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We know that Massachusetts students scored below the national average on SATs in the early 1990s and barely broke the top 10 on national assessments. We know that Massachusetts students have become the best students in the nation on these same assessments, and are among the best "nations" in math and science.We know that implementing standards in Massachusetts took years of public debate and hard work, and, spending over $90 billion since 1993 on K-12 education, that it came at no small cost to the Commonwealth and its communities.
We know that there are ways to improve our current standards and our performance across all demographics and geographies of the Commonwealth.
We know that our education reforms distinguish us from the rest of the country and are critical to business and job creation.
We know that having state flexibility allows us to improve faster than the rest of the nation and to make adjustments that are good for the people and children of Massachusetts.
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Americans have never had national education standards. Goals for what public schools should teach are set by state and local school boards. Their members are often elected.But some Americans say the lack of national standards is wrong in a competitive global economy. Former president Bill Clinton said it was as if somehow school boards "could legislate differences in algebra or math or reading."
President George W. Bush and Congress expanded federal intervention. His education law, still in effect, required states to show yearly progress in student learning as measured by the states' own tests.
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With the latest batch of charter-school approvals likely to be announced soon by the state Department of Education, some state lawmakers are beginning a push for a bill that could expand the alternative public schools' movement in New Jersey.The proposal would permit Rutgers University to approve charter schools, in addition to the Department of Education. It also would end deadlines for organizers to apply for charters, allowing applications to be filed at any time and requiring decisions on them within five months.
The proposal would also expand the types of charter schools allowed in New Jersey, allowing virtual or e-charter schools, charter schools with students of only one gender and charter schools catering to students with behavioral needs or disorders, such as autism.
The legislation is sponsored by five Democrats but seems likely to receive a warm welcome from pro-charter Republican Gov. Chris Christie and his education commissioner, Bret Schundler, who helped found a Jersey City charter school in the 1990s.
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The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, apprehensive about a new state law that allows public schools to operate almost entirely in cyberspace, will consider imposing limits on the growth of these "virtual schools,'' much to the dismay of supporters.The goal of the proposed regulations, which the board is scheduled to vote on tomorrow, is to allow some experimentation in Massachusetts with these kinds of schools, while not allowing them to grow unfettered without knowing what works and what doesn't, said Jeff Wulfson, an associate education commissioner.
Among the proposed limits: capping enrollment at each virtual school at 500 students and requiring at least 25 percent of those students to reside in the school district that is operating the virtual school, according to the proposed regulations.
"We're trying to find the right balance,'' Wulfson said.
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Of all the vows made at the coalition's May marriage, one stood out: the vow for a new politics. Out, so it seemed, was the divisive tub-thumping positioning, along with the legislate-first-think-later style of government. In its place was the prospect of cross-party public administration which was deliberative, consultative and calm. No Conservative seemed more in tune with the new times than Michael Gove. What a shame, then, that the same Mr Gove was yesterday defending a decision to ram schools reforms through without full parliamentary scrutiny on the basis that Labour had once displayed similar haste.The education secretary's bill will allow schools to turn themselves into academies without consulting the council. Where the issue is the removal of extra-parliamentary consultation it is surely especially important for ministers to provide the time for a thoroughgoing consultation with parliament itself. Yet instead of a white paper, which invites responses on detailed proposals and gives the select committee time to get its teeth into principles, we have a bill which may be law before Mr Gove has even met that committee. And instead of line-by-line scrutiny in a standing committee - with scope to consider representations, and time for parliamentary alliances to be formed - the detailed drafting of the law will be finessed on the floor of the House, a procedure ordinarily reserved for responding to emergencies.
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The decision to switch to neighborhood schools has been a divisive one in Wake County, and although the school board has already voted to shift to the new model, groups like "Great Schools In Wake" said they will still plan to have a presence and a voice at the meetings as the board hashes out the specifics of the new policy."Give our input and have some influence," said Yevonne Brannon with the Great Schools in Wake Coaltion. "I still hope, think, there's room for negotiation and still hope there's room for reconsideration."
That's the hope for many who oppose neighborhood schools. It's also why the NAACP will hold a protest before the meeting in down town Raleigh Tuesday morning. The organization will call school board leaders to stop what they say is segregation and promote diversity.
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Patricia Wasley and Stephanie Hirsch:
BUDGETS across the state and nation are being slashed, forcing education leaders to confront economic shortfalls unseen in recent memory and make do with less.There has been an increasing emphasis on "adult to adult" expenditures within our public schools, as Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman noted last summer.One area especially hard hit by the cuts is professional development -- the process by which we ensure our educators are well equipped to meet constantly evolving demands of helping students succeed. Often overlooked, high-quality professional learning is indispensable in generating the outcomes -- like better test scores and higher graduation rates -- that should be expected of our schools.
Absent high-quality professional learning and support for professional growth, the ability of teachers to meet new challenges becomes compromised and their practices habitual. This makes it more difficult to achieve higher outcomes and is not what we want for our teachers or students.
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It's been a tough year for the Detroit Board of Education.So tough, it appears nobody wants the job.
The Detroit News reported this weekend that not a single candidate has filed to run for two open seats on the 11-member board. As a result, the race will not appear on the city's Aug. 3 primary ballot.
But really, can you blame potential candidates for seeking other opportunities?
The popularity of the board hit perhaps an all-time low last month when then-president Otis Mathis resigned amid allegations he fondled himself during meetings with Superintendent Theresa Gueyser. He's since been charged criminally.
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New Jersey's defined benefit pension systems are underfunded by more than $170 billion, an amount equivalent to 44 percent of gross state product (GSP) and 328 percent of the state's explicit government debt. Depending on market conditions, the state will begin to run out of money to pay benefits between 2013 and 2019. The state's five defined benefit pension plans cover over 770,000 workers, and more than a quarter million retirees depend on state pensions paying out almost $6 billion per year in benefits. Nationwide, state pensions are underfunded by as much as $3 trillion, approximately 20 percent of America's annual output.This path is not sustainable. In order to avert a fiscal crisis and ensure that future state employees have dependable retirement savings, New Jersey should follow the lead of the federal government and the private sector and move from defined benefit pensions to defined contribution pensions. While significant liabilities will remain, the first step to addressing the pension crisis is capping existing liabilities and providing new employees with more sustainable retirement options.
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Almost every state has been slashing budgets trying to balance expenses with shrinking revenues. A few governors have asked for creative ways to stretch education funding while improving learning and operating productivity. Here's a few ideas:Promote blended learning
Require all students to take at least one online course each year of high school and negotiate a 10-20% discount with multiple online providers and give students/schools options.
Provide statewide access to multiple online learning providers and reimburse at 80% of traditional schools (with performance incentives for serving challenging populations).
Encourage K-8 schools to adopt a Rocketship-style schedule with 25% of student time in a computer learning lab and a tiered staffing model that makes long day/year affordable. A loan program to upgrade to a 1:3 computer ratio would support adoption of a blended model could be repaid out of savings.Acceleration
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The debate over control of Detroit Public Schools is intensifying. Last week three important events happened.First, the elected school board selected community activist Elena Herrada to join them. Herrada brings vision and passion to the board and a long history of working on behalf of the community.
Second, citizens under the name of We the People testified before the Detroit City Council, objecting to the very idea of mayoral control of the schools.
Finally, Council President Charles Pugh, who appears to be at least willing to listen to new thinking, indicated to Rochelle Riley that he is not necessarily in favor of mayoral control.
The Mayor's effort to seize control of public schools is wrongheaded and dangerous. It is part of a larger scheme, backed by corporate interests, to destroy the democratic responsibilities of public education and to make money off the bodies of our children while limiting their minds.
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This is a life's work," says Jay Kenton, the Oregon University System's vice chancellor for finance and administration. "I've been working to change this for 30 years."Flexibility for higher ed."This" is not Oregonians' understanding of the importance of a national-class higher education system, why some states regard their universities as economic engines, why it's a problem to be among the lowest higher-ed-funding states in the country. Changing that could be more than a life's work; it could take at least until Oregon State wins a Rose Bowl.
Kenton's goal, expressed in a proposal from the State Board of Higher Education earlier this month, is to loosen the Legislature's control over the state universities' budgets, control that has not lightened an ounce while the state's fiscal contribution has become almost weightless.
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This week, State House News broke a story on the "cozy relationship" between Health Care for All and the Patrick Administration. HCFA is an effective organization, but when an HCFA official writes to the state's Insurance Commissioner: "If you expect to do anything 'newsworthy' [on insurance premium caps], can we be helpful with our blog or media at all?" well, then you have to take their positions with a brimming cup of salt.Surrogate relationships are very much a fact of life in a state where one party is dominant, like Massachusetts. Next up to bat in this age-old game, Education Commissioner Mitch Chester and Secretary Paul Reville. In anticipation of the important debate over whether to adopt weaker K-12 national standards, they have to all appearances lined up their surrogates.
Via two trade organizations, the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), the Obama Administration and the Gates Foundation have decided to get all states to "voluntarily" adopt national standards. They are working closely with longtime national standards advocates, such as Achieve, Inc., and are funded with tens of millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation. As Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution notes in an article by Nick Anderson of the Washington Post:
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School may be out for the summer, but the topic of education reform has certainly not gone on vacation. Both nationwide and right here at home there are several different ideas on the table that, if implemented, could go a long way tdsoward improving educational outcomes for our students.Clusty search: Alberta Darling.
Under the guidance of Governor Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin was once a nationwide leader in educational innovation. Unfortunately, bold, reform-minded leadership has been absent from the Governor's office for the last eight years. The most recent failures of Governor Jim Doyle and legislative Democrats were their unsuccessful efforts to grab federal Race to the Top dollars and their blundering attempt at a mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools.
Usually we look to our nation's capital for examples of how not to do business, but the new collective bargaining agreement Washington D.C. School Chancellor Michelle Rhee struck with her teachers' union is just the sort of thing we need here in Milwaukee. The contract includes teacher pay for performance, lessens the weight of seniority if layoffs become necessary and ends "job for life" tenure for ineffective teachers.
Another reform MPS sorely needs is the elimination of the teacher residency requirement, a completely arbitrary barrier that discourages quality educators from teaching at MPS. Only two of the nation's fifty largest school systems, Milwaukee and Chicago, still require its teachers to live within the city limits. No other school district in Wisconsin has a residency requirement.As always, there will be some who maintain the cure for all that ails K-12 public education is just to keep throwing more money at it. There are some holes in that logic. First, one need look no further than MPS for an example of high spending and low results. Second, aid to public schools is already the biggest chunk of the state budget by far and spending per pupil is over $11,000. Even if simply putting a lot more money into the system were the answer, the state doesn't have it and taxpayers are already stretched to the limit.
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he total federal budget for 2010 came in at just a hair under $3.6 trillion. In some weird sort of perspective that means $800 million equals less than three hundredths of one percent (.00022 percent) of the total amount. So why is Education Secretary Arne Duncan fighting so hard to keep it?According to media reports, the $800 million comes out of his "Race to the Top" and other education reform programs to help offset a $10 billion package to protect education jobs in the House supplemental appropriations bill, which includes $33 billion for the wars.
Leading House Democrats proposed the offset in response to public school teachers who oppose some of the provisions of the "Race to the Top" program.
While they appreciate the administration's commitment to educate, teachers say the "Race to the Top" reforms specifically emphasize testing and school privatization over a needed bigger commitment to professional development and financial support for ailing schools. Under the reform, teachers argue, schools are forced to teach to tests or face closure and mass firings of school personnel.
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Calling education "the civil rights issue of our generation," U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Wednesday issued a national challenge for whole communities to get involved in improving public education."The only way to achieve equality in society is to achieve it in the classroom," Duncan told NAACP delegates meeting in Kansas City for the group's annual convention.
"This is not just a moral obligation; it is our economic imperative," he said. "Everyone has a responsibility. Every one can step up. Education is our national mission. Education is our best hope."
He said community leaders "must be at the table when decisions are made about how to improve struggling schools."
The Obama administration is making $4 billion available to improve the 5 percent worst-performing schools in the country, Duncan said.
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New Jersey Governor Chris Christie proposed salary caps on public school superintendents to help rein in the highest property taxes in the U.S., a move he said may slice pay for 70 percent of the top district administrators.Notes and links via New Jersey Left Behind and the Associated Press.Christie, 47, announced the limit today as part of a package to control rising real estate tax bills. The proposal would cut salaries for 366 school superintendents when their current contracts expire, the governor's office said in a statement.
More than 50 school administrators had base salaries of $200,000 or more last year, the state Education Department reported last month. The governor's salary is $175,000.
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Jessica Shepherd and Jeevan Vasagar:
The government signalled the biggest shakeup of Britain's universities in a generation today, with a blueprint for higher education in which the highest-earning graduates would pay extra taxes to fund degrees, private universities would flourish and struggling institutions would be allowed to fail.Vince Cable, the cabinet minister responsible for higher education, also raised the prospect of quotas to ensure state school pupils were guaranteed places at Britain's best universities, breaking the private school stranglehold on Oxbridge.
Comparing the existing system of tuition fees to a "poll tax" that graduates paid regardless of their income, the skills secretary argued it was fairer for people to pay according to their earning power.
He said: "It surely can't be right that a teacher or care worker or research scientist is expected to pay the same graduate contribution as a top commercial lawyer or surgeon or City analyst whose graduate premium is so much bigger."
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JOEL I. KLEIN, MICHAEL LOMAX AND JANET MURGUÍA:
In the days following his inauguration, President Obama included a package of educational reforms in his stimulus bill that offered states financial incentives to make dramatic improvements in their education systems. About 10% of the $100 billion allocated for education was used to create competitive grants. States could only win them by drafting comprehensive and aggressive plans to, for example, adopt higher academic standards, turn around chronically low-performing schools, and redesign teacher evaluation and compensation systems.Although it has received much less attention than health care and financial regulatory reform, this measure may ultimately be one of Mr. Obama's most profound and lasting achievements. In just one year, we've already seen more reforms proposed and enacted around the country than in the preceding decade.
Yet on July 1, with little warning, the House of Representatives watered down these reform efforts by approving an amendment to the emergency supplemental appropriations bill, proposed by Rep. David Obey (D., Wis.). It takes away $800 million that has already been committed to three critical parts of the president's education reform package--Race to the Top, the Teacher Incentive Fund, and the Charter Schools Program. This breaks a promise to the states, districts and schools that are doing the most important work in America. The funds are to be redirected to a $10 billion "Edujobs" bill to prevent teacher layoffs.
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In many third-grade classrooms in California, students are taught -- briefly -- about obtuse and acute angles. They have no way to comprehend this lesson fully. Their math training so far hasn't taught them the concepts involved. They haven't learned what a degree is or that a circle has 360 of them. They haven't learned division, so they can't divide 360 by 4 to determine that a right angle is 90 degrees, and thus understand that an acute angle is less than 90 degrees and an obtuse angle more.Clusty Search: Common Core Standards.It makes no pedagogical sense, but California's academic standards call for third-graders to at least be exposed to the subject, and because angles might be on the standardized state test at the end of the year, exposed they are.
Now, that might change. In June, a yearlong joint initiative by 48 states produced a set of uniform but voluntary educational standards in English and math. Urged on by the Obama administration, the initiative's main purpose was to encourage states with low academic standards to bring their expectations into line with those of other states. Twenty states have already adopted the standards; 28 more, including California, are considering them. Texas and Alaska are the only states that declined to participate in the project.
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Rural schools are being left out of pivotal policy changes being tried out in the nation's education system, say some rural advocates, and that goes for reform experiments bankrolled with private dollars from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation."The [Gates] Foundation funded work around smaller schools in mostly urban places--a sort of ironic phenomenon, given the consolidation of rural schools. And they funded some early-college initiatives in places like rural Appalachian Ohio," said Caitlin Howley, senior manager, education and research, for ICF International in Charleston, W.Va., an educational research firm. "But I don't think rural is part of what they've been thinking about."
A Washington Post report this week tracked the influence of some $650 million the Gates Foundation has pledged for key reforms in the nation's schools in the past two and one-half years. The story also noted the close relationship between the Gates Foundation and the Obama administration (a number of Gates Foundation employees have assumed key roles in the administration) as well as similarities in the educational priorities pushed by Gates and the Obama White House.
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The Obama Administration is successfully orchestrating one of the largest federal overreaches into education policy since the Great Society programs of the mid-1960s. If this news is coming as a surprise, it's because the Administration is maneuvering outside of normal legislative procedure, by way of Trojan-horse programs such as Race to the Top and the suggestive power of their "blueprint" to reauthorize No Child Left Behind.The Administration's push for national standards and tests, which is moving quickly, is an historic federal overreach. By August 2, 2010, states must submit "evidence of having adopted common standards" in order to increase their chances of winning a Race to the Top grant. For states not enticed by the $4.35 billion grant competition, the Administration has already laid the groundwork in their blueprint for tying the $14.5 billion in Title I funding for low-income districts to the adoption of national standards--a deal that states will likely be unable to turn down.
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The League of Education Voters is trying to co-opt dissent by creating a campaign called Education Revolution and using a lot of incendiary language and images, but not taking any action.Well worth reading.It got me thinking about what the Revolution really is or should be. Help me clarify my thinking on this.
I think that the Revolution is about re-defining and re-purposing the District's central functions and responsibilities. The change will come when the role of the central administration is defined. What do we want the District's central administration to do? And what DON'T we want them to do?
Ideally, the District's headquarters will take responsibility for everything that isn't better decided at the school building level. They should relieve the school staff of those duties. They should:
1) Provide centralized services when those services are commodities and can achieve economies of scale. For example, HR functions, facilities maintenance, data warehousing, contracting, food service, procurement, accounting, and transportation.
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There's a scene from the legendary HBO show The Wire that I think about when I consider this increasingly divisive issue of mayoral control of Detroit Public Schools: In the scene (which I decided against posting here because it's graphic), young drug runner Namond is urged by his friend and fellow dealer Michael to confront a kid who has run off with Namond's drugs. When Namond and Michael find the young thief, the kid starts to insult the obviously intimidated Namond. Michael steps in and beats the kid bloody."Take ya pack," Michael then says to Namond, motioning for him to retrieve his stolen drugs from boy. But Namond, who never wanted to be a dealer in the first place, recoils and rushes off into the night, leaving Michael and the drugs behind. "I don't want it," he sobs as he scurries away.
If DPS is the coveted "pack," Bing reminds me of Namond. Everyone else may think this is worth battling over and some may be egging him on to take over the troubled Detroit school district. But it seems that deep down, the mayor doesn't want it.
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The credit scores of millions more Americans are sinking to new lows.Figures provided by FICO Inc. show that 25.5 percent of consumers -- nearly 43.4 million people -- now have a credit score of 599 or below, marking them as poor risks for lenders. It's unlikely they will be able to get credit cards, auto loans or mortgages under the tighter lending standards banks now use.
Because consumers relied so heavily on debt to fuel their spending in recent years, their restricted access to credit is one reason for the slow economic recovery.
"I don't get paid for loan applications, I get paid for closings," said Ritch Workman, a Melbourne, Fla., mortgage broker. "I have plenty of business, but I'm struggling to stay open."
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On a rainy May morning in 2008, my research team assembled at the Italian Community Center in downtown Milwaukee for focus-group sessions with the parents of students enrolled in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.After a long morning of listening to parents vent about the aspects of their children's schools that disappointed them, the tone of the meeting suddenly changed when we concluded with an "open mike" session.
"We may complain a lot about our children's schools," one of the parents told us, "but please, please, please don't take our school choice away."
Parents like this concerned mother have played a starring role in the long-running policy debate over the school-choice program, which enables parents to select a school for their child other than the assigned neighborhood public school. Charter schools, for example, offer choices within the public school system. School-choice programs like Milwaukee's notably include private schools and are often called voucher programs.
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In his first address to Congress in February 2009, when the nation teetered on the brink of economic collapse, President Obama declared that "dropping out of high school is no longer an option. It's not just quitting on yourself, it's quitting on your country--and this country needs and values the talents of every American." Since then, the administration has made a major commitment to increasing America's high school graduation rate, which was once the highest in the developed world and is now among the lowest. Leading researchers now agree that 25 to 30 percent of students who enroll in American high schools fail to graduate. In many of the country's largest urban school districts, such as Detroit, Cleveland, and Indianapolis, the dropout rate is as high as 60 percent, and rates are similarly high in many rural areas. A generation ago, high school dropouts could still join the military, or get work on assembly lines, and had a fair chance of finding their way in the world. President Obama does not exaggerate when he implies that today's America has little use for dropouts and cannot expect to flourish so long as their numbers remain so high.The administration has proposed nearly $1 billion in its latest budget specifically for the dropout problem. And it has already put $7.4 billion on the table, including its famous Race to the Top grants, which states and districts can get only if they agree to overhaul their worst-performing high schools. These are the 2,000 or so high schools that Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan refer to as "dropout factories"--schools that graduate fewer than 60 percent of their students and account for more than half the nation's dropouts.
This level of financial commitment to fixing America's underperforming high schools is unprecedented. The 1983 Nation at Risk report, which marked the start of the modern era of education reform, did not so much as mention the dropout problem even as it called for higher graduation requirements. Between 1988 and 1995, only eighty-nine school districts won federal grants for dropout prevention programs. The No Child Left Behind Act of 2002 applied mostly to grades three through eight. While it nominally required states to hold high schools accountable for dropout rates, it ended up allowing them to lowball the problem. Generally, the thought among educational reformers has been to concentrate on preschool and grade school education, and hope that success there would result in better student performance in high school.
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Lance Izumi, Jason Clemens And Lingxiao Ou, via a Kris Olds email:
Canadians, particularly those of conservative persuasion, love to compare Canada with the United States, which has a lot to learn in the key area of K-12 education. As the United States struggles with mounting deficits and debt, Americans would be well served to look north if they want to raise student performance while saving money. Canadians would be equally well served to understand their own success and expand it.Little known to most Canadians is how well the country's students perform on international tests, particularly when compared to the United States. The Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) is an internationally standardized test administered by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Every three years PISA tests 15-year-olds in reading; mathematical and scientific literacy; and general competencies -- that is, how well students apply the knowledge and skills they have learned at school to real-life problems.
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The San Diego Unified District Board of Education will be voting Tuesday, July 13th, at 5pm in the evening to place a temporary parcel tax up for voter approval on the November ballot. While this move on the surface is a response to the "funding cliff" that public education systems state-wide are facing as Federal stimulus dollars expire next year, the reality is that much larger stakes are in play here.The school district is facing the prospect of $127 million in projected cuts for the school year beginning in September 2011 after cutting more than $370 million from its budget over the last four years. They have tentatively proposed a long list of budget reductions, from eliminating librarians and counselors to halving the school day for kindergartners. More than 1,400 employees - ten per cent of school district employees - will be facing layoffs if those cuts become reality.
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Here's NJEA President Barbara Keshishian on yesterday's Assembly approval of legislation to cap property tax increases at 2%:This is a devastating day for children and public education in New Jersey. On the heels of more than $1.3 billion in cuts to public education, the Legislature and the governor have put an ill-conceived and shortsighted policy in place that will prevent our public schools from ever climbing out of the hole that has been dug for them by the state.An understandable reaction, if a bit histrionic. The hole we're in doesn't have a lot to do with any sort of property tax cap, but to an expensive, inefficient, and unsustainable public school system.
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School may be out for the summer, but the topic of education reform certainly has not gone on vacation. Both nationwide and here at home, there are several different ideas on the table that, if implemented, could go a long way toward improving educational outcomes for our students.Under the guidance of Gov. Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin was once a nationwide leader in educational innovation. Unfortunately, bold, reform-minded leadership has been absent from the governor's office for the past eight years. The most recent failures of Gov. Jim Doyle and legislative Democrats were their unsuccessful efforts to grab federal Race to the Top dollars and their blundering attempt at a mayoral takeover of the Milwaukee Public Schools.
Usually, we look to our nation's capital for examples of how not to do business, but the new collective bargaining agreement Washington, D.C., School Chancellor Michelle Rhee struck with her teachers union is just the sort of thing we need in Milwaukee. The contract includes pay for performance, lessens the weight of seniority if layoffs become necessary and ends "job for life" tenure for ineffective teachers.
Another reform MPS sorely needs is the elimination of the teacher residency requirement, an arbitrary barrier that discourages some quality educators from teaching at MPS. Only two of the nation's 50 largest school systems, Milwaukee and Chicago, still require its teachers to live within the city limits. No other school district in Wisconsin has a residency requirement.
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The co-chairs of President Obama's debt and deficit commission offered an ominous assessment of the nation's fiscal future here Sunday, calling current budgetary trends a cancer "that will destroy the country from within" unless checked by tough action in Washington.The two leaders -- former Republican Senator Alan Simpson of Wyoming and Erskine Bowles, White House chief of staff under former President Bill Clinton -- sought to build support for the work of the commission, whose recommendations due later this year are likely to spark a fierce political debate in Congress.
"There are many who hope we fail," Simpson said at the closing session of the National Governors Association meeting. He called the 18-member commission "good people with deep, deep differences" who know the odds of success "are rather harrowing."
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The Obama administration is pressuring Congress to spend $23 billion to rehire the more than 100,000 teachers who have been laid off across the country. Before Congress succumbs, it should know about the unfolding fiasco in Milwaukee. Wisconsin is a microcosm of the union intransigence that's fueling the school funding crisis in so many cities and states and leading to so many pink slips. It also shows why a federal bailout is a mistake.Because of declining tax collections and falling enrollment, Milwaukee's school board announced in June that 428 teachers were losing their jobs--including Megan Sampson, who was just awarded a teacher-of-the-year prize. Yet the teachers union, the Milwaukee Teachers Education Association, had it within its power to avert almost all of the layoffs.
The average pay for a Milwaukee school teacher is $56,000, which is hardly excessive. Benefits are another matter. According to a new study by the MacIver Institute, a state think tank, the cost of health and pension benefits now exceeds $40,000 a year per teacher--bringing total compensation to $100,500.
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From the start, the governor served notice that he saw the public employees' unions as a central part of the state's problems, and that he meant to take them on. His first day in office, he signed an executive order, later struck down in court, to limit their ability to finance campaigns. The first bills he signed limited spending on pensions and benefits. He relished months of verbal sparring with the teachers' union, and analysts say he got the upper hand.Mr. Christie said there was no plan to put the unions front and center, though some of his aides say privately that it was quite intentional.
But on controlling local government spending and taxes, he acknowledged that "yes, absolutely," there was a political strategy to doing things in a particular order. The governor's budget reduced school aid, leading to predictions that districts would raise property taxes. He blamed the teachers' union for any increases and proposed capping property tax increases. Now he is using that cap as leverage for a package of bills, which has met union opposition, to help towns and school districts control spending.
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Across the country, public education is in the midst of a quiet revolution. States are embracing voluntary national standards for English and math, while schools are paying teachers based on student performance.The Gates Foundation funded a Small Learning Community initiative at Madison West High SchoolIt's an agenda propelled in part by a flood of money from a billionaire prep-school graduate best known for his software empire: Bill Gates.
In the past 2 1/2 years, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged more than $650 million to schools, public agencies and other groups that buy into its main education priorities.
The largest awards are powering experiments in teacher evaluation and performance pay. The Pittsburgh school district landed $40 million, Los Angeles charter schools $60 million and the Memphis schools $90 million. The Hillsborough County district, which includes Tampa, won the biggest grant: $100 million. That has set the nation's eighth-largest school system on a quest to reshape its 15,000-member teaching corps by rewarding student achievement instead of seniority.
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The Washington State Auditor told the district this week it has problems managing its money. They're the same problems he's told them about before. The school board oversees the district. And auditors for the state say it's time for board members to get more involved.Washington State Auditor's Office:Carr: "To the State Auditors' point, we have work to do. And they're right: we do."
Sherry Carr chairs the audit and finance committee of the Seattle School Board. She says the board needs to do more to make sure problems that are found in audits don't pop up again.
Carr: "We haven't always had the check in prior to the start of the next audit. So, I think that's the key."
The Washington State Auditor's Office released an audit report this week about the Seattle School District's accountability with public resources, laws and regulations.Documents:
We found the School Board and the District's executive management:* Must improve oversight of District operations.
* Are not as familiar with state and federal law as the public would expect.We identified instances of misappropriation and areas that are susceptible to misappropriation. We also found the School Board delegated authority to the Superintendent to create specific procedures to govern day-to-day District operations.
The Board does not evaluate these procedures to determine if they are effective and appropriate. Consequently, we identified 12 findings in this report and in our federal single audit and financial statement report.
Seattle Public Schools establishes rigorous process for addressing financial year 2008-09 audit findings.As part of the Washington State Auditor's Office annual audit process, an Accountability Audit of Seattle Public Schools was issued on July 6, 2010. The audit's emphasis on the need for continued improvement of internal controls and District policies for accountability is consistent with multi-year efforts under way at Seattle Public Schools to strengthen financial management.
"Because we are deeply committed to being good stewards of the public's resources, we take the information in this audit very seriously," said Superintendent Maria L. Goodloe-Johnson, Ph.D. "We acknowledge the need to take specific corrective actions noted in the report. It is a key priority to implement appropriate control and accountability measures, with specific consequences, for situations in which policies are not followed."
The School Board will work closely with the Superintendent to ensure corrections are made. "We understand and accept the State Auditor's findings," said School Board Director Sherry Carr, chair of the Board's Audit and Finance Committee. "We accept responsibility to ensure needed internal controls are established to improve accountability in Seattle Public Schools, and we will hold ourselves accountable to the public as the work progresses."
After reading this item, I sent this email to Madison Board of Education members a few days ago:
I hope this message finds you well.I received the following from Lucy Mathiak:The Seattle School Board is going to become more involved in District operations due to "problems managing its money".
http://kuow.org/program.php?id=20741
I'm going to post something on this in the next few days.
I recall a BOE discussion where Ed argued that there are things that should be left to the Administration (inferring limits on the BOE's oversight and ability to ask questions). I am writing to obtain your thoughts on this, particularly in light of:
a) ongoing budget and accounting issues (how many years has this been discussed?), and
b) the lack of substantive program review to date (is 6 years really appropriate, given reading and math requirements of many Madison students?).
I'd like to post your responses, particularly in light of the proposed Administrative re-org and how that may or may not address these and other matters.
A GENERAL NOTE: There is a cottage industry ginning up books and articles on board "best practices." The current wisdom, mostly generated by retired superintendents, is that boards should not trouble themselves with little things like financial management, human resources, or operations. Rather, they should focus on "student achievement." But what that means, and the assumption that financial, HR, and other decisions have NO impact on achievement, remain highly problematical.Ed Hughes:At the end of the day, much of the "best practices" looks a lot like the role proposed for the Milwaukee School Board when the state proposed mayoral control last year. Under that scenario, the board would focus on public relations and, a distant second, expulsions. But that would be a violation of state statute on the roles and responsibilities of boards of education.
There are some resources that have interesting info on national trends in school board training here:
http://www.asbj.com/MainMenuCategory/Archive/2010/July/The-Importance-of-School-Board-Training.aspxI tend to take my guidance from board policy, which refers back to state statute without providing details; I am a detail person so went back to the full text. When we are sworn into office, we swear to uphold these policies and statutes:
Board policy:
"The BOARD shall have the possession, care, control, and management of the property and affairs of the school district with the responsibilities and duties as detailed in Wisconsin Statutes 118.001, 120.12, 120.13, 120.14, 120.15, 120.16, 120.17, 120.18, 120.21, 120.40, 120.41, 120.42, 120.43, and 120.44."
Because board policy does not elaborate what is IN those statutes, the details can be lost unless one takes a look at "the rules." Here are some of the more interesting (to me) sections from WI Statute 120:120.12 School board duties.
The school board of a common or union high school district shall:
(1)MANAGEMENT OF SCHOOL DISTRICT.
Subject to the authority vested in the annual meeting and to the authority and possession specifically given to other school district officers, have thepossession, care, control and management of the property andaffairs of the school district, except for property of the school dis-trict used for public library purposes under s. 43.52.(2)GENERAL SUPERVISION. Visit and examine the schools ofthe school district, advise the school teachers and administrative staff regarding the instruction, government and progress of the pupils and exercise general supervision over such schools.
(3)TAX FOR OPERATION AND MAINTENANCE.
(a) On or before November 1, determine the amount necessary to be raised to operate and maintain the schools of the school district and public library facilities operated by the school district under s. 43.52, if the annual meeting has not voted a tax sufficient for such purposes for the school year.
(5)REPAIR OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS.
Keep the school buildings and grounds in good repair, suitably equipped and in safe and sanitary condition at all times. The school board shall establish an annual building maintenance schedule.(14)COURSE OF STUDY.
Determine the school course of study.(17)UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN SYSTEM TUITION.
Pay the tuition of any pupil enrolled in the school district and attending an institution within the University of Wisconsin System if the pupil is not participating in the program under s. 118.55, the course the pupil is attending at the university is not offered in the school district and the pupil will receive high school credit for the course.
Thanks for contacting us. Can you be a bit more specific about what you are looking for? A general statement about the appropriate line between administration and Board responsibilities? Something more specific about budgeting and accounting, or specific program reviews? And if so, what? I confess that I haven't followed whatever is going on with the Seatte school board.My followup:
I am looking for your views on BOE responsibilities vis a vis the Administration, staff and the community.Marj Passman:Two timely specifics, certainly are:
a) ongoing budget problems, such as the maintenance referendum spending, and
b) curricular matters such as reading programs, which, despite decades of annual multi-million dollar expenditures have failed to "move the needle".
The Seattle District's "problems managing its money" matter apparently prompted more Board involvement.
Finally, I do recall a BOE discussion where you argued in favor of limits on Administrative oversight. Does my memory serve?
Best wishes,
Jim
Here is the answer to your question on Evaluation which also touches on the Board's ultimate role as the final arbiter on District Policy.Part of the Strategic Plan, and, one of the Superintendants goals that he gave the Board last year, was the need to develop a "District Evaluation Protocol". The Board actually initiated this by asking for a Study of our Reading Program last February. This protocol was sent to the Board this week and seems to be a timely and much needed document.
Each curricular area would rotate through a seven year cycle of examination. In addition, the Board of Education would review annually a list of proposed evaluations. There will be routine reports and updates to the Board while the process continues and, of course, a final report. At any time the Board can make suggestions as to what should be evaluated and can make changes in the process as they see fit. In other words, the Board will certainly be working within its powers as Overseer of MMSD.
This Protocol should be on the MMSD web site and I recommend reading it in
depth.I am particularly pleased with the inclusion of "perception" - interviews, surveys with parents and teachers. I have been leery of just masses of data analysis predetermining the success or failure of children. Our children must not be reduced to dots on a chart. Tests must be given but many of our students are succeeding in spite of their test scores.
I have a problem with a 7 year cycle and would prefer a shorter one. We need to know sooner rather than later if a program is working or failing. I will bring this up at Monday's Board meeting.
I will be voting for this Protocol but will spend more time this weekend studying it before my final vote.
Marj
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Rowdy delegates to a national teachers convention Saturday gave several standing ovations to Bill Gates, whose billions in foundation grants for experimental-education-overhaul efforts over more than a decade have sparked widespread controversy and debate.There were scattered boos and hisses among the 3,400 attendees at the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) convention in Seattle, and a small group of dissident teachers walked out on Gates' speech, but many at the Washington State Convention Center seemed to welcome the Microsoft co-founder's message that teachers must be partners in any efforts to improve student achievement.
"If reforms aren't shaped by teachers' knowledge and experience, they're not going to succeed," Gates told the delegates.
Randi Weingarten, AFT president, said she welcomed the dialogue with Gates, whose Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has led efforts to improve education, including charter schools, which while public are largely nonunion and run by autonomous management organizations.
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By four years from now, either the teachers unions or the pack of education policies that are hot these days is going to be a lot less relevant. The American education world doesn't seem big enough for both of them.Frankly, I don't know if I'm right about that, but it is certainly an interesting prediction to consider, given what is happening nationally and locally.
It would seem smart to bet on the teachers unions - they're still pretty strong, they're politically powerful, and their bargaining rights are established by law. Education fads come and go, but unions stay on.
But there are some reasons to bet the other way.
The overall economic troubles of the nation, the rapidly escalating financial problems facing school systems, and the popularity of ideas union leaders generally hate, such as factoring student performance into teachers' pay, are putting unions on the defensive in ways similar to what has happened in other sectors of the economy.
Whatever the future, the collision between teachers unions and the forces of change is pretty amazing. For one thing, it pits Democrats against Democrats in a battle that may have major repercussions on the 2012 presidential race.
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The recommendation by the Santa Clara County civil grand jury to consolidate school districts is the kind of out-of-the-box thinking long overdue in this county. The report suggests that aligning K-8 districts with high school districts would improve education and produce savings in the neighborhood of 7 percent, or $51 million annually. That's a lot of teachers and specialists at a time when cutbacks are threatening irreparable harm to our students.The recommendations are a good start for schools, but the same thing needs to be done in other service areas in the Bay Area. For example, Santa Clara County has 11 local police departments plus the Sheriff's Office, and seven fire departments plus the Santa Clara County Fire Department. Why, in a mostly urban, compact environment, must we endure such duplication? The answer is we shouldn't.
Reasons offered for school consolidation are equally valid for police and fire departments. To quote the grand jury report, "The current organization [of school districts] is an outgrowth of the county's origins. Until the 1960s, the county was largely a collection of agricultural communities separated by miles of open space. "... The communities have become small cities, San Jose has become a large city, and the open land has disappeared.
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David Cameron has admitted that he is "terrified" by the prospect of trying to find a good state secondary school for his children in London.Mr Cameron said that, living in central London, he sympathised with parents in areas across Britain where there was no choice of decent schools.
"I've got a six-year-old and a four-year-old and I'm terrified living in central London," he said in an interview with a Sunday newspaper. "Am I going to find a good secondary school for my children? I feel it as a parent, let alone as a politician."
Mr Cameron, who was educated at Eton, said he remained determined to send his children to state schools despite rejecting 15 primary schools for his six-year-old daughter Nancy, before sending her to St Mary Abbots, Church of England primary in Kensington.
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Madison School Board. The Board of Education will evaluate Superintendent Dan Nerad Monday evening, during a closed session according to the online agenda.
Dan was hired in 2008, after a long tenure as Superintendent of the Green Bay public schools.
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The state's yawning budget hole has swelled to $2.5 billion, underscoring the massive challenge that awaits the next governor and Legislature, a new report shows.The Madison School District released a memorandum on expected redistributed state tax dollars last week 119K PDF. Superintendent Dan Nerad:The projections by the Legislature's non-partisan budget office show the expected shortfall for the 2011-2013 budget has grown by $462 million from the just over $2 billion that was expected a year ago.
As you can see over the past five years, equalization aid for MMSD has been slightly erratic, increasing for two years and then decreasing drastically over the past 2 years as the State of Wisconsin removed $147 million of funding from the equalization aid formula.John Schmid: Study says state is a 'C' studentThe 2009-10 school year was the first time over the last 10 years that MMSD saw a maximum decrease in funding from the State of Wisconsin, which statutorily is set at 15%, For MMSD this was a decrease in the State's connnitment to public education in Madison of over $9.2 million when compared with funds received in 2008-09.
When planning for the 20I0-11 school year budget, Administration openly planned for another reduction in equalization aid funding of 15% or approximately $7.8 million. The early aid estimate that was released on July I, 2010 shows MMSD in a better situation than was first projected through the budget process for one reason. The breakdown ofequalization aid for MMSD in 2010-11 as projected by the DPI is as follows:
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Two Allen County school districts rank above the state average in the percentage of their budgets spent on classroom expenses, according to a report released Friday by the Indiana Office of Management and Budget.Complete 5.6MB PDF report.The annual report - which includes revisions to the formula used to categorize spending - shows that statewide schools spent 57.8 percent of their funding on student instructional expenditures in the 2008-09 school year.
This is also known as the percentage of dollars going to the classroom.
"I encourage school board members, administrators, teachers and citizens across the state to closely examine the way dollars are currently allocated and evaluate whether their budgets truly put students first," Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett said. "I will only be satisfied once we have driven every possible dollar toward increasing student achievement and success."
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Superintendent Dan Nerad 45K PDF.:
This is a project whereby the University of Washington's Center for Educational leadership (CEl) will support the District in its central office transformation by:a. developing a theory of action to guide how central office leaders and principals work together to improve instructional leadership and to provide support to schools.
b. designing and implementing school cluster support teams with a focus on developing a common understanding of quality instruction and in developing stronger relationships between central office leaders and principals that are focused on growing principal instructional leadership.
The involved services draw from the research published by Dr. Meredith I. Honig and Michael A Copland
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Superintendent Dan Nerad 1.9MB PDF:
Attached is the report summarizing progress after the first year from the community organizations receiving funding from the Madison Metropolitan School District. Also attached are the full end-of-year status reports from each organization, except the Urban League; their report will be provided in August. MMSD funding is now ended for . / African-American Ethnic Academy, Inc. . / Kajsiab House ./ Urban League of Greater Madison: Project Bootstrap 21st Century Careers Program"Fund 80" taxes (and spending) may increase beyond State of Wisconsin school district limits. Fund 80 spending growth has long been a source of controversy.Funding, at this point, will continue for one more year for the other nine community organizations.
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Before hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005, New Orleans had one of the worst performing public school districts in the nation. Katrina forced nearly a million people to leave their homes and caused almost $100 billion in damages. To an already failing public school system, the storm seemed to provide the final deathblow. But then something amazing happened. In the wake of Katrina, education reformers decided to seize the opportunity and start fresh with a system based on choice.
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Most Americans would not pay higher taxes for specific public services in their states, but they are more supportive of paying for education and staffing law enforcement than supporting state employees and entitlement programs.The Economist:The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Adults shows that only 19% would be willing to pay higher taxes to avoid layoffs of state employees. Sixty-nine percent (69%) say they would not be willing to pay more in taxes for this reason. Another 11% are undecided.
Adults feel similarly when it comes to funding entitlement programs. Twenty-two percent (22%) would pay higher taxes to prevent cuts in entitlement programs for low-income Americans. Sixty-three percent (63%) say they would not pay more to keep these programs afloat. Another 15% are undecided.
This is because it would begin the undoing of a policy disaster dating back to 1999. That was when the Democratic legislature and the then governor, Gray Davis, a Democrat elected with union support, thanked the unions by giving state workers pension increases of between 20% and 50%. Many highway-patrol officers, for example, were allowed to retire at 50 with 90% of their final salary. All told, California now has probably the most generous public-sector benefits in the country.That, however, is not what outrages Mr Schwarzenegger, a Republican, or his brainy economic adviser David Crane, a Democrat. Rather, it is that the pension plans--above all the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest such scheme in America--pretended that this generosity would not cost anything. In 1999 the dotcom bubble was still inflating, and the plans' actuaries predicted that their retirement funds would gain enough value to pay the increased pensions. By implication, they assumed that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would reach 25,000 in 2009 and 28m in 2099. It is currently at around 10,300.
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The governor will be expected to reverse the financial tsunami that forced local school districts to lay off teachers, shorten the school year and eliminate academic programs. He or she will play a major role in updating the popular HOPE scholarship, as falling revenues jeopardize its future. The governor will also help decide hot-button issues, such as whether illegal immigrants should be allowed to attend the state's public colleges.While education leaders -- such as the state superintendent, State Board of Education and State Board of Regents -- set policies and make decisions that affect the state's public schools and colleges, the governor wields enormous power and influence over the quality of education in Georgia.
The gubernatorial candidates agreed education was either the No. 1 issue or just behind jobs and economic development.
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Dr. Patrick Wolf spoke to a packed audience in the Capitol Visitors Center last Monday.The seats were full and people stood all along the edges of the room, even spilling out into the hallway. We all came to hear him explain his latest research on the tiny education program that has caused a national uproar--arousing so much passion that African-American leaders from around the country recently gathered downtown to engage in an act of civil disobedience.
The Department of Education commissioned Wolf to conduct a series of detailed studies on the results of the Washington DC Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). Established in 2004 as a five-year pilot program, OSP is among the most heavily researched federal education programs in history.
OSP targeted about 2,000 of the poorest kids in DC who were stuck in some of the worst schools in the country. It gave their parents a $7,500 scholarship to attend a private school of their choice.
The response was immediate. Four applications were filled out for every slot available. Parents loved the program, considering it a lifeline for their children, a way to escape failing schools and enter safe, functional schools.
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Announcing the move, Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, described the Building Schools for the Future programme as bureaucratic and wasteful, saying that in some cases schools had taken longer to build than an airport in Hong Kong.He accused the last Labour government of failing to fund the £55 billion scheme, which was due to see new classrooms and other buildings constructed at more than 700 schools.
The announcement came as Danny Alexander, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, announced a further £1.5 billion in cuts, including £1 billion from the Department of Education.
Labour had been relying on "unrealistic" end of year underspending to fund projects including the school building programme, creating a "black hole" which Mr Gove said the new Coalition Government would not allow to continue.
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However, a new study of what parents from the nation's sixth largest metropolitan area want for their children's education tilts favorably to a growing national preference for private and charter schools.Pew Trusts:And charter schools win the horse race for school choice, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts' Philadelphia Research Initiative.
"This trend has developed in the face of evidence that many charters perform no better than district schools and of a constant drumbeat of news reports and investigations regarding alleged and proven improprieties in the way charters operate," the report's authors say.
So why are an estimated 420 million students on waiting lists for charter schools?
Frustration with the struggling direction and results of traditional public schools is a leading cause.
A comprehensive new study from The Pew Charitable Trusts' Philadelphia Research Initiative finds that K-12 education in Philadelphia is undergoing a sweeping transformation that has given parents a new array of choices about where to send their children to school but has left families thinking they still do not have enough quality options.The study, "Philadelphia's Changing Schools and What Parents Want from Them," finds that the three largest educational systems in the city--traditional public schools, charter schools and Catholic schools--have changed dramatically in size and composition during the past decade. Only one of them, the charter schools, has been growing. Indeed, charters, which have been in existence for only 13 years, now have more students than the Catholic school system.
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Earlier this week I hopped on the Red Line in the middle of the afternoon to attend a screening of the education reform documentary Waiting for Superman at the Gallery Place movie theater downtown. It's a resonant, skillfully made film, a pitch-perfect representation of education reform in 2010. And arguably the most striking aspect was the near-total absence of No Child Left Behind, which is mentioned only in passing as one more failed federal plan.This reinforced an idea that's been nagging me for a while now: Some time in the last two or three years, we moved into the post-NCLB era of education reform.
It didn't used to be that way. When I began working on education policy full-time in the early 2000's, the center of gravity in education reform sat with the coalition of civil rights advocates, business leaders, and reform-minded governors of both parties who pushed NCLB through Congress in 2001. To find that same hum of ideas and influence today, you'd head straight for the annual New Schools Venture Fund Summit and its confluence of charter school operators, TFA alumni, urban reformers, philanthropies, and various related "edupreneurs." It's a different world with a different mindset, and this has real implications for public schools.
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I hope the White House is paying attention to the latest annual Congressional Budget Office Long-Term Budget Outlook, which offers a truly frightening picture of the scale of America's national debt, with huge implications for the country's future prosperity. According to the non-partisan CBO, "the federal government has been recording the largest budget deficits, as a share of the economy, since the end of World War II":As a result of those deficits, the amount of federal debt held by the public has surged. At the end of 2008, that debt equaled 40 percent of the nation's annual economic output (as measured by gross domestic product, or GDP), a little above the 40 year average of 36 percent. Since then, large budget deficits have caused debt held by the public to shoot upward; the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that federal debt will reach 62 percent of GDP by the end of this year--the highest percentage since shortly after World War II.
In its report, the CBO also offers two alternative long-term scenarios. The first long-term budget scenario, the more conservative extended baseline scenario, is worrying enough:
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Just three days after returning to Beijing from New York, I had to leave again, this time to a series of conferences in Torino, Italy, so it is hard to do much writing for my blog, especially since I won't spend my free time in the hotel when there is so damned much food out here that urgently needs sampling. Still, I did want to write a hurried note about a topic of conversation that came up a lot while I was in the US and even more here in Italy.For the next several years, as Keynes reminded us in the 1930s, savings is not going to be a virtue for the world economy. It is more likely to be a vice. In order to regain growth the world desperately needs less savings and more private consumption, but I think it is not going to get nearly enough to generate growth. Why? Because in all the major economies the banking systems are largely insolvent, or about to become so, and desperately need to rebuild capital. For reasons I discuss below, this will have a large adverse impact on private consumption.
Let's go through the major banking systems. First, the crisis started in the US and, perhaps as a consequence, US banks have already identified a lot of their problem loans and have been the most diligent about rebuilding their capital bases. They nonetheless still have a long ways to go, even though a large part of the bad loan problem was directly or indirectly transferred to the US government. By the way, transferring bad loans to the government may be good for the banks but will have the same adverse impact on consumption. I try to explain why below.
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State and local debt in Wisconsin grew faster than federal debt over the last 19 years. State debt rose 316%, an average of 7.8% per year, from $2.71 billion in 1990 to $11.25 billion in 2009. Local general obligation debt was up 284%, a 7.3% average, from $3.41 billion in 1989 to $13.1 billion in 2008. Federal debt held by the public averaged annual increases of 6.2% per year for a total increase of 212.8% from 1990 through 2009. The figures come from a new study from the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WISTAX), a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization dedicated to citizen education.Governments borrow for many reasons, including buildings, roads, sewers, and environmental cleanup. However, WISTAX researchers found that about 40% of the state increase was due to $1.6 billion of tobacco bonds issued in fiscal 2002 that were funded by a stream of payments from tobacco companies, as well as $1.8 billion in appropriation bonds issued in fiscal 2004 to pay unfunded state pension and sick-leave liabilities. The tobacco bonds were issued to help balance the 2001-03 state budget. The bonds were refinanced in fiscal 2009, generating an additional $300 million that was used to balance the 2008-09 general fund. Originally expected to be paid off in 2018, the refinanced bonds will not be paid off until 2029.
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For decades, parents have shelled out a real estate premium to take advantage of Alameda public schools, spending more money for rent or a mortgage for the peace of mind that comes with solid standardized test scores and a seat at the school down the block.Related: "Measure E, What Went Wrong" and "No on Measure E". More here. The Alameda School District's website.That's what Heather Genschmer did.
She wanted her son Myles, 3, to have the public school experience she had as a child, one filled with art, music, gifted programs, field trips, sports and high-quality academics.
Alameda's enrollment was 9,612 in 2009/2010. Spending was 92,010,693 in 2009/2010 = $9,572 per student. Locally, Madison spent $15,241 per student, based on the 2009/2010 Citizen's budget ($370,287,471 expenditures for 24,295 students), 37% more than Alameda.
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Kudzu? Who dares compare Wisconsin's education policies to kudzu?Clusty Search: Christopher P. Brown.Christopher Brown, a professor in curriculum and instruction at the University of Texas at Austin, that's who.
Kudzu is a plant that originated in Asia. Agriculture officials in the U.S. encouraged its use, starting in the 1930s, as a low cost way to stem soil erosion. But, especially in the South, it spread rapidly and far beyond intended areas. It became regarded as a weed.
Hmm. Launched with good intentions, appealing as an easy option, it grew rapidly and accomplished little. That sums up Brown's analysis of Wisconsin education policy from the late 1980s to the early 2000s. In his observations there lie major lessons for those who want to raise the expectations of students in Wisconsin and see more students meet those expectations.
Someone recently pointed me to Brown's analysis, which started as a doctoral dissertation while he was at the University of Wisconsin-Madison a few years ago. Just the title of the version published in 2008 in the academic journal Educational Policy made me laugh - and wince:
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For more than 40 years, Rep. David Obey of Wisconsin, the third-ranking member of the House, has been a fiery and highly effective legislator. Any history of how the country avoided another depression must include Obey, who shepherded the $787 billion Recovery Act through Congress last year with great skill (and no earmarks). He has been an inspiring antiwar liberal dating back to Vietnam and a rare man of conscience in Washington.But Obey, who is retiring at the end of the year, is in danger of going out as a water carrier for the teachers' unions--the man who gutted President Obama's signature program on education, Race to the Top.
At issue is a $10 billion bill (down from $23 billion) to help states prevent devastating teacher layoffs. (The House approved the bill after this column was written on Thursday.) Without the money, we'll see larger class size, four-day school weeks in more areas, and about 100,000 lost jobs, which in turn will strain services and harm the economy. As if the politics weren't byzantine enough, the anti-layoff money has been attached to a bill funding the war in Afghanistan. This was meant to make it easier to win the support of war supporters, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi now has to deal with House liberals who like the money for teachers, but not for the war.
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"We are a fiscal poster child for what not to do," said Ralph Martire of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, a liberal-leaning policy group in Illinois. "We make California look as if it's run by penurious accountants who sit in rooms trying to put together an honest budget all day."Sara Lenz:The state pension system is a money sinkhole and the most immediate threat. The governor and legislature have shortchanged the pensions since the mid-1990s, taking payment "holidays" with alarming regularity.
The state's last elected governor, Rod R. Blagojevich, is on trial for racketeering and extortion. But in 2003, he persuaded the legislature to let him float $10 billion in 30-year bonds and use the proceeds for two years of pension payments.
That gamble backfired and wound up costing the state many billions of dollars. Illinois reports that it has $62.4 billion in unfunded pension liabilities, although many experts place that liability tens of billions of dollars higher.
Some Illinois districts give up middle school idealsMore from Ms. Cornelius.
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The recession is forcing states to raise taxes and cut budgets, including education budgets, which is a wildly stupid national policy both on short-term economic grounds and in terms of investing in future human capital. The responses to this crisis have been maddeningly short-sighted. On the right, and even the center, you have self-styled deficit hawks cheering state-level Hooverism. (The Washington Post editorial page opposes any federal aid to cushion education firings unless states first overhaul their hiring practices, which is of course impossible in that time frame.)Diane Marrero has more along with Valerie Strauss.Now on the left you're seeing an equally maddening response. House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey proposes to fund money for saving teachers by cutting back funding for the Obama administration's wildly effective "Race to the Top" program, which provides incentives to states that reform their education policy. Obey's spokesman explains:
"Mr. Obey has said, 'When a ship is sinking, you don't worry about redesigning a room, you worry about keeping it afloat,' " Brachman said. "He is not opposed to education reform. But he believes that keeping teachers on the job is an important step."
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California's school finance system is broken, and our students are paying the consequences. As a result of this irrational finance system, students are being denied the opportunity to master the educational program the state requires.Now, 60 students and parents, nine school districts, the California School Boards Association, the Association of California School Administrators and the California State PTA have filed a lawsuit, Robles-Wong vs. California, which argues that the California Constitution requires the state to provide a school finance system that supports the educational program students are entitled to receive.
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President Barack Obama's education-overhaul agenda was dealt its first major setback after the U.S. House of Representatives diverted money from charter schools, teacher merit pay and the Race to the Top competition to help fund a jobs bill that would stave off teacher layoffs.TJ Mertz offers a number of comments, notes and links on congressional efforts to reduce "Race to the Top" funding and increase federal redistributed tax dollar assistance for teacher salaries.Even a last-minute veto threat by Mr. Obama late Thursday couldn't prevent the diversion of $800 million, including a $500 million cut from Race to the Top, the president's showcase initiative that rewards states for adopting innovative education redesigns.
Officials with the U.S. Department of Education vowed Friday to keep the president's education agenda intact and find other places to make budget trims.
"We're grateful they passed a jobs bills but not at the expense of the reform efforts we need for our long-term economic interests," said Peter Cunningham, spokesman for the Education Department.
It is difficult to see the governance and spending approaches of the past addressing the curricular, teacher and student challenges of today, much less tomorrow.
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HR 4899 roll, via Democrats for Education Reform.
The education measure provoked fierce debate, especially because it would reduce by $500 million the award money available to three dozen states that have submitted proposals in Round 2 of the Obama initiative, the Race to the Top competition.To become law, the legislation needs Senate approval. The White House said in a statement that if the final bill included cuts to education reforms, Mr. Obama would most likely veto it.
"It would be short-sighted to weaken funding for these reforms," the White House said.
Using stimulus money voted on last year, the Department of Education awarded $500 million to Tennessee and $100 million to Delaware in March, and has promised to distribute the $3.4 billion that remains among additional winning states this year. The House bill would reduce the money available to $2.9 billion.
Teachers' unions lobbied for weeks for federal money to avert what the administration estimates could be hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs.
Several dozen charter school and other advocacy groups lobbied fiercely against cutting Race to the Top, which rewards states promising to overhaul teacher evaluation systems and shake up school systems in other ways.
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School committee members across the state will now also have to attend six hours of training each year on how to perform their community responsibilities.An obvious next step, given the growing "adult to adult" expenditures of our K-12 public schools, while, simultaneously, reducing "adult to child" time. Wow.Bill sponsor Sen. Hanna M. Gallo, D-Cranston, said the legislation's genesis came from "a lot of people expressing concern that not all school committee members are aware of all the [educational] issues they should."
Issues, such as how schools are financed, labor relations, teacher-performance evaluations, strategic planning and opening meetings laws that require members do their business in public, will be addressed.
"They need to be educated," said Gallo. "It's a big responsibility being on the school committee. It's our children, our students and our future, and we have to make sure we do the job to the best of our ability."
The school committee members will attend a program at Rhode Island College offered by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary education in cooperation with the Rhode Island Association of School Committees.
Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:
"Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk - the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It's as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands." Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI's vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the "impossibility" of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars ("Similar to GM"; "worry" about the children given this situation).
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The illustration above is from page 124 and includes data on Wisconsin's largest school districts.
2.8MB PDF, via a kind reader.
Per student spending numbers are always interesting and never consistent. Madison spends $15,241 per student, based on the 2009-2010 budget of $370,287,471 (24,295 students)
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One should not under-estimate the impact of the DC school voucher program on student achievement. According to the official announcement and the executive summary of the report, school vouchers lifted high school graduation rates but it could not be conclusively determined that it had a positive impact on student achievement.Something about those findings sounds like a bell striking thirteen. Not only is the clock wrong, but the mechanism seems out of whack. How can more students graduate from private schools if they weren't learning more? Are expectations so low in the private sector that any one can graduate?
Peering beneath the press release and the executive summary into the bowels of the study itself one can get some, if not all the answers, to these questions.
Let's begin with the most important--and perfectly uncontested--result: If one uses a voucher to go to school, the impact on the percentage of students with a high school diploma increases by 21 percentage points (Table 3-5), an effect size of no less than 0.46 standard deviations. Seventy percent of those who were not offered a school voucher made it through high school. That is close to the national average in high school graduation rates among those entering 9th grade four years earlier. As compared to that 70 percent rate among those who wanted a voucher but didn't get one, 91 percent of those who used vouchers to go to private school eventually received a high school diploma.
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After five rounds of meetings, the Branchburg teachers union and the board of education have declared an impasse, saying they could not come to an agreement on a salary freeze and a switch to the state's public health insurance plan.A state moderator will now preside over negotiations. If an agreement cannot be reached over both, the school board will have to come up with those savings elsewhere because the school board budgeted the salary freeze already, and the Township Committee included the health insurance plan in its recommendations when it decided the school board needs to cut $1.5 million from its budget.
Tensions over these negotiations bubbled over on Thursday, June 24, at the same time that the school board approved new cuts that bring the number of laid-off school employees to approximately 55.
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An increasing number of California school districts are edging closer to financial insolvency, state officials reported Tuesday.One immediate effect has been the layoff of teachers -- probably in the thousands, although neither state officials nor the California Teachers Assn. has final numbers.
Since the beginning of 2010, the number of school systems that may be "unable to meet future financial obligations" has increased by 38%, according to the state Department of Education.
"Schools on this list are now forced to make terrible decisions to cut programs and services that students need or face bankruptcy," said state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell.
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Greg Royer ranks among the state's top-paid employees, with a salary of $304,000. But that's just part of his income. For nearly seven years, he's also collected an annual pension of $105,000.Royer, the vice president for business and finance at Washington State University, tops a long list of college administrative staff members who've been able to boost their incomes by up to 60 percent by exploiting a loophole in state retirement laws.
A Seattle Times investigation has found that at least 40 university or community-college employees retired and were rehired within weeks, often returning to the same job without the position ever being advertised. That has allowed them to double dip by collecting both a salary and a pension.
The pattern of quickie retirements has continued despite the Legislature's efforts to crack down.
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Lanyon, Grams, and fellow Hawthorne teachers Julie Olsen and Abby Miller received a grant from the national nonprofit Fund for Teachers that allowed them to travel to Harlem to learn about the art, music, poetry, literary history and drama of this hub of African-American life. They all agree that they now have a new appreciation for the richness of black culture and its profound impact on American life and culture as a whole.People who saw the recent Madison screening of The Lottery saw another part of the Harlem world: the battle between the traditional public school system and charters, specifically the Harlem Success Academy.For these four, plus a dozen more local educators whose travel was covered by a couple of additional grants, the experience was part of a wider effort to help them better teach in what's known as a culturally relevant way.
"Culturally relevant practice" is a relatively new movement in education that recognizes that learning, for all of us, is related to our cultural background and what we know from our daily living. Research shows that effectively bridging the gaps between a teacher's background and student's experience can improve academic performance.
Andreal Davis is one of two district administrators in charge of helping to create culturally relevant practices in local classrooms. A former elementary school teacher at Lincoln, Davis, who is black, now helps colleagues recognize that different groups of children bring their different backgrounds, expectations and even communication styles to the classroom.
She says teachers sometimes need help learning to translate different ways their students learn, or what kind of interactions make sense to different groups of children.
"Communication styles for all of us can vary a great deal. It can be like the difference between listening to conventional music, or listening to jazz, where the narrative doesn't just go in a straight line," she explains. "If that flow is what you're used to, it's what you know how to follow in a conversation, or in a class."
Given Hawthorne's demographics -- 70 percent of the students are poor, with a diverse population that includes 18 percent Hispanic, 20 percent Asian, 32 percent black and 28 percent white -- the school has respectable, rising test scores.
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I'm going to turn 60 soon and my job title at Marquette Law School these days is "senior fellow," so I have a disposition to respect seniority. Especially when other things are equal, you should earn some standing by dint of long service.Related: An Email to Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad on Math Teacher Hiring Criteria.But do you think Trevor Hoffman should be sent out to pitch the ninth inning for the Brewers just because he has seniority over everyone else on the team? Of course not. Put in the best pitcher.
I may be in a minority, but I regard baseball as a game, as entertainment.
Education is not a game. It's as crucial a matter as any facing Milwaukee.
So why don't schools follow this simple lesson from sports: You stand your best chance of winning when you field your best players?
Milwaukee is well on its way this summer to a vivid lesson in seniority in action. Milwaukee Public Schools administrators have given layoff notices to 482 teachers, as well as 816 other employees.
Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:
"Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk - the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It's as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands." Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI's vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the "impossibility" of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars ("Similar to GM"; "worry" about the children given this situation).
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State and local tax burdens vary greatly from state to state. New Hampshire, for instance, has no income or sales tax -- but its neighbor Vermont has both. Fiscal conservatives say New Hampshire's long history of low taxes has forced the state to keep spending in line. But New Hampshire residents say that tradition of fiscal austerity has exacted a price on the state's schools.NAEP 4th grade average math scale score: New Hampshire: 251; Wisconsin 244; Vermont 248, Massachusetts 252, Minnesota 249, Iowa 243. Low income: New Hampshire: 237; Wisconsin 229; Vermont 235, Massachusetts 237, Minnesota 234, Iowa 232.
NAEP 4th grade average reading scale score (national average is 220): New Hampshire: 229; Wisconsin 220; Vermont 229, Massachusetts 234, Minnesota 223, Iowa 221. Low income (national average is 206): New Hampshire: 213; Wisconsin 202; Vermont 215, Massachusetts 215, Minnesota 203, Iowa 208.
NAEP 8th grade average reading scale score (national average is 262): New Hampshire: 271; Wisconsin 266; Vermont 272, Massachusetts 274, Minnesota 271, Iowa 265. Low income (national average is 249): New Hampshire: 257; Wisconsin 249; Vermont 260, Massachusetts 254, Minnesota 252, Iowa 253.
NAEP 2005 Science Assessment is here
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As recently as 2008, Locke High School here was one of the nation's worst failing schools, and drew national attention for its hallway beatings, bathroom rapes and rooftop parties held by gangs. For every student who graduated, four others dropped out.Now, two years after a charter school group took over, gang violence is sharply down, fewer students are dropping out, and test scores have inched upward. Newly planted olive trees in Locke's central plaza have helped transform the school's concrete quadrangle into a place where students congregate and do homework.
"It's changed a lot," said Leslie Maya, a senior. "Before, kids were ditching school, you'd see constant fights, the lunches were nasty, the garden looked disgusting. Now there's security, the garden looks prettier, the teachers help us more."
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In the last couple weeks, we've seen the dispiriting spectacle of layoff notices going to nearly 500 Milwaukee Public Schools teachers. This includes some excellent ones let go simply because they have less seniority. This will mean even bigger average class sizes - and further declines in quality - for a district already struggling badly. And a clear culprit is the teachers union.The union has always been more concerned about its veteran teachers, more worried about pensions than starting salaries for new teachers. Union officials have argued that this "career ladder" will attract new teachers, but that's nonsense: What twentysomething teacher is thinking about a retirement that is at least 30 years away? Milwaukee teachers were already part of the excellent state pension system, yet back in the late 1990s, the union successfully pushed for an unneeded, supplementary plan that used local tax dollars to sweeten the pension for a select group of long-term teachers.
MPS officials argue that none of the recent layoffs would have been necessary if the union would agree to switch from its Aetna insurance plan to a lower-cost plan offered through United Healthcare. This could save the district some $48 million, enough to prevent any job layoffs for teachers, school board president Michael Bonds claims. "I'm not aware of any place in the nation that pays 100 percent of teachers' health care benefits and doesn't require a contribution from those who choose to take a more expensive plan," Bonds told the press.
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This isn't actually about vouchers. It's about a new government report (pdf) on a school vouchers program in Washington, D.C., that reveals just how perversely narrow our view of "student achievement" has become.I wonder how much was spent per student in the voucher schools vs the traditional public districts?Issued this week by the Education Department, the report is the final evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program ordered by Congress.
The program was the first federally funded private school voucher program in the country. Since 2004, more than 3,700 students -- most of them black or Hispanic -- have been awarded scholarships, each worth up to $7,500 tuition. Since Congress refused to reauthorize the program, no new students are being accepted.
The new evaluation of the program is remarkable for how it describes student achievement. It says: "There is no conclusive evidence that the OSP affected student achievement."
What is student achievement? In this report it is all about standardized test scores. The evaluation says:
"On average, after at least four years students who were offered (or used) scholarships had reading and math test scores that were statistically similar to those who were not offered scholarships."
Somewhat related: Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold voted to kill the DC Voucher program, along with the Democrat majority.
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America needs to make "fundamental, dramatic change" to the kind of education called for in the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said Friday in a meeting with local educators in Mill Valley.
The nation's education chief said the federal government should reward rather than punish struggling schools, that it should support art, music and physical education classes in addition to math and science and that it should encourage reforms that come from the local level, rather than imposing them from on high."The law needs to be less punitive. Right now, there are 50 ways for schools to fail for every way there is for them to succeed," Duncan said. "And we have to make sure students have a more well-rounded education, not just in high school, but in the first and second grade."
But Duncan had few specific examples of those changes, which he outlined before a crowd of Marin and Sonoma teachers, administrators and school board members at an event hosted by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma, at Tamalpais High School.
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"The devil is in the details, obviously," Paul Hauffe, director of business services in the Neenah Joint School District, said Friday. "And how will it affect one district versus another, and what actually is the change going to be? We're keeping an eye on it."Wisconsin education leaders on Thursday praised the proposed plan, which would do away with $900 million in property tax credits for homeowners and instead give the money directly to schools.
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25mb mp3 audio file. Much more on the increased adult to adult expenditures and staff time in the Madison School District here.
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Name-calling going on in the city belies reality that education budgets being slashed across Western CanadaFor weeks now there has been an entertaining fight going on between the Vancouver School Board and the B.C. Education Ministry. It has often devolved into petty name-calling. There have been public tears, accusations and counter-accusations.
The public doesn't quite know who to believe.
Boards in B.C. have to balance their budgets by law. The Vancouver board says it has a $17-million shortfall, mostly because the province doesn't give it enough money to operate. Balancing its budget will mean closing schools, the board chair has said, which will be a blow to many parents and their children.
The government blames the problem on the incompetence of the board. It remains to be seen just how long Education Minister Margaret MacDiarmid will allow the current group of trustees to continue running the show.
Such drama.
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Barry Garelick, via email:
Earlier this month, the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI)--a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)--issued the final version of its math standards for K-12.
The draft standards were released in March and CCSSI allowed the public to submit comments on the draft via their website. Over 10,000 comments were received. The U.S. Coalition for World Class Math was one of the commenter's and I had a hand in drafting comments. We were concerned with the draft standards' use of the word "understand" and pointed out that the use of this verb results in an interpretation by different people for different purposes. I am pleased to see that the final version of the standards has greatly reduced the use of the word "understand", but I remain concerned that 1) it still is used for some standards, resulting in the same problems we raised in our comments, and 2) the word "understand" in some instances has been replaced with "explain".
I am not against teaching students the conceptual underpinnings of procedures. I do not believe, however, that it is necessary to require students to then be able to recite the reasons why a particular procedure or algorithm works; i.e., to provide justification. At lower grade levels, some students will understand such explanations, but many will not. And even those who do may have trouble articulating the reasons. The key is whether they understand how such procedure is to be applied, and what the particular procedure represents. For example, does a student know how to figure out how many 2/3 ounce servings of yogurt are in a ¾ ounce container? If the student knows that the solution is to divide ¾ by 2/3, that should provide evidence that the student understands what fractional division means, without having to ask them to explain what the relationship is between multiplication and division and to show why the "invert and multiply" rule works each and every time.
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A few years ago a "contemporary artist" named Judi Werthein made headlines when she distributed specially designed and equipped sneakers to Mexicans waiting to cross the U. S. border. She called her piece "Brinco," from the Spanish word for "jump." Sneakers are also apt here. Ms. Werthein's shoes--equipped with a compass, map, flashlight, and medication--were intended to assist people engaging in illegal immigration.Dipti Desai, who directs the art education program at New York University's Steinhardt School, thinks that "Brinco" should be studied in America's art classrooms. At the National Art Education Association (NAEA) convention in April, she praised contemporary artists who use "a wide range of practices" to criticize U. S. immigration policy. If like-minded NAEA members can persuade Congress, your children may soon be studying works like "Brinco" in school.
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The school levy credit shows up as a reduction on property tax bills mailed in December, and killing it would be difficult politically.But according to Dale Knapp of the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance, the proposal would simply move money around and would have little effect on the problems schools face.
"Some districts will pay less, some will pay slightly more, but the schools will be in the same boat they were before," he said.
The state uses the school levy tax credit to help reduce property taxes that provide local money for schools. It was created in 1996 and it has grown by more than 400 percent since.
Evers stressed that putting the tax credit money into the aid formula, then redistributing it to schools under a reworked formula, would not result in a net increase statewide in property taxes. It would, however, mean higher or lower taxes for individuals, depending on their school district.
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New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg just spent 20 minutes speaking with New York Times' chairman Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. at the New York Forum.Following are some of the highlights from that conversation:
- The government's first job is to promote economic activity. Give people the ability to enjoy life, keep food on plate, roof on head.
- The big problem NY State faces is that its number one industry is finance. Washington has forgotten that the economic engine for the United States is finance. Nothing works without it. Credit derivative swaps don't sound good, so the government decided to go after the banks. That is potentially very damaging to the country. If you want to create jobs you have to have banks willing to provide loans. You can't have it both ways.
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Improving public education remains the top goal of Mayor Karl Dean as his administration and the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce begin work on a new five-year economic development plan.Education is the key to bringing higher-paying technology jobs to Nashville, a key focus of the so-called Partnership 2020 initiative outlined at a chamber gathering Monday afternoon.
It's a new take on the program the city and the chamber first launched in 1990, which most recently has been known as Partnership 2010 and has been credited with bringing more than 600 new companies to the area over those two decades.
"Our focus has changed," the mayor said before addressing chamber members. "There will be more of an emphasis on facets of our economy such as music, where a lot of the technology jobs will be created. But education is the single biggest thing we need to get right."
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Committing a future board to making cuts -- particularly when this is an election year -- was difficult for some trustees to swallow, but the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board passed a balanced budget late Tuesday night.The Ottawa-Carleton proposed budget was C$731,100,000 for 67,511 students (C$10,829/student). Madison spends US$15,241 per student.Weary applause broke out after the final vote was tallied and board chair Cathy Curry declared the process over for another year.
"Superintendent Clarke, your blood pressure can go right back down to normal levels," she joked.
With the public school board facing a $14.9-million deficit, it was Michael Clarke, the board's chief financial
officer, who devised a two-year plan that would see trustees approve some cuts for the 2010-2011 school year and some for the following year.
Otherwise, Clarke said, a year from now, the board could face even tougher challenges and have less money to address them.
But with a school board election in the fall and fears the proposed cuts could cause unnecessary grief for the public, some trustees opposed the idea of a two-year plan.
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Marcus Walker & Matthew Karnitschnig:
Chancellor Angela Merkel roundly rebuffed U.S. President Barack Obama's call for Germans to aid the global recovery by spending more and relying less on exports, even as she warned that Europe's own financial crisis is far from over.In an interview with The Wall Street Journal in her Berlin chancellery, an unapologetic Ms. Merkel said the nations that share the beleaguered euro have merely bought some time to fix the flaws in their monetary union. She called on the Group of 20 industrial and developing nations meeting in Toronto this weekend to send a signal that tougher financial-market regulation is on its way to dispel the impression that momentum is fading amid resistance by big banks.
She took aim at an idea voiced by France, the U.S. and others that Germany could help global producers by spurring its persistently weak consumer demand. The latest call came in a letter last Friday from Mr. Obama to the G-20, in which he asked big exporters--Germany, China and Japan--to rebalance global demand by boosting consumer spending rather than exports.
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On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Education issued its final evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program -- aka school vouchers.To review, the federally funded voucher program is on life support. The Democratic Congress has thus far resisted attempts to reauthorize the program. The Obama administration last year budgeted enough money to allow current voucher holders to complete their high school educations, but not enough to allow new applicants; Congress has maintained that approach since.
So will the study move the ball? Here's what it found: (a) "There is no conclusive evidence that the [voucher program] affected student achievement." (b) The program "significantly improved students' chances of graduating from high school" -- by 12 percent. And (c), the program "raised parents', but not students', ratings of school safety and satisfaction."
An initial glance at those results -- no rise in test scores, but a significant rise in graduation rates -- would fall into the category of mixed results. And mixed results, given the heated political climate under which the voucher program operates, means plenty of room for spin.
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The Fulton County Board of Education gave final approval Tuesday to a $803.1 million budget for the 2011 school year.Fulton County Schools statistics. Notes and links on Madison's per student spending here.Although the district is still waiting on numbers from the tax assessor's office, the final tally was based on increasing the millage rate by 1 mill.
"This has been the must difficult budget year that I've ever seen," said Superintendent Cindy Loe.
The board is expected to tentatively adopt the millage rate at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the district's administrative center. It will then hold three public hearings: on July 6 at 11 a.m. at the administrative center and at 6 p.m. at Dunwoody Springs Elementary Charter School in Sandy Springs; and 10:30 a.m. July 15 at the administrative center.
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The Department of Education released the final report of the evaluation of the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program today. The major finding of this report, and it is MAJOR, is that students who were randomly selected to receive vouchers had an 82% graduation rate. That's 12 percentage points higher than the students who didn't receive vouchers. Students who actually used their vouchers had graduation rates that were 21% higher. Even better, the subgroup of students who received vouchers and came from designated Schools in Need of Improvement (SINI schools) had graduation rates that were 13 percentage points higher than the same subgroup of students who weren't offered vouchers-and the effect was 20 percentage points higher for the SINI students who used their vouchers!This is a huge finding. The sorry state of graduation rates, especially for disadvantaged students, has been the single largest indicator that America's schools are failing to give every student an equal chance at success in life. Graduating high school is associated with a number of critical life outcomes, ranging from lifetime earnings to incarceration rates. And, despite countless efforts and attempts at reform, changing the dismal state of graduation rates has been an uphill battle.
Of course, the uphill battle will continue. As most are aware, Congress voted to kill the DC voucher program last year, despite evidence that the program had significantly improved reading achievement for students who received scholarships. That evidence didn't count for much when faced with opposition from teachers' unions.
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What's one sure-fire way to stress out parents? Shorten the school day.This expenditure appears to continue the trend of increased adult to adult expenditures, which, in this case, is at the expense of classroom (adult to student) time.And that's exactly what the Madison school district is proposing, starting next year, for grades six to 12. According to a letter recently sent to middle school staff by Pam Nash, the district's assistant superintendent of secondary schools, ending school early on Wednesdays would allow time for teachers to meet to discuss professional practices and share ideas for helping students succeed in school.
"I am pleased to announce that as a result of your hard work, investment and commitment, as well as the support of central administration and Metro busing, together we will implement Professional Collaboration Time for the 10-11 school year!" Nash wrote enthusiastically.
Despite Nash's letter, district administrators appeared to backpedal on Monday on whether the plan is actually a done deal. Thus far there has not been public discussion of the proposal, and some teachers are expressing reservations.
Some middle school teachers, however, who also happen to be parents in the district, say they have some serious concerns about shortening the day for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders. Not only will there be less time spent on academics each week, they say, but the additional unsupervised hours will pose a problem for parents already struggling to keep tabs on their adolescent kids.
Related: Ripon Superintendent Richard Zimman:
"Beware of legacy practices (most of what we do every day is the maintenance of the status quo), @12:40 minutes into the talk - the very public institutions intended for student learning has become focused instead on adult employment. I say that as an employee. Adult practices and attitudes have become embedded in organizational culture governed by strict regulations and union contracts that dictate most of what occurs inside schools today. Any impetus to change direction or structure is met with swift and stiff resistance. It's as if we are stuck in a time warp keeping a 19th century school model on life support in an attempt to meet 21st century demands." Zimman went on to discuss the Wisconsin DPI's vigorous enforcement of teacher licensing practices and provided some unfortunate math & science teacher examples (including the "impossibility" of meeting the demand for such teachers (about 14 minutes)). He further cited exploding teacher salary, benefit and retiree costs eating instructional dollars ("Similar to GM"; "worry" about the children given this situation).
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During a debate last February in Tallahassee on a proposal to expand a scholarship program that allows poor children to go to private schools, state Sen. Frederica Wilson decried the legislation."We're taking children out of the public schools and making them weaker," the Miami Democrat said. "This is not America."
A recent study by a highly regarded Northwestern University researcher shows how wrong Wilson was. Florida voters are fortunate that the Legislature passed the bill and Gov. Charlie Crist signed it into law.
The study found public schools' performance improved when they were faced with the possibility of losing students to private schools.
At issue is the Florida Tax Credit Scholarships, which provide vouchers to children from poor families.
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Channel3000.com, via a kind reader:
Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Neumann is proposing to get rid of state certification for teachers as part of an education reform plan.Related: Janet Mertz: An Email to Madison Superintendent Dan Nerad on Math Teacher Hiring Criteria.Neumann also is proposing a series of incentives that will encourage private schools and public charter schools to compete with and replace failing public schools.
Neumann is outlining his plans during news conferences in Milwaukee, Madison and Green Bay.
In a phone interview, he said the state should provide suggested qualifications for educators, but actual hiring decisions should be left up to local school boards, superintendents and principals.
Neumann acknowledges that many of his proposals would need approval from the Legislature.
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The San Francisco school board will face the unsavory task Tuesday of approving a budget that cuts virtually every program offered to the city's schoolchildren.Madison's 2009-2010 budget was $370,287,471, according to the Citizen's Budget, $15,241 per student (24,295 students). More here.Art would be cut. Music too. Counselors. Physical education. Books. Summer school. Teachers. Custodians. Administrators.
All cut by a little or a lot.
The 444-page budget document up for a vote Tuesday, the board's last meeting before summer break, has been months in the works as district officials struggled to figure out how to balance the books despite a $113 million budget shortfall expected over the next two years.
"It's not a good budget," said board member Rachel Norton. "How could you say that cutting 20 percent of the programs is a good budget? But it really could have been so much worse."
The $578 million spending plan includes $255 million in restricted money that has to be spent on specific programs, including special education, school meals and facilities. The rest pays for salaries and the day-to-day costs of educating the district's nearly 50,000 students and running its 105 schools, 34 preschool sites and nine charter schools.
San Francisco's 3.4MB budget document includes detailed per school allocations (numbered page 51, document page 55)
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In the Legislature, Porter chaired key education committees and proved to be a quick study who mastered the intricacies of complex legislation. As then-Gov. Zell Miller's floor leader, he sponsored the HOPE scholarship bill that has paid college tuition for Georgia students and funded voluntary pre-kindergarten programs.Last year, Porter popped into a third-grade classroom at Saxon Heights Elementary School when he saw a teacher giving a lesson on Thurgood Marshall. Porter, a longtime lawmaker, newspaper publisher and lawyer, sat down and observed before finally asking, "May I?"
With the teacher's permission, he then recounted the life and times of the groundbreaking NAACP lawyer and first African-American to serve as a U.S. Supreme Court justice
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I plan to write in more detail about why I dislike the tradition of explaining property tax levy changes in terms of the impact on the owner of a house assessed at a value of $250,000. The editorial in this morning's State Journal is evidence of how reliance on the $250,000 house trope can lead to mischief.Blog address: http://edhughesschoolblog.wordpress.com/, RSS Feed.Here are the third and fourth paragraphs of the editorial:
"The Madison School Board just agreed to a preliminary budget that will increase the district's tax on a $250,000 home by about 9 percent to $2,770. The board was dealt a difficult hand by the state. But it didn't do nearly enough to trim spending.
"Madison Area Technical College is similarly poised to jack up its tax bite by about 8 percent to $348. MATC is at least dealing with higher enrollment. But the 8 percent jump follows a similar increase last year. And MATC is now laying the groundwork for a big building referendum."
I'm glad Ed is writing online. Two Madison School Board seats are open during the spring, 2011 election: the two currently occupied by Ed and Marj Passman.
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The publicly financed lobby for New Jersey's school boards is spending millions to renovate its headquarters, even as local districts face massive state aid cuts, defeated budgets and construction proposals, and pending teacher layoffsThe New Jersey School Boards Association collects more than $7 million a year from 588 member districts, which are legally required to join. It has socked away so much in dues and conference fees -- $12.3 million, an amount greater than the group's annual operating budget -- that it is paying cash for the improvements.
It also paid $1.6 million in cash for 10 suburban acres where it had hoped to build an $18 million conference center. But the board abandoned that plan and put the land back on the market.
The most recent projected cost for the headquarter's renovations was $6.3 million. But that figure could grow an additional $600,000 to $1 million, as the contractor decides whether to fix or replace the building's walls of glass windows, officials said. In the meantime, its 70 employees -- including five lobbyists paid to influence legislation -- are working in leased office space.
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Governor-in-Waiting Andrew Cuomo loves how lame duck Governor David Paterson has grown a set of balls and has rammed through nearly half the state budget through the piecemeal passage of budget extenders -- daring any legislator who votes no to be accused of voting to shut down state government.The state fiscal year is nearly one-quarter over -- and there's still no adopted state budget. Governor Paterson has twice rammed through extenders to keep the state government operating -- and incorporated components of his budget proposal each time. Next up, supposedly, is the diciest and arguably most important part of the budget; education. On Fred Dicker's radio show on Friday, Andrew Cuomo suggested that the Governor embed a property tax cap in the next budget extender. What's that about? A property tax cap has nothing to do with the state budget. A bit of advice to the wanna-be Governor: take the job of being governor seriously. I serve on a school board in Westchester County -- and we've taken a look at the cost of state mandates on our budget (ergo our school tax burden) and in the aggregate they total over 15% of our entire school budget. Neither the Governor nor the legislature seems to be able to deal with rolling back state mandates (the unfunded costs for which get pushed down to local municipalities and school districts). That's hard. Advocating for a property tax cap? That's easy.
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In the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff category:Otis Mathis, the president of the Detroit Board of Education, was accused of fondling himself for 20 minutes in a meeting with the system's superintendent and quit right after the incident, but now is seeking to take back his resignation, the Detroit Free Press reports.
In this article, the newspaper says that board Vice President Anthony Adams plans to move ahead and post the vacancy.
Superintendent Teresa N. Gueyser filed a detailed complaint addressed to Adams about Mathis, saying he used a handkerchief while masturbating in front of her the entire time she was speaking.
Her complaint says that she has witnessed other unacceptable acts by Mathis and that she had informed him some time ago to have no physical contact with her, including handshaking.
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Poor attendance has been plaguing the beleaguered Newark schools--but the teachers are the ones missing class.Nearly half of all Newark teachers took at least two weeks of sick leave last year, and more than a quarter of them took three weeks or more off.
The district instituted an attendance-improvement program in October, but even so about 7% of the district's teachers are absent on an average day, nearly twice the urban-district average of 4%, said Valerie Merritt, a spokeswoman for the system.
With more than 40,000 students, Newark represents one of the largest and most vexing school systems in the Northeast. The district was taken over by the state in 1995 and since then has seen three state-appointed superintendents and little change in student performance
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Don Severson, Vicki McKenna and Brian Schimming discuss what happened to the Madison School District's $23,000,000 2005 maintenance referendum. 26MB mp3 audio file.
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Scot, looks like the Son of Stimulus, although stalled, is still on the agenda in Washington. You know, the plan to bail out local and state units of government with another boatload of "one time" money. Predictably, they are dressing this up as the salvation of "teachers" and will use the inflated figure of 300,000 teachers whose will be canned if this bloat doesn't pass. But all it means is the federalization of local and state deficits, which will only accelerate our descent into Greece-like insolvency. At some point this ridiculous spending spree has to stop, because it has already exceeded our ability to pay. But, I know, "It's for the kids!"Ross Actually, I'd say "It's for our future.'' Thousands of Wisconsin teachers are facing layoffs, and students from all across the state could be forced into larger classes with less personal attention, fewer course choices and even cuts to instructional time. This responsible education funding plan would provide badly needed support in Wisconsin to save or create 6,100 jobs. Education has to be a top priority. After decades of underfunding at the hands of Republican administration and failed promises made through ``No Child Left Behind,'' we have a simple choice: Support education and our children, or give up on this country's future greatness.
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THE state of Illinois has a rather crude way of coping with its ballooning budget deficit. It stops paying bills. Already, it has failed to pay more than $5 billion-worth. State legislators are paying their own office rent to avoid eviction. Schools and public universities are having their budgets cut.Illinois owes Shore Community Services, a non-profit agency in suburban Chicago, some $1.6m for services to the mentally disabled. The agency has had to lay off a dozen staff. Jerry Gulley, the executive director, says his outfit's line of credit could be exhausted soon. The bank will not accept the state's IOUs as collateral. "That's how sad it is," shrugs Mr Gulley.
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Wisconsin State Journal Editorial:
It's beginning to look a lot like another lump of coal will land on local property taxpayers just before the holidays in December.Related: Wisconsin State Tax Based K-12 Spending Growth Far Exceeds University Funding.That's when tax bills go out to mailboxes. And so far, the tax burden is shaping up to soar at a rate far out of scale with ordinary people's ability to pay.
The Madison School Board just agreed to a preliminary budget that will increase the district's tax on a $250,000 home by about 9 percent to $2,770. The board was dealt a difficult hand by the state. But it didn't do nearly enough to trim spending.
Madison Area Technical College is similarly poised to jack up its tax bite by 9 percent to $348. MATC is at least dealing with higher enrollment. But the 9 percent jump follows a nearly 8 percent increase last year. And MATC is now laying the groundwork for a big building referendum.
Then comes Dane County and the city of Madison.
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If you pop into a toilet on the Seattle waterfront this summer, you might see over-flowing bins. The reason? A polite notice explains that "because of 2010 budget reductions", the Seattle government can no longer afford to "service this comfort station" each day. Hence the dirt.Jacob Greber:Investors would do well to take note. In recent months, America's fiscal mess has assumed a rather surreal air. On paper, the country's federal-level deficit and debt numbers certainly look very scary. But in practical terms, the impact of those ever-swelling zeroes still seems distinctly abstract.
Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said the U.S. may soon face higher borrowing costs on its swelling debt and called for a "tectonic shift" in fiscal policy to contain borrowing.Clearly, public and private organizations must endeavor to manage the funds available wisely."Perceptions of a large U.S. borrowing capacity are misleading," and current long-term bond yields are masking America's debt challenge, Greenspan wrote in an opinion piece posted on the Wall Street Journal's website. "Long-term rate increases can emerge with unexpected suddenness," such as the 4 percentage point surge over four months in 1979-80, he said.
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After years of failed attempts, Rhode Island finally has a statewide school-financing formula, its first in two decades.The complex formula, which was developed by the state Department of Education and researchers at Brown University, goes into effect for the 2011-12 school year and is intended to redistribute about $705 million a year in direct aid to school districts, charter and state-operated schools -- without adding a lot of new money to the system.
Critics have been quick to point out that the formula creates a new system of winners and losers, giving more state aid to districts where student enrollments have increased or that serve high numbers of low-income students, while cutting districts that have lost students or serve fewer poor students.
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A growing chorus of state and federal policymakers, large foundations, and business leaders across the country are calling for states to adopt a common, rigorous body of college- and career-ready skills and knowledge in English and mathematics that all K-12 students will be expected to master by the time they graduate.Related: California State Academic Content Standards Commission:This report looks at the history of efforts to create common education standards, in particular the Common Core State Standards Initiative. It also describes factors California may consider when deciding whether to adopt them.
Highlights:
The Common Core is the latest effort to create rigorous, common academic standards among states
California is supporting the concept of common standards, but state law calls for further review and leaves the adoption decision to the State Board of Education
Issues surrounding the adoption include the quality of the Common Core standards and their relationship to the state's current standards as well as costs and other implementation concerns
Common Core or not, California might decide to review its current standards and expectations for students
On January 7, 2010, the Governor signed into law Senate Bill X5 1 (Steinberg). The bill calls for California's academic content standards in English Language Arts and Mathematics to be examined against the Common Core Standards that were released in final form on June 2, 2010. The bill also calls for the establishment of the California Academic Content Standards Commission. The Governor and Legislature have made the required appointments to the commission.
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The five candidates for Oklahoma's superintendent of schools were asked Wednesday how they would reform education in a state that ranks near the bottom of the nation for funding and also lags behind in the number of college graduates.All agreed the state's education system is in need of change, but differed in their vision of a successful system.
Democrat Jerry Combrink said after 30 years as the superintendent of two school districts in rural southeastern Oklahoma, he knows students need options, and not every student is going to college.
"I believe that we need to prepare students for the future they want. Develop a two-track system ... so students who are not going to college are not diluting the teaching efforts of the students who are."
His opponent in the July 26 primary, state Sen. Susan Paddack, D-Ada, said the state needs a strategic plan that will use test results to track improvements and failures.
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This paper analyzes the flow of state pension benefit payments relative to asset levels and contributions. Assuming future state contributions fund the full present value of new benefits, many state systems will run out of money in 10-20 years if some attempt is not made to improve the funding of liabilities that have already been accrued. The expected shortfalls raise the possibility that the federal government will be faced with a decision as to whether to bail out states driven to insolvency by their pension programs.
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Facing an estimated $427 million FY 2011 deficit, the Chicago Board of Education gave CPS CEO Ron Huberman emergency power to raise class sizes and lay-off almost 3,000 public school teachers. The schools' chief has not agreed to follow through with that plan quite yet. Instead, he's offering a "menu of possible concessions" to the Chicago Teachers Union and its new president-elect, Karen Lewis. Neither side will disclose what's on the list, although Lewis told the Reader's Hunter Clauss that she's hoping to survey her members this summer to find out exactly where they are willing to budge. "These official actions were partly procedural, and partly a way for Huberman and the board to publicly and skillfully back the teachers union into a corner," adds Catalyst's Sarah Karp.In several print and television interviews yesterday morning, Lewis offered Huberman some alternative ways to trim costs. The new president set her sights on the city's contracts with consultants, which she said cost $300 million per year. She also discussed trimming the central office payroll and eliminating a $60 million program that provides curriculum packages and coaching to high schools. But to get a clear sense of the Daley administration's priorities, and find out where waste might exist, Lewis stressed that the budgeting process needs to be considerably more transparent to teachers and parents alike.
It took repeated Freedom of Information Act requests, for example, for the city to post basic payroll information online. And they've ignored consistent appeals to provide serious internal data on the effect of the city's tax increment financing system (TIF) on schools. From her acceptance speech this weekend (watch it here):
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Education Week, via a kind reader:
EdWeek Maps is the only place to find comparable, reliable, readily accessible data on graduation rates and other indicators for every school district and high school in the country.The Editorial Projects in Education Research Center is proud to present this powerful online mapping tool to help the public, policymakers, and educational leaders combat the nation's graduation crisis. EdWeek Maps is the only place to find comparable, reliable data on graduation rates for every school district and high school in the country.
This Web-based application allows users to easily map out graduation rates by zooming in on any of the nation's individual school districts. Users can then access detailed information for that district or any of its high schools.
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A maintenance referendum may well be a tougher sell this time around than it was when back-to-back, five-year maintenance referendums were approved in 1999 and 2005. Not only do voters feel pinched by the ongoing recession, but taxpayers are facing a likely $225 hike in property taxes this year as part of the effort to balance the Madison schools budget, which took a heavy hit in reduced state aid.Much more on the 2005 referendum and the District's 2010-2011 budget (including what appears to be a 10% property tax increase here.Community support could also be compromised because a growing number of Madison School Board members have become frustrated by what they say is the district's reluctance to adequately account for how maintenance dollars have been spent.
As chair of the School Board's finance and operations committee, Lucy Mathiak has persistently asked for a complete accounting of maintenance jobs funded through the 2005 referendum. The minutes from a March 2009 committee meeting confirm that district administrators said they were working on such a report but Mathiak says the information she's received so far has been less than clear.
"Trying to get this information through two administrations, and then trying to figure it out, is exhausting. The whole thing is a mess. I'm not, by any means, the first board member to ask these kind of questions regarding accountability," Mathiak says. "You ask for straightforward documentation and you don't get it, or when it comes it's a data dump that's almost impossible to understand."
That lack of transparency might make it more difficult for other School Board members to get on board with another referendum.
"We have a responsibility to provide an accurate record of what happened with the funding," says board member Arlene Silveira, who has supported all other school referendums. "I think people understand that other projects may come up and there may be changes from the original plan, but you do need to tell them what was done and what wasn't done and why. It affects (the district's) credibility in the community."
Related: "Accountability is important, now more than ever".
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For seventh-grader Kyle Scarpa, budget strains affecting schools across the country are hitting where it hurts.In the wake of the worst recession in more than half a century, many communities find themselves with no choice but to cut funding for education. In Downe Township, N.J., the cuts are hitting where it hurts.
In addition to freezing wages and jettisoning its librarian, the school he attends here in southern New Jersey will cancel his after-school remedial math and literacy classes. His teacher believes the tutoring helped him build confidence and get his average grade up to a C from a D.
"He could fall through the cracks," says teacher Rose Garrison, noting that Kyle is among four kids in her class having trouble keeping up. "When you're teaching exponents and you have kids who don't know the multiplication tables, how are you going to teach them?"
The struggles at Downe Township School illustrate the challenges public schools face across America as a convergence of factors--ravaged state and local finances, tapped-out taxpayers and a reform push by the Obama administration--force wrenching change. As the school year winds down, educators are grasping for new ways to do more with less, and to remedy an embarrassing reality: Despite spending more per student than the average developed country, U.S. schools perform below average in core subjects such as math and reading.
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States significantly increased buy-in from local teachers' unions in round two of the Race to the Top competition, but made far less progress in enlisting districts or expanding the number of students affected by the states' education reform plans.Those patterns emerged from an Education Week analysis of applications from 29 states and the District of Columbia, all of which entered both rounds of the $4 billion federal grant contest.
Although the changes made in applications from the first to the second round varied widely from state to state, union buy-in increased on average by 22 percentage points, with states such as Florida, Michigan, and Wisconsin making big leaps.
At the same time, the overall level of district support and students affected in the 30 applications barely budged, mostly owing to California's loss of support from about 500 districts representing nearly 2 million students. That negated progress other states made in improving buy-in.
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Newly minted Nevada senate candidate Sharron Angle is a kook. That's what Sen. Harry Reid's people are telling reporters. ABC, CNN, and other outlets seem to agree, noting that Mrs. Angle wants to shutter the federal Department of Education, get the U.S. out of the U.N., phase out Social Security, and eliminate the IRS.I'm not an optimist with respect to our exploding Federalism and the related money printing approach to spending.We haven't yet heard her explanations of these positions -- many of which can be justified in the proper context. It's certainly possible that she is a little eccentric (that prison massage program doesn't pass the smell test). But this much is certain: It is not kooky to favor the elimination of the Department of Education. That this proposal is routinely labeled "extremist" is a reminder of the one-way ratchet that operates in government. Enshrine something in a federal agency and it becomes sacrosanct. Democrats cheerlead for federal programs because they are the party of government, and Republicans quietly go along because they're afraid.
But if Republicans know how to argue for smaller government -- as Gov. Chris Christie is demonstrating in New Jersey -- they need not be intimidated. There are hundreds of federal programs that could be eliminated tomorrow with only the happiest consequences for the nation. And yes, the whole Department of Education could be scrapped. It vacuums up money and produces ... what exactly?
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There is perhaps no greater debate in America than the one surrounding taxes, whether it is at the national, state, or local level. While taxes serve the important purpose of funding government programs, they also bear quite a burden on taxpayers. For example, property taxes account for the majority of revenue for local governments across the country.1 Pennsylvania is no different. In 2000, property taxes accounted for nearly $10 billion of revenue in Pennsylvania, which was 30 percent of total local government revenues and 70 percent of all local government tax revenues.2Property taxes accounted for an even larger piece of the pie when it came to school districts: approximately 85 percent of the total tax revenues for Pennsylvania school districts in 2000.3 Nearly half of all school district revenue came from the collection of property taxes.4 Only counties relied more heavily on property taxes as a source of revenue.5
The state‟s heavy reliance on property taxes by school districts hit the wallets of Pennsylvania taxpayers and led to several attempts by legislators to harness the spending.6 The most recent attempt was Act 1 of 2006.7 Act 1 attempts to do what other legislation failed to do: provide property tax relief to all Pennsylvanians, but it, too, falls short of its mark.8
Although it was enacted more than three years ago, the Act still plays a prominent role today. Less than two years ago, homeowners started reaping the benefits of Act 1 when the first reduction in property tax bills occurred.9 Last fall, taxpayers could have faced another referendum on their ballots, asking whether they favor increasing the local income tax to offset a decrease in property tax.10 Officials faulted public confusion for the last referendum overwhelmingly failing across the Commonwealth.11 Also, last year‟s budget impasse resulted in new legislation that could significantly alter property tax relief in the future.12
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J. H. Snider, via a kind reader:
Consider just a few of the questions whose answers might help a community's leaders and citizens make better decisions about how to improve their schools:Well worth reading.Parents, teachers, administrators, and taxpayers have legitimate reasons to ask questions like these. But it has been incredibly hard for them to do so. One reason is that much public information remains locked in the file cabinets of America's more than 14,000 school districts. Another is that even if the information is posted to school websites, it may be posted in ways, such as a scanned document, that Internet search engines cannot read. Public information that should be available instantaneously and at no cost, like so much other information now available via search engines, instead takes hundreds of work-lifetimes and a fortune to gather--if it can be gathered at all.
- What has been said and written about school start times in districts with comparable demographics and financial resources, but better student test scores?
- What is the relationship between student test scores and systems for electing school board members in comparable school districts?
- How do superintendent contracts vary in comparable districts?
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For young teachers looking to get their first gig after graduating from education school, times are tough.In New York City, the Success Charter network advertised 135 openings; it received 8,453 resumes in response. In Westchester, a school announced seven openings. More than 3,000 candidates responded.
New York isn't alone: School districts across the country, faced with budget shortfalls, have put a freeze on hiring any new educators. This is bad news for newly minted teachers entering the work force.
There is a silver lining, however: This glut of new educators gives administrators a golden opportunity to revamp rules protecting bad teachers.
Reformers can take advantage of this surplus of labor by pointing out that anyone who doesn't like new rules that will improve the nation's quality of education can quickly be replaced by those who will play ball.
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Ravitch was assistant secretary of education in the administration of George H.W. Bush and a board member of various right-wing think tanks, who has now become a leading critic of the market-based school "reform" that has been embraced by both Democrats and Republicans. Ravitch is "still looking" for an elected official to take a stand against these changes, but opposition is more likely to come from below. One encouraging piece of news is the landslide victory this week of the Caucus Of Rank-and-file Educators in the election for the leadership of the Chicago Teachers Union. --PG
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As a part of the economic stimulus package of January 2009 -- you may have heard of it -- the federal government created a $100 billion education fund for states that were willing to take bold action to reform and improve their schools.The fund, known as Race to the Top, is having the desired effect in many places. With state budgets in dire shape across the nation, it has provided a real incentive for states to look for ways to innovate in order to address real problems in the educational system -- failing schools, bureaucratic deadlock, the achievement gap between rich and poor students.
In Wisconsin, though, what it has inspired is something more like a few pro-forma changes and half-hearted applications.
Wisconsin ranked in the bottom half of all the states that applied for Race to the Top funding in the first round in March. (The federal government placed our state's application 26th out of 41 states and the District of Columbia that applied.)
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Ten years after Wisconsin overhauled its licensure system for public school educators, the first big wave of teachers is set to advance under the rules - and reports are mixed on whether the change has made a difference.Expectations for the new licensure regulations were high when they were first approved in 2000. In addition to requiring that teachers pass basic knowledge and skills tests and receive mentors for their first year in the profession, the rules also provided that teachers would have to demonstrate they had grown enough in their careers to attain a "professional" license.
For some beginning teachers, the new rules have been stressful additions to the start of an unfamiliar career with many bugs still left to be worked out. Others say they appreciate that they could set their own teaching goals and pursue related professional development activities while also reflecting on their experiences.
"I think teachers who really take the process seriously and do it with fidelity - they choose a goal that they really believe in and they want to achieve - that's fine, that's good, it serves its purpose," said Judy Gundry, a citywide mentor for educators with initial teaching licenses in Milwaukee Public Schools.
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For public employee unions - those representing police, firefighters, teachers, prison guards and agency workers of all kinds at the state and local levels - these are the worst of times.Despite record high membership and dues, and years of unparalleled clout in state capitols, public-sector unions find themselves on the defensive, desperately trying to hold onto past gains in the face of a skeptical press and angry voters. So far has the zeitgeist shifted against them that on one recent weekend, government employees were the butt of a "Saturday Night Live" skit, and the next day, a New York Times Magazine cover article proclaimed "The Teachers' Unions' Last Stand."
Public unions' traditional strength - the ability to finance their members' rising pay and benefits through tax increases - has become a liability. Although private-sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can't choose - they are, in effect, "captive consumers."
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Colorado is changing the rules for how teachers earn and keep the sweeping job protections known as tenure, long considered a political sacred cow around the country.Many education reform advocates consider tenure to be one of the biggest obstacles to improving America's schools because it makes removing mediocre or even incompetent teachers difficult. Teacher unions, meanwhile, have steadfastly defended tenure for decades.
Colorado's legislature changed tenure rules despite opposition from the state's largest teacher's union, a longtime ally of majority Democrats. Gov. Bill Ritter, also a Democrat, signed the bill into law last month.
After the bill survived a filibuster attempt and passed a key House vote, Democratic Rep. Nancy Todd, a 25-year teacher who opposed the measure, broke into tears.
"I don't question your motives," an emotional Todd said to the bill's proponents. "But I do want you to hear my heart because my heart is speaking for over 40,000 teachers in the state of Colorado who have been given the message that it is all up to them."
While other states have tried to modify tenure, Colorado's law was the boldest education reform in recent memory, according to Kate Walsh, the president of the Washington-based National Council on Teacher Quality, which promotes changing the way teachers are recruited and retained, including holding tenured teachers accountable with annual reviews.
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Madison School District Administration 2.8MB PDF:
I. IntroductionEvaluating the effectiveness of Madison School District expenditures on curriculum (such as math and reading recovery) along with professional development (adult to adult programs) has long been discussed by some Board and community members.
A. Title or topic - District Evaluation Protocol - The presentation is in response to the need to provide timely and prioritized information to the Board of Education around programs and interventions used within the District. The report describes a recommended approach to formalizing the program evaluation process within the District.B. Presenters
Kurt Kiefer - Chief Information Office/Director of Research and Evaluation
Lisa Wachtel- Executive Director of Teaching & Learning
Steve Hartley - Chief of StaffC. Background information - As part of the strategic plan it was determined that priority must be given to systematically collect data around programs and services provided within the district. The purposes for such information vary from determining program and intervention effectiveness for specific student outcomes, to customer satisfaction, to cost effectiveness analyses. In addition, at the December 2009 Board meeting the issue of conducting program evaluation in specific curricular areas was discussed. This report provides specific recommendations on how to coordinate such investigations and studies.
D. Action requested - The administration is requesting that the Board approve this protocol such that it becomes the model by which priority is established for conducting curricular, program, and intervention evaluations into the future.
II. Summary of Current Information
A. Synthesis of the topic· School districts are expected to continuously improve student achievement and ensure the effective use of resources. Evaluation is the means by which school systems determine the degree to which schools, programs, departments, and staff meet their goals as defined by their roles and responsibilities. It involves the collection of data that is then transformed into useful results to inform decisions. In particular, program evaluation is commonly defined as the systematic assessment of the operation and/or outcomes of a program, compared to a set of explicit or implicit standards as a means of contributing to the improvement of the program.
Program evaluation is a process. The first step to evaluating a program is to have a clear understanding of why the evaluation is being conducted in the first place. Focusing the evaluation helps an evaluator identify the most crucial questions and how those questions can be realistically answered given the context of the program and resources available. With a firm understanding of programs and/or activities that might be evaluated, evaluators consider who is affected by the program (stakeholders) and who might receive and or use information resulting from the evaluation (audiences). It is critical that the administration work with the
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In perhaps President Obama's most stealth campaign to date, the federal government has been slowly tightening its grip on the education sector to little fanfare. Rather than working through the democratic legislative process, this Administration has circumvented Congress to enact an ill-conceived education agenda that will weaken accountability, reduce transparency and minimize choice while only adding to the national deficit.
For close to four decades, the federal government has operated under the s