From the Folio and Jaxpoliticsonline.com
by Julie Delagal
Getting parents involved in their kids’ education is an idea with national resonance -- President Obama even mentioned it in his State of The Union address last month. But in Jacksonville, parents go beyond helping with homework and volunteering. At several local schools, they’ve established a new kind of funding mechanism to help keep schools in business: private foundations. Unlike PTA fundraisers and booster clubs, nonprofit corporate foundations are raising money not for extracurricular “perks,” but for core educational functions, like teacher pay.
One such foundation got its start last fall at Pine Forest Elementary School at of the Arts, a arts magnet school on Jacksonville’s Southside. The idea emerged when budget cuts threatened to knock three Pine Forest performing arts teachers from full-time status down to part-time status. After talking options with Principal Denise Ahearn, Pine Forest parent Jonathan Cantor, an architect at RS&H, teamed up with other parents to lay the groundwork for “Friends of Pine Forest.” Within two weeks of announcing their plans, $14,000 rolled in; more than half that amount from a single donor. That shot in the arm was enough to restore the visual arts teacher and the music teacher to full-time status -- the string orchestra teacher has been restored to four-fifths time – and has allowed programs like advanced strings, advanced art, and the spring play to continue uninterrupted.
“The vision of the foundation is not to just keep teachers’ salaries, but to enhance the quality of the programs,” says Cantor, who eventually hopes to feel the “same kind of energy” at Pine Forest that he felt touring the city’s performing arts high school, Douglas Anderson School of the Arts. As it happens, Douglas Anderson also benefits from community support through a charity, which is administered by the Jacksonville Community Foundation.
High school alumni are also stepping in to pick up the budgetary slack left by anemic state funding. The Terry Parker Alumni Association, a nonprofit foundation, was born three years ago in response to lean budget times, says one of its founding directors, Lindsey Brock.
Three years ago, Brock’s fellow alumnus Ricky Allen got a call about football players at Parker having to share helmets, because the school didn’t have enough money to purchase one for each player. That shocked alumni like Brock, an attorney and civic activist who is now running for City Council in Arlington’s District 1.
“When we were there, it was a model school. All of [former Congressman] Charlie Bennett’s military academy appointments came from Parker,” Brock says. He notes that along with financial woes, Parker was also experiencing a crisis in discipline — a crisis he says Principal Addison Davis has worked to turn around. The alumni group, now headed by Ricky Allen, held a fish fry and a charity golf tournament and raised $30,000 for the school in 2008. Although the desire to help began with the athletic program, the need goes well beyond the playing field. Says Brock, “our goal is to expand it to the arts and academics.” The association since decided to form a nonprofit 501(c)3 corporation. Over the past three years, it has raised more than $130,000.
Its success hasn’t gone unnoticed. The Terry Parker Alumni Association has become the go-to resource for other high schools in the county seeking to create nonprofit foundations, including several local high schools looking to emulate their program. Among them are Lee, Sandalwood, Raines, Wolfson, Mandarin, Forrest and Ed White, Brock says.
Duval County Schools spokeswoman Jill Johnson says the district isn’t tracking informal groups seeking to form nonprofit corporations, but notes that Terry Parker, Lee High School and Eugene Butler Middle School have all had success in raising funds and recruiting volunteers. “It’s certainly something we’re looking to cultivate in the district,” Johnson says.
Cantor and Brock are mindful of the “Florida Lottery risk” – the concern that outside financing will give the state or district room to decrease existing funding even more. “We, number one, did not want to be viewed as a replacement for funding from the district and state levels,” says Brock. “We wanted to << augment >>.” Brock says the group uses its fundraising efforts to spur involvement from Parker students. “We do a lot of matching,” he says. “We want the students to have some skin in the game.”
Cantor says that filling critical gaps with private money doesn’t let the legislature off the hook and School Board Member Betty Burney agrees. She says she will work to make sure Pine Forest, which is in her district, isn’t punished for parent’s fundraising initiative.
That’s important, says Brock, who notes that using foundation money only to fill in budget gaps would be a disincentive for action. “That kills morale,” he says. “That kills initiative."
http://jaxpoliticsonline.com/2011/02/18/courtesy-of-folio-weekly-private-foundations-fund-public-schools-core-functions/
Showing posts with label duval county public schools. Show all posts
Showing posts with label duval county public schools. Show all posts
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Saturday, February 12, 2011
High stakes testing is not the answer
TYexas has many of the same issues we have. -cp
From the Washinton Posts, Answer Sheet
By John Kuhn. school superintendent
I am besieged, by a hundred or more of the Legislators under Rick Perry. I have sustained a continual Bombardment of increased high-stakes testing and accountability-related bureaucracy and a cannonade of gross underfunding for 10 years at least and have lost several good men and women. The ruling party has demanded another round of pay cuts and furloughs, while the school house be put to the sword and our children's lunch money be taken in order to keep taxes low for big business. I am answering the demand with a (figurative) cannon shot, and the Texas flag still waves proudly from our flag pole. I shall never surrender the fight for the children of Perrin.
Then, I call on you my legislators in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy of public schools is declaring that spending on a shiny new high-stakes testing system is "non-negotiable"; that, in essence, we must save the test but not the teachers. The enemy of public schools is saying that Texas lawmakers won't raise 1 penny in taxes in order to save our schools.
If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and fight for the kids in these classrooms like an educator who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his community. Make education a priority!
With all due respect and urgency,
John Kuhn
Superintendent
From the Washinton Posts, Answer Sheet
By John Kuhn. school superintendent
I am besieged, by a hundred or more of the Legislators under Rick Perry. I have sustained a continual Bombardment of increased high-stakes testing and accountability-related bureaucracy and a cannonade of gross underfunding for 10 years at least and have lost several good men and women. The ruling party has demanded another round of pay cuts and furloughs, while the school house be put to the sword and our children's lunch money be taken in order to keep taxes low for big business. I am answering the demand with a (figurative) cannon shot, and the Texas flag still waves proudly from our flag pole. I shall never surrender the fight for the children of Perrin.
Then, I call on you my legislators in the name of Liberty, of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to our aid, with all dispatch. The enemy of public schools is declaring that spending on a shiny new high-stakes testing system is "non-negotiable"; that, in essence, we must save the test but not the teachers. The enemy of public schools is saying that Texas lawmakers won't raise 1 penny in taxes in order to save our schools.
If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain myself as long as possible and fight for the kids in these classrooms like an educator who never forgets what is due to his own honor & that of his community. Make education a priority!
With all due respect and urgency,
John Kuhn
Superintendent
Friday, January 28, 2011
Failing schools, an assist from the African American Community
In Jacksonville four predominantly African American schools, Ribault, Raines, and Jackson high schools and NorthShore middle stand on the edge of disaster. Year after year they haven’t shown enough growth and are now in danger of being closed or taken over and neither option should be acceptable to the citizens of Jacksonville. The reasons we find ourselves at this point are many as are the culprits, those parties who must share responsibility and at the forefront of them I believe is the African American community itself.
Every time somebody like Betty Burney, Tony Hill, or Corine Brown, and organizations like the NAACP questioned why so many African American children failed, or were suspended and implied the reason was based on race (not behavior or performance) and called for more African American teachers and administrators to be put in predominantly African American schools (as “role models”) it was like they were shoveling dirt on the children that went to the above schools and to a lesser degree the entire Duval County Public School system.
Why are those three high schools struggling so? Well sadly it’s partly because so many of the students that those schools serve were passed along without the skills they need to be successful and once the kids got to them, there was nowhere else for them to go to, well no where but the street that is.
About 8-10 years ago Duval County with a wink and a nod told its teachers not to fail kids anymore and a big reason for that was they were getting blow back from the African American community because some felt that too many of their kids were being unfairly held back. They must have thought, bussing hadn’t worked, and magnet schools hadn’t worked what else could it be but race and that the district was conspiring to keep black kids in substandard environments. They then began to point out but then later complain that a seemingly disproportionate amount of black kids were being failed.
Now to appease the black community the district didn’t come out and directly say to teachers, you can’t fail kids. No instead they said things like if you fail to many kids then your evaluations, potential bonuses and even your jobs could be in jeopardy, because if you fail to many students you must not be very good teacher. Then at the same time they started to implement so many hoops that had to be in place to fail a child that many teachers just passed them along. It’s not just African American kids either; we now pass just about anybody, regardless of effort.
Furthermore who doesn’t remember all the reports about how if a kid fails before the sixth grade he or she is more likely to drop out, well you know what happens to a kid who should have failed the sixth grade and didn’t, well he or she ends up in high school hopelessly behind and the city ends up in a place where it might lose four of it’s schools.
The same situation applies to discipline as teachers were given the same veiled threats about evaluations, performance pay and their jobs. Because of this, now wandering the halls of our schools are more than a few kids who think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. These kids have never received a true consequence for their behavior and because of this they routinely prevent teachers from teaching and steal education time from the kids that want to be there.
I am not saying we don’t have thugs of all races in many of our schools, sadly we do. I am saying when one race or one group just looks at the numbers not the individual situation it belittles and tears down the whole education process. Kids should pass or fail or be punished based on their individual merits not to satisfy some groups opinion of how many is to many.
Joe and Judy public might not like to hear it but when we started looking at kids as demographics rather than children is when we started setting education back. We shouldn’t care if a kids is white, black, red, blue or green, if they act up they should get consequences for their behavior, if they don’t do the work or don’t do it well enough they should fail. Now a decade later we barely fail or discipline anybody.
Then when it comes to teachers and administrators, what should we be worried about, race, or about getting our most capable leaders and teachers in our schools regardless of which side of town the schools are in? We might live in pockets according to race but isn’t that one of the biggest problems both our city and society is facing. I don’t get how further limiting groups exposures to one another is going to help the problem; on the contrary it seems like it would exacerbate it. This year at my school an African American administrator told a group of teachers it was a cultural thing when explaining away an outrageous and suggestive dance number that a group of African American students did at a pep rally and another African American administrator told a white teacher she was the wrong color to calm a black student down. Regardless of race I hope you are outraged by these two stories. Imagine managing the floor of a manufacturing plant but not being able to direct workers who were of a different race or being forced to allow a group to behave in an inappropriate fashion?
We should be making every effort to come together instead of deciding it’s okay to further split farther apart and I remind you it should be, right is right, respect is respect and wrong is wrong regardless of race. Isn’t that the type of school you want to send your children to? To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. arguably the greatest American of the last century, do you want your kid treated a certain way because of the color of their skin or because the content of their character? Well if you answered the way he would have then that should include areas such as behavior and academic performance too.
Ability not race should determine who works at a school and unless people are going to start walling themselves off into certain parts of the city where the only people they ever interact with are people of their own race, then young people regardless of color are going to have to learn to operate in civilized society with all the colors. Children should follow my directions because I am a teacher not because I am a teacher of the same color and administrators regardless of color should insist that they do so, not give them an out or excuse for their bad behavior. Furthermore you know who I want teaching my children and leading my schools? The best person available, that’s who! I don’t want somebody there because their race is the same as mine and I question the motives of anybody that would.
A parent may ask, why is my kid failing, and I guarantee the answer will never be, because your child is black, nor will that be the answer for, why is my child suspended, either. It will always be because they didn’t pass or they were misbehaving and we should be okay with that and if we would have been okay with that for the last decade then now we might not find ourselves in danger of losing some of our schools.
There are many culprits to the dilemma we find ourselves in and I use the word culprit deliberately because so many children have had their futures stolen and the city has had its potential eroded too. The school board and the administration for knuckling under to the squeaky wheel; parents regardless of race and teachers for allowing their children’s schools to be transformed into unruly places where learning and passing are two vastly different things. Then there are the members of the white community who thought to themselves, they are black schools and it doesn’t matter, after all the dads are in jail, the mothers are on crack and the kids can’t learn, even though nothing could be farther from the truth and because when one child is left behind all our children and our society suffer. These people should also be careful about what they ignore or take for granted because while the city was slumbering, Lee, Forrest and Ed White became predominantly African American schools as well. Then right there with all of them, with all of us, are the leaders of the black community who demanded something be done when in their opinion to many kids failed or were suspended and they made race not ability the factor they believed most important for working with children of color. When these leaders ask, who is responsible and why we find ourselves where we are at, all they have to do is look in a mirror.
Education should not be about race and politics and that's all it has
become and because of that the two most impotant lessons a kid can
learn, that working hard is important and there will be consequences
for behavior are no longer being taught.
Every time somebody like Betty Burney, Tony Hill, or Corine Brown, and organizations like the NAACP questioned why so many African American children failed, or were suspended and implied the reason was based on race (not behavior or performance) and called for more African American teachers and administrators to be put in predominantly African American schools (as “role models”) it was like they were shoveling dirt on the children that went to the above schools and to a lesser degree the entire Duval County Public School system.
Why are those three high schools struggling so? Well sadly it’s partly because so many of the students that those schools serve were passed along without the skills they need to be successful and once the kids got to them, there was nowhere else for them to go to, well no where but the street that is.
About 8-10 years ago Duval County with a wink and a nod told its teachers not to fail kids anymore and a big reason for that was they were getting blow back from the African American community because some felt that too many of their kids were being unfairly held back. They must have thought, bussing hadn’t worked, and magnet schools hadn’t worked what else could it be but race and that the district was conspiring to keep black kids in substandard environments. They then began to point out but then later complain that a seemingly disproportionate amount of black kids were being failed.
Now to appease the black community the district didn’t come out and directly say to teachers, you can’t fail kids. No instead they said things like if you fail to many kids then your evaluations, potential bonuses and even your jobs could be in jeopardy, because if you fail to many students you must not be very good teacher. Then at the same time they started to implement so many hoops that had to be in place to fail a child that many teachers just passed them along. It’s not just African American kids either; we now pass just about anybody, regardless of effort.
Furthermore who doesn’t remember all the reports about how if a kid fails before the sixth grade he or she is more likely to drop out, well you know what happens to a kid who should have failed the sixth grade and didn’t, well he or she ends up in high school hopelessly behind and the city ends up in a place where it might lose four of it’s schools.
The same situation applies to discipline as teachers were given the same veiled threats about evaluations, performance pay and their jobs. Because of this, now wandering the halls of our schools are more than a few kids who think they can do whatever they want, whenever they want. These kids have never received a true consequence for their behavior and because of this they routinely prevent teachers from teaching and steal education time from the kids that want to be there.
I am not saying we don’t have thugs of all races in many of our schools, sadly we do. I am saying when one race or one group just looks at the numbers not the individual situation it belittles and tears down the whole education process. Kids should pass or fail or be punished based on their individual merits not to satisfy some groups opinion of how many is to many.
Joe and Judy public might not like to hear it but when we started looking at kids as demographics rather than children is when we started setting education back. We shouldn’t care if a kids is white, black, red, blue or green, if they act up they should get consequences for their behavior, if they don’t do the work or don’t do it well enough they should fail. Now a decade later we barely fail or discipline anybody.
Then when it comes to teachers and administrators, what should we be worried about, race, or about getting our most capable leaders and teachers in our schools regardless of which side of town the schools are in? We might live in pockets according to race but isn’t that one of the biggest problems both our city and society is facing. I don’t get how further limiting groups exposures to one another is going to help the problem; on the contrary it seems like it would exacerbate it. This year at my school an African American administrator told a group of teachers it was a cultural thing when explaining away an outrageous and suggestive dance number that a group of African American students did at a pep rally and another African American administrator told a white teacher she was the wrong color to calm a black student down. Regardless of race I hope you are outraged by these two stories. Imagine managing the floor of a manufacturing plant but not being able to direct workers who were of a different race or being forced to allow a group to behave in an inappropriate fashion?
We should be making every effort to come together instead of deciding it’s okay to further split farther apart and I remind you it should be, right is right, respect is respect and wrong is wrong regardless of race. Isn’t that the type of school you want to send your children to? To paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr. arguably the greatest American of the last century, do you want your kid treated a certain way because of the color of their skin or because the content of their character? Well if you answered the way he would have then that should include areas such as behavior and academic performance too.
Ability not race should determine who works at a school and unless people are going to start walling themselves off into certain parts of the city where the only people they ever interact with are people of their own race, then young people regardless of color are going to have to learn to operate in civilized society with all the colors. Children should follow my directions because I am a teacher not because I am a teacher of the same color and administrators regardless of color should insist that they do so, not give them an out or excuse for their bad behavior. Furthermore you know who I want teaching my children and leading my schools? The best person available, that’s who! I don’t want somebody there because their race is the same as mine and I question the motives of anybody that would.
A parent may ask, why is my kid failing, and I guarantee the answer will never be, because your child is black, nor will that be the answer for, why is my child suspended, either. It will always be because they didn’t pass or they were misbehaving and we should be okay with that and if we would have been okay with that for the last decade then now we might not find ourselves in danger of losing some of our schools.
There are many culprits to the dilemma we find ourselves in and I use the word culprit deliberately because so many children have had their futures stolen and the city has had its potential eroded too. The school board and the administration for knuckling under to the squeaky wheel; parents regardless of race and teachers for allowing their children’s schools to be transformed into unruly places where learning and passing are two vastly different things. Then there are the members of the white community who thought to themselves, they are black schools and it doesn’t matter, after all the dads are in jail, the mothers are on crack and the kids can’t learn, even though nothing could be farther from the truth and because when one child is left behind all our children and our society suffer. These people should also be careful about what they ignore or take for granted because while the city was slumbering, Lee, Forrest and Ed White became predominantly African American schools as well. Then right there with all of them, with all of us, are the leaders of the black community who demanded something be done when in their opinion to many kids failed or were suspended and they made race not ability the factor they believed most important for working with children of color. When these leaders ask, who is responsible and why we find ourselves where we are at, all they have to do is look in a mirror.
Education should not be about race and politics and that's all it has
become and because of that the two most impotant lessons a kid can
learn, that working hard is important and there will be consequences
for behavior are no longer being taught.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
School Board rearanges deck chairs on Titanic... again
It’s hard not to be jaded. It’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard not to think of our school board as a hapless bunch feeling around in the dark and this was made all the more apparent with their recent announcement of their plan to split our four schools in danger of closing into eight smaller schools that will occupy the same campuses. They say the cost for this rearranging of deck chairs on the Titanic during these trying financial times is merely 2.7 million more dollars.
The district was given three options of what to do if the three high schools and one middle school didn’t improve. Fire the principals and staff, turn them over to private management companies to run or close them. Admittedly none of these options are very satisfactory. The school board however went off the menu and has proposed splitting the schools into two specialty schools each that would occupy the same campuses. My fist question is, if the kids are struggling with the regular education how are they supposed to miraculously be successful with the specialized curriculums?
Here is a possible solution they might not have thought of, how about stop promoting kids to high schools when they don’t have the skills to be successful in them? Barring that our only conceivable back up plan with even a chance of working should include fairy dust or a magic wand.
Sadly what everybody seems to be dancing around and what nobody wants to admit is the fact we have already failed most of the kids at these high schools. They are done; there is not much we can do for them. At worse they will have a life long menial existence and at best their development has been set back years. We have promoted them along without the skills they need and without a work ethic or any discipline. I don’t like it but that’s how it is. They are following thousands upon thousands of other kids we have sent out into society ill prepared for college or the work force. That’s where we currently find ourselves. It however doesn’t have to stay like that.
What we can do is say enough is enough, we’re not going to fail any kids any longer and the biggest way we can do that is by failing some of them. I know that sounds counter intuitive and it will hurt the sacred cow that graduation rates have become but we can’t continue to pass kids and hope they somehow catch up. A decade of doing so should have proven to us by now that it’s not going to work. Graduating kids on time shouldn’t be the number one goal of Duval County’s Public Schools. Graduating children prepared to be productive and civil citizens should be and we should be okay if that takes some regardless of color a little while longer to get there.
Then all the specialty programs like the school board is recommending implementing in the world will not make a difference if schools are places where kids can’t and don’t want to learn. The first thing we must do is take back our hallways and classrooms. Discipline has not improved, teachers tolerance to bad behavior has. Teachers have become masters at ignoring inappropriate behavior that steals education time because they know nothing will be done, well nothing but them having their classroom management questioned and their bonuses, evaluations and potentially their jobs put in jeopardy. Teachers often receive harsher consequences for writing kids up than the kids themselves do.
We must improve our learning environments, we don’t have to be harsh, strict and fair will suffice but if we want to have any chance of having a solution that doesn’t involve fairy dust or a magic wand then bringing discipline and meaningful consequences to our schools and classrooms is where we have to start. If this means we lose a few that won’t conform along the way, well that’s unfortunate but we’ll have addition through subtraction. We will save the ones we can, which I think is a better plan than keeping the ones that pull everybody around them down with them.
After that then we need to make our schools enjoyable. Kids who find school a chore are not going to excel, we need to make multiple and realistic curriculums that fit more of their needs and to do so we have to realize we don’t have the kids we wish we had, we have the kids we do and plan accordingly. Some might not like to hear it but that means that a fair amount of our kids aren’t going to go to college right after graduating high school either because of aptitude or desire. That however should be okay. Remember the goal of our public schools should be to prepare our children to be productive and civil citizens with whatever they choose to do, whether that is college or something else.
Kids in the lower grades need to play and be exposed to the arts, and then kids in the upper grades need to play a role in what their education consists of. Kids that want to drive trucks shouldn’t have to take algebra II. Kids that want to be artists or musicians should have those opportunities and kids that are more interested in earning a decent wage upon graduation rather than going to college should have the opportunity to learn a trade or a skill.
You want children to do well in school? Well make it both a place where learning can occur and a place where they want to be.
My next question is, what doesn’t the school board get?
The school board has been floundering around for a decade now, trying this and trying that to no avail. How many more chances are we going to give them? When are we going to say enough is enough? It’s hard not to be jaded. It’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard not to think of our school board as a hapless bunch feeling around in the dark. Split the schools up they say, it’s only 2.7 million more dollars they cry, lets ignore the real problems, a lack of discipline and kids hating school, for a little bit longer they ask.
We have a choice, we can continue on the same path or we can say enough is enough.
The district was given three options of what to do if the three high schools and one middle school didn’t improve. Fire the principals and staff, turn them over to private management companies to run or close them. Admittedly none of these options are very satisfactory. The school board however went off the menu and has proposed splitting the schools into two specialty schools each that would occupy the same campuses. My fist question is, if the kids are struggling with the regular education how are they supposed to miraculously be successful with the specialized curriculums?
Here is a possible solution they might not have thought of, how about stop promoting kids to high schools when they don’t have the skills to be successful in them? Barring that our only conceivable back up plan with even a chance of working should include fairy dust or a magic wand.
Sadly what everybody seems to be dancing around and what nobody wants to admit is the fact we have already failed most of the kids at these high schools. They are done; there is not much we can do for them. At worse they will have a life long menial existence and at best their development has been set back years. We have promoted them along without the skills they need and without a work ethic or any discipline. I don’t like it but that’s how it is. They are following thousands upon thousands of other kids we have sent out into society ill prepared for college or the work force. That’s where we currently find ourselves. It however doesn’t have to stay like that.
What we can do is say enough is enough, we’re not going to fail any kids any longer and the biggest way we can do that is by failing some of them. I know that sounds counter intuitive and it will hurt the sacred cow that graduation rates have become but we can’t continue to pass kids and hope they somehow catch up. A decade of doing so should have proven to us by now that it’s not going to work. Graduating kids on time shouldn’t be the number one goal of Duval County’s Public Schools. Graduating children prepared to be productive and civil citizens should be and we should be okay if that takes some regardless of color a little while longer to get there.
Then all the specialty programs like the school board is recommending implementing in the world will not make a difference if schools are places where kids can’t and don’t want to learn. The first thing we must do is take back our hallways and classrooms. Discipline has not improved, teachers tolerance to bad behavior has. Teachers have become masters at ignoring inappropriate behavior that steals education time because they know nothing will be done, well nothing but them having their classroom management questioned and their bonuses, evaluations and potentially their jobs put in jeopardy. Teachers often receive harsher consequences for writing kids up than the kids themselves do.
We must improve our learning environments, we don’t have to be harsh, strict and fair will suffice but if we want to have any chance of having a solution that doesn’t involve fairy dust or a magic wand then bringing discipline and meaningful consequences to our schools and classrooms is where we have to start. If this means we lose a few that won’t conform along the way, well that’s unfortunate but we’ll have addition through subtraction. We will save the ones we can, which I think is a better plan than keeping the ones that pull everybody around them down with them.
After that then we need to make our schools enjoyable. Kids who find school a chore are not going to excel, we need to make multiple and realistic curriculums that fit more of their needs and to do so we have to realize we don’t have the kids we wish we had, we have the kids we do and plan accordingly. Some might not like to hear it but that means that a fair amount of our kids aren’t going to go to college right after graduating high school either because of aptitude or desire. That however should be okay. Remember the goal of our public schools should be to prepare our children to be productive and civil citizens with whatever they choose to do, whether that is college or something else.
Kids in the lower grades need to play and be exposed to the arts, and then kids in the upper grades need to play a role in what their education consists of. Kids that want to drive trucks shouldn’t have to take algebra II. Kids that want to be artists or musicians should have those opportunities and kids that are more interested in earning a decent wage upon graduation rather than going to college should have the opportunity to learn a trade or a skill.
You want children to do well in school? Well make it both a place where learning can occur and a place where they want to be.
My next question is, what doesn’t the school board get?
The school board has been floundering around for a decade now, trying this and trying that to no avail. How many more chances are we going to give them? When are we going to say enough is enough? It’s hard not to be jaded. It’s hard to see any light at the end of the tunnel. It’s hard not to think of our school board as a hapless bunch feeling around in the dark. Split the schools up they say, it’s only 2.7 million more dollars they cry, lets ignore the real problems, a lack of discipline and kids hating school, for a little bit longer they ask.
We have a choice, we can continue on the same path or we can say enough is enough.
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Like Charter Schools or not, You are Paying for them
From the Dallas Morning News
by Terrance Chea
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — As cash-strapped school districts lay off teachers and close campuses, publicly funded charter schools are flourishing and altering the landscape of public education.
Despite a painful economic downturn, the charter school movement is expanding rapidly across the country with support from the Obama administration, wealthy donors such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, and the highly publicized documentary "Waiting for Superman."
Charter schools typically receive a mixture of public and private money and operate free of many regulations that govern traditional public schools in exchange for achieving promised results.
Nationwide, less than 4 percent of public school students are enrolled in charters, but that number is expected to rise significantly because of increased financial and political support.
More than a dozen states loosened restrictions on charters over the past year for a chance to win a share of the federal $4.3 billion Race to the Top school reform competition.
The number of charter schools grew by 6.7 percent to 4,936 in 2009-2010 and is projected to increase by 7.5 percent in the current school year, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
The 2010-11 growth is expected to be dramatic in states such as Florida with a 12 percent increase, Illinois with a 14 percent rise and New York with a 20 percent jump, according to the association's projections.
"Families that have options are increasingly choosing charter schools over traditional schools," said Peter Groff, who heads the national association.
California saw a 15 percent increase, with a 115 new campuses despite budget woes that led to mass teacher layoffs and shuttered traditional schools, according to the California Charter School Association.
Many charter schools are boosting the academic achievement of disadvantaged students, but critics say charters siphon students and resources away from traditional public schools, result in greater racial segregation, block access to certain groups of students and operate without proper oversight.
"What we're seeing basically is an effort to impose deregulation and the free market into education," said Diane Ravich, an education historian at New York University. "The fascination with charters among philanthropists and Wall Street has diverted the attention away from tackling the hard problems of public education."
Charter schools are growing most rapidly in urban districts with struggling schools and large numbers of poor, minority students. In 16 districts, more than one in five public school students attend charters, with 36 percent in Detroit, 38 percent in Washington, D.C. and 61 percent in New Orleans, according to the national alliance.
Much of the growth is being driven by charter management organizations that have received multimillion-dollar grants from the Obama administration and foundations funded by philanthropists such as Gates, Charles Schwab, Eli Broad and Reed Hastings.
San Francisco-based KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, plans to double its national network of schools to 200 over the next decade.
Aspire Public Schools, California's largest charter school operator with 30 campuses, plans to open as many as 45 new campus over the next decade, said CEO James Willcox.
The Oakland-based nonprofit, which offers kindergarten through high school, was recently named one of the world's 20 most improved schools systems — one of only three in the U.S. — by the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. after producing impressive results on standardized tests.
Aspire officials say nearly all of its students are accepted at four-year colleges, and most are their first in their families to attend. They attribute that high rate to smaller schools and class sizes, a longer school day and school year, and its relentless "College for Certain" culture.
"Our entire program from kindergarten all the way through high school is geared toward getting youngsters to go to college and get a college degree," Willcox said.
At ERES Academy, an Aspire K-8 school in Oakland, every classroom is named after a college and students eat in University Hall.
Jorge Lopez, a senior at California College Preparatory Academy in Berkeley, said he didn't think college was possible for him before he came to the Aspire-run high school. He's now poised to be the first in his family to get a college education.
"Upon coming here I found out that college is where you want to be at," said Lopez, 17. "My parents tell me it's an honor that I'm leading the family, that I'm being an example for them."
But not all charter schools produce strong academic results.
A 2009 study by Stanford University found that only 17 percent of charter schools performed significantly better than traditional public schools while 37 percent performed worse and 46 percent showed no big difference.
A 2010 study by the UCLA-based Civil Rights Project found that charter schools tend to be more racially segregated than traditional schools.
"Charter schools are publicly funded schools, and we need to make sure students of all backgrounds have access to them," said study co-author Erica Frankenberg, an education professor at Pennsylvania State University.
Oakland Unified School District has seen a major expansion of charters over the past decade, when it spent years under state control because of financial mismanagement. The district is now home to more than 30 charter schools.
Betty Olson-Jones, head of the Oakland teachers union, complains many charters recruit top students and get rid of poor performers, boosting the schools' test scores and saddling traditional schools with a disproportionate number of students with disabilities, behavior problems and poor English language skills.
"You end up with schools that are filled with kids that are really struggling," Olson-Jones said.
http://hosted2.ap.org/txdam/b6c334cfd6284371a1e338bf311d6c17/Article_2011-01-21-Charter%20School%20Boom/id-da93743e01034d408a74cadedf7366a3
by Terrance Chea
OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) — As cash-strapped school districts lay off teachers and close campuses, publicly funded charter schools are flourishing and altering the landscape of public education.
Despite a painful economic downturn, the charter school movement is expanding rapidly across the country with support from the Obama administration, wealthy donors such as Bill Gates and Oprah Winfrey, and the highly publicized documentary "Waiting for Superman."
Charter schools typically receive a mixture of public and private money and operate free of many regulations that govern traditional public schools in exchange for achieving promised results.
Nationwide, less than 4 percent of public school students are enrolled in charters, but that number is expected to rise significantly because of increased financial and political support.
More than a dozen states loosened restrictions on charters over the past year for a chance to win a share of the federal $4.3 billion Race to the Top school reform competition.
The number of charter schools grew by 6.7 percent to 4,936 in 2009-2010 and is projected to increase by 7.5 percent in the current school year, according to the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools.
The 2010-11 growth is expected to be dramatic in states such as Florida with a 12 percent increase, Illinois with a 14 percent rise and New York with a 20 percent jump, according to the association's projections.
"Families that have options are increasingly choosing charter schools over traditional schools," said Peter Groff, who heads the national association.
California saw a 15 percent increase, with a 115 new campuses despite budget woes that led to mass teacher layoffs and shuttered traditional schools, according to the California Charter School Association.
Many charter schools are boosting the academic achievement of disadvantaged students, but critics say charters siphon students and resources away from traditional public schools, result in greater racial segregation, block access to certain groups of students and operate without proper oversight.
"What we're seeing basically is an effort to impose deregulation and the free market into education," said Diane Ravich, an education historian at New York University. "The fascination with charters among philanthropists and Wall Street has diverted the attention away from tackling the hard problems of public education."
Charter schools are growing most rapidly in urban districts with struggling schools and large numbers of poor, minority students. In 16 districts, more than one in five public school students attend charters, with 36 percent in Detroit, 38 percent in Washington, D.C. and 61 percent in New Orleans, according to the national alliance.
Much of the growth is being driven by charter management organizations that have received multimillion-dollar grants from the Obama administration and foundations funded by philanthropists such as Gates, Charles Schwab, Eli Broad and Reed Hastings.
San Francisco-based KIPP, the Knowledge Is Power Program, plans to double its national network of schools to 200 over the next decade.
Aspire Public Schools, California's largest charter school operator with 30 campuses, plans to open as many as 45 new campus over the next decade, said CEO James Willcox.
The Oakland-based nonprofit, which offers kindergarten through high school, was recently named one of the world's 20 most improved schools systems — one of only three in the U.S. — by the consulting firm McKinsey and Co. after producing impressive results on standardized tests.
Aspire officials say nearly all of its students are accepted at four-year colleges, and most are their first in their families to attend. They attribute that high rate to smaller schools and class sizes, a longer school day and school year, and its relentless "College for Certain" culture.
"Our entire program from kindergarten all the way through high school is geared toward getting youngsters to go to college and get a college degree," Willcox said.
At ERES Academy, an Aspire K-8 school in Oakland, every classroom is named after a college and students eat in University Hall.
Jorge Lopez, a senior at California College Preparatory Academy in Berkeley, said he didn't think college was possible for him before he came to the Aspire-run high school. He's now poised to be the first in his family to get a college education.
"Upon coming here I found out that college is where you want to be at," said Lopez, 17. "My parents tell me it's an honor that I'm leading the family, that I'm being an example for them."
But not all charter schools produce strong academic results.
A 2009 study by Stanford University found that only 17 percent of charter schools performed significantly better than traditional public schools while 37 percent performed worse and 46 percent showed no big difference.
A 2010 study by the UCLA-based Civil Rights Project found that charter schools tend to be more racially segregated than traditional schools.
"Charter schools are publicly funded schools, and we need to make sure students of all backgrounds have access to them," said study co-author Erica Frankenberg, an education professor at Pennsylvania State University.
Oakland Unified School District has seen a major expansion of charters over the past decade, when it spent years under state control because of financial mismanagement. The district is now home to more than 30 charter schools.
Betty Olson-Jones, head of the Oakland teachers union, complains many charters recruit top students and get rid of poor performers, boosting the schools' test scores and saddling traditional schools with a disproportionate number of students with disabilities, behavior problems and poor English language skills.
"You end up with schools that are filled with kids that are really struggling," Olson-Jones said.
http://hosted2.ap.org/txdam/b6c334cfd6284371a1e338bf311d6c17/Article_2011-01-21-Charter%20School%20Boom/id-da93743e01034d408a74cadedf7366a3
Monday, January 17, 2011
PISA Rankings: The sky may not be falling
From Bloomberg Bussiness Week
by Vivek Wadhwa
America has an inferiority complex about its education system. You hear the sirens every year, when the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) releases its annual test results. Finland, South Korea, and Singapore usually come out on top; we start blaming our K-12 teachers for not teaching enough mathematics and science; we begin worrying about the millions of engineers and scientists China and India graduate.
This year the big surprise was that Shanghai garnered first place in the PISA rankings. Then The Wall Street Journal ran a story on the home page of its website titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." The Journal article claimed that Chinese (and Korean, Indian, etc.) parents raise "stereotypically successful kids"—math whizzes and music prodigies. They do this by not allowing their children to attend sleepovers; have a playdate; be in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their own extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama. The article went on to recount as typical a series of acts that would be considered child abuse in the U.S. (and aren't the norm in India and China).
The Journal article was simply bizarre, yet it is true that education in China and India is very challenging and fiercely competitive. Children are brought up to believe that education is everything, that it will make the difference between success and starvation. So from their early years they work long and hard. Most of their childhood is spent memorizing books on advanced subjects.
American Stereotypes
Meanwhile, the perception is that American children live a relatively easy life and coast their way through school. They don't do any more homework than they have to; they spend an extraordinary amount of time playing games, socializing on the Internet, text-messaging each other; they work part time to pay for their schooling and social habits. And they party. A lot. These stereotypes worry many Americans. They believe the American education system puts the country at a great disadvantage. But this is far from true.
The independence and social skills American children develop give them a huge advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks. They can think for themselves, and they can innovate. This is why America remains the world leader in innovation; why Chinese and Indians invest their life savings to send their children to expensive U.S. schools when they can. India and China are changing, and as the next generations of students become like American ones, they too are beginning to innovate. So far, their education systems have held them back.
My research team at Duke looked in depth at the engineering education of China and India. We documented that these countries now graduate four to seven times as many engineers as does the U.S.The quality of these engineers, however, is so poor that most are not fit to work as engineers; their system of rote learning handicaps those who do get jobs, so it takes two to three years for them to achieve the same productivity as fresh American graduates.As a result, significant proportions of China's engineering graduates end up working on factory floors and Indian industry has to spend large sums of money retraining its employees. After four or five years in the workforce, Indians do become innovative and produce, overall, at the same quality as Americans, but they lose a valuable two to three years in their retraining.
Rankings Reconsidered
And then there is the matter of the PISA rankings that supposedly show the U.S. trailing the rest of the world. Hal Salzman, a professor at Rutgers' John J. Heidrich Center for Workforce Development, debunked myths about these in a May 2008 article in Nature magazine. Salzman noted that international tests use different sampling criteria from country to country, so we're not always comparing apples to apples. As well, the tests compare select populations of small countries such as Singapore and Finland, which each have about 5 million people, with the U.S., which has 310 million. These countries achieve the top rankings on the PISA list. Compare these countries to similar-sized U.S. states, however, and you find that some of those states, including Massachusetts (population 6.5 million), produce the top students. Additionally, we're comparing America's diverse population—which includes disadvantaged minorities and unskilled immigrants with little education—with the homogeneous populations of countries like Finland, Japan, and New Zealand.
Much is made of the PISA test scores and rankings, but the international differences are actually quite small. Most of the U.S. ranking lags are not even statistically significant. The U.S. falls in the second rank on some measures and into the first on others. It produces more highest-performing students in science and reading than any other country does; in mathematics, it is second only to Japan. Moreover, one has to ask what the test results actually mean in the real world. Do high PISA rankings make students more likely to invent the next iPad? Google (GOOG)? I don't think so.
Let's keep improving our education system and focus, in particular, on disadvantaged groups. Education is the future of our nation. But let's get over our inferiority complex. America is second to none. Rather than in mastery of facts learned by rote and great numbers of accomplished martinets, its strength lies in the diversity and innovation that arise in an open, creative society.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2011/tc20110112_006501_page_2.htm
by Vivek Wadhwa
America has an inferiority complex about its education system. You hear the sirens every year, when the OECD Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) releases its annual test results. Finland, South Korea, and Singapore usually come out on top; we start blaming our K-12 teachers for not teaching enough mathematics and science; we begin worrying about the millions of engineers and scientists China and India graduate.
This year the big surprise was that Shanghai garnered first place in the PISA rankings. Then The Wall Street Journal ran a story on the home page of its website titled "Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior." The Journal article claimed that Chinese (and Korean, Indian, etc.) parents raise "stereotypically successful kids"—math whizzes and music prodigies. They do this by not allowing their children to attend sleepovers; have a playdate; be in a school play; complain about not being in a school play; watch TV or play computer games; choose their own extracurricular activities; get any grade less than an A; not be the No. 1 student in every subject except gym and drama. The article went on to recount as typical a series of acts that would be considered child abuse in the U.S. (and aren't the norm in India and China).
The Journal article was simply bizarre, yet it is true that education in China and India is very challenging and fiercely competitive. Children are brought up to believe that education is everything, that it will make the difference between success and starvation. So from their early years they work long and hard. Most of their childhood is spent memorizing books on advanced subjects.
American Stereotypes
Meanwhile, the perception is that American children live a relatively easy life and coast their way through school. They don't do any more homework than they have to; they spend an extraordinary amount of time playing games, socializing on the Internet, text-messaging each other; they work part time to pay for their schooling and social habits. And they party. A lot. These stereotypes worry many Americans. They believe the American education system puts the country at a great disadvantage. But this is far from true.
The independence and social skills American children develop give them a huge advantage when they join the workforce. They learn to experiment, challenge norms, and take risks. They can think for themselves, and they can innovate. This is why America remains the world leader in innovation; why Chinese and Indians invest their life savings to send their children to expensive U.S. schools when they can. India and China are changing, and as the next generations of students become like American ones, they too are beginning to innovate. So far, their education systems have held them back.
My research team at Duke looked in depth at the engineering education of China and India. We documented that these countries now graduate four to seven times as many engineers as does the U.S.The quality of these engineers, however, is so poor that most are not fit to work as engineers; their system of rote learning handicaps those who do get jobs, so it takes two to three years for them to achieve the same productivity as fresh American graduates.As a result, significant proportions of China's engineering graduates end up working on factory floors and Indian industry has to spend large sums of money retraining its employees. After four or five years in the workforce, Indians do become innovative and produce, overall, at the same quality as Americans, but they lose a valuable two to three years in their retraining.
Rankings Reconsidered
And then there is the matter of the PISA rankings that supposedly show the U.S. trailing the rest of the world. Hal Salzman, a professor at Rutgers' John J. Heidrich Center for Workforce Development, debunked myths about these in a May 2008 article in Nature magazine. Salzman noted that international tests use different sampling criteria from country to country, so we're not always comparing apples to apples. As well, the tests compare select populations of small countries such as Singapore and Finland, which each have about 5 million people, with the U.S., which has 310 million. These countries achieve the top rankings on the PISA list. Compare these countries to similar-sized U.S. states, however, and you find that some of those states, including Massachusetts (population 6.5 million), produce the top students. Additionally, we're comparing America's diverse population—which includes disadvantaged minorities and unskilled immigrants with little education—with the homogeneous populations of countries like Finland, Japan, and New Zealand.
Much is made of the PISA test scores and rankings, but the international differences are actually quite small. Most of the U.S. ranking lags are not even statistically significant. The U.S. falls in the second rank on some measures and into the first on others. It produces more highest-performing students in science and reading than any other country does; in mathematics, it is second only to Japan. Moreover, one has to ask what the test results actually mean in the real world. Do high PISA rankings make students more likely to invent the next iPad? Google (GOOG)? I don't think so.
Let's keep improving our education system and focus, in particular, on disadvantaged groups. Education is the future of our nation. But let's get over our inferiority complex. America is second to none. Rather than in mastery of facts learned by rote and great numbers of accomplished martinets, its strength lies in the diversity and innovation that arise in an open, creative society.
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/jan2011/tc20110112_006501_page_2.htm
What Waiting for Superman doesn't show
From the Wahington posts Answer Sheet
By Kevin G. Welner
Over the past couple months, I’ve been asked to participate in a few panel discussions about Waiting for Superman. The film presents a stark, moving portrayal of the denial of educational opportunities in low-income communities of color. But while the movie includes statements such as "we know what’s wrong" and "we know how to fix it," viewers of the movie are hard-pressed to identify those causes and solutions -- other than to boo and hiss at teachers’ unions and to cheer at the heroic charter school educators.
So in the panel discussions we try to make sense of that simplistic black-hat/white-hat story. We argue about whether the movie offers a fair and complete picture (it doesn’t even come close, unfortunately). But we never get to deeper issues about what’s wrong and how to fix it.
I thought about that when leaving a showing of the other prominent documentary currently showing, called Inside Job. It offers an explanation of how the current economic crisis came about, describing the securitization of mortgages; the extraordinary leveraging of assets; the regulatory capture by Wall Street leading to minimal enforcement of federal regulations -- a deregulation intended to spur innovation; and the fraud, greed, hubris and general belief among hedge fund titans and others in the financial services world that they are infallible.
The film also points out the growing and now extreme inequality of wealth distribution in the United States. "The top 1 percent of American earners took in 23.5 percent of the nation’s pretax income in 2007 -- up from less than 9 percent in 1976."
Consider those final three items: (1) the advocacy of deregulation in order to free up innovation, (2) hubris and general belief among hedge fund titans that they are infallible, and (3) increased wealth inequality.
If Superman had explored these issues instead of bashing unions and promoting charters, moviegoers might have walked away understanding a great deal about why the families it profiled and so many similar families across America face a bleak educational future.
The movie certainly showed scenes of poverty, but its implications and the structural inequalities underlying that poverty were largely ignored. Devastating urban poverty was just there -- as if that were somehow the natural order of things but if we could only ’fix’ schools it would disappear.
Rick Hanushek is put forth, saying that if we fire the bottom 5 to 10 percent of the lowest-performing teachers every year, our national test scores would soon approach Finland at the top of international rankings in mathematics and science. But no mention is made of the telling fact that Finland had, in 2005, a child poverty rate of 2.8 percent while the United States had a rate of 21.9 percent. That gap has likely gotten even bigger over the intervening five years.
Rather than addressing these poverty issues, Superman serves up innovation through privatization and deregulation. We’re shown charter schools that give hope to these families. But what we’re not told is that the extra resources and opportunities found in these charters are funded in large part with donations from Wall Street hedge fund millionaires and billionaires.
Problems of structural inequality and inter-generational poverty are pushed aside in favor of a ’solution’ grounded in the belief that deregulation will prompt innovation, all the while guided by the infallible judgment of Wall Street tycoons. It’s no wonder that Inside Job better explained the school crisis than did Waiting for Superman.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/why-waiting-for-superman-shoul.html?wprss=answer-sheet
By Kevin G. Welner
Over the past couple months, I’ve been asked to participate in a few panel discussions about Waiting for Superman. The film presents a stark, moving portrayal of the denial of educational opportunities in low-income communities of color. But while the movie includes statements such as "we know what’s wrong" and "we know how to fix it," viewers of the movie are hard-pressed to identify those causes and solutions -- other than to boo and hiss at teachers’ unions and to cheer at the heroic charter school educators.
So in the panel discussions we try to make sense of that simplistic black-hat/white-hat story. We argue about whether the movie offers a fair and complete picture (it doesn’t even come close, unfortunately). But we never get to deeper issues about what’s wrong and how to fix it.
I thought about that when leaving a showing of the other prominent documentary currently showing, called Inside Job. It offers an explanation of how the current economic crisis came about, describing the securitization of mortgages; the extraordinary leveraging of assets; the regulatory capture by Wall Street leading to minimal enforcement of federal regulations -- a deregulation intended to spur innovation; and the fraud, greed, hubris and general belief among hedge fund titans and others in the financial services world that they are infallible.
The film also points out the growing and now extreme inequality of wealth distribution in the United States. "The top 1 percent of American earners took in 23.5 percent of the nation’s pretax income in 2007 -- up from less than 9 percent in 1976."
Consider those final three items: (1) the advocacy of deregulation in order to free up innovation, (2) hubris and general belief among hedge fund titans that they are infallible, and (3) increased wealth inequality.
If Superman had explored these issues instead of bashing unions and promoting charters, moviegoers might have walked away understanding a great deal about why the families it profiled and so many similar families across America face a bleak educational future.
The movie certainly showed scenes of poverty, but its implications and the structural inequalities underlying that poverty were largely ignored. Devastating urban poverty was just there -- as if that were somehow the natural order of things but if we could only ’fix’ schools it would disappear.
Rick Hanushek is put forth, saying that if we fire the bottom 5 to 10 percent of the lowest-performing teachers every year, our national test scores would soon approach Finland at the top of international rankings in mathematics and science. But no mention is made of the telling fact that Finland had, in 2005, a child poverty rate of 2.8 percent while the United States had a rate of 21.9 percent. That gap has likely gotten even bigger over the intervening five years.
Rather than addressing these poverty issues, Superman serves up innovation through privatization and deregulation. We’re shown charter schools that give hope to these families. But what we’re not told is that the extra resources and opportunities found in these charters are funded in large part with donations from Wall Street hedge fund millionaires and billionaires.
Problems of structural inequality and inter-generational poverty are pushed aside in favor of a ’solution’ grounded in the belief that deregulation will prompt innovation, all the while guided by the infallible judgment of Wall Street tycoons. It’s no wonder that Inside Job better explained the school crisis than did Waiting for Superman.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/why-waiting-for-superman-shoul.html?wprss=answer-sheet
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Polk County asks, please fund our future
From the Polk County Ledgers editorial page
While Gov. Rick Scott and state legislators talk about funding private school vouchers, cutting taxes and reducing state spending by $3.5 billion, school district officials across the state are waiting for the other shoe to drop in regard to Florida's constitutional mandate for smaller classroom sizes.
That "other shoe" could come in the form of $43 million in fines recommended by the state Department of Education to some 28 school districts that have not sufficiently reduced classroom sizes.
This is a textbook definition of adding insult to injury. For years the Florida Legislature has refused to provide sufficient funding to comply with that mandate. Now the bureaucrats in Tallahassee want local school districts to pay for the Legislature's neglect.
That's why the Florida School Boards Association and some 20 school districts are contemplating suing the state to contest the fines.
"The state constitution makes funding the school districts a state obligation. They didn't give the funds that were needed to do this. How can they now hold the districts accountable for what they didn't fund?" Ron Meyer, a Tallahassee attorney involved in the pending suit told reporters.
It's clear that Scott and the Legislature have no intention of fulfilling their constitutional duties in regard to the class-size mandate. The courts may be the only recourse school districts have.
POLK ON BOTH SIDES
Polk County did well to meet the class-size requirements and avoid fines.
However, Polk school officials -- elected and staff -- find fault with class size and have worked themselves into a frenzy over it. The requirements are straightforward (assuming state funding): The maximum number of students per class is 18 for pre-K through third grade, 22 for fourth grade through eighth grade and 25 in high school. The limits do not apply to extracurricular classes.
School Board member Frank O'Reilly complains that the School District must meet the class-size requirements every day. "This doesn't make sense and it's causing turmoil," O'Reilly says. "What about the students being disrupted? Just use common sense. It is so inconceivable that they are demanding this."
Did he think he could just pick a few days from the calendar to comply with the constitution?
O'Reilly is right on one point: using common sense. Indeed, the School District has been sensible in leaving some class seats open. That way, when additional students arrive, room is available.
Oddly, Superintendent of Schools Sherrie Nickell finds fault: "For every seat that goes unfilled, there is a cost."
To the students in such a class, it is a benefit. They gain more of their teacher's time and attention.
That was the point of the class-size amendment, placed before the voters in 2002 and 2010, and affirmed both times. Celebrate the opportunity to improve Polk's public education.
While Gov. Rick Scott and state legislators talk about funding private school vouchers, cutting taxes and reducing state spending by $3.5 billion, school district officials across the state are waiting for the other shoe to drop in regard to Florida's constitutional mandate for smaller classroom sizes.
That "other shoe" could come in the form of $43 million in fines recommended by the state Department of Education to some 28 school districts that have not sufficiently reduced classroom sizes.
This is a textbook definition of adding insult to injury. For years the Florida Legislature has refused to provide sufficient funding to comply with that mandate. Now the bureaucrats in Tallahassee want local school districts to pay for the Legislature's neglect.
That's why the Florida School Boards Association and some 20 school districts are contemplating suing the state to contest the fines.
"The state constitution makes funding the school districts a state obligation. They didn't give the funds that were needed to do this. How can they now hold the districts accountable for what they didn't fund?" Ron Meyer, a Tallahassee attorney involved in the pending suit told reporters.
It's clear that Scott and the Legislature have no intention of fulfilling their constitutional duties in regard to the class-size mandate. The courts may be the only recourse school districts have.
POLK ON BOTH SIDES
Polk County did well to meet the class-size requirements and avoid fines.
However, Polk school officials -- elected and staff -- find fault with class size and have worked themselves into a frenzy over it. The requirements are straightforward (assuming state funding): The maximum number of students per class is 18 for pre-K through third grade, 22 for fourth grade through eighth grade and 25 in high school. The limits do not apply to extracurricular classes.
School Board member Frank O'Reilly complains that the School District must meet the class-size requirements every day. "This doesn't make sense and it's causing turmoil," O'Reilly says. "What about the students being disrupted? Just use common sense. It is so inconceivable that they are demanding this."
Did he think he could just pick a few days from the calendar to comply with the constitution?
O'Reilly is right on one point: using common sense. Indeed, the School District has been sensible in leaving some class seats open. That way, when additional students arrive, room is available.
Oddly, Superintendent of Schools Sherrie Nickell finds fault: "For every seat that goes unfilled, there is a cost."
To the students in such a class, it is a benefit. They gain more of their teacher's time and attention.
That was the point of the class-size amendment, placed before the voters in 2002 and 2010, and affirmed both times. Celebrate the opportunity to improve Polk's public education.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
How do you know a politician is lying? His mouth is moving
John Thrasher said it doesn’t matter that we are fifth in the Education Weeks Quality Counts ratings of states education system, that we should be number one. Though he fails to mention that he wants the state to be number one on the fifth ranked budget.
Don’t think for a second that if we were ranked 20th or 30th or lower he wouldn’t have used it as a further indictment against teachers or if we were ranked first he would have found some other excuse to try and enact his anti-teacher reforms.
But what is even more frustrating is that he and Scott say the system is broken but embrace Jeb Bush the man who is arguably most responsible for where we find our selves. How can they say it is broken and embrace the man who must have broken it?
The answer is this isn’t about education it’s about big business looking to get a piece of the education pie and busting teachers unions. In the eyes of Scott, Thrasher, and Bush teachers can’t win, they must not be allowed to but what these powers-that-be don’t get, is that if teachers lose so to do the states children.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Don’t think for a second that if we were ranked 20th or 30th or lower he wouldn’t have used it as a further indictment against teachers or if we were ranked first he would have found some other excuse to try and enact his anti-teacher reforms.
But what is even more frustrating is that he and Scott say the system is broken but embrace Jeb Bush the man who is arguably most responsible for where we find our selves. How can they say it is broken and embrace the man who must have broken it?
The answer is this isn’t about education it’s about big business looking to get a piece of the education pie and busting teachers unions. In the eyes of Scott, Thrasher, and Bush teachers can’t win, they must not be allowed to but what these powers-that-be don’t get, is that if teachers lose so to do the states children.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
It's only common sense
From the St. Petersberg Times editorial page
Before Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers launch another round of divisive education reforms, they should clean up the mess the Legislature created as it tried to drum up support for easing the state's class-size requirements. Under a law passed last spring, school districts that don't comply with strict class size limits will have to fork over cash in February to districts that do. Now 35 of the state's 67 school districts face penalties. Only in Tallahassee does it make sense for one public school district to reap a reward from the failure of another.
Ultimately, the political ploy failed. A majority of voters backed Amendment 8 — a reasonable plan to loosen requirements of the 2002 voter mandate to shrink class sizes. But the 55 percent approval rate was less than the 60 percent needed to amend the state Constitution. So under the final phase of the class-size amendment that took effect this school year, no core public school class is supposed to have more than 18 students in kindergarten through third grade; 22 in fourth through eighth grade; and 25 in high schools.
That wasn't the outcome Republican leaders sought. Hoping to build support for loosening the class-size requirements, lawmakers cited declining state revenue and gave districts no additional money to pay for complying with the final phase of the class limits. That forced school districts across the state to employ dubious measures to comply, from assigning two teachers to classes to forcing students into online offerings.
But lawmakers went one step further by adopting an idiotic punishment scheme under which districts that failed to meet the caps in every single classroom in October would face fines of up to $3,000 for each student seat not in compliance. School districts were expected to sound the alarm, raising awareness of how impossibly burdensome and expensive the class-size caps were. Privately, lawmakers argued the fines would not be an issue if voters approved Amendment 8.
At least one district called their bluff. Palm Beach County, contending it would cost up to $60 million to comply with the class-size amendment's final phase, took its chances and has now drawn a preliminary fine of $16.6 million. But 34 other districts — though none in Tampa Bay — also are in violation and subject to fines. The Board of Education will consider the department's recommended fines later this month.
Now school districts are threatening to file lawsuits if the fines are enforced, arguing lawmakers are at fault for not providing enough funding. State leaders shouldn't allow this absurd situation to progress to that money-wasting point. Instead, Scott and legislative leaders should signal to the Board of Education it can put off any fines until lawmakers return to Tallahassee in March and abandon this plan all together.
Then lawmakers should do what they should have done years ago: Rewrite the state law implementing the 2002 class-size amendment to allow more discretion for school districts. Republicans contend that might not be constitutional, though class-size backers disagree. But it's the only commonsense option left.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/clean-up-the-class-size-mess/1144208
Before Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers launch another round of divisive education reforms, they should clean up the mess the Legislature created as it tried to drum up support for easing the state's class-size requirements. Under a law passed last spring, school districts that don't comply with strict class size limits will have to fork over cash in February to districts that do. Now 35 of the state's 67 school districts face penalties. Only in Tallahassee does it make sense for one public school district to reap a reward from the failure of another.
Ultimately, the political ploy failed. A majority of voters backed Amendment 8 — a reasonable plan to loosen requirements of the 2002 voter mandate to shrink class sizes. But the 55 percent approval rate was less than the 60 percent needed to amend the state Constitution. So under the final phase of the class-size amendment that took effect this school year, no core public school class is supposed to have more than 18 students in kindergarten through third grade; 22 in fourth through eighth grade; and 25 in high schools.
That wasn't the outcome Republican leaders sought. Hoping to build support for loosening the class-size requirements, lawmakers cited declining state revenue and gave districts no additional money to pay for complying with the final phase of the class limits. That forced school districts across the state to employ dubious measures to comply, from assigning two teachers to classes to forcing students into online offerings.
But lawmakers went one step further by adopting an idiotic punishment scheme under which districts that failed to meet the caps in every single classroom in October would face fines of up to $3,000 for each student seat not in compliance. School districts were expected to sound the alarm, raising awareness of how impossibly burdensome and expensive the class-size caps were. Privately, lawmakers argued the fines would not be an issue if voters approved Amendment 8.
At least one district called their bluff. Palm Beach County, contending it would cost up to $60 million to comply with the class-size amendment's final phase, took its chances and has now drawn a preliminary fine of $16.6 million. But 34 other districts — though none in Tampa Bay — also are in violation and subject to fines. The Board of Education will consider the department's recommended fines later this month.
Now school districts are threatening to file lawsuits if the fines are enforced, arguing lawmakers are at fault for not providing enough funding. State leaders shouldn't allow this absurd situation to progress to that money-wasting point. Instead, Scott and legislative leaders should signal to the Board of Education it can put off any fines until lawmakers return to Tallahassee in March and abandon this plan all together.
Then lawmakers should do what they should have done years ago: Rewrite the state law implementing the 2002 class-size amendment to allow more discretion for school districts. Republicans contend that might not be constitutional, though class-size backers disagree. But it's the only commonsense option left.
http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/editorials/clean-up-the-class-size-mess/1144208
Sunday, January 9, 2011
The Bell Curve
Let’s Talk about Bell Curves
The bell curve is a normal distribution curve with the most common item being at the center of the curve. The farther you move away from the center typically in units called standard deviations the more and more and more rare whatever is being distributed occurs. That’s a little simple but I think you get the gist. Now let me tell you about the really neat things about bell curves. It’s they can be used to predict things, and in education we can use it to predict which students might need more help or extra resources.
In schools we can put children on an academic bell curve. On the far right we have the students at the top, the ones who do well almost effortlessly. On the left we have the ones where almost no learning seems to occur. Most students fall somewhere in the middle. We could have a similar bell curve for students behavior as well, the best being on the far right, the worse on the far left with again most students showing up somewhere in the center.
Now let’s put parents on the bell curve. Parents on the far right about five percent, are extremely committed to their children, they are very involved, they make all the parent teacher conferences, they help their children with their home work and more than a few relive their childhood by creating elaborate science projects as well. Unfortunately the parents on the far right represent the smallest group of parents.
The vast majorities of parents fall into the middle and are very well meaning. To different degrees they ask about their children’s home work, check their report cards, try and make parent teacher conferences and open houses. They love their kids and want them to do well, but they likewise work long hours and generally have lots of things going on. I am not being critical at all, I say above matter-of-factly. That’s just how it is.
Then there is the far left, some of the parents there might love their children though it might not always seem like it. But regardless of how they feel about their children this group for what evr reason has abdicated their parental responsibilities. Sadly they are parents in name only. They take no interest in their children, they don’t discipline or provide structure, and they often don’t even provide the basic necessities either.
We can use parental involvement as a bit predictor for both children’s academic and social success. It’s not an end all be all but its pretty close. And let’s just say what the bell curve predicts for children whose parents are on the far left, those parents who have abdicated their responsibilities is pretty grim.
Schools only have less than a quarter of the time at most to make a difference. That the rest of their days many spend living in dangerous neighborhoods with families that don’t care. Their influences and role models are the drug dealers or dropouts next door or even worse in their kitchens. Everyday they get an education in apathy and violence, hopelessness and desperation. Every day they get a little bit angrier and care a little bit less. And you can see this at their schools.
Often times when students act up at school it’s just an extension of what is happening at home. They mirror the disrespect and foul language they see, or they were simply never taught discipline or self restraint or learned it at the back of a hand and that’s because their parents never learned it or learned it through a slap or a punch themselves.
When some children don’t make an effort in school it’s often because their parents don’t understand the importance of an education or understand the material themselves. They don’t care or are uninterested. Like the Greeks chained to the cave wall in Plato’s metaphor of the cave these parents only know what the know and often that’s just anger and violence and not the importance of school.
People write, say and scream to the heavens all the time if only we could get these parents more involved the the
fate of their children wouldn’t be sealed, it would be better. That the children could grow up and break the cycle of poverty, violence and apathy that their parents grew up in. And I say to all the people who say. that you are wrong, and I want to scream that to the heavens too!
So many times as a teacher I have called home about misbehaving students and been told they act the same where there and the child was my problem. Soon however if nothing is done they will be all of societies problem and waiting for some of these parents to wake up/step up and do the right thing is like planning to win the lottery. Sure it might happen but we shouldn’t count on it. We as a society can no longer sit back and blame the parents anymore and nor can we wait for them to do the right thing.
We can’t say if only little Johnnie’s parents would have taken an interest he wouldn’t be such a behavior problem or if only little Suzie’s mom would have read to her she would be doing better in school anymore. And blaming some parents for how their children behave is like blaming fire for burning. The fire doesn’t care what it burns, even if it is hopes, dreams and opportunities.
If some parents aren’t going to do it and we know they are not going to do it then we as a society have two choices, do nothing and reap the consequences of a never ending, expanding cycle of poverty, violence and a lack of civility or to do the right thing, to step and reap a whole host of potential rewards. Well I guess there is a third option and that’s to wish upon a star.
I wish there were no parents at the far end of the bell curve and all parents loved and provided for their children and then consequently all students knew how to take care of their responsibilities but at the same time I live in the real world and have experienced firsthand in my classrooms and in the halls of my school, those parents who don’t care either through the words or actions or both. I read about how a young person has tragically altered their life or another’s life everyday in the law and disorder section of the paper or hear about it on the news. What part of the bell curve to you think the vast majority of their parents fell on?
When I look at my sink and see it filled with dirty dishes, I don’t just hope they go away, on the contrary if I want something to happen then I have to do something. I have to step up and make sure they get done. If we want the children of parents who have quit, who have turned out to be everything but parental to grow up and achieve something, to be productive members of society we can’t just sit around and hope it happens. We have to do something more than just blame the parents and wish upon stars.
Students failing in school or students who are misbehaving in schools are the kids that need the extra resources. We might not always like them, we might not think its fair but they are the ones we have to stand up the most for because if not us then who? It has to be us, it has to be society collectively making a stand and saying enough is enough because even though, and I agree with so many it’s not how it is supposed to be, we’re going to do it because we know it’s not going to be their parents who do so.
It’s either we work together to make things better for these children and hopefully break the cycle and reap the rewards or it’s do nothing and see the cycle continue and reap the consequences of more crime, more poverty, less civility and no hope.
What’s it going to be? What do you want to do?
The bell curve is a normal distribution curve with the most common item being at the center of the curve. The farther you move away from the center typically in units called standard deviations the more and more and more rare whatever is being distributed occurs. That’s a little simple but I think you get the gist. Now let me tell you about the really neat things about bell curves. It’s they can be used to predict things, and in education we can use it to predict which students might need more help or extra resources.
In schools we can put children on an academic bell curve. On the far right we have the students at the top, the ones who do well almost effortlessly. On the left we have the ones where almost no learning seems to occur. Most students fall somewhere in the middle. We could have a similar bell curve for students behavior as well, the best being on the far right, the worse on the far left with again most students showing up somewhere in the center.
Now let’s put parents on the bell curve. Parents on the far right about five percent, are extremely committed to their children, they are very involved, they make all the parent teacher conferences, they help their children with their home work and more than a few relive their childhood by creating elaborate science projects as well. Unfortunately the parents on the far right represent the smallest group of parents.
The vast majorities of parents fall into the middle and are very well meaning. To different degrees they ask about their children’s home work, check their report cards, try and make parent teacher conferences and open houses. They love their kids and want them to do well, but they likewise work long hours and generally have lots of things going on. I am not being critical at all, I say above matter-of-factly. That’s just how it is.
Then there is the far left, some of the parents there might love their children though it might not always seem like it. But regardless of how they feel about their children this group for what evr reason has abdicated their parental responsibilities. Sadly they are parents in name only. They take no interest in their children, they don’t discipline or provide structure, and they often don’t even provide the basic necessities either.
We can use parental involvement as a bit predictor for both children’s academic and social success. It’s not an end all be all but its pretty close. And let’s just say what the bell curve predicts for children whose parents are on the far left, those parents who have abdicated their responsibilities is pretty grim.
Schools only have less than a quarter of the time at most to make a difference. That the rest of their days many spend living in dangerous neighborhoods with families that don’t care. Their influences and role models are the drug dealers or dropouts next door or even worse in their kitchens. Everyday they get an education in apathy and violence, hopelessness and desperation. Every day they get a little bit angrier and care a little bit less. And you can see this at their schools.
Often times when students act up at school it’s just an extension of what is happening at home. They mirror the disrespect and foul language they see, or they were simply never taught discipline or self restraint or learned it at the back of a hand and that’s because their parents never learned it or learned it through a slap or a punch themselves.
When some children don’t make an effort in school it’s often because their parents don’t understand the importance of an education or understand the material themselves. They don’t care or are uninterested. Like the Greeks chained to the cave wall in Plato’s metaphor of the cave these parents only know what the know and often that’s just anger and violence and not the importance of school.
People write, say and scream to the heavens all the time if only we could get these parents more involved the the
fate of their children wouldn’t be sealed, it would be better. That the children could grow up and break the cycle of poverty, violence and apathy that their parents grew up in. And I say to all the people who say. that you are wrong, and I want to scream that to the heavens too!
So many times as a teacher I have called home about misbehaving students and been told they act the same where there and the child was my problem. Soon however if nothing is done they will be all of societies problem and waiting for some of these parents to wake up/step up and do the right thing is like planning to win the lottery. Sure it might happen but we shouldn’t count on it. We as a society can no longer sit back and blame the parents anymore and nor can we wait for them to do the right thing.
We can’t say if only little Johnnie’s parents would have taken an interest he wouldn’t be such a behavior problem or if only little Suzie’s mom would have read to her she would be doing better in school anymore. And blaming some parents for how their children behave is like blaming fire for burning. The fire doesn’t care what it burns, even if it is hopes, dreams and opportunities.
If some parents aren’t going to do it and we know they are not going to do it then we as a society have two choices, do nothing and reap the consequences of a never ending, expanding cycle of poverty, violence and a lack of civility or to do the right thing, to step and reap a whole host of potential rewards. Well I guess there is a third option and that’s to wish upon a star.
I wish there were no parents at the far end of the bell curve and all parents loved and provided for their children and then consequently all students knew how to take care of their responsibilities but at the same time I live in the real world and have experienced firsthand in my classrooms and in the halls of my school, those parents who don’t care either through the words or actions or both. I read about how a young person has tragically altered their life or another’s life everyday in the law and disorder section of the paper or hear about it on the news. What part of the bell curve to you think the vast majority of their parents fell on?
When I look at my sink and see it filled with dirty dishes, I don’t just hope they go away, on the contrary if I want something to happen then I have to do something. I have to step up and make sure they get done. If we want the children of parents who have quit, who have turned out to be everything but parental to grow up and achieve something, to be productive members of society we can’t just sit around and hope it happens. We have to do something more than just blame the parents and wish upon stars.
Students failing in school or students who are misbehaving in schools are the kids that need the extra resources. We might not always like them, we might not think its fair but they are the ones we have to stand up the most for because if not us then who? It has to be us, it has to be society collectively making a stand and saying enough is enough because even though, and I agree with so many it’s not how it is supposed to be, we’re going to do it because we know it’s not going to be their parents who do so.
It’s either we work together to make things better for these children and hopefully break the cycle and reap the rewards or it’s do nothing and see the cycle continue and reap the consequences of more crime, more poverty, less civility and no hope.
What’s it going to be? What do you want to do?
How should Teachers be Paid
There has been great discussion about how teachers should get paid. Politicians have using the buzz words merit pay to misinform the public. People that support the notion of merit pay scream, that’s how other professions get paid, why should teachers be any different. Charlie Crist even said that’s how it is for most of us: You do well, you keep your job. I found it quite ironic that as he said that the state is facing massive unemployment and a three billion dollar deficit. Though at the same time it made me wonder how teachers would get paid if they were in other professions.
If teachers were bankers they would get paid millions no matter what type of job they do and then get bonuses on top of that. The really lucky teachers would get bailed out by the government.
If teachers worked in a sweat shop they would get paid by the pieces. Last year the state gave about 7,000 dollars per student, a class of 25 would bring in 205 thousand. Now if all this went to the teachers it would eliminate, support staff and administrative positions and teachers would have to for their overhead but since they would have a little extra be to be able to do so. As most teachers already pay for some of their supplies and many of their children’s supplies too this wouldn’t be that affected.
If teachers got paid like a politicians they would make over a hundred grand and it wouldn’t matter what type of job they do as long as they could convince at least forty percent of their parents that they were doing a good job. Forty percent is a generous estimate of how large the voting public usually is, though John Thrasher won a race once with about six percent of the possible votes.
If teachers were in the military they would get a wage based on rank, similar to how teachers now get a wage based on years of service. The military also gives additional bonuses for special or hazardous duty pay like say they were in a war zone; this is in addition to their salary which is what merit pay should be. Could you imagine how demoralizing it would be to military personnel if the Pentagon said; unless you are in a warzone we’re only going to give you half pay.
If teachers were fireman or police, perhaps the best comparison available they would get a base salary that would increase every year. They could further get bonuses based on their education. If that sounds familiar that’s because that’s exactly how teachers are paid too, at least for now anyways. What would happen if we told firemen they were going to be paid on how many fires they put out and then adjust that based on property loss? What would happen if we told the police they were going to be paid on how many arrests they made, would that make things a lot better or lot worse?
Teachers would be excited about merit pay if it was a bonus to their salary, that’s they received it in addition to their salary, after all isn’t that what a bonus is. The legislature is trying to make half of a teacher’s salary be based on merit as if most teachers don’t have plenty of merit by simply showing up. In their system there is no bonus for excellence or achievement the best of the best will simply get their full salary.
Then think about how ironic the notion of stripping away teacher’s salary enhancement for advanced degrees. Teachers tell children all the time get your education and the more you have the more you will be able to do. Well incongruously enough accept if you are a teacher because all teachers regardless of education will be paid the same, well potentially be paid the same.
No longer will years of service count for anything either. It won’t matter if you have worked for one year or thirty, and exactly what profession does that happen in again. Length of service more than anything has determined ones pay in most professions. Everyone got a raise after a year, the best performers a little more but nobody was left out.
Also where is this epidemic of bad teachers supposedly coming from, because teachers in Florida have been doing more with less for years and as a state has made appreciable gains. There are procedures in place to remove bad teachers is it the unions fault districts across the state have not used them to get rid of the few bad apples. The truth is teaching is like most professions and can be place on a bell curve. There are five percent great ones, five percent bad ones and the vast majority falls in the middle. Why does Florida think it’s okay to punish them all, especially since if they wanted to do the leg work they could get rid of the worse.
John Thrasher was quoted as saying, my daughter was a teacher and she’s not afraid of senate bill six, a clone of which will be on the horizon. The key phrase in that sentence is “was a teacher” as she has since moved on. Though she is one of the few because the vast majority of teachers whether they be religious or not, democrat or republican, new or experienced, old or young, black or white and every race in between are terrified about this bill. But as long as her daughter the former teacher is okay with it then Thrasher thinks it’s all right. How is that acceptable?
How is it how we treat teachers today is acceptable?
If teachers were bankers they would get paid millions no matter what type of job they do and then get bonuses on top of that. The really lucky teachers would get bailed out by the government.
If teachers worked in a sweat shop they would get paid by the pieces. Last year the state gave about 7,000 dollars per student, a class of 25 would bring in 205 thousand. Now if all this went to the teachers it would eliminate, support staff and administrative positions and teachers would have to for their overhead but since they would have a little extra be to be able to do so. As most teachers already pay for some of their supplies and many of their children’s supplies too this wouldn’t be that affected.
If teachers got paid like a politicians they would make over a hundred grand and it wouldn’t matter what type of job they do as long as they could convince at least forty percent of their parents that they were doing a good job. Forty percent is a generous estimate of how large the voting public usually is, though John Thrasher won a race once with about six percent of the possible votes.
If teachers were in the military they would get a wage based on rank, similar to how teachers now get a wage based on years of service. The military also gives additional bonuses for special or hazardous duty pay like say they were in a war zone; this is in addition to their salary which is what merit pay should be. Could you imagine how demoralizing it would be to military personnel if the Pentagon said; unless you are in a warzone we’re only going to give you half pay.
If teachers were fireman or police, perhaps the best comparison available they would get a base salary that would increase every year. They could further get bonuses based on their education. If that sounds familiar that’s because that’s exactly how teachers are paid too, at least for now anyways. What would happen if we told firemen they were going to be paid on how many fires they put out and then adjust that based on property loss? What would happen if we told the police they were going to be paid on how many arrests they made, would that make things a lot better or lot worse?
Teachers would be excited about merit pay if it was a bonus to their salary, that’s they received it in addition to their salary, after all isn’t that what a bonus is. The legislature is trying to make half of a teacher’s salary be based on merit as if most teachers don’t have plenty of merit by simply showing up. In their system there is no bonus for excellence or achievement the best of the best will simply get their full salary.
Then think about how ironic the notion of stripping away teacher’s salary enhancement for advanced degrees. Teachers tell children all the time get your education and the more you have the more you will be able to do. Well incongruously enough accept if you are a teacher because all teachers regardless of education will be paid the same, well potentially be paid the same.
No longer will years of service count for anything either. It won’t matter if you have worked for one year or thirty, and exactly what profession does that happen in again. Length of service more than anything has determined ones pay in most professions. Everyone got a raise after a year, the best performers a little more but nobody was left out.
Also where is this epidemic of bad teachers supposedly coming from, because teachers in Florida have been doing more with less for years and as a state has made appreciable gains. There are procedures in place to remove bad teachers is it the unions fault districts across the state have not used them to get rid of the few bad apples. The truth is teaching is like most professions and can be place on a bell curve. There are five percent great ones, five percent bad ones and the vast majority falls in the middle. Why does Florida think it’s okay to punish them all, especially since if they wanted to do the leg work they could get rid of the worse.
John Thrasher was quoted as saying, my daughter was a teacher and she’s not afraid of senate bill six, a clone of which will be on the horizon. The key phrase in that sentence is “was a teacher” as she has since moved on. Though she is one of the few because the vast majority of teachers whether they be religious or not, democrat or republican, new or experienced, old or young, black or white and every race in between are terrified about this bill. But as long as her daughter the former teacher is okay with it then Thrasher thinks it’s all right. How is that acceptable?
How is it how we treat teachers today is acceptable?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Scott's voucher plan has Jeb all over it
From the Sun Sentinel
By Stephen L. Goldstein
Our I-can't-believe-he-was elected governor, Rick Scott, has gotten a bum steer. He's letting himself be manipulated on education policy by Jeb Bush. During Jeb's eight years in office, he instituted reforms that failed significantly to improve Florida schools.
During Charlie Crist's four years, Jeb plotted to remake education in his image through a number of failed draconian measures. He still thinks he's governor.
On Jeb's advice, even before Scott had been sworn into office, he's turning into "governor-giveaway." He wants to raid the state treasury of public-education funds and privatize public education. According to accounts in the St. Petersburg Times, Scott recently publicly touted his plan to give potentially all primary and secondary students taxpayer money from public-school budgets so they can go to any school they want. But his vouchers-for-everybody plan has actually been concocted by Jeb's Foundation for Florida's Future.
Here's how the Bush/Scott plan to dismantle public education works: Every year, parents would be able to receive state funds for an education savings account equal to 85 percent of the amount a student would have generated in the public-school system. The current state per-pupil funding is $6,843. So, if the program were underway, parents would get $5,474 per student.
Any student who was in public school for a year, as well as the school-aged sibling of a student already in the program, would be eligible. With Bush/Scott's giveaway money in hand, parents could send their kid(s) to any school they wanted. The money could even be used for everything from books to laptop computers and Florida prepaid college tuition.
That's because it's a giveaway to parents who would send their kid(s) to private school anyway, but who now would get lots of free extra money in state aid.
In fact, the Bush/Scott plan amounts to an unprecedented and unconstitutional redistribution of dollars out of the pockets of the middle-class, socialism masquerading as free-market education.
Concocters of the plan will try to sell it to the public with the usual line that money for public schools is really taxpayers' money, not the government's, so parents should be able to spend their money for their children's education as they see fit.
But the money that would be deposited into almost any child's education savings account is not theirs. It comes from the pool of property taxes.
For example, in Broward, with a countywide 2.2 percent millage, to generate $5,474 for just one student, a family would have to own property with an $899,775 taxable value, far beyond most assessments.
Most of the money Bush/Scott gives away would come from property owners without kids in school, who would be legally forced to hand over their money to make up the shortfall of most families.
It's one thing for citizens to be taxed to fund a public school system, quite another to be forced to pay for someone else's kid(s). At least one advocate for education savings account argues incorrectly that they're like Bright Futures college scholarships. But that money comes from state Lottery revenues — voluntary payments, not taxes. Critics who oppose Obama's health plan because everyone is forced to buy insurance should be equally outraged at Tallahassee Republicans if they create a "private education mandate" that redistributes their money.
The Bush/Scott scheme is also unconstitutional because the Florida Constitution mandates that the state provide "a uniform ... and high-quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high-quality education." Dismantling the system by redistributing its funds willy-nilly into private hands violates that provision.
Florida desperately needs to develop sound education policy. The state's students and public schools have been shortchanged for too long. But the governor should resist implementing sweeping, radical, untested policies. He needs to reboot and give Jeb the boot.
Otherwise, in the not-too-distant future, I won't be the only one who can't believe he was elected — or worse.
Stephen L. Goldstein is an op-ed columnist for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. He can be reached at trendsman@aol.com.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-sgcol-scott-oped1226-20110104,0,1074953.story
By Stephen L. Goldstein
Our I-can't-believe-he-was elected governor, Rick Scott, has gotten a bum steer. He's letting himself be manipulated on education policy by Jeb Bush. During Jeb's eight years in office, he instituted reforms that failed significantly to improve Florida schools.
During Charlie Crist's four years, Jeb plotted to remake education in his image through a number of failed draconian measures. He still thinks he's governor.
On Jeb's advice, even before Scott had been sworn into office, he's turning into "governor-giveaway." He wants to raid the state treasury of public-education funds and privatize public education. According to accounts in the St. Petersburg Times, Scott recently publicly touted his plan to give potentially all primary and secondary students taxpayer money from public-school budgets so they can go to any school they want. But his vouchers-for-everybody plan has actually been concocted by Jeb's Foundation for Florida's Future.
Here's how the Bush/Scott plan to dismantle public education works: Every year, parents would be able to receive state funds for an education savings account equal to 85 percent of the amount a student would have generated in the public-school system. The current state per-pupil funding is $6,843. So, if the program were underway, parents would get $5,474 per student.
Any student who was in public school for a year, as well as the school-aged sibling of a student already in the program, would be eligible. With Bush/Scott's giveaway money in hand, parents could send their kid(s) to any school they wanted. The money could even be used for everything from books to laptop computers and Florida prepaid college tuition.
That's because it's a giveaway to parents who would send their kid(s) to private school anyway, but who now would get lots of free extra money in state aid.
In fact, the Bush/Scott plan amounts to an unprecedented and unconstitutional redistribution of dollars out of the pockets of the middle-class, socialism masquerading as free-market education.
Concocters of the plan will try to sell it to the public with the usual line that money for public schools is really taxpayers' money, not the government's, so parents should be able to spend their money for their children's education as they see fit.
But the money that would be deposited into almost any child's education savings account is not theirs. It comes from the pool of property taxes.
For example, in Broward, with a countywide 2.2 percent millage, to generate $5,474 for just one student, a family would have to own property with an $899,775 taxable value, far beyond most assessments.
Most of the money Bush/Scott gives away would come from property owners without kids in school, who would be legally forced to hand over their money to make up the shortfall of most families.
It's one thing for citizens to be taxed to fund a public school system, quite another to be forced to pay for someone else's kid(s). At least one advocate for education savings account argues incorrectly that they're like Bright Futures college scholarships. But that money comes from state Lottery revenues — voluntary payments, not taxes. Critics who oppose Obama's health plan because everyone is forced to buy insurance should be equally outraged at Tallahassee Republicans if they create a "private education mandate" that redistributes their money.
The Bush/Scott scheme is also unconstitutional because the Florida Constitution mandates that the state provide "a uniform ... and high-quality system of free public schools that allows students to obtain a high-quality education." Dismantling the system by redistributing its funds willy-nilly into private hands violates that provision.
Florida desperately needs to develop sound education policy. The state's students and public schools have been shortchanged for too long. But the governor should resist implementing sweeping, radical, untested policies. He needs to reboot and give Jeb the boot.
Otherwise, in the not-too-distant future, I won't be the only one who can't believe he was elected — or worse.
Stephen L. Goldstein is an op-ed columnist for the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. He can be reached at trendsman@aol.com.
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/fl-sgcol-scott-oped1226-20110104,0,1074953.story
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Looking for Education Answers? Check out the Answer Sheet
Valerie Strauss’s Answer Sheet published in the Washington Post has to be the best source of education information around. You can tell she is pro public schools but likewise you can tell through her measured and thought out responses that she has not just drank the kool aide.
Not only does she contribute regularly her own pieces but she also pulls from a stable of bloggers and writers nation wide hitting on a multitude of education issues. She is also not against putting people with an opposing viewpoint on her blog too.
Finally even though she is in Washington D.C. she writes about Florida education issues seemingly as often as the Times Union writes about the Gators, that’s to say a lot. If you are looking for education answers you should definitely check out the Answer sheet.
Closer to home TampaBay.coms the Grade Book is another excellent source for education news. If only more local sources for news would take a similar interest in education.
Both sites have links in the blog section at the bottom of the page.
Not only does she contribute regularly her own pieces but she also pulls from a stable of bloggers and writers nation wide hitting on a multitude of education issues. She is also not against putting people with an opposing viewpoint on her blog too.
Finally even though she is in Washington D.C. she writes about Florida education issues seemingly as often as the Times Union writes about the Gators, that’s to say a lot. If you are looking for education answers you should definitely check out the Answer sheet.
Closer to home TampaBay.coms the Grade Book is another excellent source for education news. If only more local sources for news would take a similar interest in education.
Both sites have links in the blog section at the bottom of the page.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Gov.-elect Rick Scott eyes 'game-changing' education overhaul
By Leslie Postal and Dave Weber, Orlando Sentinel
Gov.-elect Rick Scott wants Florida parents in the driver's seat when it comes to their children's education, and he's considering a number of ways to put them there despite questions and criticism from school leaders.
Scott's plans might include allowing parents to choose which schools their kids attend, regardless of attendance zones or county lines.
Parents might be able to use state tax money to send their kids to private school or to cover home-schooling expenses — or, perhaps, to tuck the money away for college.
Parents also could be given direct power to make major changes at poorly performing schools. A "trigger" option would allow parents to design a fix when a majority agree that change is needed. That might include replacing the school's administration, converting to a charter school and other options.
These ideas are among a long menu of potential reforms that Scott's education transition team calls "game-changing proposals." Others include merit pay for teachers, more online learning and a new state funding plan based on what students learn rather than how much time they spend in school.
Scott is mulling all of them, but it's still not clear how many new education reforms lawmakers will embrace.
The boldest idea creates "education savings accounts" that parents would tap for private schools, home schooling or even college if they want to opt out of public schools.
School choice for all has been discussed among educators for quite some time, but Scott's proposal would be the first pushed by a governor, said Paul Peterson, director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.
"That's really planting a national flag out there," said Peterson, who supports many of Scott's ideas.
Local educators, who would have to carry out any changes, are much less enthusiastic.
"It's a great idea if you want to do away with public schools," said Judy Conte, a member of the Volusia County School Board.
They say many of Scott's ideas are unworkable, counterproductive and poorly thought out.
Dede Schaffner, chairman of the Seminole School Board, wonders how that highly regarded school system would handle a crush of students from neighboring Orange, Lake and Volusia counties if students were permitted to freely cross county lines to attend whatever school they chose.
"Are we going to get state funding for all of the students that come to us?" asked Schaffner, pointing out that county taxpayers cover a large share of school costs. "And are we going to have the facilities?"
Candace Lankford, a Volusia School Board member who heads the Florida School Boards Association, is concerned that Scott might send dwindling state tax dollars to private schools or home schools but require no accountability. It's a paradox, she said, to demand proof that public schools are succeeding while paying for students to attend private or home schools where no one knows what they are learning.
It remains to be seen whether Scott, who takes office Tuesday, can turn his far-reaching agenda into law. Florida's divisive battle last spring over a teacher-merit-pay bill proved the difficulty of transforming controversial proposals into state law.
The Legislature last session approved a sweeping merit-pay bill, but Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed it.
Even Florida lawmakers supportive of education reform are leery of school choice and other Scott initiatives with high price tags when the state faces a budget shortfall expected to run as high as $3.5 billion next year.
Legislators and educators also are concerned by Scott's vow to reduce school property taxes. Although he has said he will find replacement funding for the schools, many suspect it will be lost.
"If we have any more money taken away from us, we cannot continue to have the kind of school system we offer," said Darvin Boothe, lobbyist for Seminole County Public Schools.
Scott campaigned to expand reforms championed by former Gov. Jeb Bush and has relied heavily on his ideas. Bush ushered in A-to-F school grades, state-financed tuition vouchers and increased reliance on standardized tests — controversial moves he credits with academic gains among Florida schoolchildren.
Bush's influence continues with the head of his education-advocacy foundation, Patricia Levesque, leading Scott's education-transition team. The group devised a 10-point education plan centered on "reform and innovation" that even suggested the Florida Department of Education be renamed the Florida Department of Education Innovation.
Republican Scott is expected to push the GOP-controlled Legislature to pass much of his education agenda during the upcoming legislative session, which starts in March.
Other key ideas suggested by Scott's team include:
Expanding high-performing charter schools, giving universities the power to sponsor charters and beefing up charter-school funding.
Expanding Florida's two existing voucher programs — the McKay Scholarship program for children with disabilities and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for those from low-income families.
Passing a merit-pay law that changes how teachers are evaluated and paid, with their students' academic performance a key factor in both.
Ending tenure for newly hired teachers and speeding removal of ineffective teachers.
Offering higher pay to those who teach in a "high-need" school or subject area.
But the idea of giving parents access to 85 percent of the money the state would spend on their child in a public school is causing the most debate. Already, many have decried Scott's savings plan as an unconstitutional and fiscally irresponsible effort to dismantle public schools.
The Florida Education Association, the state's teachers union, fears the education savings accounts would bring an exodus of students to private or home schools and leave only a "shadow public-school system" remaining.
The union waged a successful court battle to overturn Florida's first school-voucher program, which offered private-school scholarships to students in persistently failing public schools.
"We've been down this road before. It's just a fight that the courts have already ruled on," said Andy Ford, FEA president.
Even some voucher proponents agree. Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom, favors vouchers but does not believe the education-savings plan will pass review by the Florida Supreme Court, which in 2006 struck down Jeb Bush's Opportunity Scholarship program.
Coulson said a push to expand vouchers to all could jeopardize the state's two remaining voucher programs, which have not been challenged in court.
State Sen. David Simmons, R- Maitland, chairman of the Senate budget subcommittee on education, said he is a "firm believer in school choice" but remains cautious about the savings plan.
"The assurance that children are going to receive a quality education from such a proposal is obviously one of the main questions that has to be answered," Simmons said.
For Dwight Bullard, much about Scott's education agenda is cause for worry. He is a teacher at a Miami high school and a Democratic representative in the Florida House.
He thinks the governor-elect's plans push Florida schools hard in the wrong direction, and expects others will join in protest as the Legislature debates Scott's education proposals.
"Just put your seat belt on," Bullard said. "It's definitely going to be the likes that we haven't seen in a while."
Leslie Postal can be reached at lpostal@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5273. Dave Weber can be reached at dweber@orlandosentinel.com or 407-883-7885.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/state/os-governor-rick-scott-education-20110102,0,2853711.story?page=2
Gov.-elect Rick Scott wants Florida parents in the driver's seat when it comes to their children's education, and he's considering a number of ways to put them there despite questions and criticism from school leaders.
Scott's plans might include allowing parents to choose which schools their kids attend, regardless of attendance zones or county lines.
Parents might be able to use state tax money to send their kids to private school or to cover home-schooling expenses — or, perhaps, to tuck the money away for college.
Parents also could be given direct power to make major changes at poorly performing schools. A "trigger" option would allow parents to design a fix when a majority agree that change is needed. That might include replacing the school's administration, converting to a charter school and other options.
These ideas are among a long menu of potential reforms that Scott's education transition team calls "game-changing proposals." Others include merit pay for teachers, more online learning and a new state funding plan based on what students learn rather than how much time they spend in school.
Scott is mulling all of them, but it's still not clear how many new education reforms lawmakers will embrace.
The boldest idea creates "education savings accounts" that parents would tap for private schools, home schooling or even college if they want to opt out of public schools.
School choice for all has been discussed among educators for quite some time, but Scott's proposal would be the first pushed by a governor, said Paul Peterson, director of the Program on Education Policy and Governance at Harvard University.
"That's really planting a national flag out there," said Peterson, who supports many of Scott's ideas.
Local educators, who would have to carry out any changes, are much less enthusiastic.
"It's a great idea if you want to do away with public schools," said Judy Conte, a member of the Volusia County School Board.
They say many of Scott's ideas are unworkable, counterproductive and poorly thought out.
Dede Schaffner, chairman of the Seminole School Board, wonders how that highly regarded school system would handle a crush of students from neighboring Orange, Lake and Volusia counties if students were permitted to freely cross county lines to attend whatever school they chose.
"Are we going to get state funding for all of the students that come to us?" asked Schaffner, pointing out that county taxpayers cover a large share of school costs. "And are we going to have the facilities?"
Candace Lankford, a Volusia School Board member who heads the Florida School Boards Association, is concerned that Scott might send dwindling state tax dollars to private schools or home schools but require no accountability. It's a paradox, she said, to demand proof that public schools are succeeding while paying for students to attend private or home schools where no one knows what they are learning.
It remains to be seen whether Scott, who takes office Tuesday, can turn his far-reaching agenda into law. Florida's divisive battle last spring over a teacher-merit-pay bill proved the difficulty of transforming controversial proposals into state law.
The Legislature last session approved a sweeping merit-pay bill, but Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed it.
Even Florida lawmakers supportive of education reform are leery of school choice and other Scott initiatives with high price tags when the state faces a budget shortfall expected to run as high as $3.5 billion next year.
Legislators and educators also are concerned by Scott's vow to reduce school property taxes. Although he has said he will find replacement funding for the schools, many suspect it will be lost.
"If we have any more money taken away from us, we cannot continue to have the kind of school system we offer," said Darvin Boothe, lobbyist for Seminole County Public Schools.
Scott campaigned to expand reforms championed by former Gov. Jeb Bush and has relied heavily on his ideas. Bush ushered in A-to-F school grades, state-financed tuition vouchers and increased reliance on standardized tests — controversial moves he credits with academic gains among Florida schoolchildren.
Bush's influence continues with the head of his education-advocacy foundation, Patricia Levesque, leading Scott's education-transition team. The group devised a 10-point education plan centered on "reform and innovation" that even suggested the Florida Department of Education be renamed the Florida Department of Education Innovation.
Republican Scott is expected to push the GOP-controlled Legislature to pass much of his education agenda during the upcoming legislative session, which starts in March.
Other key ideas suggested by Scott's team include:
Expanding high-performing charter schools, giving universities the power to sponsor charters and beefing up charter-school funding.
Expanding Florida's two existing voucher programs — the McKay Scholarship program for children with disabilities and the Florida Tax Credit Scholarship for those from low-income families.
Passing a merit-pay law that changes how teachers are evaluated and paid, with their students' academic performance a key factor in both.
Ending tenure for newly hired teachers and speeding removal of ineffective teachers.
Offering higher pay to those who teach in a "high-need" school or subject area.
But the idea of giving parents access to 85 percent of the money the state would spend on their child in a public school is causing the most debate. Already, many have decried Scott's savings plan as an unconstitutional and fiscally irresponsible effort to dismantle public schools.
The Florida Education Association, the state's teachers union, fears the education savings accounts would bring an exodus of students to private or home schools and leave only a "shadow public-school system" remaining.
The union waged a successful court battle to overturn Florida's first school-voucher program, which offered private-school scholarships to students in persistently failing public schools.
"We've been down this road before. It's just a fight that the courts have already ruled on," said Andy Ford, FEA president.
Even some voucher proponents agree. Andrew Coulson, director of the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom, favors vouchers but does not believe the education-savings plan will pass review by the Florida Supreme Court, which in 2006 struck down Jeb Bush's Opportunity Scholarship program.
Coulson said a push to expand vouchers to all could jeopardize the state's two remaining voucher programs, which have not been challenged in court.
State Sen. David Simmons, R- Maitland, chairman of the Senate budget subcommittee on education, said he is a "firm believer in school choice" but remains cautious about the savings plan.
"The assurance that children are going to receive a quality education from such a proposal is obviously one of the main questions that has to be answered," Simmons said.
For Dwight Bullard, much about Scott's education agenda is cause for worry. He is a teacher at a Miami high school and a Democratic representative in the Florida House.
He thinks the governor-elect's plans push Florida schools hard in the wrong direction, and expects others will join in protest as the Legislature debates Scott's education proposals.
"Just put your seat belt on," Bullard said. "It's definitely going to be the likes that we haven't seen in a while."
Leslie Postal can be reached at lpostal@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5273. Dave Weber can be reached at dweber@orlandosentinel.com or 407-883-7885.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/politics/state/os-governor-rick-scott-education-20110102,0,2853711.story?page=2
The Attack on American Education Continues
By Robert Reich
Over the long term, the only way we’re going to raise wages, grow the economy, and improve American competitiveness is by investing in our people — especially their educations.
You’ve probably seen the reports. American students rank low on international standards of educational performance. Too many of ours schools are failing. Too few young people who are qualified for college or post-secondary education have the opportunity.
I’m not one of those who thinks the only way to fix what’s wrong with American education is to throw more money at it. We also need to do it much better. Teacher performance has to be squarely on the table. We should experiment with vouchers whose worth is inversely related to family income.
But more resources are a pre-requisite for any major reform.
Here’s another reason why the $858 billion tax bill — including a continuation of the Bush tax cuts to the richest Americans and a dramatic drop in their estate taxes — is so dangerous. By further widening the federal budget deficit, it invites even more budget cuts in education, including early-childhood and post-secondary. Pell Grants that allow young people from poor families to attend college are already on the chopping block.
Less visible are cuts the states are already making in their schools budgets. Because these cuts are at the state level they’ve been under the national radar screen, but viewed as a whole they seriously threaten the nation’s future.
Here’s a summary:
•Arizona has eliminated preschool for 4,328 children, funding for schools to provide additional support to disadvantaged children from preschool to third grade, aid to charter schools, and funding for books, computers, and other classroom supplies. The state also halved funding for kindergarten, leaving school districts and parents to shoulder the cost of keeping their children in school beyond a half-day schedule.
•California has reduced K-12 aid to local school districts by billions of dollars and is cutting a variety of programs, including adult literacy instruction and help for high-needs students.
•Colorado has reduced public school spending in FY 2011 by $260 million, nearly a 5 percent decline from the previous year. The cut amounts to more than $400 per student.
•Georgia has cut state funding for K-12 education for FY 2011 by $403 million or 5.5 percent relative to FY 2010 levels. The cut has led the state’s board of education to exempt local school districts from class size requirements to reduce costs.
•Hawaii shortened the 2009-10 school year by 17 days and furloughed teachers for those days.
•Illinois has cut school education funding by $241 million or 3 percent in its FY 2011 budget relative to FY 2010 levels. Cuts include a significant reduction in funding for student transportation and the elimination of a grant program intended to improve the reading and study skills of at-risk students from kindergarten through the 6th grade.
•Maryland has cut professional development for principals and educators, as well as health clinics, gifted and talented summer centers, and math and science initiatives.
•Michigan has cut its FY 2010 school aid budget by $382 million, resulting in a $165 per-pupil spending reduction.
•Over the course of FY10, Mississippi cut by 7.2 percent funding for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, a program established to bring per-pupil K-12 spending up to adequate levels in every district.
•Massachusetts has cut state education aid by $115.6 million, or 3 percent in its FY 2011 budget relative to FY 2010 levels. It also made a $4.6 million, or 16 percent cut relative to FY 2010 levels to funding for early intervention services, which help special-needs children develop appropriately and be ready for school.
•Missouri is cutting its funding for K-12 transportation by 46 percent. The cut in funding likely will lead to longer bus rides and the elimination of routes for some of the 565,000 students who rely on the school bus system.
•New Jersey has cut funding for afterschool programs aimed to enhance student achievement and keep students safe between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. The cut will likely cause more than 11,000 students to lose access to the programs and 1,100 staff workers to lose their jobs.
•North Carolina cut by 21 percent funding for a program targeted at small schools in low-income areas and with a high need for social workers and nurses. As a result, 20 schools will be left without a social worker or nurse. The state also temporarily eliminated funding for teacher mentoring.
•Rhode Island cut state aid for K-12 education and reduced the number of children who can be served by Head Start and similar services.
•Virginia’s $700 million in cuts for the coming biennium include the state’s share of an array of school district operating and capital expenses and funding for class-size reduction in kindergarten through third grade. In addition, a $500 million reduction in state funding for some 13,000 support staff such as janitors, school nurses, and school psychologists from last year’s budget was made permanent.
•Washington suspended a program to reduce class sizes and provide professional development for teachers; the state also reduced funding for maintaining 4th grade student-to-staff-ratios by $30 million.
•State education grants to school districts and education programs have also been cut in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah.
Meanwhile, at least 43 states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities and/or made large increases in college tuition to make up for insufficient state funding.
•Alabama’s fiscal year 2011 cuts to higher education have led to 2010-11 tuition hikes that range from 8 percent to 23 percent, depending on the institution.
•Arizona’s Board of Regents approved in-state undergraduate tuition increases of between 9 and 20 percent as well as fee increases at the state’s three public universities. Additionally, the three state universities must implement a 2.75 percent reduction in state-funded salary spending and plan to do so through a variety of actions, such as academic reorganization, layoffs, furloughs, position eliminations, hiring fewer tenure-eligible faculty, and higher teaching workloads.
•The University of California has increased tuition by 32 percent and reduced freshman enrollment by 2,300 students; the California State University system cut enrollment by 40,000 students.
•Colorado funding for higher education was reduced by $62 million from FY 2010 and this has led to cutbacks at the state’s institutions. The University of Colorado system will lay off 79 employees in FY 2011 and has increased employee workloads and required higher employee contributions to health and retirement benefits.
•Florida’s 11 public universities will raise tuition by 15 percent for the 2010-11 academic year. This tuition hike, combined with a similar increase in 2009-10, results in a total two-year increase of 32 percent.
•Georgia has cut state funding for public higher education for FY2011 by $151 million, or 7 percent. As a result, undergraduate tuition for the fall 2010 semester at Georgia’s four public research universities (Georgia State, Georgia Tech, the Medical College of Georgia, and the University of Georgia) will increase by $500 per semester, or 16 percent. Community college tuition will increase by $50 per semester.
•The University of Idaho has responded to budget cuts by imposing furlough days on 2,600 of its employees statewide. Furloughs will range from 4 hours to 40 hours depending on pay level.
•Indiana’s cuts to higher education have caused Indiana State University to plan to lay off 89 staff.
•Michigan has reduced student financial aid by $135 million (over 61 percent), including decreases of 50 percent in competitive scholarships and 44 percent in tuition grants, as well as elimination of nursing scholarships, work-study, the Part-Time Independent Student Program, Michigan Education Opportunity Grants, and the Michigan Promise Scholarships.
•In Minnesota, as a result of higher education funding cuts, approximately 9,400 students will lose their state financial aid grants entirely, and the remaining state financial aid recipients will see their grants cut by 19 percent.
•Missouri’s fiscal year 2011 budget reduces by 60 percent funding for the state’s only need-based financial aid program, which helps 42,000 students access higher education. This cut was partially restored with other scholarship money, but will still result in a cut of at least 24 percent to need-based aid.
•New Mexico has eliminated over 80 percent of support to the College Affordability Endowment Fund, which provides need-based scholarships to 2,366 students who do not qualify for other state grants or scholarships.
•New York’s state university system has increased resident undergraduate tuition by 14 percent beginning with the spring 2009 semester.
•In North Carolina, University of North Carolina students will see their tuition rise by $750 in the 2010-2011 school year and community college students will see their tuition increase by $200 due to fiscal year 2011 reductions in state higher education spending.
•South Dakota’s fiscal year 2011 budget cuts state support for public universities by $6.5 million and as a result the Board of Regents has increased university tuition by 4.6 percent and cut university programs by $4.4 million.
•Texas has instituted a 5 percent across-the-board budget cut that reduced higher education funding by $73 million.
•Virginia’s community colleges implemented a tuition increase during the spring 2010 semester.
•Washington has reduced state funding for the University of Washington by 26 percent for the current biennium. Washington State University is increasing tuition by almost 30 percent over two years. In its supplemental budget, the state cut 6 percent more from direct aid to the state’s six public universities and 34 community colleges, which will lead to further tuition increases, administrative cuts, furloughs, layoffs, and other cuts. The state also cut support for college work-study by nearly one-third and suspended funding for a number of its financial aid programs.
•Other states that are cutting higher education operating funding and financial aid include Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Have we gone collectively out of our minds? Our young people — their capacities to think, understand, investigate, and innovate — are America’s future. In the name of fiscal prudence we’re endangering that future.
In January, Republicans take over the House and its appropriations committees. What would it take for them to reinstitute counter-cyclical revenue sharing that would help the states restore some or all funding for education? Can you imagine the White House and Senate Dems putting this at the top of their 2011 agenda? Is it possible we could have a bi-partisan effort?
http://wallstreetpit.com/54502-the-attack-on-american-education
Over the long term, the only way we’re going to raise wages, grow the economy, and improve American competitiveness is by investing in our people — especially their educations.
You’ve probably seen the reports. American students rank low on international standards of educational performance. Too many of ours schools are failing. Too few young people who are qualified for college or post-secondary education have the opportunity.
I’m not one of those who thinks the only way to fix what’s wrong with American education is to throw more money at it. We also need to do it much better. Teacher performance has to be squarely on the table. We should experiment with vouchers whose worth is inversely related to family income.
But more resources are a pre-requisite for any major reform.
Here’s another reason why the $858 billion tax bill — including a continuation of the Bush tax cuts to the richest Americans and a dramatic drop in their estate taxes — is so dangerous. By further widening the federal budget deficit, it invites even more budget cuts in education, including early-childhood and post-secondary. Pell Grants that allow young people from poor families to attend college are already on the chopping block.
Less visible are cuts the states are already making in their schools budgets. Because these cuts are at the state level they’ve been under the national radar screen, but viewed as a whole they seriously threaten the nation’s future.
Here’s a summary:
•Arizona has eliminated preschool for 4,328 children, funding for schools to provide additional support to disadvantaged children from preschool to third grade, aid to charter schools, and funding for books, computers, and other classroom supplies. The state also halved funding for kindergarten, leaving school districts and parents to shoulder the cost of keeping their children in school beyond a half-day schedule.
•California has reduced K-12 aid to local school districts by billions of dollars and is cutting a variety of programs, including adult literacy instruction and help for high-needs students.
•Colorado has reduced public school spending in FY 2011 by $260 million, nearly a 5 percent decline from the previous year. The cut amounts to more than $400 per student.
•Georgia has cut state funding for K-12 education for FY 2011 by $403 million or 5.5 percent relative to FY 2010 levels. The cut has led the state’s board of education to exempt local school districts from class size requirements to reduce costs.
•Hawaii shortened the 2009-10 school year by 17 days and furloughed teachers for those days.
•Illinois has cut school education funding by $241 million or 3 percent in its FY 2011 budget relative to FY 2010 levels. Cuts include a significant reduction in funding for student transportation and the elimination of a grant program intended to improve the reading and study skills of at-risk students from kindergarten through the 6th grade.
•Maryland has cut professional development for principals and educators, as well as health clinics, gifted and talented summer centers, and math and science initiatives.
•Michigan has cut its FY 2010 school aid budget by $382 million, resulting in a $165 per-pupil spending reduction.
•Over the course of FY10, Mississippi cut by 7.2 percent funding for the Mississippi Adequate Education Program, a program established to bring per-pupil K-12 spending up to adequate levels in every district.
•Massachusetts has cut state education aid by $115.6 million, or 3 percent in its FY 2011 budget relative to FY 2010 levels. It also made a $4.6 million, or 16 percent cut relative to FY 2010 levels to funding for early intervention services, which help special-needs children develop appropriately and be ready for school.
•Missouri is cutting its funding for K-12 transportation by 46 percent. The cut in funding likely will lead to longer bus rides and the elimination of routes for some of the 565,000 students who rely on the school bus system.
•New Jersey has cut funding for afterschool programs aimed to enhance student achievement and keep students safe between the hours of 3 and 6 p.m. The cut will likely cause more than 11,000 students to lose access to the programs and 1,100 staff workers to lose their jobs.
•North Carolina cut by 21 percent funding for a program targeted at small schools in low-income areas and with a high need for social workers and nurses. As a result, 20 schools will be left without a social worker or nurse. The state also temporarily eliminated funding for teacher mentoring.
•Rhode Island cut state aid for K-12 education and reduced the number of children who can be served by Head Start and similar services.
•Virginia’s $700 million in cuts for the coming biennium include the state’s share of an array of school district operating and capital expenses and funding for class-size reduction in kindergarten through third grade. In addition, a $500 million reduction in state funding for some 13,000 support staff such as janitors, school nurses, and school psychologists from last year’s budget was made permanent.
•Washington suspended a program to reduce class sizes and provide professional development for teachers; the state also reduced funding for maintaining 4th grade student-to-staff-ratios by $30 million.
•State education grants to school districts and education programs have also been cut in Alabama, Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Nebraska, Nevada, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Utah.
Meanwhile, at least 43 states have implemented cuts to public colleges and universities and/or made large increases in college tuition to make up for insufficient state funding.
•Alabama’s fiscal year 2011 cuts to higher education have led to 2010-11 tuition hikes that range from 8 percent to 23 percent, depending on the institution.
•Arizona’s Board of Regents approved in-state undergraduate tuition increases of between 9 and 20 percent as well as fee increases at the state’s three public universities. Additionally, the three state universities must implement a 2.75 percent reduction in state-funded salary spending and plan to do so through a variety of actions, such as academic reorganization, layoffs, furloughs, position eliminations, hiring fewer tenure-eligible faculty, and higher teaching workloads.
•The University of California has increased tuition by 32 percent and reduced freshman enrollment by 2,300 students; the California State University system cut enrollment by 40,000 students.
•Colorado funding for higher education was reduced by $62 million from FY 2010 and this has led to cutbacks at the state’s institutions. The University of Colorado system will lay off 79 employees in FY 2011 and has increased employee workloads and required higher employee contributions to health and retirement benefits.
•Florida’s 11 public universities will raise tuition by 15 percent for the 2010-11 academic year. This tuition hike, combined with a similar increase in 2009-10, results in a total two-year increase of 32 percent.
•Georgia has cut state funding for public higher education for FY2011 by $151 million, or 7 percent. As a result, undergraduate tuition for the fall 2010 semester at Georgia’s four public research universities (Georgia State, Georgia Tech, the Medical College of Georgia, and the University of Georgia) will increase by $500 per semester, or 16 percent. Community college tuition will increase by $50 per semester.
•The University of Idaho has responded to budget cuts by imposing furlough days on 2,600 of its employees statewide. Furloughs will range from 4 hours to 40 hours depending on pay level.
•Indiana’s cuts to higher education have caused Indiana State University to plan to lay off 89 staff.
•Michigan has reduced student financial aid by $135 million (over 61 percent), including decreases of 50 percent in competitive scholarships and 44 percent in tuition grants, as well as elimination of nursing scholarships, work-study, the Part-Time Independent Student Program, Michigan Education Opportunity Grants, and the Michigan Promise Scholarships.
•In Minnesota, as a result of higher education funding cuts, approximately 9,400 students will lose their state financial aid grants entirely, and the remaining state financial aid recipients will see their grants cut by 19 percent.
•Missouri’s fiscal year 2011 budget reduces by 60 percent funding for the state’s only need-based financial aid program, which helps 42,000 students access higher education. This cut was partially restored with other scholarship money, but will still result in a cut of at least 24 percent to need-based aid.
•New Mexico has eliminated over 80 percent of support to the College Affordability Endowment Fund, which provides need-based scholarships to 2,366 students who do not qualify for other state grants or scholarships.
•New York’s state university system has increased resident undergraduate tuition by 14 percent beginning with the spring 2009 semester.
•In North Carolina, University of North Carolina students will see their tuition rise by $750 in the 2010-2011 school year and community college students will see their tuition increase by $200 due to fiscal year 2011 reductions in state higher education spending.
•South Dakota’s fiscal year 2011 budget cuts state support for public universities by $6.5 million and as a result the Board of Regents has increased university tuition by 4.6 percent and cut university programs by $4.4 million.
•Texas has instituted a 5 percent across-the-board budget cut that reduced higher education funding by $73 million.
•Virginia’s community colleges implemented a tuition increase during the spring 2010 semester.
•Washington has reduced state funding for the University of Washington by 26 percent for the current biennium. Washington State University is increasing tuition by almost 30 percent over two years. In its supplemental budget, the state cut 6 percent more from direct aid to the state’s six public universities and 34 community colleges, which will lead to further tuition increases, administrative cuts, furloughs, layoffs, and other cuts. The state also cut support for college work-study by nearly one-third and suspended funding for a number of its financial aid programs.
•Other states that are cutting higher education operating funding and financial aid include Arkansas, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Wisconsin.
Have we gone collectively out of our minds? Our young people — their capacities to think, understand, investigate, and innovate — are America’s future. In the name of fiscal prudence we’re endangering that future.
In January, Republicans take over the House and its appropriations committees. What would it take for them to reinstitute counter-cyclical revenue sharing that would help the states restore some or all funding for education? Can you imagine the White House and Senate Dems putting this at the top of their 2011 agenda? Is it possible we could have a bi-partisan effort?
http://wallstreetpit.com/54502-the-attack-on-american-education
Arne Duncan waves magic wand, poverty disapears
By Stephen Krashen
1. Response to Arne Duncan’s claim that his policies succeed in overcoming poverty:
Duncan states that schools and their "local partners" are "overcoming poverty" by "investing in teachers, rebuilding school staff, lengthening the school day and changing curricula."
I know of no evidence that this is so. Rather, the research indicates that there are very few high-performing schools in high poverty conditions. Also, to my knowledge, no detailed studies have emerged with descriptions of rebuilt schools with longer days showing consistent, startling progress.
There have been occasional media reports (e.g. Felch, Song and Poindexter, 2010), but these cases of improvement are sketchy. It is not clear whether scores are being pumped up by test prep or are the result of genuine teaching and learning.
The lack of comparison groups makes it impossible to dismiss the possibility that all students in the district are getting better, possibly due to the introduction of new tests and "test inflation," improvement due to greater familiarity with the test. Gerald Bracey (2009) reported that one highly publicized "success story" published in The New York Times about the Harvard Promise Academy, was true only for one grade, one subject and for one year.
Duncan gives the impression that "overcoming poverty" happens all the time under his administration. There is no real evidence that it happens at all.
2. Response to Arne Duncan claim that there is widespread support for new tests.
Yes, we all want accurate ways of measuring student growth. But does this mean we must have new tests and more testing than has ever been done before? I think we already have a wonderful and accurate way of "accurately measuring what children know." It also "helps inform and improve instruction." It’s called teacher evaluation.
There is no evidence that extensive testing does a better job than teacher evaluation done by professionals who deal with children daily.
The plan presented in the Department of Education’s Blueprint for Reform calls for an astonishing amount of testing, far more than we have now with No Child Left Behind. The only people I know who support the testing plan have spent very little time in schools, haven’t read the Blueprint, or just aren’t listening to real education professions or students. Or all three.
We are about to make a mistake that will cost billions and make school life (even more) miserable for millions of teachers and students. The only ones who will profit are the testing companies. We should be talking about reducing testing, not increasing it.
3. Response to Arne Duncan’s claim that more and more people want "a real definition of teacher effectiveness" and multiple measures.
Duncan wrote: "More and more, teachers, parents, and union and business leaders want a real definition of teacher effectiveness based on multiple measures, including student growth, principal observation and peer review."
No: More and more, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and companies in the testing business want value-added standardized test scores (widely acknowledged to be inaccurate in evaluating teachers), and want to video-tape teachers to make sure they are focused on test/standards-related items in class. There are no teachers, union members, or parents marching in the streets and writing angry letters demanding new and more rigorous measures for teacher evaluation.
Most important: There is no evidence that there is a crisis in teacher quality, no evidence that teacher quality has declined. When we control for poverty, American students score at the top of the world on international comparisons.
The problem is poverty.
-0-
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/a-response-to-arne-duncan.html
1. Response to Arne Duncan’s claim that his policies succeed in overcoming poverty:
Duncan states that schools and their "local partners" are "overcoming poverty" by "investing in teachers, rebuilding school staff, lengthening the school day and changing curricula."
I know of no evidence that this is so. Rather, the research indicates that there are very few high-performing schools in high poverty conditions. Also, to my knowledge, no detailed studies have emerged with descriptions of rebuilt schools with longer days showing consistent, startling progress.
There have been occasional media reports (e.g. Felch, Song and Poindexter, 2010), but these cases of improvement are sketchy. It is not clear whether scores are being pumped up by test prep or are the result of genuine teaching and learning.
The lack of comparison groups makes it impossible to dismiss the possibility that all students in the district are getting better, possibly due to the introduction of new tests and "test inflation," improvement due to greater familiarity with the test. Gerald Bracey (2009) reported that one highly publicized "success story" published in The New York Times about the Harvard Promise Academy, was true only for one grade, one subject and for one year.
Duncan gives the impression that "overcoming poverty" happens all the time under his administration. There is no real evidence that it happens at all.
2. Response to Arne Duncan claim that there is widespread support for new tests.
Yes, we all want accurate ways of measuring student growth. But does this mean we must have new tests and more testing than has ever been done before? I think we already have a wonderful and accurate way of "accurately measuring what children know." It also "helps inform and improve instruction." It’s called teacher evaluation.
There is no evidence that extensive testing does a better job than teacher evaluation done by professionals who deal with children daily.
The plan presented in the Department of Education’s Blueprint for Reform calls for an astonishing amount of testing, far more than we have now with No Child Left Behind. The only people I know who support the testing plan have spent very little time in schools, haven’t read the Blueprint, or just aren’t listening to real education professions or students. Or all three.
We are about to make a mistake that will cost billions and make school life (even more) miserable for millions of teachers and students. The only ones who will profit are the testing companies. We should be talking about reducing testing, not increasing it.
3. Response to Arne Duncan’s claim that more and more people want "a real definition of teacher effectiveness" and multiple measures.
Duncan wrote: "More and more, teachers, parents, and union and business leaders want a real definition of teacher effectiveness based on multiple measures, including student growth, principal observation and peer review."
No: More and more, Arne Duncan, Bill Gates and companies in the testing business want value-added standardized test scores (widely acknowledged to be inaccurate in evaluating teachers), and want to video-tape teachers to make sure they are focused on test/standards-related items in class. There are no teachers, union members, or parents marching in the streets and writing angry letters demanding new and more rigorous measures for teacher evaluation.
Most important: There is no evidence that there is a crisis in teacher quality, no evidence that teacher quality has declined. When we control for poverty, American students score at the top of the world on international comparisons.
The problem is poverty.
-0-
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/education-secretary-duncan/a-response-to-arne-duncan.html
Value subtracted
This could soon be coming to Florida. -cpg
By Aaron Pallas
The theory is simple, although the calculations are complex: Students learn more from some teachers than others. If we can measure students' achievement after they've spent a year with a teacher - and how much these students have gained from where they started at the beginning of the year - we can isolate their teacher's impact. Then, we can rank the "value" added by that teacher compared to other teachers whose students started at the same place.
Value-added measures, in conjunction with other measures of teachers' skills and abilities, shed useful light on a teacher's performance. Taken in isolation, however, these measures fall far short of telling us all that we want to know. For example, the Teacher Data Reports are based entirely on the New York State standardized tests of English Language Arts and mathematics, which capture a very narrow slice of what students learn in school. Also, each classroom is unique, and it is not possible to statistically treat two different teachers' classrooms as though they were identical.
Here, more specifically, is what the Teacher Data Reports won't tell you:
If a teacher rated highly one year is likely to be rated highly again the following year. Among seventh-grade teachers of English in the city, two-thirds in the top quarter in 2007-08 dropped to a lower quartile in 2008-09 - and 17% in the top quarter of all teachers that year plummeted to the bottom quarter the next.
A teacher's rating on other commonly-used student achievement tests. A researcher found that teachers in a large Northeastern urban school district who had been rated most effective in teaching reading based on a state reading test were ranked lower on two other prominent reading assessments. Among teachers in the top quarter of all teachers on the state reading test, 25% were in the bottom half on the other tests.
How a teacher would be rated with a different value-added formula. Value-added statistical methods vary, as do measures of students, classrooms and schools that seek to isolate teacher impact. For example, the Teacher Data Reports use students' eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch as an indicator of family disadvantage, which is less informative than family income or living in a single-parent home. Each model affects teacher rankings: One study showed that just half of teachers are ranked in the same quartile by two different value-added models applied to the same test results.
A teacher's contribution to students' development of intellectual curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, citizenship or self-direction. These outcomes, so central to our concept of a good education, cannot be gauged by standardized tests. Researchers studying a national sample of elementary schoolchildren and their teachers found that the teachers most effective in enhancing children's social and behavioral skills were not the most effective at teaching reading and math.
Whether a teacher's contribution to student learning will persist into the future. A teacher's impact can range from boosting a standardized test score to improving future learning. Value-added measures reward short-term learning. A recent analysis of fourth-grade and fifth-grade teachers in North Carolina showed that about 20% of a teacher's effect on a student's year-end tests was still present two years later.
Whether a teacher's principal thinks the teacher is highly successful or not. One study of elementary school principals and teachers in a Western school district found that when a principal ranked a teacher in the top half of all teachers in the school at raising student achievement in reading or in math, there was a 40% likelihood that the value-added measure put that same teacher in the bottom half of teachers at that school in the same subject.
Whatever the courts decide, it should be clear that Teacher Data Reports provide little more than crude information about which teachers are more successful than others in promoting learning. We need a new generation of tests that provide a broader picture of student learning and are less susceptible to gaming by schools and school systems alike.
Judging a teacher on the basis of reports with so many limitations is unfair, harmful to the profession and unhelpful to anyone who cares about educating our children.
Aaron Pallas is professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/01/03/2011-01-03_what_the_data_wont_tell_us.html?page=1
By Aaron Pallas
The theory is simple, although the calculations are complex: Students learn more from some teachers than others. If we can measure students' achievement after they've spent a year with a teacher - and how much these students have gained from where they started at the beginning of the year - we can isolate their teacher's impact. Then, we can rank the "value" added by that teacher compared to other teachers whose students started at the same place.
Value-added measures, in conjunction with other measures of teachers' skills and abilities, shed useful light on a teacher's performance. Taken in isolation, however, these measures fall far short of telling us all that we want to know. For example, the Teacher Data Reports are based entirely on the New York State standardized tests of English Language Arts and mathematics, which capture a very narrow slice of what students learn in school. Also, each classroom is unique, and it is not possible to statistically treat two different teachers' classrooms as though they were identical.
Here, more specifically, is what the Teacher Data Reports won't tell you:
If a teacher rated highly one year is likely to be rated highly again the following year. Among seventh-grade teachers of English in the city, two-thirds in the top quarter in 2007-08 dropped to a lower quartile in 2008-09 - and 17% in the top quarter of all teachers that year plummeted to the bottom quarter the next.
A teacher's rating on other commonly-used student achievement tests. A researcher found that teachers in a large Northeastern urban school district who had been rated most effective in teaching reading based on a state reading test were ranked lower on two other prominent reading assessments. Among teachers in the top quarter of all teachers on the state reading test, 25% were in the bottom half on the other tests.
How a teacher would be rated with a different value-added formula. Value-added statistical methods vary, as do measures of students, classrooms and schools that seek to isolate teacher impact. For example, the Teacher Data Reports use students' eligibility for free or reduced-price lunch as an indicator of family disadvantage, which is less informative than family income or living in a single-parent home. Each model affects teacher rankings: One study showed that just half of teachers are ranked in the same quartile by two different value-added models applied to the same test results.
A teacher's contribution to students' development of intellectual curiosity, creativity, critical thinking, citizenship or self-direction. These outcomes, so central to our concept of a good education, cannot be gauged by standardized tests. Researchers studying a national sample of elementary schoolchildren and their teachers found that the teachers most effective in enhancing children's social and behavioral skills were not the most effective at teaching reading and math.
Whether a teacher's contribution to student learning will persist into the future. A teacher's impact can range from boosting a standardized test score to improving future learning. Value-added measures reward short-term learning. A recent analysis of fourth-grade and fifth-grade teachers in North Carolina showed that about 20% of a teacher's effect on a student's year-end tests was still present two years later.
Whether a teacher's principal thinks the teacher is highly successful or not. One study of elementary school principals and teachers in a Western school district found that when a principal ranked a teacher in the top half of all teachers in the school at raising student achievement in reading or in math, there was a 40% likelihood that the value-added measure put that same teacher in the bottom half of teachers at that school in the same subject.
Whatever the courts decide, it should be clear that Teacher Data Reports provide little more than crude information about which teachers are more successful than others in promoting learning. We need a new generation of tests that provide a broader picture of student learning and are less susceptible to gaming by schools and school systems alike.
Judging a teacher on the basis of reports with so many limitations is unfair, harmful to the profession and unhelpful to anyone who cares about educating our children.
Aaron Pallas is professor of sociology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.
http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2011/01/03/2011-01-03_what_the_data_wont_tell_us.html?page=1
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Mayor Peyton calls Duval County school district colossal failure
In a Times Union editorial Mayor John Peyton referred to the Duval County Public School District as a colossal failure. Wow right, not just a failure but a colossal failure. Why didn’t he just say a failure of biblical proportions?
The Times Union said they wouldn’t go that far, after all the district has received a B grade from the state. Sorry to disappoint the Times Union but it is a gentlemen’s B as the district has become an expert at massaging certain numbers like more kids taking A.P. classes, giving fewer suspensions and making it nearly impossible to withdraw kids to inflate our grade. Though to be honest I wouldn’t go as far as “colossal failure” either.
The truth is there are incredible things going on at all our schools; even our supposed worse schools and for the most part they are the interactions between our teachers and our students. The thing is the district cannot continue to put our students and teachers in no win situations and then scratch their heads when they don’t succeed to the level that they wanted. It’s a wonder and a credit to our fine teachers dedication and professionalism that we are doing as well as we are.
We can’t continue to push kids through with out the skills they need, ignore discipline and over load and dump on teachers. We must try to address our most struggling kids problems most of which aren’t school related and also have more than the one size fits all, everybody is going to go to college curriculum which serves fewer and fewer children that we have now. If we want to be successful that is. If we don’t do those things then it probably won’t be long before the Times Union as most of the city already does, agrees with the mayor.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
The Times Union said they wouldn’t go that far, after all the district has received a B grade from the state. Sorry to disappoint the Times Union but it is a gentlemen’s B as the district has become an expert at massaging certain numbers like more kids taking A.P. classes, giving fewer suspensions and making it nearly impossible to withdraw kids to inflate our grade. Though to be honest I wouldn’t go as far as “colossal failure” either.
The truth is there are incredible things going on at all our schools; even our supposed worse schools and for the most part they are the interactions between our teachers and our students. The thing is the district cannot continue to put our students and teachers in no win situations and then scratch their heads when they don’t succeed to the level that they wanted. It’s a wonder and a credit to our fine teachers dedication and professionalism that we are doing as well as we are.
We can’t continue to push kids through with out the skills they need, ignore discipline and over load and dump on teachers. We must try to address our most struggling kids problems most of which aren’t school related and also have more than the one size fits all, everybody is going to go to college curriculum which serves fewer and fewer children that we have now. If we want to be successful that is. If we don’t do those things then it probably won’t be long before the Times Union as most of the city already does, agrees with the mayor.
Chris Guerrieri
School Teacher
Monday, December 27, 2010
Charter Schools, the "oops" of education
Charter schools are not hamstrung like many pubic schools are but study after study shows they do no better and often do worse. -cpg
By Larry Cuban, former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, Virginia) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for 20 years. His latest book is "As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin." This appeared on his blog.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and top policymakers have promoted and funded small urban high schools for nearly a decade. Then Bill Gates said in his 2009 Annual Letter that while these small urban high schools had accomplished much for students they had largely failed to improve academic achievement. No more big bucks for this initiative. No other foundation executives or federal/state officials, all of whom had tripped over themselves in hailing small urban high schools, said "Oops!"
Ditto for charter schools. Policy elites across both political parties for the past decade have promoted charter schools to offer urban parents and their children choices they would not have in district regular schools. A 15-state study concluded that, indeed, 17 percent of charters offered “superior educational opportunities for their students.” Nearly half of the charters, however, differed little from regular public school “options,” and here is the kicker: 37 percent of the charters “deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their students would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.”
There’s more bad news on charters (I winced because, in general, I support this public option and sit on a charter school board). In a recent report from the Thomas Fordham Institute, a researcher tracked 2,000 low-performing regular and charter schools between 2003-2009 to see if they had turned around, been closed, or remained low-performing. Eighty percent of these low performing regular public schools were still in business–yes, 80 percent.
But here’s the surprise: 72 percent of low-performing charters also stayed open and continued to perform poorly. In spite of all that talk from policy elites championing charters that “our bad schools don’t last–either they improve or they close,” there has been persistent failure....
Sure, turning around failing schools is tough work but only 1 percent of public and charter schools did, indeed, make it into the top half of their state’s proficiency rankings–a very high bar to cross. OK, another "oops," but one that few officials pushing charters will voice.
Then there is the three-decade long, unrelenting promotion of computers in classrooms and online instruction. Now, we have a new corporate and civic-driven coalition chaired by two ex-state governors [Florida's Jeb Bush and West Virginia's Bob Wise] issuing a report (p. 19 of Digital Learning Now Report FINAL lists corporate, foundation, and top policymakers who participated).
To be charitable, evidence of students’ academic achievement gains attributed to online instruction, laptops, and other hardware and software in schools is scant. Evidence that regular instructional use of these machines will transform teaching and learning is barely visible.
And the dream that school use of these machines and applications will lead to better jobs (except in programs where technical certificates can lead to work–e.g., Cisco–if they are available), well, I won’t even mention the scarcity of evidence to support that dream.
So what do these two governors plug in their Digital Learning Commission report?
“Providing a customized, personalized education for students was a dream just a decade ago. Technology can turn that dream into reality today. The Digital Learning Council will develop the roadmap to achieve that ultimate goal.”
Sure, this is an advertisement pushing for-profit online outfits such as K-12 and non-profit projects such as the Florida Virtual School and “hybrid” schools. See here and here. These ex-governors want states to alter their policies to accommodate this “Brave New World” where students get individual lessons tailored to what they need to learn.
Question: After decades of blue-ribbon commissions issuing utopian reports promising “revolutionary” and “transformed” schools, where is the evidence that such futures are either possible or worthwhile?
Answer: When it comes to technology policy, evidence doesn’t matter.
The rational part of me still expects top decision-makers, even ex-governors, to use the best evidence available to support proposed directions. The real-world political part of me recognizes that policy elites cherry-pick studies and facts to support decisions already determined.
I guess I am still innocent enough to expect top decision-makers faced with an accumulation of evidence that runs counter to their small high school, charter, or technology policies, at the very least, would pull up their socks and admit that they either goofed or would reconsider their decision. They won’t because "oops!" is taboo in policymakers’ vocabulary.
I would find the expression of honest doubts about policies derived from facts, not faith, to be both refreshing and courageous.
-0-
Taken from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/who-in-education-says-oops.html?wprss=answer-sheet
By Larry Cuban, former high school social studies teacher (14 years, including seven at Cardozo and Roosevelt high schools in the District), district superintendent (seven years in Arlington, Virginia) and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University, where he has taught for 20 years. His latest book is "As Good As It Gets: What School Reform Brought to Austin." This appeared on his blog.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and top policymakers have promoted and funded small urban high schools for nearly a decade. Then Bill Gates said in his 2009 Annual Letter that while these small urban high schools had accomplished much for students they had largely failed to improve academic achievement. No more big bucks for this initiative. No other foundation executives or federal/state officials, all of whom had tripped over themselves in hailing small urban high schools, said "Oops!"
Ditto for charter schools. Policy elites across both political parties for the past decade have promoted charter schools to offer urban parents and their children choices they would not have in district regular schools. A 15-state study concluded that, indeed, 17 percent of charters offered “superior educational opportunities for their students.” Nearly half of the charters, however, differed little from regular public school “options,” and here is the kicker: 37 percent of the charters “deliver learning results that are significantly worse than their students would have realized had they remained in traditional public schools.”
There’s more bad news on charters (I winced because, in general, I support this public option and sit on a charter school board). In a recent report from the Thomas Fordham Institute, a researcher tracked 2,000 low-performing regular and charter schools between 2003-2009 to see if they had turned around, been closed, or remained low-performing. Eighty percent of these low performing regular public schools were still in business–yes, 80 percent.
But here’s the surprise: 72 percent of low-performing charters also stayed open and continued to perform poorly. In spite of all that talk from policy elites championing charters that “our bad schools don’t last–either they improve or they close,” there has been persistent failure....
Sure, turning around failing schools is tough work but only 1 percent of public and charter schools did, indeed, make it into the top half of their state’s proficiency rankings–a very high bar to cross. OK, another "oops," but one that few officials pushing charters will voice.
Then there is the three-decade long, unrelenting promotion of computers in classrooms and online instruction. Now, we have a new corporate and civic-driven coalition chaired by two ex-state governors [Florida's Jeb Bush and West Virginia's Bob Wise] issuing a report (p. 19 of Digital Learning Now Report FINAL lists corporate, foundation, and top policymakers who participated).
To be charitable, evidence of students’ academic achievement gains attributed to online instruction, laptops, and other hardware and software in schools is scant. Evidence that regular instructional use of these machines will transform teaching and learning is barely visible.
And the dream that school use of these machines and applications will lead to better jobs (except in programs where technical certificates can lead to work–e.g., Cisco–if they are available), well, I won’t even mention the scarcity of evidence to support that dream.
So what do these two governors plug in their Digital Learning Commission report?
“Providing a customized, personalized education for students was a dream just a decade ago. Technology can turn that dream into reality today. The Digital Learning Council will develop the roadmap to achieve that ultimate goal.”
Sure, this is an advertisement pushing for-profit online outfits such as K-12 and non-profit projects such as the Florida Virtual School and “hybrid” schools. See here and here. These ex-governors want states to alter their policies to accommodate this “Brave New World” where students get individual lessons tailored to what they need to learn.
Question: After decades of blue-ribbon commissions issuing utopian reports promising “revolutionary” and “transformed” schools, where is the evidence that such futures are either possible or worthwhile?
Answer: When it comes to technology policy, evidence doesn’t matter.
The rational part of me still expects top decision-makers, even ex-governors, to use the best evidence available to support proposed directions. The real-world political part of me recognizes that policy elites cherry-pick studies and facts to support decisions already determined.
I guess I am still innocent enough to expect top decision-makers faced with an accumulation of evidence that runs counter to their small high school, charter, or technology policies, at the very least, would pull up their socks and admit that they either goofed or would reconsider their decision. They won’t because "oops!" is taboo in policymakers’ vocabulary.
I would find the expression of honest doubts about policies derived from facts, not faith, to be both refreshing and courageous.
-0-
Taken from the Washington Post: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/who-in-education-says-oops.html?wprss=answer-sheet
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