From the Washinton Posts Answer Sheet
By Valerie Strauss
At a time when Wisconsin teachers are protesting to keep their collective bargaining rights, President Obama is traveling to Florida to share a stage with former governor Jeb Bush, the king of corporate-driven, standardized test-obsessed school reform that devalues teachers and their unions.
What a tag team.
Obama is scheduled to speak to the students and faculty of Miami Central Senior High about the importance of out-educating the competition to secure America’s future. (That’s highly unlikely, with states cutting billions of dollars out of school budgets and with a reform agenda that is focused on expanding charter schools, assessing teachers based on students’ standardized test scores and the like, but never mind.)
Obama is appearing in Florida as state legislators move toward passing legislation (Senate Bill 736, HB 7019) that:
* Ties at least half of a teacher’s salary to how well his/her students perform on standardized tests
* Prevents consideration of many advanced degrees and special training to be considered in determining a teacher’s salary
* Eliminates tenure for teachers hired after the summer of 2014
* Requires the creation of new standardized assessments for all courses, though it doesn’t suggest where the money will come from to pay.
Similar legislation passed last year but was vetoed by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. The new governor, Rick Scott, not only supports the legislation but had dangled the idea of taking apart the way public education is financed in Florida and handing money over to all parents in a new “voucher” system that would have made it virtually impossible to maintain local public schools. Scott has put that idea aside for now.
Obama has gone out of his way to be bipartisan in the education reform arena, which would be good if the Republicans were right about reform, but they aren’t either. Rather than eliminate the most egregious parts of No Child Left Behind, the signature education initiative of Jeb Bush’s brother, former president George W. Bush, Obama is building on some of them, making them even worse.
For example, instead of using standardized test scores to evaluate only schools and students, they now will be linked to how much a teacher is paid (even though we all know that a teacher isn’t solely responsible for how well a kid does on a test). It’s a bad idea, not championed by assessment experts and not borne out by research, but it’s the reform idea du jour, backed by Gates Foundation money and Obama’s policy agenda.
Breaking bread with Jeb Bush on school reform should be a questionable proposition for a president from a party that has traditionally championed public education (which is not to say it doesn’t need reform) and teachers unions (which is not to say that they should not reform).
Florida is increasingly being looked to as a national model of education reform, and we have Jeb Bush to thank for that. The state began to overhaul its public education system after Jeb Bush became governor in 1999, and it has been a leader in reforms centered around standardized tests, the expansion of charter schools, virtual education and merit pay. He long tried to reduce the power of teachers unions -- being very vocal about his aims -- and last year campaigned for legislation that would eliminate teacher tenure.
Under Bush, the state did make progress early on by focusing on reading and creating a statewide reading research center while hiring reading coaches.
The biggest improvement in Florida’s scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as the nation’s report card, were in elementary reading, which suggests that this focus worked. The achievement gap for different demographic groups between 1998 and 2009 also shrunk for fourth- and eighth-grade reading between students who were in the federal lunch program (low-income families qualify) and those who do not qualify, according to a post by Florida educator Sherman Dorn.
But the achievement gap didn’t budge for 8th-grade writing or for math in any grade. Here’s the main point: Bush doesn’t talk about his reading initiative when he talks about his success, instead crediting his standardized testing regime.
The scheduled Obama-Jeb Bush fest is symbolic of how far afield Democrats have gone with school reform.
Obama last month expressed support for the Wisconsin teachers, who have been protesting to keep the collective bargaining rights (and that of other public employees) that the governor, Scott Walker, is intent on taking away. Wisconsin teachers already made concessions on monetary issues.
Obama said: "Some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin, where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally seems like more of an assault on unions. And I think it’s very important for us to understand that public employees, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends. These are folks who are teachers and they’re firefighters and they’re social workers and they’re police officers.”
So, at this point in time, when teachers in Wisconsin and elsewhere feel besieged, I’m wondering why Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are flying to Florida to be with Republicans who have been part of the attack force. Why, when teachers are fighting for union rights, does the president decide to spend time with anti-teachers union school reformers?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/school-turnaroundsreform/obamas-questionable-trip-to-mi.html?wprss=answer-sheet
Showing posts with label jeb bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jeb bush. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Florida's education reforms questioned
From the MinnisotaPost.com
by Beth Hawkins
There are lots of great uses for data in education, many of them aimed squarely at helping to close the achievement gap. Data can help teachers identify which skills struggling students are missing, where their lesson plans need tweaking and — provided we ever got away from using data in punitive ways — to identify practices worthy of replicating.
You’d think, given the reams of data generated by all of the tests administered to the modern American schoolchild, that education policymakers might occasionally be able to point to a few objective, capital-T truths.
On Sunday, the Star Tribune carried a column by Katherine Kersten in which she suggested Minnesota look to Florida as a model for education reform. I admit I started reading mostly to find out whether Kersten would make it all the way to the end of the item without name-checking her erstwhile colleague, Cheri Pierson Yecke.
Kersten and Yecke both advocated various conservative education reforms as fellows at the Center for the American Experiment in the middle of the last decade, following the Minnesota Legislature’s failure to confirm Yecke as Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s education commissioner. Among the sticking points: Yecke’s belief that creationism had a place in Minnesota’s science standards.
Examples from Gov. Bush's era
In fact Kersten’s column did not mention Yecke, who served as Florida’s chancellor of K-12 education from 2005-2007, but she did toss out some impressive examples of progress made under the leadership of former Gov. Jeb Bush, who left office in 2007, on boosting test scores and closing the achievement gap.
“In 1998, almost half of all Florida fourth-graders were functionally illiterate,” Kersten reported. “Today, 72 percent can read.” She went on to detail impressive progress on narrowing the gap among African-American and Latino fourth-graders, who she reported now outperform their Minnesota counterparts.
“Since 2000, we’ve doled out about $4 billion in compensatory aid for low-income students and for ‘integration’ revenue,” she wrote of Minnesota. “We’ve got next to nothing in the way of academic improvement to show for it.”
Minnesota, she counseled, would do well to consider Florida’s bold reforms, which include an end to social promotion, a school-grading system, financial incentives for schools and teachers, alternative teacher certification and — wait for it — vouchers.
Florida and the achievement gap
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Minnesota and lots of other states rate schools and have experimented with merit pay with mixed results, I was curious about Kersten’s argument that Florida, where racial and ethnic minorities make up the majority of students, was ahead of much of the nation in terms of closing the gap.
After all, as she put it, “Florida’s challenges dwarf ours.”
I wish I could tell you it took days of dogged sleuthing to pull the rug out from under her argument, but Jeb Bush’s campaign to spread the good word about his reforms throughout the country has already drawn criticism from a number of fact-checkers.
Since the late 1990s, Florida’s African-American and Latino fourth-graders have made impressive strides in closing the gap, particularly in reading. But at the eighth grade, the picture is decidedly mixed. According to Education Week, the state's math scores lag slightly behind national averages and are slightly ahead in reading.
It seems the impressive fourth-grade data can be credited to the same social-promotion policy Kersten cited as an effective reform. In 2002, Florida began holding back third-grade students who performed poorly on the state reading test, including 14 percent to 23 percent of Africa-Americans and Latinos.
“This policy of screening out the weakest readers, along with the presence of unknown numbers of older grade-repeaters in the grade four samples, changes the composition of the students tested in grade four and invalidates comparisons concerning student performance as a whole as well as results concerning ethnic group achievement gaps," Madhabi Chatterji of Columbia University’s Teachers College concluded in a report released last November.
“The evidence on Florida’s … achievement trends and gaps is mixed when other grade levels and subject areas are examined between 2002 and 2009,” the report noted. “A cursory review … shows that these gap patterns are neither consistent nor as impressive as one would think if one looked only at reading in grade four.”
Grad rates and college-entrance test scores
It gets worse. Florida's graduation rate and college-entrance test scores remain among the worst in the country. State officials put the graduation rate at 71 percent, while other assessments put it below 60 percent. Small wonder: In 2004 only 42 percent of Florida high-school students were taking upper-level math courses and only 27 percent were taking upper-level science courses.
The vouchers? Tossed out by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006. Bush subsequently tried to push two constitutional amendments through the Florida statehouse, but lawmakers rejected them.
Bush’s two Republican successors have, of course, gone on to promote their own reform agendas, with talk of merit pay, voucher-like educational choice funding schemes and challenges to teachers’ unions.
Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, pointed out that Florida’s school system has long been regarded as terrible. State leaders do deserve credit for instituting changes that sparked progress, and some of those changes probably hold lessons for Minnesota’s struggling schools. But Florida schools, he’s quick to add, still are not as good as Minnesota’s.
http://www.minnpost.com/learningcurve/2011/02/17/25870/floridas_touted_education_data_wither_under_scrutiny
by Beth Hawkins
There are lots of great uses for data in education, many of them aimed squarely at helping to close the achievement gap. Data can help teachers identify which skills struggling students are missing, where their lesson plans need tweaking and — provided we ever got away from using data in punitive ways — to identify practices worthy of replicating.
You’d think, given the reams of data generated by all of the tests administered to the modern American schoolchild, that education policymakers might occasionally be able to point to a few objective, capital-T truths.
On Sunday, the Star Tribune carried a column by Katherine Kersten in which she suggested Minnesota look to Florida as a model for education reform. I admit I started reading mostly to find out whether Kersten would make it all the way to the end of the item without name-checking her erstwhile colleague, Cheri Pierson Yecke.
Kersten and Yecke both advocated various conservative education reforms as fellows at the Center for the American Experiment in the middle of the last decade, following the Minnesota Legislature’s failure to confirm Yecke as Gov. Tim Pawlenty’s education commissioner. Among the sticking points: Yecke’s belief that creationism had a place in Minnesota’s science standards.
Examples from Gov. Bush's era
In fact Kersten’s column did not mention Yecke, who served as Florida’s chancellor of K-12 education from 2005-2007, but she did toss out some impressive examples of progress made under the leadership of former Gov. Jeb Bush, who left office in 2007, on boosting test scores and closing the achievement gap.
“In 1998, almost half of all Florida fourth-graders were functionally illiterate,” Kersten reported. “Today, 72 percent can read.” She went on to detail impressive progress on narrowing the gap among African-American and Latino fourth-graders, who she reported now outperform their Minnesota counterparts.
“Since 2000, we’ve doled out about $4 billion in compensatory aid for low-income students and for ‘integration’ revenue,” she wrote of Minnesota. “We’ve got next to nothing in the way of academic improvement to show for it.”
Minnesota, she counseled, would do well to consider Florida’s bold reforms, which include an end to social promotion, a school-grading system, financial incentives for schools and teachers, alternative teacher certification and — wait for it — vouchers.
Florida and the achievement gap
Leaving aside for the moment the fact that Minnesota and lots of other states rate schools and have experimented with merit pay with mixed results, I was curious about Kersten’s argument that Florida, where racial and ethnic minorities make up the majority of students, was ahead of much of the nation in terms of closing the gap.
After all, as she put it, “Florida’s challenges dwarf ours.”
I wish I could tell you it took days of dogged sleuthing to pull the rug out from under her argument, but Jeb Bush’s campaign to spread the good word about his reforms throughout the country has already drawn criticism from a number of fact-checkers.
Since the late 1990s, Florida’s African-American and Latino fourth-graders have made impressive strides in closing the gap, particularly in reading. But at the eighth grade, the picture is decidedly mixed. According to Education Week, the state's math scores lag slightly behind national averages and are slightly ahead in reading.
It seems the impressive fourth-grade data can be credited to the same social-promotion policy Kersten cited as an effective reform. In 2002, Florida began holding back third-grade students who performed poorly on the state reading test, including 14 percent to 23 percent of Africa-Americans and Latinos.
“This policy of screening out the weakest readers, along with the presence of unknown numbers of older grade-repeaters in the grade four samples, changes the composition of the students tested in grade four and invalidates comparisons concerning student performance as a whole as well as results concerning ethnic group achievement gaps," Madhabi Chatterji of Columbia University’s Teachers College concluded in a report released last November.
“The evidence on Florida’s … achievement trends and gaps is mixed when other grade levels and subject areas are examined between 2002 and 2009,” the report noted. “A cursory review … shows that these gap patterns are neither consistent nor as impressive as one would think if one looked only at reading in grade four.”
Grad rates and college-entrance test scores
It gets worse. Florida's graduation rate and college-entrance test scores remain among the worst in the country. State officials put the graduation rate at 71 percent, while other assessments put it below 60 percent. Small wonder: In 2004 only 42 percent of Florida high-school students were taking upper-level math courses and only 27 percent were taking upper-level science courses.
The vouchers? Tossed out by the Florida Supreme Court in 2006. Bush subsequently tried to push two constitutional amendments through the Florida statehouse, but lawmakers rejected them.
Bush’s two Republican successors have, of course, gone on to promote their own reform agendas, with talk of merit pay, voucher-like educational choice funding schemes and challenges to teachers’ unions.
Charlie Kyte, executive director of the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, pointed out that Florida’s school system has long been regarded as terrible. State leaders do deserve credit for instituting changes that sparked progress, and some of those changes probably hold lessons for Minnesota’s struggling schools. But Florida schools, he’s quick to add, still are not as good as Minnesota’s.
http://www.minnpost.com/learningcurve/2011/02/17/25870/floridas_touted_education_data_wither_under_scrutiny
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The big bussiness takeover of Florida Schools
From the St. Augustine Record
by Kathleen Haughney
TALLAHASSEE -- As Gov. Rick Scott backs away for now from a push for an expanded school voucher program, former Gov. Jeb Bush's education foundation has begun quietly circulating draft legislation that may serve as the Legislature's template to massively expand the number of charter schools throughout the state.
Scott's budget team this week preached the governor's belief in school choice, saying the Scott wanted to expand virtual school offerings, allow more students to transfer from failing or sub par schools and create more charter school opportunities. Meanwhile, Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future has brought forth a plan that would allow colleges and universities to open charter schools without school district approval and set up a system for the per-student funding to follow the student and not be tied to a school district.
The governor and the foundation got a high profile push this week from former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who made her name by promoting school choice and firing teachers she deemed failures. Rhee, who also serves as an informal adviser to Scott, was in Tallahassee this past week to lobby the Legislature on an education reform issues, particularly expanding school choice and abolishing teacher tenure.
"We have to be putting policies and laws in place that don't hamstring charters ... that create the right environment for them," Rhee told reporters. "And if Florida can do that, I think you're going to attract more and more of the high quality charter providers into the state."
Charter school expansion may be an easier route for Scott to test the waters of school choice expansion.
State Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, who chairs the Senate's Prek-12 Education Committee, is open to the idea of charter school expansion, noting that the Kipp Charter School in Jacksonville has been relatively successful.
"Sometimes, they have a little bit more flexibility than the school districts, but I think they're going to be in this game," Wise said. "And we're going to try to work with them as best as possible."
Union officials aren't weighing in yet on potential charter school legislation. A Florida Education Association spokesman said the teachers' union has generally been in favor of charters in theory, but that it would not favor a system where per student funding left a school district to follow the student to a charter school.
A line in the foundation's draft legislation reads, "Charter school students shall be funded without regard to whether the student's home address lies within the school district sponsoring the charter school."
http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-02-13/charter-schools-could-be-expanded
by Kathleen Haughney
TALLAHASSEE -- As Gov. Rick Scott backs away for now from a push for an expanded school voucher program, former Gov. Jeb Bush's education foundation has begun quietly circulating draft legislation that may serve as the Legislature's template to massively expand the number of charter schools throughout the state.
Scott's budget team this week preached the governor's belief in school choice, saying the Scott wanted to expand virtual school offerings, allow more students to transfer from failing or sub par schools and create more charter school opportunities. Meanwhile, Bush's Foundation for Florida's Future has brought forth a plan that would allow colleges and universities to open charter schools without school district approval and set up a system for the per-student funding to follow the student and not be tied to a school district.
The governor and the foundation got a high profile push this week from former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, who made her name by promoting school choice and firing teachers she deemed failures. Rhee, who also serves as an informal adviser to Scott, was in Tallahassee this past week to lobby the Legislature on an education reform issues, particularly expanding school choice and abolishing teacher tenure.
"We have to be putting policies and laws in place that don't hamstring charters ... that create the right environment for them," Rhee told reporters. "And if Florida can do that, I think you're going to attract more and more of the high quality charter providers into the state."
Charter school expansion may be an easier route for Scott to test the waters of school choice expansion.
State Sen. Steve Wise, R-Jacksonville, who chairs the Senate's Prek-12 Education Committee, is open to the idea of charter school expansion, noting that the Kipp Charter School in Jacksonville has been relatively successful.
"Sometimes, they have a little bit more flexibility than the school districts, but I think they're going to be in this game," Wise said. "And we're going to try to work with them as best as possible."
Union officials aren't weighing in yet on potential charter school legislation. A Florida Education Association spokesman said the teachers' union has generally been in favor of charters in theory, but that it would not favor a system where per student funding left a school district to follow the student to a charter school.
A line in the foundation's draft legislation reads, "Charter school students shall be funded without regard to whether the student's home address lies within the school district sponsoring the charter school."
http://staugustine.com/news/local-news/2011-02-13/charter-schools-could-be-expanded
Thursday, February 3, 2011
The Cognitive Dissonance of the DCSB
Reading about the school board meeting where some applauded the decision to split our four most struggling schools into two smaller theme schools each, I couldn’t help but think those in the room were suffering from an extreme case of cognitive dissonance. In case you are wondering cognitive dissonance is a psychological term describing the tension that results from having two conflicting thoughts or engaging in behavior that conflicts with one's beliefs. In simple terms, it means you ignore information that conflicts with what you already believe, in an effort to reinforce your beliefs. Sounds crazy right? Well that’s what the school board meeting was.
On one hand we had the school board and I will give them the benefit of the doubt that none are meeting in back rooms with the likes of Jeb Bush, Rick Scott, Gary Chartrand, Eli Broad and a few others discussing how they can destroy public education. No where I think several are filled with hubris, a few are using the position of school board member as a stepping stone up or down in a political career and most are out of their depth, I believe they took the job because helping kids was at least semi-important to them. There they were gathered to help kids but at the same time agreeing to support perhaps the wildest, left field idea to come out of 1701 Prudential Drive in quite some time that has almost no chance of helping kids.
Think about it, if the schools were split into two theme schools occupying the same campus (even if they had one principal overseeing both) they would still need two different administrations, bands, sports teams (The Raines Vikings and the Raines Scandinavians anyone) a doubling up on practically everything but the janitorial staff (are the two schools going to eat together too). Is Eric Smith who I disagree with quite frequently, not a dumb fellow, supposed to go okay with that. Does the school board think he is going to pat them on the back and sat, that’s some real changes you are proposing? To me it sounds like how they have divided my school up into four houses each with its own set of administrators and its own way of doing things or what some of the staff at my school like to call unmitigated disaster 2011. We’re still one school, just now we are headed in four different directions
Even worse however is the fact that if the students at these schools aren’t being successful with the regular academic program, then how are they going to be successful specialized in specialized programs (magic wands, fairy dust and unicorn horns perhaps)? Friends, the problem is not the academic program at the schools, the problem is the kids are not prepared for it.
But despite these blaring, four alarm holes the school board went ahead and voted and seven love I might add, for it. Not one said um, hmm, you know I don’t think we are addressing the real problem here. Not one!
Then there were the community leaders like Mia Jones, Audrey Moran and the NAACP who have either played lips service to the problems facing those schools or embraced one quick fix after another for years. They must have seen the same holes in the plan too. They aren’t very well disguised and they must have known that without addressing the root of the problem the problem will continue (when you have a hole in your roof you don’t try and fix it by giving your car an oil change) but they supported the plan as well.
Their cognitive dissonance came in the form of them drooling at the opportunity to sit on a community board that will have over site of the schools, as if anything they have done up to this point has made a meaningful change, regardless if it helped kids, the reason they were there or not. Furthermore I would not be surprised if some back room deals, you support this and your spot on the board is assured, haven’t already been done, after all this is Jacksonville isn’t it?
Then there was the superintendant whose office came up with the plan. He cannot want to be the guy who was in charge when the state came-a-calling and took the keys to the schools. It’s a good thing he has such a huge paycheck to cushion the blow. He has to know if kids can’t read or do math at grade level, if they don’t have the skills they need to be successful, which includes both a work ethic and discipline, splitting the schools apart has no chance of working. Despite all that and with a straight face I might add went off the menu of choices and suggested the farce outlined above.
Here are these three groups all supposedly interested in the welfare are of children ignoring what’s best for children and that my friends, is text book cognitive dissonance.
I hope Eric Smith doesn’t have a case of cognitive dissonance. That instead he has clarity of purpose and doesn’t give the school system a reprieve with this pie in the sky idea. Not that he hasn’t already tried his best by rewriting the way the state grades schools and giving the district a two year grace period before the tough measures kick in. I can imagine it now; he must have slapped his forehead when he saw that the schools didn’t make enough gains this year and screamed, what do I have to do!
You also have to know the state doesn’t want to take over the schools. They have had their drone roaming the hallways for years attempting to justify their positions and the word walls, data notebooks and complicated lesson plans haven’t made much of a difference. In fact where we say the schools are in danger of being taken over by the state that really isn’t one of the options. Instead it’s either close them or pay somebody else to take them over.
I hate to say it but if these schools don’t improve I hope they are closed (and there is a little cognitive dissonance on my part because I believe the states ranking system to be laughable). It’s painfully obvious that our leaders don’t know what they are doing and the citizens who continue to elect the same group of names over and over don’t too. Let’s stop pretending like we do. Let’s end our collective cognitive dissonance.
On one hand we had the school board and I will give them the benefit of the doubt that none are meeting in back rooms with the likes of Jeb Bush, Rick Scott, Gary Chartrand, Eli Broad and a few others discussing how they can destroy public education. No where I think several are filled with hubris, a few are using the position of school board member as a stepping stone up or down in a political career and most are out of their depth, I believe they took the job because helping kids was at least semi-important to them. There they were gathered to help kids but at the same time agreeing to support perhaps the wildest, left field idea to come out of 1701 Prudential Drive in quite some time that has almost no chance of helping kids.
Think about it, if the schools were split into two theme schools occupying the same campus (even if they had one principal overseeing both) they would still need two different administrations, bands, sports teams (The Raines Vikings and the Raines Scandinavians anyone) a doubling up on practically everything but the janitorial staff (are the two schools going to eat together too). Is Eric Smith who I disagree with quite frequently, not a dumb fellow, supposed to go okay with that. Does the school board think he is going to pat them on the back and sat, that’s some real changes you are proposing? To me it sounds like how they have divided my school up into four houses each with its own set of administrators and its own way of doing things or what some of the staff at my school like to call unmitigated disaster 2011. We’re still one school, just now we are headed in four different directions
Even worse however is the fact that if the students at these schools aren’t being successful with the regular academic program, then how are they going to be successful specialized in specialized programs (magic wands, fairy dust and unicorn horns perhaps)? Friends, the problem is not the academic program at the schools, the problem is the kids are not prepared for it.
But despite these blaring, four alarm holes the school board went ahead and voted and seven love I might add, for it. Not one said um, hmm, you know I don’t think we are addressing the real problem here. Not one!
Then there were the community leaders like Mia Jones, Audrey Moran and the NAACP who have either played lips service to the problems facing those schools or embraced one quick fix after another for years. They must have seen the same holes in the plan too. They aren’t very well disguised and they must have known that without addressing the root of the problem the problem will continue (when you have a hole in your roof you don’t try and fix it by giving your car an oil change) but they supported the plan as well.
Their cognitive dissonance came in the form of them drooling at the opportunity to sit on a community board that will have over site of the schools, as if anything they have done up to this point has made a meaningful change, regardless if it helped kids, the reason they were there or not. Furthermore I would not be surprised if some back room deals, you support this and your spot on the board is assured, haven’t already been done, after all this is Jacksonville isn’t it?
Then there was the superintendant whose office came up with the plan. He cannot want to be the guy who was in charge when the state came-a-calling and took the keys to the schools. It’s a good thing he has such a huge paycheck to cushion the blow. He has to know if kids can’t read or do math at grade level, if they don’t have the skills they need to be successful, which includes both a work ethic and discipline, splitting the schools apart has no chance of working. Despite all that and with a straight face I might add went off the menu of choices and suggested the farce outlined above.
Here are these three groups all supposedly interested in the welfare are of children ignoring what’s best for children and that my friends, is text book cognitive dissonance.
I hope Eric Smith doesn’t have a case of cognitive dissonance. That instead he has clarity of purpose and doesn’t give the school system a reprieve with this pie in the sky idea. Not that he hasn’t already tried his best by rewriting the way the state grades schools and giving the district a two year grace period before the tough measures kick in. I can imagine it now; he must have slapped his forehead when he saw that the schools didn’t make enough gains this year and screamed, what do I have to do!
You also have to know the state doesn’t want to take over the schools. They have had their drone roaming the hallways for years attempting to justify their positions and the word walls, data notebooks and complicated lesson plans haven’t made much of a difference. In fact where we say the schools are in danger of being taken over by the state that really isn’t one of the options. Instead it’s either close them or pay somebody else to take them over.
I hate to say it but if these schools don’t improve I hope they are closed (and there is a little cognitive dissonance on my part because I believe the states ranking system to be laughable). It’s painfully obvious that our leaders don’t know what they are doing and the citizens who continue to elect the same group of names over and over don’t too. Let’s stop pretending like we do. Let’s end our collective cognitive dissonance.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Jeb Bush, most despicable man or most despicable man ever?
Jeb Bush runs Florida's education system into the ground, something his family profited from by the way, cherry picks facts and claims what he did was successful and now is proposing states declare bankruptcy to avoid paying the pensions of retired government workers. This man has made a career on the backs of children and the old and done nothing to help them. If you can stomach it, his op-ed with his deplorable suggestion is below.
-cpg
From the Los Angelas Times
by Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich
During the 2008 financial crisis, the federal government reacted in a frantic, ad hoc fashion, tapping taxpayers for bailouts galore, running roughshod over the rights of bondholders and catching the American people unaware and unprepared. In contrast, we still have time to prepare for the looming crisis threatening to engulf California, Illinois, New York and other state governments.
The new Congress has the opportunity to prepare a fair, orderly, predictable and lawful approach to help struggling state governments address their financial challenges without resorting to wasteful bailouts. This approach begins with a new chapter in the federal Bankruptcy Code that provides for voluntary bankruptcy by states, a proven option already available to all cities and towns across America.
The figures for next year's budgets are staggering. California, which faces a $25.4-billion budget shortfall, will pay $100,000+ pensions to more than 12,000 state and municipal retirees this year. A Stanford study puts the state's unfunded pension obligations at more than half a trillion dollars. Illinois has a $15-billion budget deficit, prompting its governor and lame-duck Legislature to hike its personal income tax rate by 66%. New York, where 73% of the government workforce is unionized, is staring at a $10-billion deficit.
There has been an organized federal bankruptcy process for municipalities since the 1930s, and a handful of cities, towns and counties — most notably California's Orange County in 1994 — have gone through municipal bankruptcy and gotten their fiscal houses back in working order. A bankruptcy option for the states would look very similar to Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, with some necessary modifications.
First, as with municipal bankruptcy, it would have to be completely voluntary. This means that neither the federal government nor state creditors could push an unwilling state into bankruptcy, no matter how catastrophic the state's finances may be, as this would violate the U.S. Constitution's protection for a state's sovereign immunity.
Second, as with municipal bankruptcy, a new bankruptcy law would allow states in default or in danger of default to reorganize their finances free from their union contractual obligations. In such a reorganization, a state could propose to terminate some, all or none of its government employee union contracts and establish new compensation rates, work rules, etc. The new law could also allow states an opportunity to reform their bloated, broken and underfunded pension systems for current and future workers. The lucrative pay and benefits packages that government employee unions have received from obliging politicians over the years are perhaps the most significant hurdles for many states trying to restore fiscal health.
Third, the new law should allow for the restructuring of a state's debt and other contractual obligations. In a voluntary bankruptcy scenario, states, like municipalities, will have every incentive to file a reorganization plan that protects state bondholder claims and their ultimate recovery. States will evaluate their future access to bond markets and their prospective borrowing rates as they formulate the optimal restructuring plan.
When California refused to bail out Orange County, the county entered bankruptcy and emerged within 18 months. Within three years, the county returned to an investment grade rating, and it repaid 100% of the principal of the vast majority of its investors by 2000 without raising taxes.
The lesson is that voluntary bankruptcy offers taxpayers the option to restructure state finances responsibly to achieve long-term fiscal health — which can only improve California's bond rating since it is the worst in the nation— instead of simply having to accept the Sacramento solution of another tax increase.
Fourth, the federal judge reviewing the state's reorganization plan would have the power only to accept the plan as permissible under the federal bankruptcy law, or reject it as inconsistent with that law. Just as with municipal bankruptcy, this new law for states must explicitly forbid any federal judge from mandating a tax hike or carrying out any other government function.
Fifth, the new law should provide for triggering mechanisms to initiate the bankruptcy process that respect the sovereignty of the people of a state. A state legislature acting by a majority vote, with the governor, would fit this test. The new federal bankruptcy law should also allow those states that provide for the right of initiative, like California, to put the question to voters whether they support a reorganization of their state government under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
If Californians were given the opportunity to do an end run around the politicians in Sacramento and vote to reform their state government under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, it would almost certainly trigger a proposition fight. In such a circumstance, the proposition could provide that a yes vote would trigger the cancellation of all state government employee union contracts. Even if the proposition were defeated, the debate surrounding it would make abundantly clear to the people of California and the rest of the country just how much of a stranglehold government employee unions have on state and federal budgets.
An additional benefit of a new voluntary bankruptcy law for states is that its mere existence may deter any state from ever availing itself of its provisions. If government employee union bosses know that they could have all their contracts annulled under federal bankruptcy law, either through a plan of reorganization voluntarily entered into by state leaders or by the voters through proposition, they may be far more accommodating with state governments to restructure government employee union workforces, pensions and work rules.
Federal bailouts must come to an end. Federal taxpayers in states that balance their budgets should not have to bail out the irresponsible, pandering politicians who cannot balance their budgets. Congress must allow a safe, orderly way under federal bankruptcy law for states to reorganize their finances.
Jeb Bush is the former governor of Florida and president of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the general chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gingrich-bankruptcy-20110127,0,4958969.story
-cpg
From the Los Angelas Times
by Jeb Bush and Newt Gingrich
During the 2008 financial crisis, the federal government reacted in a frantic, ad hoc fashion, tapping taxpayers for bailouts galore, running roughshod over the rights of bondholders and catching the American people unaware and unprepared. In contrast, we still have time to prepare for the looming crisis threatening to engulf California, Illinois, New York and other state governments.
The new Congress has the opportunity to prepare a fair, orderly, predictable and lawful approach to help struggling state governments address their financial challenges without resorting to wasteful bailouts. This approach begins with a new chapter in the federal Bankruptcy Code that provides for voluntary bankruptcy by states, a proven option already available to all cities and towns across America.
The figures for next year's budgets are staggering. California, which faces a $25.4-billion budget shortfall, will pay $100,000+ pensions to more than 12,000 state and municipal retirees this year. A Stanford study puts the state's unfunded pension obligations at more than half a trillion dollars. Illinois has a $15-billion budget deficit, prompting its governor and lame-duck Legislature to hike its personal income tax rate by 66%. New York, where 73% of the government workforce is unionized, is staring at a $10-billion deficit.
There has been an organized federal bankruptcy process for municipalities since the 1930s, and a handful of cities, towns and counties — most notably California's Orange County in 1994 — have gone through municipal bankruptcy and gotten their fiscal houses back in working order. A bankruptcy option for the states would look very similar to Chapter 9 municipal bankruptcy, with some necessary modifications.
First, as with municipal bankruptcy, it would have to be completely voluntary. This means that neither the federal government nor state creditors could push an unwilling state into bankruptcy, no matter how catastrophic the state's finances may be, as this would violate the U.S. Constitution's protection for a state's sovereign immunity.
Second, as with municipal bankruptcy, a new bankruptcy law would allow states in default or in danger of default to reorganize their finances free from their union contractual obligations. In such a reorganization, a state could propose to terminate some, all or none of its government employee union contracts and establish new compensation rates, work rules, etc. The new law could also allow states an opportunity to reform their bloated, broken and underfunded pension systems for current and future workers. The lucrative pay and benefits packages that government employee unions have received from obliging politicians over the years are perhaps the most significant hurdles for many states trying to restore fiscal health.
Third, the new law should allow for the restructuring of a state's debt and other contractual obligations. In a voluntary bankruptcy scenario, states, like municipalities, will have every incentive to file a reorganization plan that protects state bondholder claims and their ultimate recovery. States will evaluate their future access to bond markets and their prospective borrowing rates as they formulate the optimal restructuring plan.
When California refused to bail out Orange County, the county entered bankruptcy and emerged within 18 months. Within three years, the county returned to an investment grade rating, and it repaid 100% of the principal of the vast majority of its investors by 2000 without raising taxes.
The lesson is that voluntary bankruptcy offers taxpayers the option to restructure state finances responsibly to achieve long-term fiscal health — which can only improve California's bond rating since it is the worst in the nation— instead of simply having to accept the Sacramento solution of another tax increase.
Fourth, the federal judge reviewing the state's reorganization plan would have the power only to accept the plan as permissible under the federal bankruptcy law, or reject it as inconsistent with that law. Just as with municipal bankruptcy, this new law for states must explicitly forbid any federal judge from mandating a tax hike or carrying out any other government function.
Fifth, the new law should provide for triggering mechanisms to initiate the bankruptcy process that respect the sovereignty of the people of a state. A state legislature acting by a majority vote, with the governor, would fit this test. The new federal bankruptcy law should also allow those states that provide for the right of initiative, like California, to put the question to voters whether they support a reorganization of their state government under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.
If Californians were given the opportunity to do an end run around the politicians in Sacramento and vote to reform their state government under the U.S. Bankruptcy Code, it would almost certainly trigger a proposition fight. In such a circumstance, the proposition could provide that a yes vote would trigger the cancellation of all state government employee union contracts. Even if the proposition were defeated, the debate surrounding it would make abundantly clear to the people of California and the rest of the country just how much of a stranglehold government employee unions have on state and federal budgets.
An additional benefit of a new voluntary bankruptcy law for states is that its mere existence may deter any state from ever availing itself of its provisions. If government employee union bosses know that they could have all their contracts annulled under federal bankruptcy law, either through a plan of reorganization voluntarily entered into by state leaders or by the voters through proposition, they may be far more accommodating with state governments to restructure government employee union workforces, pensions and work rules.
Federal bailouts must come to an end. Federal taxpayers in states that balance their budgets should not have to bail out the irresponsible, pandering politicians who cannot balance their budgets. Congress must allow a safe, orderly way under federal bankruptcy law for states to reorganize their finances.
Jeb Bush is the former governor of Florida and president of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is the general chairman of American Solutions for Winning the Future.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gingrich-bankruptcy-20110127,0,4958969.story
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Teachers Unions must accept responsibility
With full disclosure, I believe in teachers unions, I am a member of Duval Teachers United and I have never been more disappointed in teachers unions than I am right now.
At a recent Union meeting I arrived ready to talk about the firestorm that is brewing around teachers and teachers unions however the old bait and switch occured. Instead of discussing strategies to combat the rampant disinformation being put out there, the union instead wanted to discuss a membership drive. They even flew in some guy from San Diego to lead the session. He had also just come from meeting with several other teachers unions throughout the state. At our tables they asked us to role play scenarios that would help us attract new members. I and many others sat dumbfounded.
Where of course we want the union to be strong, Rick Scott, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckenberg, none of whom were every teachers by the way, connected only by their vast fortunes, Michelle Rhee and several others already have teachers unions in their cross hairs and what at least my union doesn’t get, is that they are going to come after the teachers unions whether membership is sixty percent or one hundred percent. It doesn’t matter. Furthermore this group of super rich, with their marketing machines and cherry picked stats are way ahead of teachers in getting their message out and the message they are selling and that many people are buying is that the unions are bad for education and thus children and that our schools are staffed with lazy teachers unconcerned about their students education, just riding it out until they can retire. They are selling the bad teacher narrative and business for them has been good.
As I looked around the room my morale began to sink as I realized, now hopefully not to late, was the union just beginning to wake up and it dawned on me that the teachers unions were at least partly responsible or the hole teachers currently found themselves in; that they may have been one of the architects of their own destruction.
You see the union sat back and allowed standardized testing to be perverted into the end all be all of education.
The union shrugged its shoulders as districts began to gut discipline and insist teachers socially promote children without the skills they need to be successful at the next level.
Whatever, the union said, as districts began eliminating the teaching of trades, skills and the arts and started forcing all children regardless of aptitude, ability or desire into a one size fits all curriculum.
The union also turned a blind eye as teachers became inundated with mountains of paperwork that at best only had a peripheral relationship with students learning and teachers teaching.
The union turned its back as creativity and initiative were practically legislated out of teaching.
They did nothing about these problems despite the fact teachers all over the district and the nation new they were wrong and set back both kids and the profession. Instead the teachers unions were content to fight for a little extra time off here or a little extra money there, ignoring the real issues that teachers and students faced everyday in their classrooms; issues that have led directly to the abysmal state that our education system currently finds itself in. The teachers unions may have not created the problems above but through their omission they allowed them to fester and grow and now that the chickens have come home to roost, I thought to myself, all they are interested in is boosting membership!?!
For now the Teachers Unions seem content to sit back and allow the super rich and politicians, people for the most part who were never teachers (Michelle Rhee had a cup of coffee as a teacher) and never in schools; who themselves more often than not send their children to private schools that emphasize teachers experience, small classes and receiving a well rounded education with the arts, things they say aren’t important in public schools, tell their story, the bad teacher narative without an opposing voice. In doing so the unions are allowing them to further erode public education and the perception the public has of teachers. In the last year teachers have gone from respected and valued members of the community to borderline pariahs responsible for the ills of society. The Unions wanting to build membership first, is almost like somebody complimenting Nero’s fiddle playing as Rome burned down, sure the music might have been nice but the people at the time had slightly more pressing problems.
I get it though; the more members a union has the stronger it is and I want it to be strong too. It allows teachers to bargain collectively and it protects teachers right to due process, not bad teachers, as some would have the public believe. However every day the teachers unions and teachers sit back and allow the powers-that-be spread the myth of the bad teacher, every day we allow them to ignore factors like poverty, arguably the number one factor in determining a child’s success in school, every day we allow the public to be spoon fed the myths of charter schools which despite the fact they don’t have to play by many of the suffocating rules that public schools do, studies show for the most part perform no better and often perform worse, every day we allow the policy makers, parents, politicians, the students and the public, all equal shareholders in the problems we are now facing to get a pass, ignore their culpability in the problems we have, is one more day teachers get weaker and weaker, more marginalized, demonized and demoralized. Every day we wait for the teachers unions to wake up and fight back teachers’ get farther and farther behind.
Teachers, which I remind you, the vast majority of who are professional, work hard, sacrifice and do a good job. Teachers who deserve better from both their unions and those who would seek to belittle and marginalize them.
At a recent Union meeting I arrived ready to talk about the firestorm that is brewing around teachers and teachers unions however the old bait and switch occured. Instead of discussing strategies to combat the rampant disinformation being put out there, the union instead wanted to discuss a membership drive. They even flew in some guy from San Diego to lead the session. He had also just come from meeting with several other teachers unions throughout the state. At our tables they asked us to role play scenarios that would help us attract new members. I and many others sat dumbfounded.
Where of course we want the union to be strong, Rick Scott, Jeb Bush, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckenberg, none of whom were every teachers by the way, connected only by their vast fortunes, Michelle Rhee and several others already have teachers unions in their cross hairs and what at least my union doesn’t get, is that they are going to come after the teachers unions whether membership is sixty percent or one hundred percent. It doesn’t matter. Furthermore this group of super rich, with their marketing machines and cherry picked stats are way ahead of teachers in getting their message out and the message they are selling and that many people are buying is that the unions are bad for education and thus children and that our schools are staffed with lazy teachers unconcerned about their students education, just riding it out until they can retire. They are selling the bad teacher narrative and business for them has been good.
As I looked around the room my morale began to sink as I realized, now hopefully not to late, was the union just beginning to wake up and it dawned on me that the teachers unions were at least partly responsible or the hole teachers currently found themselves in; that they may have been one of the architects of their own destruction.
You see the union sat back and allowed standardized testing to be perverted into the end all be all of education.
The union shrugged its shoulders as districts began to gut discipline and insist teachers socially promote children without the skills they need to be successful at the next level.
Whatever, the union said, as districts began eliminating the teaching of trades, skills and the arts and started forcing all children regardless of aptitude, ability or desire into a one size fits all curriculum.
The union also turned a blind eye as teachers became inundated with mountains of paperwork that at best only had a peripheral relationship with students learning and teachers teaching.
The union turned its back as creativity and initiative were practically legislated out of teaching.
They did nothing about these problems despite the fact teachers all over the district and the nation new they were wrong and set back both kids and the profession. Instead the teachers unions were content to fight for a little extra time off here or a little extra money there, ignoring the real issues that teachers and students faced everyday in their classrooms; issues that have led directly to the abysmal state that our education system currently finds itself in. The teachers unions may have not created the problems above but through their omission they allowed them to fester and grow and now that the chickens have come home to roost, I thought to myself, all they are interested in is boosting membership!?!
For now the Teachers Unions seem content to sit back and allow the super rich and politicians, people for the most part who were never teachers (Michelle Rhee had a cup of coffee as a teacher) and never in schools; who themselves more often than not send their children to private schools that emphasize teachers experience, small classes and receiving a well rounded education with the arts, things they say aren’t important in public schools, tell their story, the bad teacher narative without an opposing voice. In doing so the unions are allowing them to further erode public education and the perception the public has of teachers. In the last year teachers have gone from respected and valued members of the community to borderline pariahs responsible for the ills of society. The Unions wanting to build membership first, is almost like somebody complimenting Nero’s fiddle playing as Rome burned down, sure the music might have been nice but the people at the time had slightly more pressing problems.
I get it though; the more members a union has the stronger it is and I want it to be strong too. It allows teachers to bargain collectively and it protects teachers right to due process, not bad teachers, as some would have the public believe. However every day the teachers unions and teachers sit back and allow the powers-that-be spread the myth of the bad teacher, every day we allow them to ignore factors like poverty, arguably the number one factor in determining a child’s success in school, every day we allow the public to be spoon fed the myths of charter schools which despite the fact they don’t have to play by many of the suffocating rules that public schools do, studies show for the most part perform no better and often perform worse, every day we allow the policy makers, parents, politicians, the students and the public, all equal shareholders in the problems we are now facing to get a pass, ignore their culpability in the problems we have, is one more day teachers get weaker and weaker, more marginalized, demonized and demoralized. Every day we wait for the teachers unions to wake up and fight back teachers’ get farther and farther behind.
Teachers, which I remind you, the vast majority of who are professional, work hard, sacrifice and do a good job. Teachers who deserve better from both their unions and those who would seek to belittle and marginalize them.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
How bad do you think our schools are?
From the St. Petersburg Times
By Ron Matus and Donna Winchester, Times Staff Writers
Floridians give glowing marks to the schools their kids attend yet are profoundly pessimistic when comparing Florida's education system with those in other states, according to a St. Petersburg Times survey.
Only 12 percent of respondents said the education Florida children get is better than in other states, while 45 percent said it was worse.
Parents with children in school weren't quite as downbeat: 25 percent said Florida schools compared well;39 percent said they did not.
The standards are too low, and the emphasis on standardized testing -- in this case, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- is too high, said Michael Squillace of Spring Hill.
"The problem with the FCAT is that teachers try to teach only what's on the test," said Squillace, 33, who has three children in elementary school. "If kids don't do well on the test, the teachers worry that it will reflect on them. It waters down the curriculum."
The Times education survey was administered to 702 registered voters Feb. 6-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
It also found Floridians are:
Strongly divided about the FCAT, with 44 percent saying it has hurt education and 44 percent saying it has helped.
Strongly opposed to grading schools based on FCAT scores alone, with 55 percent opposed and 37 percent in favor.
Largely satisfied with Gov. Charlie Crist's handling of education issues.
The results come less than three weeks before the state Legislature meets for its annual session to tackle a long list of vexing education issues. Among them: potential changes to Florida's school-grading system; potential tweaks to the class-size amendment; and potential cuts to education spending for the second time in a year.
On the upside: Florida parents like their schools.
Seventy-five percent rated their kids' schools good or excellent, while 20 percent said only fair and 1 percent said poor, the survey found. Meanwhile, 80 percent gave their kids' teachers a good or excellent rating.
On the downside: They don't like how Florida stacks up to other states, or at least how they think Florida stacks up.
On some academic indicators, Florida has made strides in recent years, but it continues to rank near the bottom in per-student spending. With more education cuts on the horizon, it's hard to see how the public's take on school quality will change for the better, said Darryl Paulson, a professor of government at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Education spending is "almost a cornerstone of how education success is viewed," said Paulson, who teaches courses on education policy.
Also on the downside: The public still doesn't like the FCAT.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who left office last year, made the test the keystone of his accountability system. Now FCAT scores determine school grades, factor into teacher bonuses and help decide whether third-graders can be promoted.
Supporters say that system has forced schools to better tailor teaching to a student's individual needs, and put a spotlight on poor and minority students. But critics say it has elevated test preparation over real learning and has led schools to cut back on noncore classes.
The Times survey found FCAT frustration crossed party lines, with almost as many Republicans 42 percent as Democrats (51 percent) saying the FCAT has hurt education in Florida.
"You have to have some measure, I understand that," said Ashley Andrews of Clearwater, the father of a third-grader. "But I feel that too much emphasis is put on the FCAT. I don't feel it's a good indication of whether a child has gotten a good education."
Carol Sampey of Indian Rocks Beach said the FCAT has helped and hurt.
On the one hand, "You're not just passing kids who don't know how to read," said Sampey, a mother of three small children. But on the other, "You hear schools are failing because of one student who has a disability. It seems like they're saying, 'Here's the formula and you have to stick with it, even if it doesn't make sense.'"
To date, Republican lawmakers who supported Bush's agenda have not backed away from high-stakes use of the FCAT. They say evidence is on their side.
National test scores show Florida is making some of the biggest gains in the country in elementary reading and math. The state is a leader in the percentage of high school students taking and passing rigorous Advanced Placement tests. And a recent report by Education Week magazine credited Florida for boosting the academic performance of poor kids.
Kim Black, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, said some of the negativity reflected in the Times poll could be based on the public's perception of the state's status rather than the reality.
"The Legislature continues to underfund public schools, and the public knows that money equates to a quality product," Black said. "But I think that when you look at the data, we are improving."
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he doesn't see "the decline and fall of the FCAT" during his time in the Senate. On the other hand, Gaetz and other education leaders are considering changes to the system, including some that could diminish the FCAT's role.
They're openly exploring use of other standardized exams to supplement or replace the FCAT in some grades. And there is talk of rolling other factors into the school grading formula, especially for high schools.
Among the factors mentioned: graduation rates, scores and participation rates on AP exams, and the percentage of students earning industry certification -- a nod to the growing importance state officials are putting on career and technical education.
"If I was a mom or a dad, I'd want to know ... how a school is performing that I want to send my child to," Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith told the Times in a recent interview. "That is not to say that we can't continue to really work on what are the best components of that mark."
"Nobody I know ever said, 'This is it, we're done,'" said Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, chairman of the House education council. "The underlying reasons for an accountability system are going to stay pretty much about the same, but how we go about measuring that accountability and rewarding it" could change.
The Times survey suggests the public's sour view on schools hasn't affected people's opinion of Crist, who on substance has stayed true to Bush's vision. He has made no major policy announcements on education. And his latest proposed budget continues to offer financial rewards to teachers and schools whose students do well on the FCAT.
And yet, 46 percent of respondents said they approved of how he was handling education issues, compared with 23 percent who did not. Nearly a third said they didn't know if they approved or disapproved.
By comparison, 40 percent of respondents in a 2006 Times poll approved of Bush, while almost as many, 37 percent, did not.
The public isn't blaming Crist for the firestorm Bush created, said Paulson at USF. But style may be at play, too. Crist rarely misses an opportunity to praise teachers, and he says he is open to making changes to the system. People across the political spectrum have praised his more inclusive, less combative tone.
Bush "didn't hesitate to twist arms," Paulson said. But Crist "is a nice guy. It always helps to be a nice guy."
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873. Donna Winchester can be reached at winchester@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8413.
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/16/State/School__good_system__.shtml
By Ron Matus and Donna Winchester, Times Staff Writers
Floridians give glowing marks to the schools their kids attend yet are profoundly pessimistic when comparing Florida's education system with those in other states, according to a St. Petersburg Times survey.
Only 12 percent of respondents said the education Florida children get is better than in other states, while 45 percent said it was worse.
Parents with children in school weren't quite as downbeat: 25 percent said Florida schools compared well;39 percent said they did not.
The standards are too low, and the emphasis on standardized testing -- in this case, the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test -- is too high, said Michael Squillace of Spring Hill.
"The problem with the FCAT is that teachers try to teach only what's on the test," said Squillace, 33, who has three children in elementary school. "If kids don't do well on the test, the teachers worry that it will reflect on them. It waters down the curriculum."
The Times education survey was administered to 702 registered voters Feb. 6-10 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
It also found Floridians are:
Strongly divided about the FCAT, with 44 percent saying it has hurt education and 44 percent saying it has helped.
Strongly opposed to grading schools based on FCAT scores alone, with 55 percent opposed and 37 percent in favor.
Largely satisfied with Gov. Charlie Crist's handling of education issues.
The results come less than three weeks before the state Legislature meets for its annual session to tackle a long list of vexing education issues. Among them: potential changes to Florida's school-grading system; potential tweaks to the class-size amendment; and potential cuts to education spending for the second time in a year.
On the upside: Florida parents like their schools.
Seventy-five percent rated their kids' schools good or excellent, while 20 percent said only fair and 1 percent said poor, the survey found. Meanwhile, 80 percent gave their kids' teachers a good or excellent rating.
On the downside: They don't like how Florida stacks up to other states, or at least how they think Florida stacks up.
On some academic indicators, Florida has made strides in recent years, but it continues to rank near the bottom in per-student spending. With more education cuts on the horizon, it's hard to see how the public's take on school quality will change for the better, said Darryl Paulson, a professor of government at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.
Education spending is "almost a cornerstone of how education success is viewed," said Paulson, who teaches courses on education policy.
Also on the downside: The public still doesn't like the FCAT.
Former Gov. Jeb Bush, who left office last year, made the test the keystone of his accountability system. Now FCAT scores determine school grades, factor into teacher bonuses and help decide whether third-graders can be promoted.
Supporters say that system has forced schools to better tailor teaching to a student's individual needs, and put a spotlight on poor and minority students. But critics say it has elevated test preparation over real learning and has led schools to cut back on noncore classes.
The Times survey found FCAT frustration crossed party lines, with almost as many Republicans 42 percent as Democrats (51 percent) saying the FCAT has hurt education in Florida.
"You have to have some measure, I understand that," said Ashley Andrews of Clearwater, the father of a third-grader. "But I feel that too much emphasis is put on the FCAT. I don't feel it's a good indication of whether a child has gotten a good education."
Carol Sampey of Indian Rocks Beach said the FCAT has helped and hurt.
On the one hand, "You're not just passing kids who don't know how to read," said Sampey, a mother of three small children. But on the other, "You hear schools are failing because of one student who has a disability. It seems like they're saying, 'Here's the formula and you have to stick with it, even if it doesn't make sense.'"
To date, Republican lawmakers who supported Bush's agenda have not backed away from high-stakes use of the FCAT. They say evidence is on their side.
National test scores show Florida is making some of the biggest gains in the country in elementary reading and math. The state is a leader in the percentage of high school students taking and passing rigorous Advanced Placement tests. And a recent report by Education Week magazine credited Florida for boosting the academic performance of poor kids.
Kim Black, president of the Pinellas Classroom Teachers Association, said some of the negativity reflected in the Times poll could be based on the public's perception of the state's status rather than the reality.
"The Legislature continues to underfund public schools, and the public knows that money equates to a quality product," Black said. "But I think that when you look at the data, we are improving."
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he doesn't see "the decline and fall of the FCAT" during his time in the Senate. On the other hand, Gaetz and other education leaders are considering changes to the system, including some that could diminish the FCAT's role.
They're openly exploring use of other standardized exams to supplement or replace the FCAT in some grades. And there is talk of rolling other factors into the school grading formula, especially for high schools.
Among the factors mentioned: graduation rates, scores and participation rates on AP exams, and the percentage of students earning industry certification -- a nod to the growing importance state officials are putting on career and technical education.
"If I was a mom or a dad, I'd want to know ... how a school is performing that I want to send my child to," Education Commissioner Eric J. Smith told the Times in a recent interview. "That is not to say that we can't continue to really work on what are the best components of that mark."
"Nobody I know ever said, 'This is it, we're done,'" said Rep. Joe Pickens, R-Palatka, chairman of the House education council. "The underlying reasons for an accountability system are going to stay pretty much about the same, but how we go about measuring that accountability and rewarding it" could change.
The Times survey suggests the public's sour view on schools hasn't affected people's opinion of Crist, who on substance has stayed true to Bush's vision. He has made no major policy announcements on education. And his latest proposed budget continues to offer financial rewards to teachers and schools whose students do well on the FCAT.
And yet, 46 percent of respondents said they approved of how he was handling education issues, compared with 23 percent who did not. Nearly a third said they didn't know if they approved or disapproved.
By comparison, 40 percent of respondents in a 2006 Times poll approved of Bush, while almost as many, 37 percent, did not.
The public isn't blaming Crist for the firestorm Bush created, said Paulson at USF. But style may be at play, too. Crist rarely misses an opportunity to praise teachers, and he says he is open to making changes to the system. People across the political spectrum have praised his more inclusive, less combative tone.
Bush "didn't hesitate to twist arms," Paulson said. But Crist "is a nice guy. It always helps to be a nice guy."
Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873. Donna Winchester can be reached at winchester@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8413.
http://www.sptimes.com/2008/02/16/State/School__good_system__.shtml
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
5th Ranked in education, 50th ranked in spending, still not good enough
From the St.Petersberg Times
By Ron Matus
Two months before the start of the next legislative session, new Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Republican lawmakers have been handed a gift in their bid to continue an aggressive makeover of state schools: a Top 5 ranking for those schools from a credible, independent, closely watched source.
Florida's education system is No. 5 in the country, according to the latest annual "Quality Counts" report, released this morning by Education Week, the newspaper of record for American education news.
Yes, you read that right: No. 5 in the country. In fact, it's up from No. 8 last year and No. 11 the year before. And now in the same rarified air as school systems in Maryland, New York, Massachusetts and Virginia.
"I congratulate Florida's teachers, students and parents, all of whom play a vital role in continuing to improve the education of our state's children," Scott said in a statement. "I have every confidence that Florida can be the number one school in the nation if we set clear goals, measure results and then enhance what works and either fix or get rid of things that don't."
Like anything major having to do with Florida education, the results quickly bogged down in the spin cycle.
Competing camps took issue with what education changes led to improvements — school grades? vouchers? the class-size amendment? — and whose agenda the report would boost.
Those who supported Bush's vision of reform took the latest ranking as validation.
They pushed through a far-reaching agenda that many in Florida's education establishment resisted at every turn and now, in their view, a non-partisan report is saying, "I told you so." They also saw a green light to keep pushing changes, including the big enchilada for the coming session: a massive scramble of how teachers are hired, fired, paid and evaluated.
"We'd be silly to sit here and accept the status quo," said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who sponsored Senate Bill 6, the polarizing teacher tenure bill that was vetoed last year by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. "No. 5 is great, but we want to be No. 1."
Critics saw cause for caution.
It's tough, if not impossible, to pinpoint what policy changes made a difference, they said. And if the current system in its entirety is working, lawmakers shouldn't risk it by winging radical changes like gutting teacher tenure or giving vouchers to all, as Scott's education transition team has recommended.
"Because we're doing better doesn't necessarily mean that the constant change we see is going to continue to reap benefits," said Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the state teachers union.
Education Week ranks states in six broad areas, looking at a comprehensive list of statistics and policies. It awards a grade and ranking for each. Florida earned a B- overall. No state earned higher than a B+. In K-12 achievement, Florida earned a C+. But that was higher than the national average of D+ and enough to put it at No. 6.
So how could Florida schools — long the butt of jokes — rank higher than any of its college football teams?
In a word: improvement.
In most of the academic categories considered by Education Week, Florida students are in middle of the pack or worse when it comes to overall performance. In eighth-grade reading, they're No. 30. In graduation rates, they're No. 44.
But Education Week gives points for progress, and there Florida students rack up Top 10 finishes like Florida State once did on the gridiron.
Between 2000 and 2007, only one state improved its graduation rate more than Florida (Education Week uses its own formula, not Florida's.) And between 2003 and 2009, no state made a bigger jump in eighth-grade reading (Education Week uses a highly regarded national test, not the FCAT.)
"These gains are meaningful," said Roberto Martinez, a state Board of Education member from Miami. "I don't want anyone to think I'm satisfied. But to ignore them is a disservice to teachers who are working very hard and students who are working very hard."
Unlike past years, there were no immediate suggestions that this year's rankings were a fluke. But another debate began in earnest: What made the difference?
Critics of Bush's agenda pointed to the class-size amendment, which voters narrowly passed over Bush's objections in 2002. The smaller class sizes it mandated were fully phased into most schools last fall.
"I don't think you can make an argument (about progress) and not factor in the class-size amendment," said Damien Filer, political director for the left-leaning Progress Florida and a leader behind the class size push.
Oh please, said Kathleen Shanahan, a Tampa CEO who sits on the state Board of Education and once served as chief of staff to former Gov. Jeb Bush.
"Class size has never been proven out in any independent study to be impactful" beyond early grades, Shanahan said. She pointed to what she called the "Florida program," a cocktail of changes that included school grades, vouchers and holding back third-graders who aren't reading well.
Still, the report alone probably won't change people's pessimistic views of Florida's public schools, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. "People will say improvement is great … but the raw scores still show we have a long way to go."
Times staff writer Michael C. Bender contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/florida-schools-ranked-no-5-in-us-according-to-education-week/1144718
By Ron Matus
Two months before the start of the next legislative session, new Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Republican lawmakers have been handed a gift in their bid to continue an aggressive makeover of state schools: a Top 5 ranking for those schools from a credible, independent, closely watched source.
Florida's education system is No. 5 in the country, according to the latest annual "Quality Counts" report, released this morning by Education Week, the newspaper of record for American education news.
Yes, you read that right: No. 5 in the country. In fact, it's up from No. 8 last year and No. 11 the year before. And now in the same rarified air as school systems in Maryland, New York, Massachusetts and Virginia.
"I congratulate Florida's teachers, students and parents, all of whom play a vital role in continuing to improve the education of our state's children," Scott said in a statement. "I have every confidence that Florida can be the number one school in the nation if we set clear goals, measure results and then enhance what works and either fix or get rid of things that don't."
Like anything major having to do with Florida education, the results quickly bogged down in the spin cycle.
Competing camps took issue with what education changes led to improvements — school grades? vouchers? the class-size amendment? — and whose agenda the report would boost.
Those who supported Bush's vision of reform took the latest ranking as validation.
They pushed through a far-reaching agenda that many in Florida's education establishment resisted at every turn and now, in their view, a non-partisan report is saying, "I told you so." They also saw a green light to keep pushing changes, including the big enchilada for the coming session: a massive scramble of how teachers are hired, fired, paid and evaluated.
"We'd be silly to sit here and accept the status quo," said Sen. John Thrasher, R-St. Augustine, who sponsored Senate Bill 6, the polarizing teacher tenure bill that was vetoed last year by then-Gov. Charlie Crist. "No. 5 is great, but we want to be No. 1."
Critics saw cause for caution.
It's tough, if not impossible, to pinpoint what policy changes made a difference, they said. And if the current system in its entirety is working, lawmakers shouldn't risk it by winging radical changes like gutting teacher tenure or giving vouchers to all, as Scott's education transition team has recommended.
"Because we're doing better doesn't necessarily mean that the constant change we see is going to continue to reap benefits," said Mark Pudlow, spokesman for the state teachers union.
Education Week ranks states in six broad areas, looking at a comprehensive list of statistics and policies. It awards a grade and ranking for each. Florida earned a B- overall. No state earned higher than a B+. In K-12 achievement, Florida earned a C+. But that was higher than the national average of D+ and enough to put it at No. 6.
So how could Florida schools — long the butt of jokes — rank higher than any of its college football teams?
In a word: improvement.
In most of the academic categories considered by Education Week, Florida students are in middle of the pack or worse when it comes to overall performance. In eighth-grade reading, they're No. 30. In graduation rates, they're No. 44.
But Education Week gives points for progress, and there Florida students rack up Top 10 finishes like Florida State once did on the gridiron.
Between 2000 and 2007, only one state improved its graduation rate more than Florida (Education Week uses its own formula, not Florida's.) And between 2003 and 2009, no state made a bigger jump in eighth-grade reading (Education Week uses a highly regarded national test, not the FCAT.)
"These gains are meaningful," said Roberto Martinez, a state Board of Education member from Miami. "I don't want anyone to think I'm satisfied. But to ignore them is a disservice to teachers who are working very hard and students who are working very hard."
Unlike past years, there were no immediate suggestions that this year's rankings were a fluke. But another debate began in earnest: What made the difference?
Critics of Bush's agenda pointed to the class-size amendment, which voters narrowly passed over Bush's objections in 2002. The smaller class sizes it mandated were fully phased into most schools last fall.
"I don't think you can make an argument (about progress) and not factor in the class-size amendment," said Damien Filer, political director for the left-leaning Progress Florida and a leader behind the class size push.
Oh please, said Kathleen Shanahan, a Tampa CEO who sits on the state Board of Education and once served as chief of staff to former Gov. Jeb Bush.
"Class size has never been proven out in any independent study to be impactful" beyond early grades, Shanahan said. She pointed to what she called the "Florida program," a cocktail of changes that included school grades, vouchers and holding back third-graders who aren't reading well.
Still, the report alone probably won't change people's pessimistic views of Florida's public schools, said Aubrey Jewett, a political science professor at the University of Central Florida. "People will say improvement is great … but the raw scores still show we have a long way to go."
Times staff writer Michael C. Bender contributed to this report. Ron Matus can be reached at matus@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8873.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/florida-schools-ranked-no-5-in-us-according-to-education-week/1144718
The Education Snow Job
The problems in New York city mirror the problems here in Florida. Joel Klein is their Jeb Bush.
From the answer sheet
By Marc Epstein
If you’ve been watching the news you can’t help but notice the tough time Mayor Michael Bloomberg had with the Christmas blizzard that hit New York City.
After days of telling angry New Yorkers’ to consider taking in a Broadway show and stop complaining, the mayor’s vaunted PR machine demonstrated that it was no substitute for a snowplow. Consequently, the mayor’s approval rating dropped from 55% to 37%. Bloomberg discovered the truism of the old TV commercial that used to end with “You can’t fool Mother Nature.”
The blizzard interrupted another “snow job” that was dumped on New York by Joel Klein before the real snowstorm hit.
In a series of interviews, a valedictory letter to his principals, a segment on the PBS News Hour, and a scrapbook full of clippings from the editorial pages of the New York press, Klein was variously described, and described himself, as America’s most significant educator, a radical, an innovator, and a transformational figure. For the past eight years he has claimed historic academic achievements for the nations’ largest school system that were reflected in higher test scores and record graduation rates!
So with all those seeming accomplishments his sudden departure remains something of a puzzle. His stated goals were to eliminate civil service seniority practices, teacher tenure, close “failing” schools, terminate teachers from closing schools, and expand privately managed funded schools. Klein enjoyed carte blanche from the mayor to pursue these policies and high praise from the president himself. So why end this quest now?
My guess is that it is because Klein’s and Bloomberg’s proud boasts of “historic” success dried up once The New York State Department of Education recalibrated the tests scores and New York City’s results fell like a lead balloon. Overnight, Klein’s claims of pedagogical wizardry evaporated. And with that admission, the New York City “Miracle” went up in smoke.
As a result of this legerdemain, a generation of school children will have passed through the system with marginal literacy skills, when the billions lavished on outside consultants and malfunctioning computer systems designed to track their meaningless “progress” were put in place.
We now know that New York City’s gains on the state tests were illusory. The proportion passing the state reading tests fell from 68.8% to 42.4%, and Klein’s beloved charter schools had pass rates no different from the regular public schools.
The inflated graduation rates have been exposed too. With the recent news that 75% of the high school graduates require remedial reading and math when they enter community college, the Klein Era diploma has been rendered meaningless. So ill prepared are these students that the percent who graduate from college is in the single digits.
Despite the collapse of the New York City scores, the pundits and the chattering classes continue to heap praise on Klein. In their complete indifference to facts, the media sound like a claque that talks only to one another. The truth is what they say it is, with hardly a word of dissent tolerated or printed on their Op-Ed pages or in their news reports.
Most of those celebrating the progress made in the schools know about as much about the inner workings of a New York City public school as they the do the interior of a Sea Wolf class nuclear submarine.
They have unquestionably bought Klein’s self-congratulatory narrative about public education, as well as his narrow-minded views about teachers and unions. This narrative, as airtight as the most intricate Ptolemaic treatise, posits that a sclerotic dysfunctional bureaucracy ran the school system, and its classrooms were filled with incompetent teachers. That accounted for the dismal graduation results prior to mayoral control.
The Klein "spin machine" managed to convince his boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with New York’s opinion makers, that only he was capable of rescuing public education from the clutches of entrenched union and political interests before it was too late.
He accomplished this feat by appealing to liberal, conservative, and libertarian interests that love the rhetoric for their own particular ideological reasons, and don’t want to be bothered with the details.
The reality is something else, but why bother hunting down a story when you can “do lunch” with Joel Klein at a restaurant that serves yogurt at $23 a cup and get the scoop from the Wizard himself?
The question a good reporter should be asking was how did Klein manage to pull the wool over eyes of so many? Was it Bloomberg’s vast media machine or the power of Bloomberg’s fortune shrewdly integrated with the power of the political office he holds?
In part he succeeded because the media was not interested in the details of education administration and were willing to buy the myths spun by a Bloomberg PR machine that would be the envy of most heads of state.
Fail to clear the snow, threaten to close firehouses, or reroute a subway line, and the public outcry is deafening. But restructure the largest bureaucracy in the state four times and the press scarcely manages a yawn.
For conservative/libertarians like Rupert Murdoch, the lure of charter’s, vouchers, coupled with an attack on the hated teacher’s union proved irresistible.
For those on the left, the promise of a Peace Corps-like army of Teach for America volunteers and Teaching Fellows joining hands to close the Achievement Gap, the “civil rights issue of our day,” combined with a kaleidoscope of educational “choice” for disenfranchised students, made Klein’s spiel seductive music to their ears.
Any failures that popped up were airily dismissed because Klein was fine-tuning the mechanism. All Klein had to say to stave off criticisms as one reorganization followed another was that he was bringing accountability to a system that had been unaccountable for decades. Editorial hosannas would follow, drowning out reports of chaos and bewilderment that leaked out from those working inside the system.
Whether or not any of the several reorganizations accomplished anything went largely unexplored. The increase in the annual education budget –from $12 billion to $23 billion—more than the entire economy of some nations—went unnoticed.
As the reorganizations were implemented the school system lurched from tight centralization to extreme decentralization, the lines of communication between schools and central administration became increasingly frayed. Outside evaluators from England would evaluate schools. The pedagogy emphasized bulletin boards, students working in groups with differentiated “footprints,” teachers acting as facilitators, and computer tracking of student progress.
In short, classroom “reforms” represented every combination of a pedagogical game of pick-up sticks one could ever conceive of. Klein left behind a school system in which academic gains have been meager, parents have been shut out, and graduation rates are meaningless. The annual budget has nearly doubled, low-scoring students are shuffled from school to school, discipline problems are hidden, teachers are demoralized, and principals are scared of every twitch in the data, as incompetents rule the administrative roost. What is there to celebrate?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/joel-kleins-snow-job.html?wprss=answer-sheet
From the answer sheet
By Marc Epstein
If you’ve been watching the news you can’t help but notice the tough time Mayor Michael Bloomberg had with the Christmas blizzard that hit New York City.
After days of telling angry New Yorkers’ to consider taking in a Broadway show and stop complaining, the mayor’s vaunted PR machine demonstrated that it was no substitute for a snowplow. Consequently, the mayor’s approval rating dropped from 55% to 37%. Bloomberg discovered the truism of the old TV commercial that used to end with “You can’t fool Mother Nature.”
The blizzard interrupted another “snow job” that was dumped on New York by Joel Klein before the real snowstorm hit.
In a series of interviews, a valedictory letter to his principals, a segment on the PBS News Hour, and a scrapbook full of clippings from the editorial pages of the New York press, Klein was variously described, and described himself, as America’s most significant educator, a radical, an innovator, and a transformational figure. For the past eight years he has claimed historic academic achievements for the nations’ largest school system that were reflected in higher test scores and record graduation rates!
So with all those seeming accomplishments his sudden departure remains something of a puzzle. His stated goals were to eliminate civil service seniority practices, teacher tenure, close “failing” schools, terminate teachers from closing schools, and expand privately managed funded schools. Klein enjoyed carte blanche from the mayor to pursue these policies and high praise from the president himself. So why end this quest now?
My guess is that it is because Klein’s and Bloomberg’s proud boasts of “historic” success dried up once The New York State Department of Education recalibrated the tests scores and New York City’s results fell like a lead balloon. Overnight, Klein’s claims of pedagogical wizardry evaporated. And with that admission, the New York City “Miracle” went up in smoke.
As a result of this legerdemain, a generation of school children will have passed through the system with marginal literacy skills, when the billions lavished on outside consultants and malfunctioning computer systems designed to track their meaningless “progress” were put in place.
We now know that New York City’s gains on the state tests were illusory. The proportion passing the state reading tests fell from 68.8% to 42.4%, and Klein’s beloved charter schools had pass rates no different from the regular public schools.
The inflated graduation rates have been exposed too. With the recent news that 75% of the high school graduates require remedial reading and math when they enter community college, the Klein Era diploma has been rendered meaningless. So ill prepared are these students that the percent who graduate from college is in the single digits.
Despite the collapse of the New York City scores, the pundits and the chattering classes continue to heap praise on Klein. In their complete indifference to facts, the media sound like a claque that talks only to one another. The truth is what they say it is, with hardly a word of dissent tolerated or printed on their Op-Ed pages or in their news reports.
Most of those celebrating the progress made in the schools know about as much about the inner workings of a New York City public school as they the do the interior of a Sea Wolf class nuclear submarine.
They have unquestionably bought Klein’s self-congratulatory narrative about public education, as well as his narrow-minded views about teachers and unions. This narrative, as airtight as the most intricate Ptolemaic treatise, posits that a sclerotic dysfunctional bureaucracy ran the school system, and its classrooms were filled with incompetent teachers. That accounted for the dismal graduation results prior to mayoral control.
The Klein "spin machine" managed to convince his boss, Mayor Michael Bloomberg, along with New York’s opinion makers, that only he was capable of rescuing public education from the clutches of entrenched union and political interests before it was too late.
He accomplished this feat by appealing to liberal, conservative, and libertarian interests that love the rhetoric for their own particular ideological reasons, and don’t want to be bothered with the details.
The reality is something else, but why bother hunting down a story when you can “do lunch” with Joel Klein at a restaurant that serves yogurt at $23 a cup and get the scoop from the Wizard himself?
The question a good reporter should be asking was how did Klein manage to pull the wool over eyes of so many? Was it Bloomberg’s vast media machine or the power of Bloomberg’s fortune shrewdly integrated with the power of the political office he holds?
In part he succeeded because the media was not interested in the details of education administration and were willing to buy the myths spun by a Bloomberg PR machine that would be the envy of most heads of state.
Fail to clear the snow, threaten to close firehouses, or reroute a subway line, and the public outcry is deafening. But restructure the largest bureaucracy in the state four times and the press scarcely manages a yawn.
For conservative/libertarians like Rupert Murdoch, the lure of charter’s, vouchers, coupled with an attack on the hated teacher’s union proved irresistible.
For those on the left, the promise of a Peace Corps-like army of Teach for America volunteers and Teaching Fellows joining hands to close the Achievement Gap, the “civil rights issue of our day,” combined with a kaleidoscope of educational “choice” for disenfranchised students, made Klein’s spiel seductive music to their ears.
Any failures that popped up were airily dismissed because Klein was fine-tuning the mechanism. All Klein had to say to stave off criticisms as one reorganization followed another was that he was bringing accountability to a system that had been unaccountable for decades. Editorial hosannas would follow, drowning out reports of chaos and bewilderment that leaked out from those working inside the system.
Whether or not any of the several reorganizations accomplished anything went largely unexplored. The increase in the annual education budget –from $12 billion to $23 billion—more than the entire economy of some nations—went unnoticed.
As the reorganizations were implemented the school system lurched from tight centralization to extreme decentralization, the lines of communication between schools and central administration became increasingly frayed. Outside evaluators from England would evaluate schools. The pedagogy emphasized bulletin boards, students working in groups with differentiated “footprints,” teachers acting as facilitators, and computer tracking of student progress.
In short, classroom “reforms” represented every combination of a pedagogical game of pick-up sticks one could ever conceive of. Klein left behind a school system in which academic gains have been meager, parents have been shut out, and graduation rates are meaningless. The annual budget has nearly doubled, low-scoring students are shuffled from school to school, discipline problems are hidden, teachers are demoralized, and principals are scared of every twitch in the data, as incompetents rule the administrative roost. What is there to celebrate?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/joel-kleins-snow-job.html?wprss=answer-sheet
Monday, January 10, 2011
The Amazing Hypocrisy of Jeb Bush and Rick Scott
If you let it, it can truly make your head spin.
Rick Scott says the Florida education system is broken and it must be over hauled. He turns to his mentor Jeb Bush who is arguably the person responsible for where education in Florida finds itself to help him do so. Answer this question; if Rick Scott thought the system was broken wouldn’t Jeb Bush be the last person the governor turned to?
Jeb Bush on the other hand uses cherry picked stats in an attempt to prove to everyone who will listen that his way of doing education is the right way to do education. Say he is right, then shouldn’t he be urging Rick Scott to stay the course, that his reforms are working? Well he’s not doing that, instead he is giving Rick Scott the thumbs up to radically change how things are done.
Are they both trying to have their cake and eat it too and are the citizens of Florida going to let them?
Governor Scott how can you think the education system is broken and then turn to the man who broke it for guidance and advice?
Mister Bush how can you tout your reforms as working then sit back and encourage Rick Scott to blow the system up?
Which is it? If you believe the system is broken you should want the governor to stay as far away from Jeb Bush and his ideas as possible. If you believe Florida is on the forefront of reform as Jeb Bush says you should want the governor to leave things alone. Which is it or are you like me and believe it’s neither.
The truth is we are in trouble and a lot of that is because of Jeb Bush and his reforms. This despite what his cherry picked facts say because all he can truly claim as an accomplishment is graduating a generation of kids, who can pass the f-cat but do little else. Furthermore it looks like we are going to be in deeper trouble with Rick Scott’s market based reforms which are designed to punish teachers and help only those well off enough not to need any help. Make no mistakes, their concern is not for the average citizen and their children and these two men know very little about public education and schools.
Citizens of Florida, friends, am I the only one who sees how incongruent the two positions Rick Scott and Jeb Bush have, yet there they stand hand in hand. Hello is anybody out there, is this thing on?
Wake up Florida before it is to late and we have doomed another generations worth of children.
Rick Scott says the Florida education system is broken and it must be over hauled. He turns to his mentor Jeb Bush who is arguably the person responsible for where education in Florida finds itself to help him do so. Answer this question; if Rick Scott thought the system was broken wouldn’t Jeb Bush be the last person the governor turned to?
Jeb Bush on the other hand uses cherry picked stats in an attempt to prove to everyone who will listen that his way of doing education is the right way to do education. Say he is right, then shouldn’t he be urging Rick Scott to stay the course, that his reforms are working? Well he’s not doing that, instead he is giving Rick Scott the thumbs up to radically change how things are done.
Are they both trying to have their cake and eat it too and are the citizens of Florida going to let them?
Governor Scott how can you think the education system is broken and then turn to the man who broke it for guidance and advice?
Mister Bush how can you tout your reforms as working then sit back and encourage Rick Scott to blow the system up?
Which is it? If you believe the system is broken you should want the governor to stay as far away from Jeb Bush and his ideas as possible. If you believe Florida is on the forefront of reform as Jeb Bush says you should want the governor to leave things alone. Which is it or are you like me and believe it’s neither.
The truth is we are in trouble and a lot of that is because of Jeb Bush and his reforms. This despite what his cherry picked facts say because all he can truly claim as an accomplishment is graduating a generation of kids, who can pass the f-cat but do little else. Furthermore it looks like we are going to be in deeper trouble with Rick Scott’s market based reforms which are designed to punish teachers and help only those well off enough not to need any help. Make no mistakes, their concern is not for the average citizen and their children and these two men know very little about public education and schools.
Citizens of Florida, friends, am I the only one who sees how incongruent the two positions Rick Scott and Jeb Bush have, yet there they stand hand in hand. Hello is anybody out there, is this thing on?
Wake up Florida before it is to late and we have doomed another generations worth of children.
Friday, January 7, 2011
What is "true" about Florida Schools Improvement
By Michael Martin
Many efforts to promote ideas taken from the school reforms in Florida often are a classic example of “truthiness,” defined as believing what one wants to be true instead of what is actually true.
Florida did achieve considerable improvements in student achievement during the last decade. But it is important to see when the gains occurred and where they occurred.
Florida had an overall Grade 4 reading score of 205.7 in 1998, which was almost the same as the 204.9 score in 1994 on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) tests. The score in 2002 was 214.4, rising to 219.5 in 2005, and 223.5 in 2007, and 225.7 in 2009. Thus from a less than one-point change in 1998, Florida saw an almost 10-point change in 2002, a five-point change in 2005, a three-point change in 2007 and a two-point change in 2009.
Clearly something significant occurred to improve reading test scores in Florida between 1998 and 2002 that continued at a much lower level in subsequent years.
The No Child Left Behind Act could only have had a role in diminishing the gains, because its implementation occurred after 2002. Similarly, the voter-passed class size reduction initiative in Florida occurred in November of 2002. Mandatory Grade 3 retention was a law passed by the Florida legislature in 2002 and began in the 2002-03 school year. These reforms can only be associated with the declines in test score gains.
Averages can sometimes be deceptive. Looking at the NAEP scores marking the 10th percentile low end versus the 90th percentile high end provides an insight into what occurred.
Grade 4 reading scores at the 90th percentile went up 4 points from 1998 to 2002, but at the 10th percentile scores went up nearly 15 points. Thus the 10 point overall average gain in Grade 4 reading scores on the NAEP from 1998 to 2002 was primarily a gain at the lowest scoring levels, and Hispanic scores at the 10th percentile went up 19 points and African-American scores went up 17 points.
Something did happen in Florida in 1999 that specifically targeted low scoring students. In 1999 Florida created its “Assistance Plus” program targeting additional resources at schools rated as “D” or “F” in student test scores.
In an October 2002 status report on the Assistance Plus program, it noted that 64 schools were targeted for managerial assistance, including training teachers for “Effective Reading Practices” and funding reading coaches as well as coordinating activities with local college Assistance Plus Teams. The status report noted that “over $25 million statewide” in fiscal assistance was provided to these 64 schools, or about $390,000 per school.
The state created regional school improvement facilitators who were assigned failing schools to work with. These failing schools were paired with higher performing schools to provide peer models and assistance. In addition, colleges provided research-based assistance for implementing school improvement programs.
The schools also began working with other community organizations and administered community outreach programs, including climate surveys in languages of the parents. The Achievement Plus program perfectly fits the time and target of when and where Florida’s test scores improved.
From 2002 to 2005 the gains at the lowest scoring levels in Florida continued. At the 90th percentile NAEP Grade 4 reading scores increased by only 3 points, but at the 10th percentile scores increased over 10 points, with Hispanic scores at the 10th percentile increasing almost 15 points and African-American scores increasing over 12 points.
It is likely that the de-emphasis of the Assistance Plus program in later years accounts for the diminishing increases in Florida reading scores in more recent NAEP tests.
After 2005, the 10th percentile Grade 4 reading scores continued to show improvement, but at about half the levels of previous years. In fact, 90th percentile scores in 2009 had actually fallen by about half a point, but 10th percentile scores increased over 5 points while the overall average increased only 2 points.
People who claim various programs were responsible for the improvement in NAEP test scores in Florida over the past decade must explain why their improved NAEP reading scores primarily occurred among the lowest scoring students while other student scores largely stagnated, and why those increases were most dramatic from 1998 to 2002, diminishing afterward.
Targeting the lowest scoring schools in Florida for funding increases through Assistance Plus also meant targeting these funds at low-scoring minority students, and low-scoring minority students had the largest test score improvements. It is the large increases in 10th percentile test scores that created Florida’s much touted reduction in the achievement gap between minorities and majority students.
Targeting additional resources toward increased management training and professional development among teachers dealing with the most difficult students to teach makes simple common sense. Helping schools and teachers dealing with significant problems in Florida by providing additional human and fiscal resources fulfills Occam’s Razor for the best explanation of Florida’s success over the past decade.
From the Answer Sheet: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/what-really-helped-floridas-te.html?wprss=answer-sheet
Many efforts to promote ideas taken from the school reforms in Florida often are a classic example of “truthiness,” defined as believing what one wants to be true instead of what is actually true.
Florida did achieve considerable improvements in student achievement during the last decade. But it is important to see when the gains occurred and where they occurred.
Florida had an overall Grade 4 reading score of 205.7 in 1998, which was almost the same as the 204.9 score in 1994 on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) tests. The score in 2002 was 214.4, rising to 219.5 in 2005, and 223.5 in 2007, and 225.7 in 2009. Thus from a less than one-point change in 1998, Florida saw an almost 10-point change in 2002, a five-point change in 2005, a three-point change in 2007 and a two-point change in 2009.
Clearly something significant occurred to improve reading test scores in Florida between 1998 and 2002 that continued at a much lower level in subsequent years.
The No Child Left Behind Act could only have had a role in diminishing the gains, because its implementation occurred after 2002. Similarly, the voter-passed class size reduction initiative in Florida occurred in November of 2002. Mandatory Grade 3 retention was a law passed by the Florida legislature in 2002 and began in the 2002-03 school year. These reforms can only be associated with the declines in test score gains.
Averages can sometimes be deceptive. Looking at the NAEP scores marking the 10th percentile low end versus the 90th percentile high end provides an insight into what occurred.
Grade 4 reading scores at the 90th percentile went up 4 points from 1998 to 2002, but at the 10th percentile scores went up nearly 15 points. Thus the 10 point overall average gain in Grade 4 reading scores on the NAEP from 1998 to 2002 was primarily a gain at the lowest scoring levels, and Hispanic scores at the 10th percentile went up 19 points and African-American scores went up 17 points.
Something did happen in Florida in 1999 that specifically targeted low scoring students. In 1999 Florida created its “Assistance Plus” program targeting additional resources at schools rated as “D” or “F” in student test scores.
In an October 2002 status report on the Assistance Plus program, it noted that 64 schools were targeted for managerial assistance, including training teachers for “Effective Reading Practices” and funding reading coaches as well as coordinating activities with local college Assistance Plus Teams. The status report noted that “over $25 million statewide” in fiscal assistance was provided to these 64 schools, or about $390,000 per school.
The state created regional school improvement facilitators who were assigned failing schools to work with. These failing schools were paired with higher performing schools to provide peer models and assistance. In addition, colleges provided research-based assistance for implementing school improvement programs.
The schools also began working with other community organizations and administered community outreach programs, including climate surveys in languages of the parents. The Achievement Plus program perfectly fits the time and target of when and where Florida’s test scores improved.
From 2002 to 2005 the gains at the lowest scoring levels in Florida continued. At the 90th percentile NAEP Grade 4 reading scores increased by only 3 points, but at the 10th percentile scores increased over 10 points, with Hispanic scores at the 10th percentile increasing almost 15 points and African-American scores increasing over 12 points.
It is likely that the de-emphasis of the Assistance Plus program in later years accounts for the diminishing increases in Florida reading scores in more recent NAEP tests.
After 2005, the 10th percentile Grade 4 reading scores continued to show improvement, but at about half the levels of previous years. In fact, 90th percentile scores in 2009 had actually fallen by about half a point, but 10th percentile scores increased over 5 points while the overall average increased only 2 points.
People who claim various programs were responsible for the improvement in NAEP test scores in Florida over the past decade must explain why their improved NAEP reading scores primarily occurred among the lowest scoring students while other student scores largely stagnated, and why those increases were most dramatic from 1998 to 2002, diminishing afterward.
Targeting the lowest scoring schools in Florida for funding increases through Assistance Plus also meant targeting these funds at low-scoring minority students, and low-scoring minority students had the largest test score improvements. It is the large increases in 10th percentile test scores that created Florida’s much touted reduction in the achievement gap between minorities and majority students.
Targeting additional resources toward increased management training and professional development among teachers dealing with the most difficult students to teach makes simple common sense. Helping schools and teachers dealing with significant problems in Florida by providing additional human and fiscal resources fulfills Occam’s Razor for the best explanation of Florida’s success over the past decade.
From the Answer Sheet: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/guest-bloggers/what-really-helped-floridas-te.html?wprss=answer-sheet
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
Why blow up Florida’s public schools
Jeb Bush was recently featured in the, no friend to public education, Wall Street Journal. There they talked about all the successes that have occurred in Florida as a result of Jeb Bush’s policies. A critical eye could debunk many of the claims but if you want check out the story at:
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703860104575508141083798802-lMyQjAxMTAxMDAwMjEwNDIyWj.html
My question is, if we have truly made all these tremendous gains (not one mention of how the class size amendment may have played a role by the way) then why is Jeb Bush sycophant Rick Scott getting the lets dismantle public education thumbs up from the former governor? Wouldn't it make sense to stay the course.
The truth is Florida's education systen greatly suffered at the hands of Jeb Bush, f-cat anyone,and it's likely to suffer even more in Rick Scotts
Politicians make claims for even the remotest stat twisted successes. It’s disheartening.
http://online.wsj.com/article_email/SB10001424052748703860104575508141083798802-lMyQjAxMTAxMDAwMjEwNDIyWj.html
My question is, if we have truly made all these tremendous gains (not one mention of how the class size amendment may have played a role by the way) then why is Jeb Bush sycophant Rick Scott getting the lets dismantle public education thumbs up from the former governor? Wouldn't it make sense to stay the course.
The truth is Florida's education systen greatly suffered at the hands of Jeb Bush, f-cat anyone,and it's likely to suffer even more in Rick Scotts
Politicians make claims for even the remotest stat twisted successes. It’s disheartening.
Is Jeb Bush stuck in fourth grade?
A Sherman Dorn twofer. -cpg
By Sherman Dorn
The title above is a bit flippant, but since Jeb Bush's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday focused (again) on fourth-grade achievement data in reading, it's important to keep in mind that there are students in other grades, too. Florida's fourth-grade reading NAEP data is where you see the strongest evidence on the Florida policy effects of the past decade. PolitiFact rated the narrow claim about fourth grade as mostly true, using NAEP. There is an active debate about the extent to which third-grade retention is polluting fourth-grade achievement data, but I think there are broader and equally important perspectives:
■In the op-ed, Governor Bush ignored his own advocacy and support for a state technical assistance agency specifically for reading and for reading coaches in Florida's elementary schools.
■Governor Bush ignored possible effects of the voter-approved class-size reduction mandate since 2002 and the benefits the state budget and local school taxes received from the early-aughts real-estate boom in Florida.
■The evidence of achievement improvement in Florida, and of narrowed achievement gaps, is weaker in other subjects and for other grades.
Four fading fads and four future fetishes, 2011 version
By Sherman Dorn on January 4, 2011
Belated happy New Year! In the spirit of renewal, here is some clearing out of old cobwebs and identification of likely new ones. Fading and (briefly) the reason why I have some hope on these fronts:
1.School uniforms as panacea: Pinellas County turned a silly idea by the superintendent into a more sensible focus on what's appropriate dress in general.
2."Brain-based" nostrums: didn't read this much in 2010, that I can recall. (For those who are curious: all learning in humans is brain-based. There is, unfortunately, no direct line from the research in cognitive psychology to specific instructional practices. If there were, I'd be looking for lessons on how to teach history in the research on chronosthesia, or subjective time.)
3."Mozart effect" marketing: I saw "uterophones" in Wired recently (though I couldn't find the item this morning when searching). With luck, that'll be the last silliness along these lines for a few years.
4."65% solution" (aka mandating a certain proportion of education spending "in the classroom," vaguely defined): haven't heard word of this in many moons.
But don't worry, magic-bullet seekers! We are sure to get or continue new fetishes that will turn out to be as unreality-based as the ones above:
1."At least 50% of teacher evaluation should be reserved for test scores and their derivatives." I'm one of those folks who think student outcomes should matter in evaluation, but the direction on this is about as realistic as the key NCLB drivers. I agree with Bill Tucker's guesstimate of 25-30% as a realistic proportion of evaluation for student outcomes. I may be wrong in predicting that 50% will turn out to be wildly unrealistic in practice, as the "65% solution" is (and at least the latter was largely political pandering). But regardless of your first guess as to an appropriate weighting, this level of specificity is policy chutzpah; a specific target number targeted by jurisdictions all over the country isn't based on any existing research, and attempts to put it in stone (i.e., statute) constitute a fetish.
2."Technology can individualize everything," or tech lust, software version. The Digital Learning Council's manifesto at the end of November overgeneralized from the experience of intense computer-assisted instructional planning in School for One. Yes, there are subjects where assessment-guided instruction can be far better pinpointed. The development costs for that can pay off for some subjects, but not for everything we care about.
3.Tech lust, hardware version. I use my iPad for a number of tasks, and I'll be trying the Attendance app this semester (hat tip). First, this is a personal iPad, not a university device. Moreover, I am skeptical that a tablet is a wise first choice for student use, though we're seeing some experiments by wealthier suburban districts and a brand-new story in the New York Times for the faux-trend aspect. More generally, school districts are vulnerable to making gigantic tech purchases without thinking through the consequences, such as the use of federal stimulus money for laptops for all Detroit teachers and 40,000 students even while laying off bus aides for special-education students (hat tip). Even apart from the person-vs.-machine issue,* think about the books you can buy with the cash that otherwise goes to a single iPad or Dell laptop. Putting effort into making websites friendly for cell phones and tablets? Absolutely! (This blog uses the "WPTouch" WordPress plug-in so anyone with an iPhone or an iPod Touch sees the blog with iPhone-specific formatting.) Buying a limited number of tablets for use in specific circumstances?Yes: I can imagine some special situations such as Lindamood Bell tutoring where the next-generation iPad could provide instant feedback in speech-and-language therapy. But the broader tech lust? It's a perennial problem.
4."Learning styles." I wish I could consign this term to the dustbin of education fad history, but I can't. The District of Columbia's evaluation system (IMPACT) has a specific observational component tied to teachers' accommodations of learning styles, and now Florida's new official list of Accomplished Practice for educators requires that assessment accommodate learning styles. I'm just waiting for the first lawsuit stemming from the new Florida regulations: "My kid would've had a higher grade if you had accommodated his learning styles." Not documented needs, as in a 504 accommodation plan or an IEP, but learning styles.
Three of the eight items above owe something to people who do work in cognitive psychology, or at least do enough to translate it for those of us who are psych laypeople. In that vein, I think the public owes a certain debt to Daniel Willingham, who is hanging up his boots at least for now as guest columnist for Valerie Strauss. It's a shame, because he's good at translating research into appropriate caveats for practice. So go reread what's there by him…
* As far as I am aware, there is only one suggestion for how to get a laptop to control human behavior on a moving vehicle, and the theory of action is not empirically tested, or at least it hasn't been reported yet in a refereed publication.
http://shermandorn.com/wordpress/
By Sherman Dorn
The title above is a bit flippant, but since Jeb Bush's op-ed in the Wall Street Journal yesterday focused (again) on fourth-grade achievement data in reading, it's important to keep in mind that there are students in other grades, too. Florida's fourth-grade reading NAEP data is where you see the strongest evidence on the Florida policy effects of the past decade. PolitiFact rated the narrow claim about fourth grade as mostly true, using NAEP. There is an active debate about the extent to which third-grade retention is polluting fourth-grade achievement data, but I think there are broader and equally important perspectives:
■In the op-ed, Governor Bush ignored his own advocacy and support for a state technical assistance agency specifically for reading and for reading coaches in Florida's elementary schools.
■Governor Bush ignored possible effects of the voter-approved class-size reduction mandate since 2002 and the benefits the state budget and local school taxes received from the early-aughts real-estate boom in Florida.
■The evidence of achievement improvement in Florida, and of narrowed achievement gaps, is weaker in other subjects and for other grades.
Four fading fads and four future fetishes, 2011 version
By Sherman Dorn on January 4, 2011
Belated happy New Year! In the spirit of renewal, here is some clearing out of old cobwebs and identification of likely new ones. Fading and (briefly) the reason why I have some hope on these fronts:
1.School uniforms as panacea: Pinellas County turned a silly idea by the superintendent into a more sensible focus on what's appropriate dress in general.
2."Brain-based" nostrums: didn't read this much in 2010, that I can recall. (For those who are curious: all learning in humans is brain-based. There is, unfortunately, no direct line from the research in cognitive psychology to specific instructional practices. If there were, I'd be looking for lessons on how to teach history in the research on chronosthesia, or subjective time.)
3."Mozart effect" marketing: I saw "uterophones" in Wired recently (though I couldn't find the item this morning when searching). With luck, that'll be the last silliness along these lines for a few years.
4."65% solution" (aka mandating a certain proportion of education spending "in the classroom," vaguely defined): haven't heard word of this in many moons.
But don't worry, magic-bullet seekers! We are sure to get or continue new fetishes that will turn out to be as unreality-based as the ones above:
1."At least 50% of teacher evaluation should be reserved for test scores and their derivatives." I'm one of those folks who think student outcomes should matter in evaluation, but the direction on this is about as realistic as the key NCLB drivers. I agree with Bill Tucker's guesstimate of 25-30% as a realistic proportion of evaluation for student outcomes. I may be wrong in predicting that 50% will turn out to be wildly unrealistic in practice, as the "65% solution" is (and at least the latter was largely political pandering). But regardless of your first guess as to an appropriate weighting, this level of specificity is policy chutzpah; a specific target number targeted by jurisdictions all over the country isn't based on any existing research, and attempts to put it in stone (i.e., statute) constitute a fetish.
2."Technology can individualize everything," or tech lust, software version. The Digital Learning Council's manifesto at the end of November overgeneralized from the experience of intense computer-assisted instructional planning in School for One. Yes, there are subjects where assessment-guided instruction can be far better pinpointed. The development costs for that can pay off for some subjects, but not for everything we care about.
3.Tech lust, hardware version. I use my iPad for a number of tasks, and I'll be trying the Attendance app this semester (hat tip). First, this is a personal iPad, not a university device. Moreover, I am skeptical that a tablet is a wise first choice for student use, though we're seeing some experiments by wealthier suburban districts and a brand-new story in the New York Times for the faux-trend aspect. More generally, school districts are vulnerable to making gigantic tech purchases without thinking through the consequences, such as the use of federal stimulus money for laptops for all Detroit teachers and 40,000 students even while laying off bus aides for special-education students (hat tip). Even apart from the person-vs.-machine issue,* think about the books you can buy with the cash that otherwise goes to a single iPad or Dell laptop. Putting effort into making websites friendly for cell phones and tablets? Absolutely! (This blog uses the "WPTouch" WordPress plug-in so anyone with an iPhone or an iPod Touch sees the blog with iPhone-specific formatting.) Buying a limited number of tablets for use in specific circumstances?Yes: I can imagine some special situations such as Lindamood Bell tutoring where the next-generation iPad could provide instant feedback in speech-and-language therapy. But the broader tech lust? It's a perennial problem.
4."Learning styles." I wish I could consign this term to the dustbin of education fad history, but I can't. The District of Columbia's evaluation system (IMPACT) has a specific observational component tied to teachers' accommodations of learning styles, and now Florida's new official list of Accomplished Practice for educators requires that assessment accommodate learning styles. I'm just waiting for the first lawsuit stemming from the new Florida regulations: "My kid would've had a higher grade if you had accommodated his learning styles." Not documented needs, as in a 504 accommodation plan or an IEP, but learning styles.
Three of the eight items above owe something to people who do work in cognitive psychology, or at least do enough to translate it for those of us who are psych laypeople. In that vein, I think the public owes a certain debt to Daniel Willingham, who is hanging up his boots at least for now as guest columnist for Valerie Strauss. It's a shame, because he's good at translating research into appropriate caveats for practice. So go reread what's there by him…
* As far as I am aware, there is only one suggestion for how to get a laptop to control human behavior on a moving vehicle, and the theory of action is not empirically tested, or at least it hasn't been reported yet in a refereed publication.
http://shermandorn.com/wordpress/
Cutting taxes to fund education?
By Dave Weber, Orlando Sentinel
When the Florida Legislature meets in March and April, Sen. David Simmons is expected to be in the thick of education reforms proposed by new Gov. Rick Scott. The Maitland Republican, 58, who chairs the Senate's budget subcommittee on education for public schools, talked with Orlando Sentinel education reporter Dave Weber about school funding and related issues that are expected to be at the center of debate.
Question: Gov. Scott wants to reduce school property taxes, federal subsidies are running out and state economists predict a $3.5 billion budget shortfall for next year. Are schools in for more budget cuts?
Answer: There are certain things that need to be prioritized and one of them is education. To the extent we can, I hope we will be able to hold education funding harmless — keep it stable. But there still needs to be a significant reallocation of resources within the education budget.
Q: School officials complain that the costs of the state's Class Size Amendment are unbearable. What changes do you propose to reduce the need for hiring teachers and building classrooms to meet requirements?
A: We need to really define the core classes subject to the amendment. Why would Advanced Placement classes be considered core classes and you are capped at 25 students when you have a class full of over achievers? And we don't need to be measuring the class caps every second of every day. That was never intended.
Q: Gov. Scott is considering asking the Legislature to approve a voucher program that would let all parents send their children to private schools at state expense, or even reimburse them for home schooling expenses. Are you on board?
A: I am a firm believer in choice and the right to reasonable choice. But I am cautious about such a proposal. I am going to look at what is proposed and look at the details. And any kind of voucher plan or anything that looks like a voucher plan must meet constitutional muster.
Q: Former Gov. Jeb Bush and his conservative Foundation for Florida's Future have heavily influenced Gov. Scott's education reform plans. Should the Legislature be attentive?
A: Some of Bush's ideas are very good ideas and they are worth listening too. His foundation has no more influence than many other reputable think tanks.
Q: You have suggested that Florida students have a longer school day — a costly proposal. What's the benefit?
A: We have been trying to shove 25 pounds of sugar in a 10-pound sack. When you have children with so much to learn and not enough time to learn it, you won't succeed. If you want to see the most dramatic improvement in education in Florida, then add one hour to the school day at schools that have Cs, Ds or Fs for state grades.
Q: Republicans say they like less government interference or control, yet the Republican-led Legislature is putting more and more controls on public education. Why?
A: I don't believe Republicans are putting what you would call more regulations on the schools. We are refining the existing rules and changing the existing rules.
Q: In Seminole County, which you represent, annual surveys of parents indicate widespread satisfaction with public schools. Why should high performing districts such as Seminole have to meet state mandates designed to improve student achievement in poorly performing schools?
A: This year we hope to further relax control over districts such as Seminole. But it is obvious that Seminole is thriving under the state requirements. If you don't measure, you don't care. We are measuring and we are getting excellent results.
Q: Another teacher merit-pay and tenure proposal is in the works. Last year's failed legislation was considered too harsh by many. What do you favor?
A: I suggest we have performance pay in an equitable fashion and I suggest that we have a mechanism that will provide stability to teachers so they feel they have a job — but at the same time provide a mechanism for those who don't belong in the teaching profession to move on. Obviously the tenure system we have does not work.
Q: Many Florida teachers feel like they have become punching bags for critics of public education. Are teachers to blame for shortcomings of public schools — and is it fair?
A: Most teachers — 90 percent or more — dedicate their lives to changing the lives of our children. To the extent that they have been wrongly castigated by some people, I can only say that is unfortunate. But I suspect that 10 percent of teachers are causing 50 percent of our problems and need to be given the opportunity to find something else to do.
Q: Some say constant criticism of public schools by lawmakers is doing more harm than good. What's your opinion?
A: If someone is complaining about lawmakers demanding excellence, those complaints are not justified. Our lawmakers are nothing but a reflection of the beliefs and aspirations of our citizens.
Dave Weber can be reached at dweber@orlandosentinel.com or 407-883-7885.
From the Orland Sentinel:http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-simmons-education-qa-20110103,0,7120539.story
When the Florida Legislature meets in March and April, Sen. David Simmons is expected to be in the thick of education reforms proposed by new Gov. Rick Scott. The Maitland Republican, 58, who chairs the Senate's budget subcommittee on education for public schools, talked with Orlando Sentinel education reporter Dave Weber about school funding and related issues that are expected to be at the center of debate.
Question: Gov. Scott wants to reduce school property taxes, federal subsidies are running out and state economists predict a $3.5 billion budget shortfall for next year. Are schools in for more budget cuts?
Answer: There are certain things that need to be prioritized and one of them is education. To the extent we can, I hope we will be able to hold education funding harmless — keep it stable. But there still needs to be a significant reallocation of resources within the education budget.
Q: School officials complain that the costs of the state's Class Size Amendment are unbearable. What changes do you propose to reduce the need for hiring teachers and building classrooms to meet requirements?
A: We need to really define the core classes subject to the amendment. Why would Advanced Placement classes be considered core classes and you are capped at 25 students when you have a class full of over achievers? And we don't need to be measuring the class caps every second of every day. That was never intended.
Q: Gov. Scott is considering asking the Legislature to approve a voucher program that would let all parents send their children to private schools at state expense, or even reimburse them for home schooling expenses. Are you on board?
A: I am a firm believer in choice and the right to reasonable choice. But I am cautious about such a proposal. I am going to look at what is proposed and look at the details. And any kind of voucher plan or anything that looks like a voucher plan must meet constitutional muster.
Q: Former Gov. Jeb Bush and his conservative Foundation for Florida's Future have heavily influenced Gov. Scott's education reform plans. Should the Legislature be attentive?
A: Some of Bush's ideas are very good ideas and they are worth listening too. His foundation has no more influence than many other reputable think tanks.
Q: You have suggested that Florida students have a longer school day — a costly proposal. What's the benefit?
A: We have been trying to shove 25 pounds of sugar in a 10-pound sack. When you have children with so much to learn and not enough time to learn it, you won't succeed. If you want to see the most dramatic improvement in education in Florida, then add one hour to the school day at schools that have Cs, Ds or Fs for state grades.
Q: Republicans say they like less government interference or control, yet the Republican-led Legislature is putting more and more controls on public education. Why?
A: I don't believe Republicans are putting what you would call more regulations on the schools. We are refining the existing rules and changing the existing rules.
Q: In Seminole County, which you represent, annual surveys of parents indicate widespread satisfaction with public schools. Why should high performing districts such as Seminole have to meet state mandates designed to improve student achievement in poorly performing schools?
A: This year we hope to further relax control over districts such as Seminole. But it is obvious that Seminole is thriving under the state requirements. If you don't measure, you don't care. We are measuring and we are getting excellent results.
Q: Another teacher merit-pay and tenure proposal is in the works. Last year's failed legislation was considered too harsh by many. What do you favor?
A: I suggest we have performance pay in an equitable fashion and I suggest that we have a mechanism that will provide stability to teachers so they feel they have a job — but at the same time provide a mechanism for those who don't belong in the teaching profession to move on. Obviously the tenure system we have does not work.
Q: Many Florida teachers feel like they have become punching bags for critics of public education. Are teachers to blame for shortcomings of public schools — and is it fair?
A: Most teachers — 90 percent or more — dedicate their lives to changing the lives of our children. To the extent that they have been wrongly castigated by some people, I can only say that is unfortunate. But I suspect that 10 percent of teachers are causing 50 percent of our problems and need to be given the opportunity to find something else to do.
Q: Some say constant criticism of public schools by lawmakers is doing more harm than good. What's your opinion?
A: If someone is complaining about lawmakers demanding excellence, those complaints are not justified. Our lawmakers are nothing but a reflection of the beliefs and aspirations of our citizens.
Dave Weber can be reached at dweber@orlandosentinel.com or 407-883-7885.
From the Orland Sentinel:http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/education/os-simmons-education-qa-20110103,0,7120539.story
Sunday, January 2, 2011
Teachers, parents set stage for education war
By Cara Fitzpatrick, Sun Sentinel
Teachers and like-minded parents have struck first in an expected statewide battle over education changes being proposed by Gov.-elect Rick Scott's transition team.
They have held meetings and conference calls, traded information via Facebook, planned an education summit and formed bill-writing committees to create alternative legislation.
And on Tuesday, they plan to wear red to send the new governor — and the Republican-dominated legislature — a message that they support public schools.
"They're hearing nothing but Jeb Bush and his cronies — that's the whole transition team," said Rita Solnet, an education activist in Boca Raton who's involved in an effort to build a statewide coalition of parents and teachers who support traditional public education.
Bonnie Cunard, a Fort Myers teacher, said: "We've been absolutely ignored."
Scott's 20-member transition team has been led by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools who fired more than 200 teachers and closed dozens of failing schools, and Patricia Levesque, director of Bush's education think tank.
Last week, the team released proposals to revisit teacher merit pay, expand school voucher programs and dramatically alter how public schools are funded. Most of the proposals aligned with Scott's campaign promise to get rid of an "outdated system" that relies too much on traditional schools.
Teachers and parents are using several Facebook pages to organize opposition — much like they did last year when Republicans passed Senate Bill 6, a wildly controversial merit pay proposal that tied teacher pay to student test scores.
After parents and teachers staged massive protests and inundated his office with phone calls and e-mails, outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the legislation. Crist said then that it was like no other issue he'd seen before.
Some of the same Facebook groups involved in the merit pay fight, such as Stop Senate Bill 6 and Testing Is Not Teaching, said they will battle Scott, too — but this time they know what they're doing.
"We need to let the legislators know that we're more organized than with Senate Bill 6 and we're not just going to roll over," Solnet said.
Cunard said some group members sent teachers a template for crafting legislation and encouraged them to draw up counterproposals over the holiday break from school.
"We're all for improving public schools," she said. "But we want a voice."
Even before Scott had been elected, four of the Facebook groups met in Orlando to organize a coalition, Solnet said. Testing Is Not Teaching has more than 11,000 fans, while Stop Senate Bill 6 has nearly 50,000.
They also are inviting legislators and the community to an education summit on Jan. 26 at Lynn University Bachelor's, master's & online degrees in Boca Raton.
The "Wear Red to Support Public Ed" campaign, which also has been endorsed by Illinois-based Save Our Schools Million Teacher March, is a signal to Scott, members said.
We're going to wear red "since we obviously can't afford the tickets to his party to tell him," Cunard said.
Tickets to Scott's inaugural ball cost $95; some other events are free.
Testing Is Not Teaching, which formed about a year ago in opposition to a new curriculum plan in Palm Beach County schools, used a similar tactic when members sent their children to school in orange clothes to show support for teachers, said its founder, Lisa Goldman. That group succeeded in getting the plan scrapped.
Goldman, a Wellington mother of four, said she was afraid of what might be in store for public schools under Scott.
The idea to wear red started — where else — on Facebook.
A Jacksonville teacher, Donna Yates Mace, put out the word on multiple Facebook pages. Within hours of Mace's post on Stop Senate Bill 6, the page's administrators had made the campaign an official event. Nearly 200 people committed to it within a day.
Many fans from both pages changed their profile pictures to an image of a red T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Keep Public Schools Public."
"These sites see a common purpose and we're all pulling together," Goldman said.
From the Sun Sentinel: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-skul-facebook-20101231,0,7524110.story
Teachers and like-minded parents have struck first in an expected statewide battle over education changes being proposed by Gov.-elect Rick Scott's transition team.
They have held meetings and conference calls, traded information via Facebook, planned an education summit and formed bill-writing committees to create alternative legislation.
And on Tuesday, they plan to wear red to send the new governor — and the Republican-dominated legislature — a message that they support public schools.
"They're hearing nothing but Jeb Bush and his cronies — that's the whole transition team," said Rita Solnet, an education activist in Boca Raton who's involved in an effort to build a statewide coalition of parents and teachers who support traditional public education.
Bonnie Cunard, a Fort Myers teacher, said: "We've been absolutely ignored."
Scott's 20-member transition team has been led by Michelle Rhee, the former chancellor of Washington, D.C., schools who fired more than 200 teachers and closed dozens of failing schools, and Patricia Levesque, director of Bush's education think tank.
Last week, the team released proposals to revisit teacher merit pay, expand school voucher programs and dramatically alter how public schools are funded. Most of the proposals aligned with Scott's campaign promise to get rid of an "outdated system" that relies too much on traditional schools.
Teachers and parents are using several Facebook pages to organize opposition — much like they did last year when Republicans passed Senate Bill 6, a wildly controversial merit pay proposal that tied teacher pay to student test scores.
After parents and teachers staged massive protests and inundated his office with phone calls and e-mails, outgoing Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed the legislation. Crist said then that it was like no other issue he'd seen before.
Some of the same Facebook groups involved in the merit pay fight, such as Stop Senate Bill 6 and Testing Is Not Teaching, said they will battle Scott, too — but this time they know what they're doing.
"We need to let the legislators know that we're more organized than with Senate Bill 6 and we're not just going to roll over," Solnet said.
Cunard said some group members sent teachers a template for crafting legislation and encouraged them to draw up counterproposals over the holiday break from school.
"We're all for improving public schools," she said. "But we want a voice."
Even before Scott had been elected, four of the Facebook groups met in Orlando to organize a coalition, Solnet said. Testing Is Not Teaching has more than 11,000 fans, while Stop Senate Bill 6 has nearly 50,000.
They also are inviting legislators and the community to an education summit on Jan. 26 at Lynn University Bachelor's, master's & online degrees in Boca Raton.
The "Wear Red to Support Public Ed" campaign, which also has been endorsed by Illinois-based Save Our Schools Million Teacher March, is a signal to Scott, members said.
We're going to wear red "since we obviously can't afford the tickets to his party to tell him," Cunard said.
Tickets to Scott's inaugural ball cost $95; some other events are free.
Testing Is Not Teaching, which formed about a year ago in opposition to a new curriculum plan in Palm Beach County schools, used a similar tactic when members sent their children to school in orange clothes to show support for teachers, said its founder, Lisa Goldman. That group succeeded in getting the plan scrapped.
Goldman, a Wellington mother of four, said she was afraid of what might be in store for public schools under Scott.
The idea to wear red started — where else — on Facebook.
A Jacksonville teacher, Donna Yates Mace, put out the word on multiple Facebook pages. Within hours of Mace's post on Stop Senate Bill 6, the page's administrators had made the campaign an official event. Nearly 200 people committed to it within a day.
Many fans from both pages changed their profile pictures to an image of a red T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase "Keep Public Schools Public."
"These sites see a common purpose and we're all pulling together," Goldman said.
From the Sun Sentinel: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/education/fl-skul-facebook-20101231,0,7524110.story
Saturday, January 1, 2011
The Education Narrative
There is an education narrative being rammed down the people’s throats by the powers-that-be. Prominent citizens like Michael Bloomberg, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Jeb Bush and their proxies are telling it. Like most snake oil salesmen they weave a smooth tale using cherry picked facts and figures and enticing sound bites blurbs and promises to get their way message across and in doing so have made teachers and their unions the boogey men of the story. Watch out parents, they shout, teachers and their dirty unions are robbing your children of a proper education and destroying America to boot
The truth however is a bit different. They are using these self serving stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing their story. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but we can’t because the teachers unions sole reason for being is to protect bad teachers.
They whisper seductively into the publics ears, we want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them too, that means teachers and their dirty unions are against parents having parents have the abi;ity to make decisons for their children's future and the money to help out too. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, it’s unbelievable that the unions are against more money for their best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has also steadily dropped over the last quarter century, it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.
Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there too. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve them best by not being in them. Where is the call to get rid of the worse five percent of police officers firemen and doctors?
Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that all teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after teachers have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse are the ones targeted for removal, they are the ones who suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative, who would we replace them with? Teaching is no longer a career for so many as less than half of all first year teachers make it to year five and the reasons they give for leaving the profession are rarely, the children or the money.
Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates, which I guess means they are saying that the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high college grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing? Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that, it’s used as an indictment against the entire teachering profession. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom because the unions are protecting bad teachers.
Then the weavers of the story compare America’s education system to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international education rankings. This to must be the teachers and their union’s fault they scream because they are protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second or about the countries they are comparing us to. Finland may have the best education system in the world and does draw the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. They fail to mention that Finland as a country decided to make a huge commitment to education where here we have decided to blame the teachers for the problems. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
What about vouchers the ed deformers ask? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right, especially in Florida where they are promising parents five thousand five hundred dollars in education accounts. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in or keep and who don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts (having to have certifyed teachers, take standardized tests etc.) but haven’t been found to do any better. In fact study after study has said the vast majority do the same or worse. Furthermore the proposed universal voucher system in Florida will really be a welfare for the well off program costing the state 1.7 billion dollars as the five hundred thousand kids already in private school will now get this free money.
Then what about the consequences of siphoning much needed money and resources away from already cash starved public schools, where most of the children already attending them will still be attending them because the money in the education acounts won't cover the cost for most private schools. Now the children who remain in the public schools and their teachers will have even fewer resources. Furthermore we don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military. our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools. Isn’t a better answer to improve our public schools rather than dismantle them?
You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he or she has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better. That’s right friends studies show kids whose teachers don’t receive merit pay do just as well as kids with teachers that do. Extra money is great but you know what would be better? Counselors and social workers to get to the root of the problems some of our children have and to provide wrap around services. So often why kids act up at school has nothing to do with schools. Legitimate after school and summer school programs, and busses, at my school we don't have after school detention and one of the reasons I was given was because there was no way for the kids to get home.
The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander and the arguements seem self serving desighned to fill the pockets of some of thse making them but despite this somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you, the vast majority of work many hundreds of un paid extra hours, donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or lesson plans to write. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians, Joe and Judy public who want a caviar education system on a spam budget, absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.
Furthermore it’s even worse than all that. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing, a first year teacher can be as good (and cheaper) than a tenth year teacher and class size doesn't matter if the teacher is good enough, they say.
Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have never been teachers or actually in classrooms? Of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.
Teachers are not against reform. Teachers unions are not in the business to protect bad teachers and there is not an epidemic of bad teachers destroying America. Get the story straight.
The truth however is a bit different. They are using these self serving stats and figures to try and convince, make that to try and scare Joe and Judy public into believing their story. If we could just get rid of five percent of the bad teachers we could have dramatic improvements but we can’t because the teachers unions sole reason for being is to protect bad teachers.
They whisper seductively into the publics ears, we want to give vouchers to all parents so they can have school choice but the teachers unions are against them too, that means teachers and their dirty unions are against parents having parents have the abi;ity to make decisons for their children's future and the money to help out too. We want to reward the top teachers with merit pay, it’s unbelievable that the unions are against more money for their best members but they are. Our education ranking in the world has also steadily dropped over the last quarter century, it must be because we have bad teachers. Why can’t we be more like Finland? On and on they go. Well friends not since a snake convinced a naive young girl to take a bite of an apple has their been such a masterful con job been perpetrated.
Until the recent recession you couldn’t give a teaching job away as there were always openings. Does anybody remember how they were advertising in Canada and India to find teachers, does anybody remember the push to get people from the business world to enter the classroom? I do. Of course we want our best and our brightest in the classroom but you know what else we want, we want the willing to be there too. Are there teachers that should be replaced, yes of course there are just like there are people in every profession that would serve them best by not being in them. Where is the call to get rid of the worse five percent of police officers firemen and doctors?
Unions however are not protecting bad teachers they are just making sure that all teachers get due process and in my home town that only kicks in after teachers have proved themselves for three years. That’s right at any time during a teachers first three years at the end of one they can be let go. But say we did somehow identify and get rid of the worse five percent, not the five percent the admin doesn’t like because they more often than the worse are the ones targeted for removal, they are the ones who suffer the consequences of speaking up or being innovative, who would we replace them with? Teaching is no longer a career for so many as less than half of all first year teachers make it to year five and the reasons they give for leaving the profession are rarely, the children or the money.
Another stat the ant-teacher mongers like to throw out is that education draws just under a quarter of our top graduates, which I guess means they are saying that the most of our kids are being taught by someone other than a teacher with a high college grade point average. First I am not sure if straight G.P.A. should be a factor but why is this a bad thing? Are 23 percent of the nations top grads entering law enforcement, or medicine or business or any other field? I don’t think so and if the stat is right that means over a fifth or our supposed best and brightest are choosing education over the thousands and thousands of other careers out there. But instead of celebrating that, it’s used as an indictment against the entire teachering profession. Teachers can’t win at the top, not enough of the best grads enter education and they can’t win at the bottom because the unions are protecting bad teachers.
Then the weavers of the story compare America’s education system to industrialized countries like Finland that have zoomed past us in the international education rankings. This to must be the teachers and their union’s fault they scream because they are protecting all those bad teachers and resisting reforms. They don’t tell you that if we factor out kids that live in poverty our ranking zooms all the way to second or about the countries they are comparing us to. Finland may have the best education system in the world and does draw the vast amount of its staff from the top third of college graduates but the ed deformers fail to mention that teachers in Finland are paid substantially more than their American counterparts, there classes are very small, they play a role in policy and curriculum and are one of the most highly unionized groups around. They fail to mention that Finland as a country decided to make a huge commitment to education where here we have decided to blame the teachers for the problems. Comparing teachers in both countries is not like comparing apples and oranges it’s like comparing apples to a five-course meal, with America being the apple.
What about vouchers the ed deformers ask? How can people who really care about children and education be against them after all they give parents the choice to do what they feel is best for their children. Sounds pretty seductive right, especially in Florida where they are promising parents five thousand five hundred dollars in education accounts. The problem is charter schools and their private school counter parts despite the fact that they can pick and choose who they allow in or keep and who don’t have to play by the same rules as their public school counter parts (having to have certifyed teachers, take standardized tests etc.) but haven’t been found to do any better. In fact study after study has said the vast majority do the same or worse. Furthermore the proposed universal voucher system in Florida will really be a welfare for the well off program costing the state 1.7 billion dollars as the five hundred thousand kids already in private school will now get this free money.
Then what about the consequences of siphoning much needed money and resources away from already cash starved public schools, where most of the children already attending them will still be attending them because the money in the education acounts won't cover the cost for most private schools. Now the children who remain in the public schools and their teachers will have even fewer resources. Furthermore we don’t get to pick our police, our fire department, our military. our meat inspectors and so many other things but for some reason the powers-that-be will have you believe it is better to abandon public schools. Isn’t a better answer to improve our public schools rather than dismantle them?
You want proof unions are against education reform those spinning the anti-teacher narrative ask. Well look at merit pay, how can they be against merit pay for the nations best teachers. The thing with merit pay is like school choice it sounds very enticing but like school choice often becomes no choice merit pay can be very misleading. The one-year I received merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers better than me that didn’t. The one-year I didn’t receive merit pay I knew there were a dozen teachers worse than me that did. So often it comes down to whom the principal likes or whatever perception he or she has but worse than that it there is no relationship between those who receive merit pay and their children doing better. That’s right friends studies show kids whose teachers don’t receive merit pay do just as well as kids with teachers that do. Extra money is great but you know what would be better? Counselors and social workers to get to the root of the problems some of our children have and to provide wrap around services. So often why kids act up at school has nothing to do with schools. Legitimate after school and summer school programs, and busses, at my school we don't have after school detention and one of the reasons I was given was because there was no way for the kids to get home.
The anti-teacher narrative has more holes in it than a colander and the arguements seem self serving desighned to fill the pockets of some of thse making them but despite this somehow it is gaining traction and teachers have gone from valued members of society to borderline pariahs holding the country back. Teachers who I remind you, the vast majority of work many hundreds of un paid extra hours, donate their time and resources to other peoples children as often theirs wait in extended day or in front of the television why they take home papers to grade or lesson plans to write. Teachers who give so much and frankly throughout time have received so little have become the bad guys of the narrative while the policy makers, politicians, Joe and Judy public who want a caviar education system on a spam budget, absentee parents and children raised without a sense of respect or a willingness to work get a pass.
Furthermore it’s even worse than all that. Do you know where Mayor Bloomberg and Jeb Bush and many of those selling the anti teacher story sent their children? They sent them to private schools, which tout teachers experience and smaller class sizes as selling points, two things the ed deformers have recently been minimizing, a first year teacher can be as good (and cheaper) than a tenth year teacher and class size doesn't matter if the teacher is good enough, they say.
Jeb Bushes family and Bill Gates have made millions and stand to make millions more on the education reforms they are selling (standardized tests and virtual, computer based, schools). Also do you know how many of the people selling the teachers union bad, teachers substandard story have never been teachers or actually in classrooms? Of Florida Governor Rick Scott’s education team only one is a teacher and he works at a virtual school. Of the leaders mentioned in the opening only Michelle Rhee was a teacher and she came up through Teach for America which some have renamed Teach for a while because of the staggeringly high amount of participants who serve their two years and then leave. This is who is writing the education narrative, those that have had nothing to do with teaching and those that would seek to profit off of it.
Teachers are not against reform. Teachers unions are not in the business to protect bad teachers and there is not an epidemic of bad teachers destroying America. Get the story straight.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Is Rick Scott’s Private Voucher Plan Just An Overton Window Mover?
By Ray Seaman
When I first heard of Governor-Elect Rick Scott’s plans to dismantle Florida’s public education system and turn it into a giant private voucher experiment, I was like most folks, both angry and worried. If you’re unfamiliar with Scott’s plan, here it is:
Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott on Thursday blew the door wide open to the idea of a voucherlike program for all students, saying he’s working with lawmakers to allow state education dollars to follow a student to the school his or her parents choose.
He did not use the term vouchers. Others called it an “education savings account.”
But whatever it’s called, the incoming governor, key lawmakers and a foundation tied to former Gov. Jeb Bush are setting the stage for Florida to consider one of the most radical education ideas that it — or arguably any state — has ever considered.
Scott’s plan has already received an outpouring of opposition. I haven’t heard much support at all for such a plan excluding the usual suspects like Sen. John Thrasher (R-St. Augustine) and other public school haters. Perhaps the most surprising reaction however came from big time voucher hucksters themselves. Andrew Coulson, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said Scott’s proposal goes too far:
But what if the ESA [Education Savings Accounts] has no serious hope of passing muster with the state Supreme Court, and in the process of being struck down would jeopardize successful existing programs? Sadly, that appears to be the most likely outcome.
In light of the Florida Supreme Court’s 2006 Bush v. Holmes ruling, in which it struck down the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] voucher program, there does not seem to be any way for the Court could uphold any sort of voucher program in Florida even if it wanted to (see below)—and there’s no reason to think it wants to. In fact, it seems likely that a lower court would grant an injunction against any voucher program even being implemented in Florida, pending the outcome of the inevitable lawsuit.
The result of simultaneously passing the ESA program and abolishing the corporate income tax would thus be to gut Florida’s existing, successful, popular, money-saving scholarship donation tax credit program without providing a viable alternative. That would decimate school choice in Florida. Furthermore, an additional anti-voucher ruling by the Court might expand on its earlier Bush v. Holmes ruling, thereby jeopardizing the McKay voucher program for special needs children that is also successful, popular, and far more efficient than the public school system.
Leave aside for a moment the fact there doesn’t seem to be any substantial evidence showing Florida’s existing voucher program actually outperforms our public schools. However, Coulson is likely correct about the legal implications for passing a universal private voucher program into law. The St. Petersburg Times editorial board discussed this when they knocked Scott’s plans:
The Florida Supreme Court struck down the Bush-inspired Opportunity Scholarships, which were tuition vouchers to be given to students in failing public schools. The 2006 court opinion found those vouchers violated a constitutional requirement for a “uniform system of free public schools.” The high court was silent on another constitutional provision that bars state money from going to religious institutions, which a lower appellate court cited. Two existing voucher programs, the Florida Tax Credit voucher for students from low-income families and the McKay Scholarship voucher for disabled students, are similarly flawed but have yet to be legally tested.
I’m not a lawyer or an expert on the Florida constitution, but it seems that based on the evidence, if Scott and the far right really wanted a universal voucher program, they would have to pass a constitutional amendment of some kind to neuter or muddy up the “uniform system of free public schools” language in the constitution. I highly doubt Florida voters would pass such an amendment with more than 60% of the vote. I would be surprised if such an idea even received a majority of the vote. Keep in mind, 62% of voters in Utah (yes, Utah) defeated a statewide ballot proposal creating a universal voucher program in 2007.
So what’s this all about then, anyway if Scott’s universal voucher plan is a legal absurdity? The only thing I can think of is the tried and true tactic of the right, which is moving the public discourse to more favorable conservative ground. This is what’s called “Moving the Overton window.” Basically, by pushing such an extreme proposal, even if it’s defeated, it becomes less crazy the next time around, and in the meantime it allows you to successfully push through less extreme, but still radical ideas into the mainstream.
So Scott’s push for universal vouchers may just make things like basing half of a teacher’s pay on a student’s test scores a more palatable idea. Keep in mind, such a proposal in the form of Senate Bill 6 caused a firestorm of opposition earlier this year, leading to its demise at the hands of Gov. Charlie Crist’s veto pen. Now, in the context of Rick Scott’s very crazy plan to essentially dismantle their schools, at least some teachers are reportedly warming up to the idea of a less destructive form of SB 6. Never mind the fact that the only major controlled study on merit pay demonstrates that it doesn’t work at all. Yet we’re still tinkering with the idea like it’s something we have to have to make public schools better. Witness the moving of the Overton window.
So while public education supporters and advocates should certainly target Scott’s universal voucher plan for defeat, they shouldn’t forget about all the other fires the legislature has burning out there. If anything, Scott’s radical plans could just be a giant distraction to get a lot of other horrible anti-public school legislation passed.
http://www.dailymarion.com/2010/12/29/is-rick-scotts-private-voucher-plan-just-an-overton-window-mover/
When I first heard of Governor-Elect Rick Scott’s plans to dismantle Florida’s public education system and turn it into a giant private voucher experiment, I was like most folks, both angry and worried. If you’re unfamiliar with Scott’s plan, here it is:
Florida Gov.-elect Rick Scott on Thursday blew the door wide open to the idea of a voucherlike program for all students, saying he’s working with lawmakers to allow state education dollars to follow a student to the school his or her parents choose.
He did not use the term vouchers. Others called it an “education savings account.”
But whatever it’s called, the incoming governor, key lawmakers and a foundation tied to former Gov. Jeb Bush are setting the stage for Florida to consider one of the most radical education ideas that it — or arguably any state — has ever considered.
Scott’s plan has already received an outpouring of opposition. I haven’t heard much support at all for such a plan excluding the usual suspects like Sen. John Thrasher (R-St. Augustine) and other public school haters. Perhaps the most surprising reaction however came from big time voucher hucksters themselves. Andrew Coulson, director of the libertarian Cato Institute’s Center for Educational Freedom, said Scott’s proposal goes too far:
But what if the ESA [Education Savings Accounts] has no serious hope of passing muster with the state Supreme Court, and in the process of being struck down would jeopardize successful existing programs? Sadly, that appears to be the most likely outcome.
In light of the Florida Supreme Court’s 2006 Bush v. Holmes ruling, in which it struck down the OSP [Opportunity Scholarship Program] voucher program, there does not seem to be any way for the Court could uphold any sort of voucher program in Florida even if it wanted to (see below)—and there’s no reason to think it wants to. In fact, it seems likely that a lower court would grant an injunction against any voucher program even being implemented in Florida, pending the outcome of the inevitable lawsuit.
The result of simultaneously passing the ESA program and abolishing the corporate income tax would thus be to gut Florida’s existing, successful, popular, money-saving scholarship donation tax credit program without providing a viable alternative. That would decimate school choice in Florida. Furthermore, an additional anti-voucher ruling by the Court might expand on its earlier Bush v. Holmes ruling, thereby jeopardizing the McKay voucher program for special needs children that is also successful, popular, and far more efficient than the public school system.
Leave aside for a moment the fact there doesn’t seem to be any substantial evidence showing Florida’s existing voucher program actually outperforms our public schools. However, Coulson is likely correct about the legal implications for passing a universal private voucher program into law. The St. Petersburg Times editorial board discussed this when they knocked Scott’s plans:
The Florida Supreme Court struck down the Bush-inspired Opportunity Scholarships, which were tuition vouchers to be given to students in failing public schools. The 2006 court opinion found those vouchers violated a constitutional requirement for a “uniform system of free public schools.” The high court was silent on another constitutional provision that bars state money from going to religious institutions, which a lower appellate court cited. Two existing voucher programs, the Florida Tax Credit voucher for students from low-income families and the McKay Scholarship voucher for disabled students, are similarly flawed but have yet to be legally tested.
I’m not a lawyer or an expert on the Florida constitution, but it seems that based on the evidence, if Scott and the far right really wanted a universal voucher program, they would have to pass a constitutional amendment of some kind to neuter or muddy up the “uniform system of free public schools” language in the constitution. I highly doubt Florida voters would pass such an amendment with more than 60% of the vote. I would be surprised if such an idea even received a majority of the vote. Keep in mind, 62% of voters in Utah (yes, Utah) defeated a statewide ballot proposal creating a universal voucher program in 2007.
So what’s this all about then, anyway if Scott’s universal voucher plan is a legal absurdity? The only thing I can think of is the tried and true tactic of the right, which is moving the public discourse to more favorable conservative ground. This is what’s called “Moving the Overton window.” Basically, by pushing such an extreme proposal, even if it’s defeated, it becomes less crazy the next time around, and in the meantime it allows you to successfully push through less extreme, but still radical ideas into the mainstream.
So Scott’s push for universal vouchers may just make things like basing half of a teacher’s pay on a student’s test scores a more palatable idea. Keep in mind, such a proposal in the form of Senate Bill 6 caused a firestorm of opposition earlier this year, leading to its demise at the hands of Gov. Charlie Crist’s veto pen. Now, in the context of Rick Scott’s very crazy plan to essentially dismantle their schools, at least some teachers are reportedly warming up to the idea of a less destructive form of SB 6. Never mind the fact that the only major controlled study on merit pay demonstrates that it doesn’t work at all. Yet we’re still tinkering with the idea like it’s something we have to have to make public schools better. Witness the moving of the Overton window.
So while public education supporters and advocates should certainly target Scott’s universal voucher plan for defeat, they shouldn’t forget about all the other fires the legislature has burning out there. If anything, Scott’s radical plans could just be a giant distraction to get a lot of other horrible anti-public school legislation passed.
http://www.dailymarion.com/2010/12/29/is-rick-scotts-private-voucher-plan-just-an-overton-window-mover/
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