What The Public Really Wants From Education

The Center for American Progress has a summary and links to a full report about what the public wants.
Most striking is the continued degree of support for public schools and the less than enthusiastic support for school voucher schemes. Check it out!

Missions of the 21st Century

The events of the last 24 hours truly sadden all those connected with public education. Weston HS Principal John Klang was truly a hero. He, along with ESP Dave Thompson, prevented the injury and possible deaths of who know how many people when they disarmed the 15 year old gunman. Words cannot express the sadness that I feel even typing these words. One story is here.

I believe that most public schools are safe places for students and staff but I don't think these events are isolated. To say so is dismissive and overly optimistic that such an event will not occur in another district. The truth is that staff in schools across the country prevent hundreds if not thousands of potential violent episodes each and every day. Students are, after all is said and done, reflective of society. Society is not pretty right now!

Private schools can pick and choose their clientele. Public schools cannot. The goal of the public schools is to teach everyone regardless of handicap. Although public schools do not explicitly teach religion, the golden rule is reinforced countless times throughout each school day. In addition to teaching "basics" we have over the last 40 years taken over the jobs of parents who in many cases are struggling just to pay the bills. Not an easy task but one educators have accepted as reality.

When comparing the goals of the public schools to that of private schools, which sounds more like the missionary work? I rest my case.

Our schools are full of people like John Klang and Dave Thompson. This takes nothing away from what these men did this week. It merely acknowledges what we all know would be the case in all public schools. Heroism doesn't only happen when someone brings a weapon. It occurs all around us each and every day!

Thank all of you for the work you do! You truly are the missionaries of the 21st Century! Stay safe.

Teaching Evolution?

Being a science teacher, I am always concerned when science literacy and teachers are being attacked. I suppose this has been going on since the Scopes Trial in the 1920's but the purveyors of anti science, if nothing else, are not quitters. I've also read recently that many of those who home school their children subscribe to the idea creationism and consider the teaching of Darwinism as close to devil worship. Needless to say, teachers of science are considered the anti Christ.
With this in mind I have run across a website that is the perfect resource to help is the need should arise called the National Center for Science Education.

The Center provides:

Reviews of current anti-evolution activity in the United States and around the world
Background to the fundamentally creationist and anti-evolution movement known as "Intelligent Design"
Detailed information on the Creation/Evolution controversy from 1859 to the present
Resources for parents, teachers, school boards, and the general public

Check it out and put this site in your favorites "just in case ".

Strengthen Our Schools

Strengthen Our Schools is a listserve/group blog type of a site set up by One Wisconsin Now for the purpose of discussing education issues and activism. So what are you waiting for? Head on over, register and speak your onions!

The Children's Great Schools Fund

If you are tired of being bothered for political contributions, there is an answer, be a member of The Children's Great Schools Fund conduit.

Belonging to a political conduit has two major benefits. First of all, when asked for a political contribution all you have to do is mention that all your contributions go through the "Great Schools" conduit. Amazingly, this stops the request quickly.

Even more importantly, for as little as twenty dollars a month, you can be a major contributor to the state political scene. Here is how it works. You choose whether to have twenty dollars per month taken out of your checking account or writing a check for $250 and having it placed in an CGSF account that you control. Later, if for any reason you find you need the money, you may get it back simply by making a phone call. Then, usually during the every other year election season, you are contacted and asked to contribute some or all of the money in your account to a political candidate. You control the account and have the option of saying yes or no. If your reply is affirmative, the money is sent to the candidate in your name. If, on the other hand, you would prefer to send some of the money in your account to another candidate of your choice all it would take is a phone call.

The CGSF is made up of members' voluntary contributions and is not a part of your union dues or political action contribution. (Your PAC is presently a measly $19.99 per year.) As is becoming increasingly apparent to all members, education is a major political issue in which we cannot afford to sit on the sidelines. Tom B, at the last CAUS-N meeting said it best when he related his experience as a conduit member. "Once you get past the decision to put $20 per month in the conduit, the giving to a pro education candidate is a pleasure". In short, not many of us have a couple of hundred dollars to shell out for political purposes, being a member of the conduit changes that.

You can read more about the Children's Great Schools Fund by logging in to the Members Only Site on www.weac.org and clicking on Political and Legislative Action on the left hand side of the page.

NCLB Questions and Surprise Ending!

Marion Brady has spent 75 years in education one way or the other. She has some questions for the Aspen Institute, an organization soliciting electronic feedback about the NCLB Act. Mr. Brady suspects that this information gathering is a prelude to a recommendation that the 50 state versions of NCLB be changed to one national version.
These are Marion's questions via Daily Kos.

Question: Management experts say poor institutional performance almost always indicates a "system" problem. NCLB doesn't blame poor performance on the system but on teachers and kids. Are the experts wrong?

Question: NCLB demands "standards and accountability" for school subjects. Wouldn't it make more sense to key standards and accountability to ends rather than means, to kids' ability to fuse and actually use what they've learned?

Question: Some researchers say that pre-natal and early childhood care, environmental contamination, parental attitudes, family income, language facility and many other factors affect student performance. In well-run NCLB schools, are these irrelevant?

Question: NCLB relies on market forces to shape schools up. Does this mean that learning is unnatural and won't happen unless teachers and kids are threatened or bribed?

Question: NCLB is rapidly pushing "frills" out of the curriculum. Has research now established that art, music, physical activity and so on have nothing to do with scientific and mathematical reasoning ability?

Question: Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of kids are being held back because of poor reading and math skills. Is the ability to interpret symbols the only way the young learn, and therefore sufficient reason to flunk them?

Question: NCLB's avowed aim is to "close the achievement gap." The tools for measuring that gap are tests of symbol-manipulation skills. Don't these skills track relative wealth and privilege, therefore tending to maintain the gap? And aren't the tests incorrectly but nevertheless widely seen as indicators of intelligence, bringing into play gap-perpetuating self-fulfilling prophecies?

Question: NCLB goes a long way toward cutting local educators and school board members out of the decision-making loop. Does the history of top-down, centralized control suggest this change strategy works well?

Question: Education is supposed to teach kids to think for themselves, not just recall what they've been ordered to remember. Are the centerpieces of NCLB (corporately produced, machine-scored tests) able to judge the relative quality of complex thought processes? If so, why aren't they already doing that?

Question: NCLB assumes the "core" curriculum (the mainstay of present schooling) is as appropriate today as it was when it was adopted in 1892. Is it?

Question: If there are problems with the traditional, same-thing-for-everybody curriculum, don't "raising the bar" and "rigor" just make them worse?

Question: Will manipulating the curriculum to "maintain America's competitive position in world trade" be more likely to ensure America's future well-being than helping kids love learning because it lets them pursue their interests and talents wherever they lead?

Question: Frantic to avoid the test-triggered "failing" label, most schools use myriad strategies to "game" the system. For example, knowing the worst kids will never make the cut on high-stakes tests, and the best will do so without help, the "marginal middle" gets most of the attention. Is it possible to track and counter all the ingenious strategies emerging in response to naive policies?

Question: Many educators (maybe most) now assume that NCLB is a clever strategy less concerned with closing the achievement gap than with undermining confidence in public education and laying the groundwork for privatizing the institution. Are they wrong? And if they are, how can their cynicism be countered and morale restored?

Many agree that the push to federalize education is on. Rod Paige and Bill Bennett state their case for education change in this recent Washington Post article.

You can add your comments to the Aspen Report here. As an added bonus GUESS WHO THE CHAIRMAN IS? Find out by clicking on the Aspen Report. SURPRISE!! Isn't that reassuring?

Audit Blasts U.S. Reading Program

From the Capital Times:

A scorching internal review of the Bush administration's billion-dollar-a-year reading program says the Education Department ignored the law and ethical standards to steer money the way it wanted.

The audit found the department:

• Botched the way it picked a panel to review grant applications, raising questions over whether grants were approved as the law requires.
• Screened grant reviewers for conflicts of interest, but then failed to identify six who had a clear conflict based on their industry connections.
• Did not let states see the comments of experts who reviewed their applications.
• Required states to meet conditions that weren't part of the law.
• Tried to downplay elements of the law it didn't like when working with states

About 1,500 school districts have received $4.8 billion in Reading First grants.

Read the entire article here.

Walmart Alternative Coming to Wisconsin?

If you have been avoiding Walmart as many of us do this development this is going to come as good news.
According to the Wisconsin State Journal Costco is planning a store in Middleton and Grafton. This is important because Costco is the anti-Walmart. Costco wages average $17 per hour plus a full health and benefit package. Some employees are union members.
This company creates the jobs that guarantee a living wage and generate an expansion of the tax base. Additionally, unlike Walmart, we do not end up paying for the health insurance of its employees.
I'm looking forward to supporting this great company!

WTA Omits Important Details

This is the complete plagerization of an article posted by Paul Soglin at Waxing America. Too good to not steal!

Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance Tells Only Part of the Story
In Monday's press release, the Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance (WTA) tells a story about spending on public education in the Badger State. The overall impression we get when reading their findings is that Wisconsin taxpayers' money is largely going for teachers' benefits. They conclude:

With one of the nation’s most attractive public retirement programs and with health costs escalating, much of the allowable compensation growth is going for benefits, rather than salary.

How they explain Wisconsin's ranking for benefits costs as opposed to salaries is critical.

WTA notes that Wisconsin is very high in expenditures for teachers' benefits. This is documented with the dollar amount and how we rank compared to other states. WTA also notes that with salaries representing 55.5% of Wisconsin school spending, we are below the national average of 62.1%:

A different view emerges if spending is analyzed by function, e.g., salaries and benefits. In 2003-04, Wisconsin ranked 22nd in salaries, spending $5,121 per pupil, or 0.6% less than the U.S. average ($5,150). Salaries represented 55.5% of total Wisconsin school spending vs. 62.1% nationally. (my emphasis)

Wisconsin spent $2,404 per pupil on benefits, the third-highest amount in the nation and 57.0% above the U.S. average ($1,531). New York ($2,551) was highest and Texas ($826), lowest. Benefits accounted for 26.1% of Wisconsin school spending. Only two states had higher percentages: West Virginia (28.3%) and Indiana (27.1%). The U.S. average was 18.5%...(more emphasis)

Can you spot what is missing? There is no comparable ranking for Wisconsin teacher salaries to other states. We get the ranking for benefits but not salary.

Wisconsin, as noted above in bold, spends only 55.5% of its expenditure on teachers' salaries.

For those who care, Wisconsin ranks dead last.

For those who care, Oregon is next to last at 56.2%

It is actually quite simple. Wisconsin teachers who are compensated close to the national average prefer to take their renumeration in benefits rather than salary and wages. Wisconsin teachers are pretty bright.

WTA acknowledges that salaries, as a cost of education, are below the national average , but they never put that fact in context. They never show the extreme, as they do for benefits.

As the state wide elections gear up in the final month, expect to see major right-wing political attacks on teachers' benefits. This sort of distortion, while not in the same league as WMC, is the same game: a steady stream of political misinformation from so-called "non-partisan" groups to help elect Republicans. And the lazy press repeats their releases intact without even an attempt to get another source of information.

Oh, and another thing. WTA never acknowledged that Wisconsin gets value for its money. We do spend more than the average state for public education, but our students perform significantly better than average.

(author's note: If you want to check the math, go the US Census report, table 6 at page 6, Public Education Finances 2004.)

Read
Waxing America here.

Green Unveils Education Plan

Brace Yourselves! Mark Green has a plan for improving education in Wisconsin.
From his press release:

“I believe Wisconsin’s kids deserve nothing less than the world’s best education,” Green said. “While we’ve always had good schools, I want make them even better, and we have to address those who are being left behind. To do that, we must break down the barriers to increasing student achievement and improving academic excellence. I think we should pay teachers more for doing a good job – not simply for how long they’ve been on the job. I also want to expand innovations in education including choice and charter schools, and direct more of our education dollars to the classroom. We need to remove every and any obstacle standing in the way of preparing our children to succeed.”

And this about the 70% Slogan to which I have already blogged:

Another major tenant of Green’s education reform plan included a proposal to ensure 70 cents of every dollar spent on K-12 education is used for “instruction” and “instruction-related” activities. According to the most recent National Center for Education Statistics data, that would translate to a $295 million increase for classroom “instruction” and “instruction-related” expenses without raising taxes

Read Green's Plan here.
Governor Doyle's response here.
Wisconsin Education Association's response here.

The Real Green Economic and Tax Plan

I wasn't able to watch the debate between Governor Doyle and Representative Green on Friday so my comments are based upon things that I have read elsewhere.

From what I've read and to put it simply, U.S. Rep Green is concerned about expanding the manufacturing base and wants to freeze or cut taxes. Governor Doyle wants to expand the high tech jobs and make strategic decisions about where a limited amount of tax money needs to go.
Green's ideas seem deeply rooted to the economies of the past. As we are repeatedly reminded, we live in a global economy. Low tech manufacturing jobs are going or have already gone to other countries never to return. To encourage the return of these manufacturing jobs with corporate welfare (Bribing) keeps these companies in Wisconsin only as long as the next time another state offers an even more enticing package of corpowelfare benefits. This cycle does not build a sustainable healthy economy. It also does not expand the tax base or continue the services Wisconsinites have come to expect. Stubbornly clinging to these notions would be disastrous for Wisconsin.

Governor Doyle has the right idea concerning growing Wisconsin's economy. As is always the case, education is the answer to the problem. A highly educated workforce attracts higher end companies which increase the wages of workers far beyond those working in the manufacturing sector. These highly paid workers also contribute more in taxes than line workers thus there is more money available for tax provided services.
Although the some editorials and blogs blew off Governor Doyle's Wisconsin Covenant proposal earlier this week, his eye is on the goal of creating a highly educated workforce that will allow Wisconsin to thrive. To guarantee that every 8th grade student who maintains a B average, is a good citizen and takes the right preparatory classes while in high school will be admitted to a Wisconsin college is exactly the commitment the state needs to make to the future.

Representative Green's tax freeze promise is much more draconian than the ill fated TABOR bills of the do nothing Wisconsin legislature. Any covenant that adults may feel toward providing for the future of Wisconsin would be destroyed by its devastating effect upon the public education system.

I suppose that Green's plan would provide the low wage, uneducated workforce companies have been looking for in other countries. Perhaps that is the idea in the first place. Imagine running for office on the Republican plan! God help our children, grand children, and students should they succeed!

Detroit Teachers Reach Tentative Agreement

The Detroit Free Press is reporting that the School District and the Detroit Federation of Teachers has reached a tentative contract.

"The package is not everything we hoped it would be, but we believe it's enough for our teachers to get back to work," Garrison said.

The 3-year deal that's on the table would mean the union's 7,000 teachers would give up concessions the first year, get a 1% raise the second year and a 2.5% raise the third year. The concessions are tied to fringe benefits and health care benefits and call for more union members to pay a portion of their premiums.

Coleman said the district didn't get all it asked of the teachers, either. The concessions will amount to roughly $64 million in savings for the district. But it is short of the $88 million Coleman said the state's largest school system needed to balance its $1.36 billion budget.

We didn't get everything we needed, but it was important to get the children back in school, he said.

I like to see what is going on in other states when I think things are bad in Wisconsin. On the surface it doesn't seem that the teachers got too much but I've been around long enough to know that what gets reported is not always the whole story. At any rate, I'm certain everyone is relieved and ready to go back to work!

Fordham Gets Failing Grade for Its State Standards “Report Cards”

Hat tip to Xoff Files.

It was widely covered in the MSM recently that Wisconsin Schools recently got an F for academic content standards from the Fordham Institute. This was front page stuff. I wonder how much this debunking of the Fordham report will receive?

EAST LANSING, Mich. - A new report from the Fordham Institute, “The State of State Standards 2006,” assigns letter grades to each state for its academic content standards and claims that higher content standards lead to better student test scores.

In a Think Twice review of this report, University of Colorado Professor Kenneth Howe found no evidence to support the validity of the grades and also found no support for the report’s claim that higher content standards lead to an increase in student achievement.

Howe criticized the report, authored by Fordham’s President, Chester Finn and two of his colleagues for hiding controversial, value-laden criteria behind the supposedly objective A-F grades awarded. In fact, he points out that the grading criteria used by Fordham are directly at odds with those of reputable professional organizations such as the National Council of Teachers of English. Howe concluded that the report’s grading practices were “selectively data-mined and were seriously lacking in methodological rigor.”

According to Howe, “…no evidence is offered that the grades are valid measures of the quality of state content standards. Readers are asked simply to rely on the overall conclusions reached by Fordham and its graders, supplemented by a few cursory statements in the state documents regarding strengths and/or weaknesses.”

Howe concluded with an even stronger criticism: “The post-hoc massaging of the data reaches the point of absurdity, as the authors search for some approach to the data that might lend support to Fordham’s conclusion that content standards of the kind it rates highly do, in fact, result in improved student performance.”

The review recommends that policymakers and educators avoid basing any decisions about policy or practice on the grades assigned by the Fordham report.

Find Professor Howe’s review and a link to the Fordham report containing your state’s report card at: http://www.greatlakescenter.org

The Think Twice project provides the public, policy makers and the press with timely, academically sound reviews of selected think tank publications. It is a collaboration of the Education Policy Studies Laboratory at Arizona State University and the Education and the Public Interest Center at the University of Colorado and is funded by the Great Lakes Center for Education Research and Practice.

Great Lakes Center for Educational Research can be found
here.

Man Marries Goat (And You Think You Had A Bad Day!)

Here's something that you don't see every day! A man was caught having sex with a goat in Sudan and the local council of elders punished him by making him pay a dowry and marry the goat.
Wonder what the marriage amendment folks would think about this? Although I'm pretty liberal, I just don't know what goes on in some people's minds.
BBC article is here!

Weekend!!!

Looking around school yesterday I noticed that everyone was extremely tired! Enjoy the weekend! You've all worked extremely hard at making the first week of school a successful one! Make sure that you do something for yourself. Balance is important! Suggestions?

School Children Should Spend More Time Learning, Less Time Testing

From Daniel Cody at Left on the Lake:
The cover story in the latest edition of Newsweek asks the question, "The New First Grade: Too Much Too Soon?" and leads with this paragraph:

But by November, Ashlyn, then 5, wasn't measuring up. No matter how many times she was tested, she couldn't read the 130-word list her teacher gave her: words like "our," "house" and "there." She became so exhausted and distraught over homework, including a weekly essay on "my favorite animal" or "my family vacation", that she would put her head down on the dining-room table and sob. "She would tell me, 'I can't write a story, Mama. I just can't do it'," recalls Tiffany, a stay-at-home mom
This is what happens when you turn schools into nothing more than factories where districts are measured only in terms of test scores and how many children they pass on to the next grade instead of things like overall student achievement and the number of well-rounded students that graduate.

But our society and federal government are addicted to testing and meaningless 'standards' even for first graders.

Personally, I don't remember being able to write my own complete name in the first grade, and yet as the Newsweek article points out, there are 5 year olds who are being labeled as 'failures' because they can't write an essay. It's the sad result of a meaningless mandate set out by the federal government and an overzealous desire by conservative school districts to try to fix everything by throwing a test at it.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for accountability and measuring student success. But not at the expense of labeling 5 year olds as 'failures' because they're so busy testing on the 130 words in the example above, that they don't spend any time actually learning what the words mean.

I'm thinking many of us agree!

AD 37 Recommendation! Updated!

Andy Jorgensen is the WEAC recommended candidate for the 37th Assembly! The 37th AD has been in the grasp of Republican David Ward who was on the Assembly budget committee. Representative David Ward has been no friend of education and there is a real opportunity to pick up this seat in the November 7th election.

Opposing Jorgensen in the Democratic primary is Walt Christiansen.
Both Jorgensen and Christiansen participated in the WEAC political recommendation process with Jorgensen being recommended first by the screening committee, then approved by the WEAC PAC Committee, the WEAC Board of Directors and finally approved by all the WEAC members living in the 37th AD by post card vote. No Republicans chose to participate in the process, although all were invited.

Besides the all important vote on September 12 and November 7, it is also extremely important to pry open your wallets and pocketbooks as that is what it takes in order to win political contests today. It does little good to complain about revenue caps and the QEO if we are not willing to do what it takes to change what has been a hostile legislature.

Visit
future representative Jorgensen's website and give generously!

Update!
The Watertown Daily News has a pretty good article about Andy!