This is one of the very few news pieces that I've read that gets to the heart of not only the gang problem, but also with so much of where public education misses the boat with respect to minority children. Not only do they not address issues of identity in a thoughtful manner, they go in the opposite direction of attempting to subtract students' identities much to the detriment of the presumed achievement goals that school officials possess. I wrote a book about this. -Angela

Commentary by David Madrid, Jun 21, 2005 / Pacific News Service

Editor's Note: San Jose's escalating gang problem is about more than colors and clothing, the writer says.

SAN JOSE, Calif.--This year, there have already been six gang-related deaths here in San Jose, and our juvenile hall is reporting more violence than it has seen in decades. In response, the city is rushing to support existing anti-gang programs and start new ones. They need to re-think their strategy.

With $4 million in new resources, the city is educating youths on the negative aspects of gang life, reducing the availability of gang clothing and investing in mobile street outreach units.

While I applaud any action to stop gang violence, the city's approach is based on a superficial analysis. The escalating gang problem is about more than just colors and clothing. It reflects deep conflicts between U.S.-born Chicanos and newly immigrated Mexicans. Since immigration is only increasing, policies aimed at reducing gang violence must address this root tension.

The city has cracked down on merchants selling "gang garb" -- clothing that can be bought at just about any liquor store in East San Jose. But gang colors -- displayed on jerseys, hats and bandanas -- are not the cause of conflicts. Rather, they are flags signifying with whom people identify. The real problem is much deeper.

The mayor's Gang Task Force has declared that its mission is to "reclaim [youths] from anti-social forces that have disconnected them from their families, schools, communities, and their futures." But gangs are not "anti-social." If anything, they are strong social movements. From the prisons to the streets, they are organized and have structured ideologies. In many cases, gangs affiliation is what binds families and even neighborhoods together.

Gangs provide social cohesion and cultural identity. Any alternative that will make a real difference must do the same.

Gang allegiances provide cohesion, but also lead to lethal conflicts. Tensions have escalated as those who identify as Chicano or immigrant band together to protect their people and identity. On the streets, the conflict is understood as being between the "North" (Chicanos wearing red) and "South" (immigrants wearing blue).

Chicanos see themselves as fighting to protect their neighborhoods from an invading immigrant force. In my neighborhood, I hear angry Norteños claiming, "Our city is being infested." They feel compelled to "exterminate."

Immigrant Latinos who claim blue identify with the Mexican struggle against discrimination in the United States, even discrimination on the part of Chicanos. When I asked a young Sureña-identified girl at the high school where I tutor why she hates Norteños, she said, "'Cause they think they're better than us. They don't know what being Mexican is about."

This focus on differences and sense of superiority has spread through generations -- no different than the Klan or other American hate groups. Some Latino children are taught this hate at an early age by hearing their parents' bias. Others learn from life on the street.

Of course, not all Latinos perpetuate the North-South rivalry, but there is an undeniable, unspoken segregation between Chicanos and Mexican immigrants.

The North vs. South belief system affects everyone who lives in gang-dominated neighborhoods. Youths get labeled whether or not they are affiliated. Whether or not a kid is "hardcore," many are already deeply exposed to gang ideology by the time they hit high school.

Recently I was involved with an "alternative to gangs" program at a middle school in East San Jose. We ran a writing workshop that focused on the negative aspects of gangs. I sat with one student who seemed to be having trouble writing. Finally he wrote, "Gangs are bad because they are bad for the community."

As he twiddled his pencil and looked at the floor, I asked him, "Is that really what you think?"

"No," he answered with a scared look on his face. I asked him to write what he really felt. He gave me a page and a half describing how unified he felt with others like him in San Jose and throughout California; how powerful it felt being part of something bigger than himself. His gang identity gave him a name and a title that he could stand for and represent.

Gangs are not just a group of homies hanging on the corner. They represent a way of life, and for those who identify with that way of life, challenging the gang mentality means challenging who they are. "Just say no" tactics are useless, even counterproductive.

Some of the best anti-gang programs are the ones that don't talk about gangs at all. Youths don't need to be lectured about the dangers of the streets -- they already know all that -- but they do need places they can come to and just be kids. I'm not talking about a foosball table and video games -- they need something to be part of, to take ownership of.

Organic cultural activities that already exist in our communities, such as hip hop and low-riding, can give young people enough personal pride and group identity to replace the gang mentality. Common ground can be found in these cultural spaces, where young people can earn respect for what they have accomplished rather than where they are from.

I've heard so many times from youths I work with who used to bang, "I'm not a gangsta, I'm an MC. I'm about my music." For gang prevention and intervention to be effective, young people need the tools to construct a new identity, not just dismantle an old one.

David Madrid, 27, is a writer and youth organizer for Silicon Valley De-Bug, the voice of young workers, writers and artists in Silicon Valley and a PNS project. He has participated in after-school programs for at-risk youths throughout the South Bay.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:36 PM 1 comments Links to this post

79th LEGISLATURE: SPECIAL SESSION

Proposal creates teacher incentive-pay system, delays start of school year.
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

The House approved a $2.5 billion education proposal Tuesday night that lowers property taxes and boosts teacher salaries but has been widely criticized by educators.

House leaders, meanwhile, tried to quietly revise a separate plan to swap billions in higher state taxes for lower school property taxes.

The education measure creates an expansive incentive-pay program for teachers, toughens oversight of the state's charter-school system and requires schools to start after Labor Day beginning in 2006. The Senate is expected to debate a similar proposal as soon as today.

The tax swap must pass in order for the education plan to take effect, and the tax plan that House leaders are pushing is competing for lawmakers' attention with a proposal pushed by Gov. Rick Perry.

Perry's plan does not rework the corporate franchise tax but does make more companies pay it. House leaders have wanted to extend it even further but give businesses the option of paying a payroll tax instead.

Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, said he still wants to include the payroll tax option but said he's weighing changes to his tax plan so that it wins passage in his committee.

The House education plan won approval on a 77-69 vote in a body that has 25 more Republicans than Democrats. Every Central Texas Republican in the House voted for the plan, and every local Democrat opposed it.

Earlier in the day, the House defeated by one vote a Democrat-backed plan that would have spent more money on schools and given smaller overall cuts in property taxes.

The Republican-backed proposal would reduce the cap on property taxes for school maintenance and operations by 26 percent within two years, saving $340 a year for the owner of a home appraised at $100,000. Districts with high property values per student still would have to share money with districts that have less property wealth as part of the school finance system, but fewer property-wealthy districts would have to do so.

The plan, authored by Rep. Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, calls for each school district to see at least a 3 percent increase in state and local dollars.

Education groups have said inflation and new mandates will quickly eat up that money and not leave enough to help all students meet the state's growing academic demands.

Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, said a group of school superintendents told him Monday that they'd rather see the Legislature keep the current system in place than pass Grusendorf's plan.

"I am hard-pressed to ignore the opinions of people we have chosen to preside over our local school districts," he said.

The Democrats' plan would have spent more money on bilingual education and programs for students at risk of failing or dropping out. Rep. Scott Hochberg, a Houston Democrat who sponsored his party's plan, said three out of four school districts would have received more money per student under the Democratic proposal than under the GOP measure.

But critics said the Democrats' proposal would have required a tax increase.

"It will trap you into voting for a tax in the next few years that you will not be very proud of," said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa.

While Republicans want to raise state taxes to replace the reduced property taxes dollar-for-dollar, the Democratic plan called for some of the money raised from higher state taxes to go to schools. Still, they said their plan, because it would triple the amount of a home's value that is exempt from school taxes, would give a larger tax cut to the owner of an average-value home in 144 of 150 House districts.

The Republican plan "gives more of its tax relief to people in the most expensive homes and delivers far more money per student to districts that already start out with an advantage," Hochberg said.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 6:30 PM 0 comments Links to this post

June 27, 2005

Renown scholar, teacher, and author, Deborah Meier, is encouraged by recent NAEP statistics showing that public schools outperform private schools but remains concerned that this may reflect a focus on testing in public schools more than private schools. Read her essay on the subject at the Forum for Education and Democracy website. -Angela

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 12:03 PM 0 comments Links to this post

This story is about how it pays to educate girls. -Angela

EDITORIAL
June 25, 2005

Educating Girls / New York Times

The wish list of the world's poorest families is long. They need to grow more crops and start more businesses. They need to have smaller families, healthier and better educated children and safer pregnancies and births. They need to fight AIDS and protect women and children from domestic violence. There is one program that will help achieve these goals and more: educating girls. When officials of the richest countries meet next month at the Group of 8 summit, they should strongly consider a large investment in schooling for girls.

Worldwide, 58 million school-age girls are deprived of education. In rural Africa, about 70 percent of girls do not finish primary school. In some countries, a girl is 20 percent less likely to start school than her brother is.

Girls benefit tremendously from education, and so do the societies around them. But, especially in rural or traditional societies, parents need daughters to help in the house. They are often afraid to send girls on unsafe walks to faraway schools.

Perhaps most important, in many places girls become part of their husband's family when they marry, so parents of an educated girl do not reap the benefits of her higher income and skills. These cultures have a saying: educating your daughter is like watering your neighbor's garden. Since parents in many places must pay for school fees, books and uniforms, they often send only their boys.

But countries have begun to notice that educating women provides amazing social benefits, from better health to a better economy. They have begun programs to encourage girls to start and stay in school. The most direct way is to make education cheaper - nations that have eliminated school fees have had their schools flooded with girls. In Uganda, attendance soared from 2.5 million to 6.5 million children, most of them girls, after fees were abolished in 1997. Other nations give cash payments or bags of wheat to families for attending school. In other places, building schools in each community so students can travel less is the solution.

The Save the Children charity recently ranked Bolivia as the country that has made the most improvement in girls' education. In 1995, Bolivia instituted sweeping reforms, with special attention to rural girls. Families received cash incentives. Schools got more teachers who speak indigenous languages, and revamped schedules to provide vacations during harvests. Bolivia has since closed the gender gap and the number of students completing primary school rose to 78 percent from 10 percent.

Three years ago, rich countries and organizations promised countries with similarly thoughtful and transparent plans that money would be no obstacle. Nearly 40 countries have such plans, but sadly, the money hasn't materialized. Since attracting girls means hiring more teachers, poor governments are unwilling to get started until they know they can rely on the money to pay salaries.

Next month's meeting of the G-8 can fix this. Some $5 billion in new money a year is needed to help meet the goal of universal education. So far, the Bush administration has been resisting calls to commit more money to Africa. But Laura Bush is a passionate advocate of girls' education. She should convince her husband that there are few better bargains.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:37 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Wanted to share this testimony given by one of our preeminent Mexican American scholars, Professor Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, before the State Board Adoption Hearings in Austin, Texas, September 11, 2002. -Angela

by

Professor Felipe de Ortego y Gasca

Professor Emeritus, Retired Tenured Faculty, Texas State University System
Currently, Visiting Scholar and Lecturer in English, Texas A&M University–Kingsville

The philosopher Santayana posited that those who cannot learn the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. This is surely an admonition for our times, particularly as a caution for white Americans whose children read only about the history of whites in the United States in white textbooks that tacitly promulgate white supremacy. For if that is all they read, then they risk repeating the history that has been occulted in the history and literature textbooks of our public schools, the history of the others whose histories have been excluded from the historical record.

For too long, unfortunately, history has been anthropomorphized as an entity that writes itself, sui generis. Concentrating on the velleities, little thought is given to the realities that produce history–someone writes the record. It is not an invisible hand that documents events and activities. Public history as studied in our public schools is shaped by historians with intellectual and ideological proclivities, not to mention agendas which are often hidden. The upshot is that what appears in the historical record is often regarded as gospel and ergo indisputable.

I am appalled by the historical record in the American history textbooks which I have reviewed for this presentation and which are being considered for state adoption and use in Texas public schools, for nowhere in these texts is the story of American Hispanics, particularly Mexican Americans, fully told. Instead their story is alluded to at best in a foreword here or a footnote there. Most often the story of American Hispanics is little more than an apostrophe. And the story as told in the history textbooks is proffered as gospel and indisputable.

But history alone is not guilty of sins of omission. American literature is equally guilty of excluding the contributions of American Hispanics to the American experience. Part of the problem, I think, stems from lack of respect. White America does not respect American Hispanics, particularly Mexican Americans. We are regarded as poachers in our own land where we have become strangers. Appeals to include our story in the textbooks studied by our children are sloughed off with derision and with taunts to go back to Mexico if we want to read our history, failing to come to grips with the fact that our history is of the United States not Mexico, and that Mexican Americans, like Palestinians, are in a land that was once part of their patrimony.

In a landmark essay on race, "Stranger in the Village," James Baldwin foresaw the unequivocal disparity of racial perceptions. He wrote, the problem between blacks and whites is that the black man knows who the white man is but the white man does not know who the black man is. Today Mexican Americans know who the Anglo is but Anglos don’t know who the Mexican Americans are. That’s why textbooks need our story.

In 1906, W. E. B. Dubois, founder of the NAACP and author of The Souls of Black Folk, prophesied that the problem of the 20th century would be the problem of the color line. And it was. Equally prophetic, unless we do something now to halt the vicious cycle, the problem of the 21st century will be the story line–what constitutes American history? American history requires a paradigm that squares with the nation’s millennial expectations. Adopting these textbooks as they are does not contribute to those expectations. In fact, adopting these history textbooks as they are now will only allay the inevitable and foment needless confrontation in the future. The specters of demographic imperatives beseech us to act now rather than later. Help us to tell our story in the annals of American history. Some first steps would be to place more Mexican Americans on the editorial boards responsible for those textbooks. The next step is to walk the walk.

--------------
At 76, Dr. Ortego is retired professor emeritus, Texas State University System. Dr. Ortego was a founding member in 1968 of the National Council of Teachers of English Task Force on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English and was editor of Searching for America (NCTE, 1973).

Dr. Felipe de Ortego y Gasca, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of English Language and Literature
Texas State Univeristy System--Sul Ross
[English, Linguistics, Journalism, Information Studies, Bilingual Education, Chicano Studies]

Dean Emeritus, Hispanic Leadership Institute, Arizona State University
Chair Emeritus, The Hispanic Foundation, Washington, DC

Visiting Scholar and Lecturer in English and Bilingual Studies
Texas A&M University--Kingsville
Phone: 361-522-8256 E-mail: p-ortego@tamuk.edu

Home: 1317 E. FM 1717, Kingsville, Texas 78363
Home Phone: 361-592-2030 Home E-mail: felipeo@usawide.net

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:24 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Great commentary below of who the true beneficiaries of HB2/HB3 are. -Angela

Conservative groups demand more accountability in school spending

By ELIZABETH PIERSON
epierson@link.freedom.com
512-323-0622

AUSTIN — Several conservative leaders on Friday urged the Legislature to keep schools accountable for money they spend as they consider education reforms.

Careful not to comment on Gov. Rick Perry’s tax proposal he announced earlier this week, representatives from two business groups and a conservative policy group said they support another Republican proposal, House Bill 2.

House Bill 2, if passed in conjunction with the tax-changing House Bill 3, would add about $3 billion to education spending. The House and Senate passed the bills during the regular legislative session but have not been able to reconcile their varying versions.

The additional money is needed for schools, but not unless the reforms for district accountability in spending and performance in House Bill 2 are preserved, said Bill Hammond, president of the Texas Association of Business.

"It is absolutely essential that reforms be enacted," Hammond said. "It is not acceptable that $3 billion (or another figure) be put into schools without reforms."

Hammond, along with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Texas Businesses for Educational Excellence, demanded complete transparency in district spending, a campus-based system for rewarding successful teachers and a "swift and sure" way to allow the state to take over the schools when they fail.

The group refused to comment on whether House Bill 2 and House Bill 3 should be unlinked to allow education reforms to move forward in the event that an agreement on the tax bill stalls.

"That’s something the leadership will have to deal with, but our preference would be that both will pass," Hammond said.

House Bill 3 is stuck in the House Ways and Means Committee without enough votes to move it forward following criticism by committee member Rep. John Smithee, R-Amarillo, that the business tax would leave out many businesses.

The bill would decrease property taxes, expand the business tax and raise sales tax.

Parents and taxpayers should be able to easily peruse a breakdown of expenditures for each campus, they said.

"This is one of the finest pieces of education legislation being considered in any state in America," said Sandy Kress, an Austin attorney and former adviser to President George W. Bush on his No Child Left Behind legislation.

But a spokesman for former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell, who is considering running for governor on the Democratic ticket next year, was at the announcement and said the reforms are designed to line the pockets of companies that sell testing materials.

Spokesman Jason Stanford agreed with transparency in spending, but not with measuring students at the expense of their success, he said.

"(Transparency) is a good idea," Stanford said. "But it’s all so companies can make more money on testing materials."

Bill Summers, president of the Rio Grande Valley Partnership, said businesses in the Valley agree that any more money to schools should be accompanied by more accountability.

"I bet you we wouldn’t even have to be talking about taxes if (schools) would go back and streamline their budgets and use only the money that is needed to educate the children," Summers said.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:15 PM 0 comments Links to this post

This is a story that I've been following. Isn't this long overdue? My first acquaintance to minority scholarship was African American and Jewish American literature. It was eye-opening and thusly, transformative. Then Mexican American history came along a little later and it made a huge difference in my life to finally learn about my history. Would have been nice to have learned about it sooner than in graduate school. It's also such a rich and powerful history. -Angela

June 25, 2005

By MICHAEL JANOFSKY

PHILADELPHIA, June 22 - Angry that public schools here have always taught American history through a Eurocentric prism, parents of black children began pleading with local school officials to offer a course in African-American history.

That was nearly 40 years ago.

This year, their pleas were finally - and emphatically - answered. Starting in September, students entering city high schools as ninth graders will be required to take a course in African-American history, making Philadelphia the first major city to require such a course for high school graduation.

School officials here say the course carries huge benefits for all students and offers a perspective on American history that has been largely absent from most contemporary teaching guides.

"You cannot understand American history without understanding the African-American experience; I don't care what anybody says," said Paul G. Vallas, the school system's chief executive, who is white. "It benefits African-American children who need a more comprehensive understanding of their own culture, and it also benefits non-African-Americans to understand the full totality of the American experience."

Critics of the policy shift say it will further polarize the city by focusing attention on just one race and not dealing with other racial and ethnic groups like Mexicans, Chinese or Poles.

According to a course outline developed by district officials, the course will focus on how Africans became Americans through the colonial period, efforts of slaves to achieve freedom, the Civil War and its aftermath, economic development for blacks through the last century, the civil rights movement and the growth of modern black nationalist movements in the United States and Africa.

Supporters say the course will place a new emphasis on historical African-American figures like Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells and Dr. Charles Drew, whose contributions to American life and culture seldom get more than a brief mention, if that, in the current textbooks that many schools use.

The Philadelphia School District includes 185,000 students, two-thirds of whom are African-American, and only two in seven are white or Hispanic. The School Reform Commission, a panel that sets policy and is now composed of three whites and two blacks, voted 5 to 0 in February to make the course mandatory in all 53 high schools after some in recent years had offered African-American history as an elective.

The vote garnered little notice at the time, but in recent weeks as the school board began mailing out letters to parents informing them of next year's curriculum, pockets of local resistance began emerging.

The speaker of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, John M. Perzel, an otherwise strong supporter of the city's schools for recent improvements in test scores, asked the commission to reconsider making the course mandatory.

Mr. Perzel, a Republican who represents a district in northeast Philadelphia that is largely white, said in a letter to the commission chairman, James E. Nevels, that he was concerned that the mandate "will divide, rather than unite" the city "and thereby erode the positive learning environment."

Mr. Nevels, calling himself "respectful of the points" Mr. Perzel raised, said he was certain that district officials would not reverse their decision. "There's no question about the commitment to African-American history by the Philadelphia School District," he said.

An aide to Mr. Perzel said the letter was prompted, in part, by complaints from constituents. Mr. Perzel declined a request for an interview, but his sentiments appear to reflect discomfort among some whites elsewhere in the city.

Standing outside a recreation center in Fishtown, a largely white working-class neighborhood, Mike Budnick, 16, called the requirement "a bad idea" and said he was not especially interested in learning about black culture or heritage.

"I'm more interested in our history," he said.

A friend of Mr. Budnick, Arbi Ferko, also 16, said, "It's not our history to learn," and pointed out, as other critics have, that the school had not sought to create courses on the history of other groups.

Supporters of the course are dismayed by such views, insisting that in large measure, African-Americans, like no other ethnic group, have been cheated by contemporary textbooks and social studies curriculums that introduce students to blacks in this country as slaves from Africa with no prior language, culture or heritage.

"Too often, African-Americans are marginalized in American society," said Sandra Dungee Glenn, a commission member who was the driving force behind making the course mandatory. "People's views and understanding of who we are focus on us as descendents of slaves. It begins and ends there, giving us inferior status."

The course is designed to alter those perceptions by reviewing the origins of civilization in Africa and early developments in African history before tracking the movement of Africans to North America as slaves.

From that point, the course follows the progress and travails of blacks throughout American history with a special emphasis on their contributions.

As a pilot program, African history was offered in the spring semester this year in four high schools.

Patricia Thomas Whyatt taught the course at Strawberry Mansion, a nearly all-black school of 900 students, and found that even her own students had misconceptions of their race.

"The first day I asked students to make a list of everything they knew about Africa, then we went through each item," Ms. Whyatt said. "They thought Africa was all jungle, that people ran around with spears and lived in huts. A lot of crazy things like that."

By the end of school this month, she said, not only had perceptions changed but self-esteem had improved as well.

One of her students, Christopher Davis, 18, said: "In American society, we're known as gangsters, drug dealers and killers. People don't know all about our heritage, what we stood for, our accomplishments as a culture. I feel better now because I know a little bit more about how we lived before we got here."

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 5:12 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Sunday, June 26, 2005 by Joshua Benton /Dallas Morning News
This study should prove to be a helpful antidote to the pro-charter/pro-voucher movement. -Angela

It may cost $20,000 a year or more. But is private-school tuition really worth the big bucks?
An interesting new study by two University of Illinois researchers seems to indicate it often isn't. And it gives further evidence that many folks can't spot a "good" school when they see one.

"More often than not when people try to judge the quality of schools, they look at who is walking in the doors of that school, not what the school is doing with them once they're there," said Chris Lubienski, co-author of the study with his wife and fellow professor, Sarah.

Their study looks at math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. NAEP is the big federal test whose results researchers love to slice and dice, since it includes scores and demographic data for tens of thousands of students.

When NAEP scores are reported, they always show private-school students outperforming their peers in public school. It's been a consistent finding for decades.

But the Lubienskis were curious. Is that because private schools are really better? Or is it just because they generally enroll wealthier, better-prepared students?

So they built a way to try to remove social class as a factor. They gathered up data on the students taking the test. Were they poor enough to qualify for free school lunch? Did they have a computer at home? Did their parents graduate from college, or did they drop out of high school? They then compared how public and private schools fared when these socioeconomic factors were stripped away.

They found that, at all class levels, public schools had a small but consistent edge over privates. Their suspicions were supported by the numbers: The reason private schools look better on paper is because they serve more middle- and upper-class kids.
Or, to be even plainer: Poor kids in public schools did better than poor kids in private schools. Middle-class kids in public schools did better than middle-class kids in private schools. And rich kids in public schools did better than rich kids in private schools.
I've got no grudge here. I attended both public and private schools. And there may be plenty of reasons to send a child to private school that aren't about test scores – religion, for instance.

More affluent students

But the Lubienskis' findings make sense. Private schools generally pay their teachers less than public schools and often have fewer resources. The one edge they generally do have is a better-off student body.
Why does this matter? A few reasons.
First, it's a reminder of how important poverty and home life are to a child's academic success.

"All kids can learn" is a nice idea, and "no child left behind" is a nice slogan. But kids who come from poor, literacy-starved homes start school so far behind better-off suburbanites that the gap isn't closable on any large scale. Dallas ISD could corner the market on the world's best teachers and its test scores still wouldn't beat Highland Park's.
I once heard a researcher say that if you want to eliminate the achievement gap in American schools, the answer was simple: Just end poverty. Good luck with that.
Second, it shows we have a problem with how we evaluate schools.

Easy kids to teach

Real estate agents in the northern suburbs love to talk up how great the local schools are. Their scores have been among North Texas' highest for years. But were they "great" because they employed great teachers and brilliant principals? Or were they coasting on the fact they were handed a group of upper-middle-class kids with involved parents – the kind of kid that's easiest to teach?

Let's try a thought experiment. Imagine Plano West High's student body were suddenly switched with South Oak Cliff's.

Plano's test scores would collapse; South Oak Cliff's would skyrocket. But would that mean the teachers at Plano West have suddenly forgotten how to teach? Would it mean the maligned schools of Dallas' southern sector suddenly became world beaters? Nope on both counts.

The governance issue

Finally, the Lubienski study suggests that changing how a school is governed isn't an easy way to "fix" education.

In the 1990s, some education reformers argued that schools were being held back by the systems that run them. If you could just find a way to get rid of the school boards and the public-education bureaucracies, they argued, schools would flourish.
It's one of the core arguments for vouchers and charter schools. Change the governance structure – or let private schools get public dollars – and kids' performance will improve.
The Illinois study is just one study, and it's certainly an area that needs more research. But it's a sign that the old public-school model may not be as troubled as some argue.
"I'm a parent, and I like to have choices," Dr. Lubienski said. "But people were very excited about governance as a magic bullet 10 years ago. They're not as excited anymore."
E-mail jbenton@dallasnews.com

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 5:00 PM 2 comments Links to this post

June 22, 2005

By Karla Scoon Reid

Most Americans believe that high school students aren’t being significantly challenged by their studies, a national poll scheduled for release this week concludes.

For More Info
More information on "Ready for the Real World? Americans Speak on High School Reform" is posted by the Educational Testing Service.


The survey by the Educational Testing Service found that only 9 percent of the general public believes that high schools set high academic expectations for students. Almost a third said students aren’t challenged at all, while more than half believe that students are “somewhat” challenged.

The study, “Ready for the Real World? Americans Speak on High School Reform,” polled 2,250 adults, including 371 parents of high school students and a total of 666 parents of K-12 students. In addition, the ETS separately surveyed 300 high school administrators and 300 high school teachers.

The survey, set for release June 22, found that 5 percent of the general public and 9 percent of the high school teachers surveyed believe high schools are working “very” or “pretty” well, while 30 percent of the general public polled believe that major changes are needed. A majority of those polled support a variety of measures to improve high schools, including making sure teachers are experts in the subjects they teach, requiring exit exams, and increasing taxes to raise teachers’ salaries

Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart and Republican pollster David Winston conducted the telephone survey for the ETS in April. The poll has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points among the general public; 3.8 for parents of K-12 students; 5.1 for parents of high school students; and 5.66 for high school teachers.

The survey is the fifth annual poll of Americans’ attitudes toward public education sponsored by the ETS, the nonprofit educational testing and research organization in Princeton, N.J., that produces the SAT and other admissions and professional exams.

Allan Rivlin, a lead researcher for the survey, said the findings show that many Americans believe high school students should face high expectations regardless of whether they plan to attend college. Americans want high schools to make sure that students are prepared for “whatever life throws at them,” he said.
High Expectations

The survey comes as a number of states are placing new academic demands on high school students. ("States Raise Bar for High School Diploma," this issue.)

The poll also found that the public’s awareness of the federal No Child Left Behind Act has almost doubled, from 31 percent saying they had heard either a “great deal” or a “fair amount” about the law in 2001 to 61 percent this year. And although a growing percentage of Americans have a favorable view of the 3-year-old law, an overwhelming majority of high school teachers polled hold unfavorable opinions about it.

Almost half of the general public, or 42 percent, support applying the law’s strategies to raise standards and increase accountability at the high school level. A majority of the high school teachers polled oppose such a move.

Mr. Rivlin, who also is a senior vice president for Hart Research in Washington, noted that the public is still divided about the No Child Left Behind Act. Although more Americans appear to be in favor of the law, he said, significant opposition remains, and many people continue to be unaware of what the legislation means.
Society Faulted

Indeed, 64 percent of the members of the general public and 88 percent of the teachers surveyed believe that “the broader society” is the chief cause of problems facing high schools. The public also points to the scarcity of resources, lack of student preparedness, and low academic standards.

Most parents polled said that a high school education should prepare students to continue their educations in college, technical, or a trade school.

Parents, teachers, and administrators favor a comprehensive and rigorous academic foundation that all students should complete in high school. Ninety-five percent of the members of the general public surveyed support at least one year of computer science, 85 percent favor four years of English, and 81 percent three years of history and civics. Seventy-three percent back four years of mathematics, and 69 percent support three years of science.

Yet, 64 percent of the general public, and 70 percent of teachers, support placing a greater emphasis on “real-world learning” by encouraging student participation in work-study programs, community service, and vocational courses to improve high schools.

In addition, 57 percent of the general public and 64 percent of the teachers surveyed believe that seniors should be allowed to spend less time in class if they qualify to take part in work-study and job-training programs, or if they enroll in college classes.

Naomi G. Housman, the director of the National High School Alliance at the Institute for Educational Leadership in Washington, said the poll’s findings indicate that Americans would like to see high schools be more flexible in how they educate students.

“We’re looking at helping every student reach their maximum potential in a way that is going to work for [each] student,” she said, adding that she sees a growing awareness that all students need rigorous coursework and hands-on learning experiences to be successful in college and at work.

Vol. 24, Issue 41, Pages 3,17

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 4:42 PM 1 comments Links to this post

ADVISORY Worth checking out.... -Angela
Dear friends, The Pew Hispanic Center has released a new analysis of census and exit poll data: Hispanics and the 2004 Election: Population, Electorate and Voters. The report finds that Hispanics accounted for half of the population growth in the United States between the elections of 2000 and 2004 but only one-tenth of the increase in the total votes cast. It shows that this gap between the very substantial growth of the Hispanic population and much more modest growth in Hispanic electoral clout has been developing for a generation but has widened considerably in recent years. In addition, the report assesses levels of Hispanic support for President George W. Bush in the light of new census data on Latino voters. The report is available on the Center's website, www.pewhispanic.org.

Best regards, Roberto Suro
Director
Pew Hispanic Center

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 4:18 PM 0 comments Links to this post

For those of you in Little Rock, Arkansas this next week... -Angela

Stars, Dignitaries Expected At LULAC Convention

POSTED: 5:21 pm CDT June 24, 2005 / Associated Press
http://www.thehometownchannel.com/news/2455821/detail.html

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Hispanic celebrities and political leaders will gather in Little Rock on Monday for a conference of the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization.

The League of United Latin American Citizens is expecting about ten thousand members for the conference with the theme "Emerging Latino Communities: Strengthening America." Among the well-known figures on the schedule is former President Bill Clinton, who is to speak.

Democratic chairman Howard Dean and Republican chairman Ken Mehlman are expected along with Gov. Mike Huckabee and the chairman of Tyson Foods, John Tyson. Singer Gloria Estefan will headline a women's luncheon with U.S. Treasurer Anna Cabral.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson will attend a unity luncheon with Alphonso Jackson, the U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Jesse Jackson will also lead a rally for youth conference attendees at Little Rock Central High School.
______________________________________________________
washingtonpost.com

Estefan to Attend Hispanic Convention

By The Associated Press
The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; 8:13 AM

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Former President Clinton, Gloria Estefan and members of President Bush's cabinet are among those confirmed for events during the national convention of the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization.

The League of United Latin American Citizens is expecting about 10,000 members to descend on Little Rock from June 27 to July 2, said Brent Wilkes, LULAC's national executive director. Clinton will headline a presidential banquet at the Statehouse Convention Center on July 1, said Skip Rutherford, head of the Little Rock-based Clinton Presidential Foundation.

"They told us to expect 10,000," Rutherford said Saturday after taking Wilkes, LULAC President Hector Flores and others on a tour of the Clinton Presidential Library. "To have LULAC in Arkansas is huge for us."

Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson and Treasurer Anna Escobedo Cabral will speak at some of the week's events. Estefan and Cabral are slated to speak at a women's luncheon July 1.



Gloria Estefan attends the People in Espanol's 50 Most Beautiful, May 18, 2005 in a New York file photo. Former President Clinton, Estefan and members of President Bush's cabinet are among those confirmed for events during the national convention of the nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization. (AP Photo/Jennifer Graylock, File)

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean and his Republican counterpart, Ken Mehlman, are also confirmed participants.

A large gala dinner in the Clinton Library's Great Hall is scheduled for June 29, following a debate among the three declared candidates for Arkansas governor in 2006: Republicans Asa Hutchinson and Win Rockefeller, and Democrat Mike Beebe.

Wilkes said Saturday that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and comedian George Lopez had been invited to speak, but declined.

Arkansas' Hispanic population is still relatively small, with just over 100,000, or about 3 percent of the total population, recorded in official census counts. But that represents a 437-percent increase since 1990, second only to North Carolina over that span, and in response, the Mexican government has announced plans to establish a consular office in Little Rock.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:14 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2005 21:12:28 -0500
From: Joe Castillo
Subject: Legislative Update

From Joe Castillo of LULAC. Good and concise. Thanks, Joe. -Angela

Friday, June 24, 2005

Education finance bills voted out of House and Senate Committees
The Texas House and Senate education committees both passed their versions of education reform bills on Thursday.

The Texas House Public Education Committee passed House Bill 2 (HB 2) by Grusendorf on a 6-2-1 vote. In a vote split down party lines Representatives Scott Hochberg (D-Houston) and Rene Oliveira (D-Brownsville) voted against the bill, while Representative Harold Dutton (D-Houston) was present but not voting. Although the House Public Education Committee took public comments, HB 2 was passed out of committee with no amendments.

Some House members complained that there had not been enough time for everyone to thoroughly review all of the provisions in HB 2 before voting. Vice-chairman of the House Public Education Committee, Representative Rene Oliveira (D-Brownsville) said, "I think it's a disaster to do that with a bill that's 410 pages, that only a handful of us have seen. There are a lot of things in here that didn't get properly aired, that didn't have sufficient public testimony, I don't care if it's a special session or not, we need to do that."

The Senate Education Committee passed Committee Substitute Senate Bill 2 on a 6-2 vote, with Senators Steve Ogden (R-College Station) and Judith Zaffirini (D-Laredo) voting against the bill. Senator Leticia Van de Putte (D-San Antonio) was not present for the vote.

Both education finance bills would:

a.. Provide $3 billion in new funding over the biennium with all districts guaranteed a minimum funding increase of 3 percent starting this fall.
b.. Establish a mandate the Tuesday after Labor Day start date for school classes beginning in the fall of 2006.
c.. Require standardized testing, such as the TAKS, to be done online.
There are, however, some differences in the House and Senate plans. The Senate's version would give teachers an average $2,500 pay raise, while the House education bill would give them a $1,500 pay raise. Both versions adjust "equity standards" to give more money to low and middle wealth districts. However, the Senate version includes a larger adjustment than the House version.

Additionally, the House bill would set a cap of 35 percent of the money property rich school districts would share with the state and tie that amount to per student spending.

The bills are expected go to their respective legislative chambers early next week for debate and votes. The bills, if approved, will then be referred to a House/Senate conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions.

Yesterday's Senate Education Committee meeting was recorded and is available for video streaming via the internet from the Senate Real Media Live Archives as part 1 and part 2 .

Yesterday's House Public Education Committee meeting was recorded and is available for video streaming via the internet from House Video Archives .



School finance tax plan still in committee
House Bill 3 , the tax plan which would fund school finance reform is off to a running stop. Yesterday the House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony from the Legislative Budget Board and the State Comptrollers office and then failed to pass HB 3 out of committee.

Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Representative Jim Keffer (R-Eastland) said, "We have polled the committee and there are not the votes on the committee to go forward with."

Yesterday's House Ways and Means Committee meeting was recorded and is available for video streaming via the internet from House Video Archives .



Texas Senate
The Texas Senate is in recess and will reconvene on Monday, June, 27 at 1:30 p.m.

This Senate session will be broadcast live via the internet. Please check the Senate Real Media Live Broadcast Calendar for the appropriate channel to access.


Texas House of Representatives
The Texas House of Representatives is in recess and is scheduled to reconvene on Monday, June 27, 2005 at noon.

This House session will be broadcast live via the internet, check the House Broadcast Schedule for the appropriate channel to access.



Senate Committee on Education
The Senate Committee on Education meeting originally scheduled for Friday, June 24, 2005 has been cancelled.


House Ways & Means Committee
Friday, June 25, 2005
10:30 a.m., E2.010


This committee will meet to consider the following bill:

HB 4 -Isett / et al.
Relating to certain limitations on the ad valorem tax rates of certain taxing units.


HB-23 --Keffer, Jim
Relating to state and certain local fiscal matters; providing civil and criminal penalties.


This House committee meeting may be broadcast live via the internet, check the House Broadcast Schedule for the appropriate channel to access.



Yesterday, Thursday, June 23, 2005
Senate Committee on Finance
The Committee heard invited testimony on available General Revenue and considered the following bill:

Senate Bill 4 -Williams

Relating to the calculation and imposition of an ad valorem tax by a taxing unit.

The committee adjourned without taking a vote on SB 4.

Yesterday's Senate Education Committee meeting was recorded and is available for video streaming via the internet from the Senate Real Media Live Archives .



Monday, June 24, 2005
House Committee on Higher Education
Monday, June 27, 2005
9 a.m., Monday, JHR 120

HB 6 --Morrison
Relating to authorizing the issuance of revenue bonds or other obligations to fund capital projects at public institutions of higher education.

This House committee meeting may be broadcast live via the internet, check the House Broadcast Schedule for the appropriate channel to access.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:30 AM 7 comments Links to this post

June 24, 2005, 6:39AM

Granted options, some districts may move to relax their discipline policies
By HELEN ERIKSEN
Chronicle Correspondent


Some Texas schools are taking steps to relax their stances on zero-tolerance discipline to comply with a new law that allows for a range of options in punishing students who mistakenly bring prohibited weapons to school.

Terry Abbott, Houston Independent School District spokesman, said school officials would ask the school board at the next meeting to amend the Code of Student Conduct to reflect the recent change in state law.

Katy ISD, the subject of several high-profile disciplinary cases, has decided to integrate the statute into its discipline code for board adoption in 2005-06.

In the Katy district, Christina Lough, an eighth-grader at Garland McMeans Junior High, was suspended for seven days for bringing to school a Korean pencil sharpener with a 2-inch folding blade.

In another case, Gabrielle Hoggett, also an eighth-grader at Garland McMeans Junior High, was suspended and sent to an alternative education school for bringing a butter knife to school.

Under House Bill 603, co-authored by Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, and signed into law by Gov. Rick Perry, school boards are required to stipulate in its code of conduct whether consideration is given to the student's intent or lack of intent, disciplinary history or disabilities that might affect the student's capacity to understand the offense before deciding to remove, suspend or expel a student.

Currently, students most often face strict uniform punishment, such as expulsion and placement in alternative education programs, for bringing any illegal items to school.

"I am relieved House Bill 603 passed because it could possibly prevent other people from having their lives turned upside down like ours was," said Eddie Evans, whose son was arrested, expelled and sent to a juvenile detention center for inadvertently bringing a pocketknife to school in the Conroe Independent School District.

Evans said his son was traumatized by the 45 days he spent in a boot camp.

Eissler received a letter from Evans, also a Woodlands resident, telling him of the ordeal.

"After hearing his story, I knew I had to do something about it," Eissler said.

In December 2002, Evans said his son, then 12, went to school wearing a jacket while unaware a three-inch pocketknife had been left in a pocket.

When the boy discovered the knife later that morning, he told a friend about the knife, who in turn informed school officials.

Because student discipline records are confidential, Conroe ISD officials said they could not comment on specific students without parental consent.

"The greatest benefit of the law is that, if implemented by a school district, it will allow administrators to do what they are supposed to do best and that is weigh the best interest of the child as it relates to specific circumstances," said Fred Hink, president of Katy Zero Tolerance, a group dedicated to protecting parental rights in the discipline process.

Carrie Galatas, legal counsel for Conroe ISD, said the district is reviewing all of the changes from this legislative session and has not made any final recommendations regarding the new law for the coming school year.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:47 PM 0 comments Links to this post

"...he cuts $3 billion from the property tax rate the first year and $1 billion through additional homestead exemptions the second year. He gets to $7 billion by counting the initial tax cut again in the second year, arguing that once it's cut, property owners save that much each successive year," according to Hoppe. Do check out Hoppe's commentary/critique of the Perry proposal at the bottom in the "Fact Check" section. His claims appear a bit over the top.
-Angela

Perry kicks off race with radio ad blitz

School finance proposal is focus of message; critics say it's old news

10:07 PM CDT on Wednesday, June 22, 2005

By CHRISTY HOPPE / The Dallas Morning News


AUSTIN – Gov. Rick Perry kicked off the political season Wednesday by airing a statewide radio commercial touting his education funding plan.

The 60-second ad asks people to call their lawmakers and urge them to support the Perry Plan, which he unveiled Tuesday to a less than enthusiastic reception from legislators who are busy honing their own proposals.

House Speaker Tom Craddick said the governor was trotting out a list of ideas already discussed by lawmakers, but Mr. Perry described his plan as a middle ground between the House and Senate. Lawmakers ended the regular session last month in a stalemate over which chamber's version of education finance should be passed.

"We'll spend some resources out of the campaign to do this," said Perry campaign spokesman Luis Saenz. "He believes action is necessary."

A weeklong ad buy such as Mr. Perry's generally costs about $200,000 a week.

Mr. Perry also intends to launch a three-day tour of the state today to promote his education package, starting this morning in Irving. He spent much of the day Wednesday meeting and speaking with about 60 lawmakers to discuss his plan, said spokesman Robert Black.

"He'll sell it all over the state," Mr. Black said. "He'll be very visible and very loud."

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is running against Mr. Perry in the Republican primary, says the governor is failing to tell Texans about the billions in new taxes he intends to raise to pay for his plan.

"It sounds like Perry is afraid that legislators are going to say 'Adios' to his tax-increasing, phony proposal, and if they do, he knows voters will be saying 'Adios' to him in March," said Mark Sanders, a spokesman for Mrs. Strayhorn.

Mr. Sanders' use of "Adios" was a reference to what the governor acknowledged was an inappropriate remark caught on camera at the end of an interview Monday. Mr. Perry said "Adios" and signed off with a vulgarity.

Mr. Sanders said the radio ad was "the first taste of Perry's new math."

The Strayhorn aide said that the figures don't add up, that Mr. Perry makes promises that aren't part of his plan, and that he claims ideas that are part of what lawmakers have already proposed.

Mrs. Strayhorn has not offered a school finance plan of her own.

Mr. Sanders said her first proposal, if elected, would be that the Legislature restore the Texas Performance Reviews – efficiency proposals and audits that have historically saved millions – to the comptroller's office. He said Mrs. Strayhorn could then find extra money for schools without raising taxes.

The performance reviews were stripped from Mrs. Strayhorn two years ago by lawmakers and made the responsibility of the Legislature's budget office.

E-mail choppe@dallasnews.com

FACT CHECK

In his new radio ad, Gov. Rick Perry makes several claims about his school-finance plan that educators and lawmakers have taken issue with:

The plan would put $5 billion into schools. That's spread over two years, though, and almost $2 billion is eaten up by projected increases in enrollment and is not available for new programs.

The plan would give teachers a $1,500 pay raise. House and Senate plans give twice that amount, and even with a $3,000 annual raise, Texas teachers still would earn less than the national average.

His plan touts $7 billion in property tax relief. Actually, he cuts $3 billion from the property tax rate the first year and $1 billion through additional homestead exemptions the second year. He gets to $7 billion by counting the initial tax cut again in the second year, arguing that once it's cut, property owners save that much each successive year.

Christy Hoppe
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/062305dntexperry.36948247.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 12:59 PM 0 comments Links to this post

The bills are out of committee and will be on the House and Senate floors by Tuesday of next week. No consensus. It's clear though that according to the House plan, poorer Texans will get the least property tax relief according to current iterations. -Angela

06/24/2005 12:00 AM CDT
Gary Scharrer
Express-News Austin Bureau

AUSTIN — The fight over public school funding will move to the House and Senate chambers next week after legislative committees Thursday approved different versions of a bill that lawmakers will try to reconcile in coming weeks.

Education groups still vehemently oppose both proposals, although the Senate Education Committee sweetened the deal with a $3,000 across-the-board pay raise for teachers. The House version would give teachers up to a $2,000 pay raise.

Legislators face court pressures to change the way Texas pays for public education.

Most Republican lawmakers favor the reform ideas, although House and Senate GOP leaders disagree on the details. Education groups and most Democrats blast the proposal for falling short of what they believe is needed to educate 4.4 million Texas children adequately.

The bill is scheduled for debate Tuesday in both chambers.

House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, called the House plan "a significant improvement for education. ... All of the changes are designed to put more resources into the classroom and provide greater efficiency."

But Rep. Rene Oliveira, D-Brownsville, vice chairman of the public education committee, said he hopes the House and Senate will deadlock again — as they did in the regular session — "if the (final) bill comes out as bad as this one."

The House plan does not provide funding for school construction, which the courts have already warned lawmakers to do.

Oliveira also complained that the House bill would create a larger gap between rich and poor school districts than currently exists and that it does not adequately help those schools with large populations of low-income and English-deficient students. Those children are considered more costly to educate.

Only Republican House members voted to move the bill out of committee. In the Senate education panel, Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, and Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, voted against the bill. Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, missed the vote.

A separate House bill is designed to raise the state sales tax and other taxes to pay for a school property tax cut that would amount to less than $20 a month for half of Bexar County homeowners.

Zaffirini said the combination of spending plan and tax changes could have a negative impact on public education.

"While homeowners will be happy to have a few more dollars in their pocket, the quality of education their children receive will be hurt as a result of that small rebate," she said.

The proposed tax shift would end up with low-income Texans paying more, and only the richest 1.7 million households — those with annual incomes of more than $100,000 — paying less, according to a study by the nonpartisan Legislative Budget Board.

Senate Education Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said she doubts school reform can pass without tax reform.

"I don't believe my colleagues in the Senate will do that. They have always said they are inextricably linked," Shapiro said.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:57 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Published: June 22, 2005
Review Panel Turns Up Little Evidence to Back Teacher Ed. Practices
By Debra Viadero

After spending four years sifting through hundreds of studies on teacher education, a national panel has concluded that there’s little empirical evidence to show that many of the most common practices in the field produce effective teachers.

That conclusion comes from a 766-page study that was slated for release June 20. The massive volume was produced by a panel of experts from the American Educational Research Association, a Washington-based group that represents 22,000 scholars.

The report comes at a time when policymakers and researchers are increasingly recognizing the critical role that teachers play in student learning. That awareness is embedded in the federal No Child Left Behind Act, which calls for schools to ensure that classrooms are staffed with “highly qualified” teachers.

Yet policymakers and researchers are bitterly divided over what “highly qualified” means and how best to produce teachers who meet that standard. Experts said the AERA panel’s report, coming in the thick of those debates, is notable both for the “evenhanded and critical” research analysis it attempts to undertake and the fact that it was finished at all.

For More Info
Order "Studying Teacher Education: The Report of the AERA Panel on Research and Teacher Education" from the American Educational Research Association.


Leading researchers in the venture said they originally envisioned the project would take two years to complete.

“I think we were all disappointed in the quality of the research base,” said Susan H. Fuhrman, the dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s graduate school of education in Philadelphia and a member of the panel. “This is very important because it says we, as a field, are taking a hard look at ourselves, and we’re saying there’s a lot left to be learned.”
Lack of Evidence

The group found, for instance, that even though 42 states require some form of teacher test, evidence showing that teachers who score high on such tests are more successful in the classroom than their low-scoring colleagues is scarce. The panel found no studies at all on the effect of teacher-accreditation programs and very few that link teachers’ coursework in specific subject areas, such as social studies or language arts, to results in K-12 classrooms.

Likewise, the panel concluded, the research base on the effectiveness of alternative-certification programs, which most states use to provide quicker routes into the classroom than traditional teacher education programs do, is too mixed to resolve whether that strategy is effective.

The report’s characterization of the research differs from a report produced weeks earlier by another panel of education scholars. The document by the National Academy of Education, an invitation-only group made up of the field’s most distinguished academics, suggested that experts know enough now about teacher education to undertake bold steps to improve the practice, such as devising national teacher tests. ("Panel Urges New Testing for Teachers," May 25, 2005.)

But architects behind both undertakings said their reports differed because the panels were seeking to answer different questions.

“The NAE panel focuses on research for teacher education,” noted Linda Darling-Hammond, a co-chairwoman of that effort. Toward that end, the group drew from a broad swath of research, such as studies in cognitive science and child development, to draft its recommendations.

An Agenda For Research

The American Educational Research Association’s Panel on Research and Teacher Education makes 11 recommendations for improving the knowledge base for preparing effective teachers. Its report calls for more studies that:

• Use common definitions of terms such as "alternative education."
• Fully describe how researchers collected their data and the contexts in which the research was conducted.
• Are based on theory.
• Focus on how teacher education affects teachers' learning and their educational practices.
• Connect teacher education to students' learning in K-12 classrooms.
• Use a range of methods and expertise from different disciplines.
• Employ better, more consistent measures of teacher knowledge and performance.
• Look at teacher preparation in academic subjects besides mathematics and science.
• Use experimental approaches to systematically analyze clearly identifiable, alternative approaches to teacher education.
• Utilize large-scale case studies that give an in-depth view of teacher education programs at different colleges and universities.
SOURCE: American Educational Research Association


The 23-member AERA panel, in comparison, set its sights on studies specifically looking at teacher education. The group narrowed the pool even further by sifting out only those studies that gauged the impact of teacher education programs, whether the outcomes were measured in terms of K-12 students’ test scores, better teacher- retention rates, measurements of children’s social and emotional learning, or administrators’ perceptions of the jobs teacher education graduates were doing in their schools.

“There’s actually a lot of research on teacher education,” said Marilyn Cochran-Smith, a co-chairwoman of the AERA panel and an education professor at Boston College. “What there has not been as much of in research on teacher education is research that has really tried to get at the impact. This is sort of a new era in accountability when people are saying, ‘How do you know that how you’re preparing teachers really makes a difference in classrooms?’ ”

The panel also reviewed only peer-reviewed studies. Unlike some other analyses in the field, the group did not limit its focus to particular research designs, such as comparison studies or randomized experiments. The latter, favored by the Bush administration, refers to studies in which participants are randomly assigned to either a status quo or an experimental group.

The group debated at one point, for example, whether to include self-studies, a form of research that educators use to reflect on their own practice. In the end, the group decided to include them if they were of high quality.

“It would be a mistake not to include it, because in certain areas, this is the dominant mode of research,” said Kenneth M. Zeichner, the group’s other co-chairman.

Mr. Zeichner, a professor of teacher education and the associate dean of the school of education at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, said he was surprised by the lack of definitive proof to support alternate routes to certification, given its prominence in policy debates. Besides offering mixed conclusions, though, that body of work was flawed because disparate studies defined “alternative certification” differently.
Inside the Black Box

Few studies looked inside either alternative or traditional programs to get a handle on the degree to which the coursework or field experiences actually differed for candidates.

“They make the point that you’ve got to look inside the black box of what’s going on in these programs,” said Daniel Humphrey, a researcher for SRI International, a think tank based in Menlo Park, Calif., who reviewed a chapter of the report. “This is a great service, because they’re able to point out the weaknesses of the research. They’re not just saying it’s not a rigorous enough design, but they’re also raising questions about some of the research questions themselves.”

To craft a stronger knowledge base for the field, the panel outlined a detailed research agenda.

The group calls for more studies that attempt to measure program impacts and that do so in a variety of ways—not just with standardized tests of K-12 pupils. Members advocate in-depth case studies of teacher education programs in different colleges, universities, and school districts, as well as studies that incorporate the expertise and research methods of researchers from a variety of disciplines.

The report also calls for setting up national databases on teacher education students, teacher-educators, curriculum, and instruction, and for partnerships that can foster more coherent programs of study that allow researchers to build on one another’s knowledge over a period of years.

Accomplishing those goals, however, would require private foundations, education schools, and the federal government to target many more dollars toward research in the field than they do now, panel members said.
Vol. 24, Issue 41, Pages 1,20

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:44 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Hmmm. Do we need less homework? -Angela
By Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience Senior Writer
posted: 02 June 2005
10:56 am ET


A comprehensive review of academic performance around the world gives bad marks to excessive homework.

Teachers in Japan, the Czech Republic and Denmark assign relatively little homework, yet students there score well, researchers said this week.

"At the other end of the spectrum, countries with very low average scores -- Thailand, Greece, Iran -- have teachers who assign a great deal of homework," says Penn State researcher David Baker.

"American students appear to do as much homework as their peers overseas -- if not more -- but still only score around the international average," said co-researcher Gerald LeTendre.

Baker and LeTendre examined the Third International Study of Mathematics and Sciences (TIMSS), which in 1994 collected data from schools in 41 nations on performance in grades 4, 8 and 12. Additional similar data from 1999 was factored in.

The homework burden is especially problematic in poorer households, where parents may not have the time or inclination to provide an environment conducive to good study habits, the researchers conclude. In particular, drills designed to improve memorization may not be suited to many homes.

"An unintended consequence may be that those children who need extra work and drill the most are the ones least likely to get it," Baker said. "Increasing homework loads is likely to aggravate tensions within the family, thereby generating more inequality and eroding the quality of overall education."

The findings are detailed in a new book, "National Differences, Global Similarities: World Culture and the Future of Schooling" (Stanford University Press).

In the early 1980s, U.S. teachers began assigning more homework, the researchers say. The shift was in response to mediocre performance in comparison to Japanese students. At the same time, the trend was going the other way in Japanese schools. The new study found U.S. math teachers assigned more than two hours of homework a week in 1994-95, while in Japan the figure was about one hour per week.

"Undue focus on homework as a national quick-fix, rather than a focus on issues of instructional quality and equity of access to opportunity to learn, may lead a country into wasted expenditures of time and energy," LeTendre says.

The homework burden might also affect performance among children of higher-income parents.

"Parents are extremely busy with work and household chores, not to mention chauffeuring young people to various extracurricular activities, athletic and otherwise," LeTendre said. "Parents might sometimes see exercises in drill and memorization as intrusions into family time."

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:42 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Published: June 22, 2005

By Lynn Olson

Gov. Brad Henry of Oklahoma prepares to sign legislation that strengthens high school course requirements, during a ceremony at the state Capitol in Oklahoma City on June 7.
—Courtesy of Oklahoma governor's office.



It has been less than six months since the nation’s governors gathered for a summit on high schools, and already at least half a dozen states have enacted policies that require students to complete tougher academic programs to earn a diploma.

Although Arizona lawmakers voted to give high school seniors added flexibility in passing the state’s exit exam, states typically are sending a stricter message by telling students they must take more courses in mathematics, science, and other core academic areas.

The flurry of activity is evidence that demands for making high school more rigorous, which state and business leaders echoed at the Feb. 26-27 conference, have gained traction in the states.

“The number of states that have moved, just in this legislative session, to increase graduation requirements is clearly based on the momentum coming out of the summit,” said Matthew Gandal, the executive vice president of Achieve Inc., a Washington-based nonprofit group that co-sponsored the Washington event along with the National Governors Association. “I see that continuing to build.”

See Also
See the related story, “State Tests Can Influence High School Learning, Report Finds.”


On June 7, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry, a Democrat, signed the Achieving Classroom Excellence measure, which requires all high school students to take a college-bound curriculum, starting in 2006-07, unless their parents sign an opt-out consent form.

The legislation, which passed with bipartisan support, also increases current graduation requirements to include three years of high school mathematics at or above the level of Algebra 1. Starting with entering 9th graders in 2008, students must pass four out of six end-of-instruction tests in core academic subjects to receive a diploma. To encourage high school seniors to take college courses, the plan requires the state to pay tuition for up to six hours of college instruction per semester.

Gov. Henry said his initiative, which had strong backing from the business community, “pushes students to take a tougher academic workload to better prepare them for life after high school.”

Indiana also enacted legislation that requires students to complete a college-preparatory curriculum—known as the “Core 40”—to earn a diploma, beginning with the class of 2011. As in Oklahoma, parents would have to request that their children be exempted from the requirement. Students with disabilities would follow the recommendations in their individualized education plan.

Starting with the class of 2011, with some exceptions, students would have to complete the Core 40 curriculum for admission to Indiana’s four-year public colleges.

Indiana is one of 13 states that joined the American Diploma Project Network at the summit. States in the Achieve-managed project commit to preparing all students for work and college, in part by raising graduation standards. This month, Achieve announced five new members— Alabama, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Oklahoma—bringing the total to 18.
Rigor and Relevance

Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich of Illinois, a Democrat, also made strengthening graduation standards one of his top legislative priorities.

Under his High Standards, Better Schools plan, which passed the Senate by 56-0 and the House by 104-10, students will have to take a third year of math (including algebra and geometry), two years of science, four years of English, and two years of “writing intensive” courses to earn a diploma.

Oregon lawmakers similarly are considering boosting the number of math and English courses needed to graduate.

In Mississippi, the state board of education in April passed a plan that increases graduation requirements for all students, beginning with 9th graders in the fall of 2008. Under the plan, students will have to complete four years each of English, math, science, and social studies to earn a diploma, including two years of math beyond Algebra 1, at least one laboratory-based science course, and economics.

The state has been revising the actual content of its high school curriculum since 2004, when an independent study by the Washington-based Council for Basic Education concluded that the curriculum lacked rigor.

South Carolina, in contrast, has not increased the credits needed to graduate. Instead, the Education and Economic Development Act of 2005, signed by Republican Gov. Mark Sanford in May, will reorganize the curriculum around “career clusters of study,” such as health science, information technology, and finance.

State Superintendent of Education Inez Tenenbaum said: “This is about helping students see the importance of the skills they’re learning. If they can apply those skills to real-life situations, then it’s more likely that they will buy into what our schools are trying to accomplish.”

The law also requires the state to provide more guidance counselors to work with students and their parents to explore career interests and plan for the future. It calls for an average of 300 students per counselor by the 2006-07 school year, instead of the current average of 500 students.
Model Core Curricula

Other states are working on model high school curricula that provide students with better preparation for work and college.

Legislation signed by Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack of Iowa this month requires the state board of education to devise a model core curriculum. The bill also sets a goal that 80 percent of Iowa graduates, excluding special education students, successfully complete a core curriculum by July 1, 2009.

The law requires districts to report publicly on the percent of graduates who complete a core curriculum. Beginning in July 2006, every district must develop a plan with each 8th grader for completing a core curriculum in high school and report to the student and his or her parents each year on progress.

“There was some concern that we just, literally, didn’t know with certain kids what kinds of classes they were taking,” said Jeff Berger, a legislative liaison in the state department of education.

The Delaware education department also is working on a model curriculum that would better prepare students for college or technical careers. The state plans to assist interested districts in doing a “gap analysis” to see how well their requirements align with the state’s model curriculum, and it will provide professional development for teachers.

Delaware lawmakers also scrapped a three-tiered diploma system, which was never implemented, after many parents voiced concern that the lowest-level diploma, intended for students who did not pass state tests, would have little value in the marketplace.

Instead, Delaware will offer two types of diplomas for the classes of 2006 and 2007: a “standard” diploma and a “distinguished” diploma. In addition to meeting course requirements, the latter will be based on a combination of state test scores and other academic indicators, which are still being determined. Beginning with the class of 2008, the state will offer only one type of diploma for all students.
Reprieve in Arizona

In contrast to the ratcheting up that is going on in many states, Arizona has temporarily lowered its graduation requirements.

In March, the state board of education reduced the passing scores for the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS, tests that students must pass to graduate, beginning with the class of 2006.

Then in May, lawmakers voted to permit students scheduled to graduate in 2006 and 2007 to apply grades of A, B, or C in some high school courses toward their scores on the tests in reading, writing, and math. The extra points can count for up to 25 percent of a student’s AIMS scores.

Amy Rezzonico, a spokeswoman for the state education department, said this month that the specifics were still being worked out by the state school board.

Tom Horne, Arizona’s state superintendent of schools, opposed any lowering of the requirements and has requested a state attorney general’s opinion on which coursework might apply. The state board was tentatively scheduled to discuss the plan last week.

In California, bills to delay the high-stakes exit exam for students in low-performing schools and to permit districts to give alternative assessments have been diluted since their introduction.

Assembly Bill 1531 now would not authorize the use of any alternatives objected to by the superintendent of public instruction. Senate Bill 517 would require the state to certify that students in low-performing high schools had access to the minimal resources needed to pass the tests, such as certified teachers, counselors, adequate textbooks, and supplementary instruction. It also would require the state to study alternatives to the exit test.
Vol. 24, Issue 41, Pages 1,28

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:37 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Testimony Before the Senate Committee on Education on the
End-of-Course Testing Provisions of SB2

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
Education Committee Chair
Texas League of United Latin American Citizens
June 23, 2005

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to you today. I am here representing Texas LULAC. I also testify before you as an expert in the area of student assessment. I've edited a recently published volume, a book on assessment and accountability in Texas centered around a very explicit concern that I and many others across the state and nation have. And this concern is about the use of high-stakes tests-of which end-of-course exams are about. If you read the research in my edited volume titled Leaving Children Behind conducted by scholars like Linda McNeil, Richard Valencia, Kris Sloan, Elaine Hampton and others, it becomes clear that many of the problems that we are having in our schools here in Texas are generated by the testing system itself-specifically, the high-stakes testing component.

Before getting into specifics, I want to address the underlying assumptions that typically remain unspoken in order to question the logic of this system. Two primary assumptions are that this is a good business model and secondly, that it embodies a civil rights approach. These assumptions hold with respect to both the current TAKS system of testing and the end-of-course one that is being proposed.

As a business model and using the market as a metaphor, it is illogical to make either students or teachers responsible for the quality of their product when they do not control the resources or flow of finances to which the outcomes are tied. With respect to children and their parents, when in business do we make the consumer responsible for the quality of the product? We are moving forward with the implausible premise that a level playing field in the quality of personnel and instruction exists or will exist across all courses offered in every school and in every classroom in our state in order to justify a standardized examination process.

Regarding Civil Rights, the case of de-segregation is instructive. This history reminds us that when the statutory engines of change commanded restraint, they targeted not the victims of Jim Crow, but rather the perpetrators of discriminatory practices. Just as it would have been unreasonable-indeed, nonsensical-for either the lowest-level workers or business clientele to have assumed the primary burden of change to integrate lunch counters, hotels, and other public establishments, so too is it unreasonable for both children and their teachers to bear the primary burden of change under the banner of accountability.

Now to specifics, the problem isn't with standardized tests; when used appropriately, these are legitimate forms of assessment and no author disputes the need for accountability. The issue is with the way that the tests are used. Specifically, they are used to accomplish various goals simultaneously, compromising its validity. First, they are used to measure achievement (albeit in a narrow way and also in a way that is insensitive to the needs of language minority and disabled children-the latter by the Commissioner Nealey's own admission); second, as primary determinants of children's progression within the system (which even the test makers themselves say it should never do); and third, to monitor or control the behavior of the adults-mainly teachers but also principals-in the system.

Here is the rub. The problem here is that the testing system doubles as both a testing and monitoring system-two functions in one. One cannot parcel out from a single indicator the extent to which that number was achieved through excessive coaching or other forms of system gaming. And so when we tie course credit to end-of-course examinations, perverse incentives to narrow the curriculum by teaching to the test will logically occur. All of this, of course, corrupts the assessment so that the score you get never reflects real achievement.

As Education Committee Chair for Texas LULAC, my studied recommendation is that the Senate Committee on Education remove the end-of-course provisions from your bill. Not only has there been no public discussion of this significant direction that you want to take us in, I see no scholarly justification for additional high-stakes exams. In fact, I see the very opposite: There is an ample research base, coupled with myriad newspaper reports from, and on, our own state that clearly indicate the wrong-headedness of this approach.

I could mention, for instance, the recent cheating scandal discovered by the Dallas Morning News, affecting approximately 400 schools across our state. Although that actual number as been adjusted to a lower figure, to not infer dysfunction is to willfully ignore this evidentiary base.

More positively, I'll point to the most comprehensive study to date conducted by Stanford professor Linda Darling-Hammond, titled, “Multiple Measures Approaches to High School Graduation.” She conducts an analysis of 27 states that differ from single-test approaches like Texas in that they consider a variety of student work, including student academic records, research papers, portfolios, essays, oral exams, and capstone projects. In general, she finds that multiple measures approaches have both raised achievement and lowered dropout rates. In Texas, there is evidence of increasing test scores, but every other indicator that we care about (ACT, SAT, high school completion) is running in the opposite direction.

Other good news is that under NCLB this is actually one area-student assessment-over which we can exercise our own independent judgment as a state. We cannot do anything about the high stakes at the school and district level-but, as the Darling Hammond study indicates-we do have latitude with respect to high-stakes decisions involving individual children. When so much is at stake-particularly for the children themselves, I urge this committee to proceed with utmost caution and to reconsider the addition of more high-stakes testing. Thank you very much.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 4:08 PM 2 comments Links to this post

This is a pretty devastating comment by Jim Keffer to the status of Gov. Perry's school funding proposal. I heard a rumor today that Perry is likely to call 3 special sessions if that's what it'll take in order to get something passed. Who knows what'll happen...?

I testified today in the Senate Committee on Education on the end-of-course exams that are currently being proposed within the current school finance plan (see today's other post). Click here to get a draft of SB2 and here for HB2. The versions are really similar to each other. Unfortunately, these exams and many other are going to slip into the final legislation without any real public debate over these. Legislators seem pretty demoralized at the moment.

-Angela

June 23, 2005, 7:08AM
House committee puts aside Perry's tax plan for its own
Panel may vote today on overhaul of school finance

By CLAY ROBISON and JANET ELLIOTT
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau

AUSTIN - As Gov. Rick Perry prepared to hit the airwaves and the road to promote his plan to lower school property taxes, the House Ways and Means Committee set it aside, at least for now, in favor of its own, more-extensive tax overhaul.

"Which governor is that?" Chairman Jim Keffer retorted when a reporter asked the status of the governor's proposal.

Keffer, R-Eastland, signaled irritation at being called back into special session by Perry only three weeks after House and Senate leaders had failed to reach a school finance agreement during the regular session.

"Absence does make the heart grow fonder. I just wish there had been a little more absence," he said.

Keffer said the Ways and Means Committee, which must initiate action on a tax overhaul, will vote today or Friday on a package of higher consumer and business taxes that would enable local school property taxes to be cut by 40 cents per $100 valuation during the next two years.

It is similar to a bill approved by the House in March but rejected by the Senate, and Keffer noted there still is "no agreement whatsoever" between leaders of the chambers.

Committee approval would send the measure, House Bill 3, to the full House for a possible vote next week.

Under the state constitution, the House must take the first action on a tax bill, but the final version of a tax overhaul — if there is one — will be negotiated later by a House-Senate conference committee.

The legislation would increase the state sales tax by 1 cent per dollar, expand the sales tax to include bottled water, auto repairs and some computer goods and services, and add $1 per pack to the cigarette tax. It also would expand the franchise tax to cover some partnerships, which now are untaxed, as well as corporations.

General partnerships, passive investment partnerships and sole proprietorships would be excluded. All other forms of businesses would have the option of paying the existing franchise tax or a new tax based on 1.15 percent of a company's payroll. Each company, however, would have to pay a tax equivalent to at least half of the greater option.

The measure would provide slightly more property-tax relief overall than the governor's proposal, which, among other things, would impose a lower increase in the sales tax — seven-tenths of 1 cent per dollar — and close loopholes in the franchise tax rather than expand it.

But according to the Legislative Budget Board, only families with annual incomes of more than $100,500 would realize any net tax savings under the House committee's proposed tax swap.

The bill approved by the full House in March had similar inequities, mainly because lower-income people pay a larger portion of their incomes on sales and other consumption taxes than wealthier people do.

The governor's proposal hasn't been analyzed by the Legislative Budget Board, but it also is heavily dependent on higher sales and cigarette taxes.

Perry's re-election campaign, meanwhile, unveiled a radio ad promoting the governor's school finance proposal. The 60-second commercial, which debuts today, encourages Texans to ask legislators to support the "Perry Plan."

"I believe so strongly in this plan that I am willing to put substantial campaign resources on the line to earn a victory for our schoolchildren and property taxpayers," Perry said.

The governor also will visit Houston, San Antonio and Irving today to promote the proposal, which, he said, would lower local school taxes by $7 billion in the next two years and give teachers an average $1,500 pay raise.

Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn, who is challenging Perry in next year's Republican primary, said the governor appears worried about the reception his plan is getting in the Legislature.

Perry had lunch Wednesday with several House and Senate members who will play crucial roles in the school finance effort, and spokesman Robert Black said the meeting "went very well."

Though no key legislators have yet pledged support for the governor's plan, they haven't told him they won't back it either, Black said.

Chronicle reporter Polly Ross Hughes contributed to this report.

clay.robison@chron.com janet.elliott@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/05/legislature/3237366

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 3:56 PM 0 comments Links to this post

San Francisco Chronicle        www.sfgate.com
by Goodwin Liu
Thursday, June 23, 2005

In "What We Really Spend on Education" (June 10), political commentator Jill Stewart says "ignorant voters" should stop insisting that California spend more money on public schools. Citing fresh data from the National Center for Education Statistics, she reports that California spent $7, 552 per student in 2002-03, placing 26th among all states and just $22 shy of the national median. "We do not 'underfund' our schools," Stewart asserted. "Why doesn't everyone know this?"

The answer is simple: Because it isn't true.

With a ballot measure this fall proposing to amend the state constitution to reduce the minimum funding guarantee for public schools, voters deserve to know how our education spending stacks up against other states. But Stewart's use of the data does not offer a fair comparison.

To begin with, education costs more to provide in California than elsewhere. This should come as no surprise, given our high cost of living. Teachers are the most important determinant of school quality; on average, it costs more to hire good teachers in California, because it costs more for teachers to live here.

To equalize the purchasing power of education dollars from state to state, the NCES has developed an index that estimates geographic differences in education costs. If you were to adjust raw spending data with this cost index (as I did), the result shows that California's per-pupil spending in 2002-03 ranked 42nd in the nation, not 26th.

But even this is an imperfect comparison. True to its heritage as a land of opportunity, California has a higher percentage of poor children and English-language learners than other states. These children often lack the educational advantages of children from middle-class, English-speaking families. On average, this means that an education dollar will buy higher achievement in other states than in California, because the same dollar must be stretched further in California to meet the special needs of our diverse student body.

Let us assume (very conservatively) that each poor child or English learner needs 20 percent more resources than the average child in order to reach the same level of achievement. When this additional factor is taken into account, California's education spending ranked 45th in the nation in 2002-03, just above Mississippi's.

To put this grim reality in further perspective, the NCES has published 2000-01 data on the per-pupil expenditure of school districts at the 10th, 50th and 90th percentile of spending in each state. When adjusted for regional cost differences and student demographics, these data show that 90 percent of districts in 37 states spent more than the median district in California. Moreover, low spending in California is not confined to a few highly populous districts: 90 percent of California districts spent less than the median district in 14 other states, and nearly 90 percent of districts in New Jersey, New York and Wyoming outspent all but the top 10 percent of districts in California.

Although researchers continue to debate the relationship between money and outcomes, it hardly seems coincidental that California's student achievement, like its real per-pupil spending, trails almost every other state. A recent report by the nonpartisan think tank RAND found that the average math and reading performance of California students from 1990 to 2003 on the widely respected National Assessment of Educational Progress ranked 48th in the nation, just below New Mexico and Alabama and just above Louisiana and Mississippi -- all low-spending states. Meanwhile, high-spending states such as Wisconsin and Massachusetts dominated the top ranks -- where California used to be 30 years ago.

Our state's changing demographics do not fully explain its weak performance. California students of every major racial group, including whites, perform worse than their counterparts in the rest of the nation. Furthermore, RAND found that "Black, Hispanic, and non-Hispanic white students in California are among the lowest-scoring students in the nation when compared to students in other states who have similar family characteristics." These facts support what common sense suggests: In education, as in life, you get what you pay for.

The irony is that California has long been a leader in setting high academic standards to guide curriculum and instruction. In two studies released this year, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation in Washington ranked California's standards among the very best in the nation. Our English-language arts standards, it said, are "balanced and comprehensive," and our math standards "come as close to perfection as any set of mathematics standards in the country." No other state exhibits such an enormous gap between its expectations and its performance in K-12 education.

In order to bridge this gap, we need a host of reforms to make schools more accountable, more efficient and more competitive. But we also need to follow a simple principle in funding our schools: Our education budget must be based on what it actually costs to enable all children to learn to high standards, not on annual political conflict and compromise. In such states as Kansas, Kentucky and New York, where lawsuits have successfully challenged inadequate school funding, courts have ordered legislatures to put this basic principle into practice, and a valuable research base is emerging on how to estimate the real cost of a high-quality education.

In April, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger took a step toward elevating public schools above politics by convening an Advisory Committee on Education Excellence, led by respected educator and former Occidental College President Ted Mitchell. In setting its priorities, the governor asked the committee to study the adequacy of education funding in order "to make California's schools the best in the nation once again." But the governor has sent a mixed signal by supporting a measure in this fall's special election that seeks to limit the minimum-funding guarantee for public schools. It would be remarkable if his advisory committee did not confirm what many voters already know: California cannot have the best schools in the nation so long as our education funding is among the worst.

Goodwin Liu is an assistant professor of law at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. With Boalt's dean, Christopher Edley, he is co-director of a new civil-rights initiative called "Rethinking Rodriguez: Education as a Fundamental Right."

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:07 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Franchise tax remains unchanged, but more companies must pay it
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Gov. Rick Perry plans to call today for a school-finance plan that cuts property taxes, expands the state sales tax to computer repairs, car repairs and cosmetic surgeries and increases the cigarette tax by $1 a pack.

It also would require more companies to pay the corporate franchise tax, but it does not appear to make changes to that tax, as the House and Senate have proposed.

According to an outline of his plan obtained by the American-Statesman, Perry also wants a $1,500 pay raise for teachers and to give schools textbooks that are now sitting in warehouses because the state has not paid to use them.

Perry's office confirmed that the outline is accurate. He is scheduled to lay out the plan at a 2 p.m. news conference, two hours after the Legislature began a special session to tackle the school-finance issue.

Perry would cut the maximum property tax rate for school maintenance and operations from $1.50 per $100 in property value to $1.20. He also would

expand the amount of a home that is exempt from school property taxes from $15,000 to $22,500.

Perry wants to decrease property taxes even further in upcoming years so that the maximum rate on operations would be $1.05 by 2010.

Perry would increase the general state sales tax rate and the rate on car and boat sales from 6.25 percent to 6.95 percent. That's less of an increase than the House approved but more than the Senate passed.

The two sides could not agree on a school finance plan during their 140-day regular session this year, which ended May 30.

Perry wants to cut about $300 million more in property taxes than he would raise in other taxes. The outline touts spending gains for education, but does not specify where he would find that money.

His plan would also double occupation fees that must be paid to state regulators by such professions as doctors, dentists, accountants and lawyers.

Perry has discussed boosting education spending by $2 billion over the next two years, which is less than the House and Senate shot for during their regular session and far less than many education groups want.

During the regular session, Perry did not offer specific proposals to change the way Texas pays for public education.

During a special session last year, he proposed allowing video lottery terminals at racetracks and charging a tax on patrons of topless clubs, among other things. The House unanimously rejected that plan.

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/06/22perry.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:03 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Molly Ivins, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

The U.S. Supreme Court rules yet again that another Texas case was wrongfully decided — this time because 19 of 20 blacks had been knocked off the jury pool — and I'm asked to explain what's wrong with criminal justice in Texas, in 750 words. Sure, no problem.

I don't like to be cynical, but one can get a little tired after a long time watching justice meted out in this state. The story doesn't change much, and nothing seems to get better. But for what it's worth, here's what's at the bottom of it.

(1) Racism. In 1998, James Byrd Jr. was dragged to death behind a pickup truck for being black in Jasper. Two of the three men responsible got the death penalty. This was not first time in Texas a white man was given the death penalty for killing a black man. It was the second.

(2) More racism. In 1999, about one-fifth of the adult black citizens of Tulia, population 5,000, were arrested and accused of cocaine dealing on the uncorroborated testimony of a bent narc and notorious liar. No one even stopped to ask how a town that size could support 46 cocaine dealers until a reporter from the Texas Observer showed up.

(3) We elect our prosecutors. There are 254 counties in Texas, nearly every one with its own elected district attorney. The way to get elected is to be "Tuff on Crime." The way to lose is to be "Soft on Crime." In the big cities — Houston, Dallas and San Antonio, among the 10 largest in the nation — we get the usual plead-out mill: perp's public defender advises him to cop to reduced charges, anything to avoid a trial.

But in the small towns and rural areas where heavy crime is rare, a D.A. has to whup on whoever gets caught. Sometime in the '80s, a guy in Lubbock stole 12 frozen turkeys. They were recovered, still frozen. Not only no damage, but no defrost. The guy bought 75 years, which works out to 6.3 years per bird. Don't steal a turkey in Lubbock.

(4) We elect our judges. Only way to get elected is to be Tuff on Crime. Only way to lose is to be Soft on Crime. In the Case of the Sleeping Lawyer, a guy on death row appealed on grounds his lawyer had slept through his trial, thus providing him with less than adequate counsel. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that even though the lawyer slept through much of the trial, he didn't sleep during the important parts, so the conviction stood.

(5) An appeal process that isn't worth squat. If you're in, you can't get out. If you draw the death penalty in Texas, you effectively have 30 days to present new evidence. After that, you're toast. Doesn't matter if someone else confesses on Day 31. Doesn't even matter if you could provide DNA evidence proving it wasn't you. (The Legislature is still trying to fix that one.) Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas are of the opinion that actual innocence is not necessarily a bar to execution (Herrera vs. Collins). It took a near-miracle to get the Tulia drug defendants out.

(6) Gutless politicians. Texas runs one of the largest prison system on Earth. Texas executed the retarded, the insane and people who were children when they committed their crimes, until the Supreme Court stopped that only three months ago. Texas executes foreigners without notifying their home countries. Every poll shows Texans do not want to execute people in these categories. Politicians are afraid to stop it for fear someone will say they're Soft on Crime.

You've met Labrador retrievers brighter than some of the people we execute. We had a guy on the row who thought he was going to die because he couldn't read. He spent hours on his bunk trying to memorize the ABCs. Never could do it. We execute people easily as crazy as the one in Florida who spent years crawling around on all fours, barking, under the impression that he was a black dog in the seventh circle of hell. But I'm sure they understand right from wrong, and know why they're being punished. Arf.

(7) A bent system. For years, Texas used an expert witness most people called "Dr. Death." Never saw a perp he couldn't guarantee would be a mortal menace for the rest of his days. Only one solution: Kill him. Just one little hitch: In many of those cases, Dr. Death never examined the accused, never talked to the accused, never got near the accused. He was reprimanded twice in the 1980s by the American Psychiatric Association, then expelled from the group in 1995 because his evidence was found unethical and untrustworthy.

In another case, the Supremes threw out the death sentence because the psychologist said the perp was a danger on account of being Latino. Then there was the Houston police lab, so unbelievably sorry, sloppy and just plain maliciously wrong that the courts had to throw out a bunch of those cases too.

But please don't get the idea that just because a few of these errors were caught on long-shot appeals, justice actually works here. We know about so many more miscarriages it would make you vomit, and can't even guess at how many we don't know about.

I'm at 932 words, and I haven't even gotten to the 5th Circuit, the parole board, why you can spend months in jail without ever seeing a lawyer . . .

Ivins is based in Austin. She wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.


 
 

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:33 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Carlos Guerra / San Antonio Express-News
Web Posted: 06/21/2005 12:00 AM CDT

Bills to kill or severely limit Texas' top 10 percent rule didn't make it through the 79th Legislature. But no one believes they won't be resuscitated in 2007.

The top 10 percent rule became law after a federal court struck down a University of Texas affirmative-action policy, ruling that race-based admissions discriminated against Anglos. When the ruling was broadened to all public universities and extended to financial aid decisions, minority enrollment at UT-Austin and Texas A&M dropped sharply.

To reverse the decline, lawmakers voted to automatically admit any high school grad in the top 10th of his or her class to any state school, figuring that it would increase diversity since Texas high schools are still very segregated.

It worked. The merit-based policy is why, today, Texas A&M's and UT's student bodies are the most racially, economically and geographically diverse in their history.

And top-10-percenters also defied predictions that the high-ranking grads of low-performing schools would fall behind the lower-ranked students from supercompetitive high schools. Not only have top-10-percenters kept up, in many cases they have earned higher grade-point averages than other students with much higher SAT scores.

But while the policy applied to all state schools, most students apply to UT-Austin, where top-10-percenters have grown to about 70 percent of freshmen, and where the percentage of students admitted for other reasons has dropped.

"The top 10 percent plan has clearly achieved what it was supposed to," says Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes. "But whether it is the best system is another issue."

Because enrollment mix is an important component of a good university experience, these admissions already are causing concern at one university.

"It's only an issue at UT," he says, "It isn't one at Texas A&M yet, where they are still well under 50 percent of students, the tipping point for universities admitting students by one particular standard or criterion."

But the policy's controversy really focuses attention on other, more fundamental problems of Texas education, Paredes says.

"Most conversations about this miss the point," Paredes says. "The fundamental issues are that there are an awful lot of families in Texas, of whatever background or ethnicity, that feel that if their kids don't get into UT-Austin, and to a lesser extent Texas A&M, they are getting an inferior education.

"We have to do a better job of calling attention to the excellence that exists on other campuses, and improve undergraduate education, generally, in Texas so that people have more options.

"The other thing the top 10 percent plan underscores is that there is tremendous variability in the quality of our high schools," he adds. "If someone says, 'My kid graduated from (a very prestigious) high school in the top 12 percent, and he or she wasn't admitted because you took somebody from the 9th percentile of (a less recognized school),' what they are really saying is that apart from fairness, (one) is a better high school, and it probably is; so we need to make sure that every child in Texas, from the time he or she enters kindergarten, really has a shot at a first-rate education."

As for UT's problem of attracting too many top-10-percenters, tune in Thursday when the policy's inventor, a San Antonio native, details how the UT System could solve their dilemma without legislative intervention.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
To contact Carlos Guerra,
call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail cguerra@express-news.net.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 2:23 PM 0 comments Links to this post

This is a crucial piece if you want to know about who profits from NCLB and through what mechanisms. -Angela

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
EDUCATION POLICY STUDIES LABORATORY (EPSL)
Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU)

****NEWS RELEASE--FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE****

Contact: Gerald Bracey (703) 317-1716 (email) gbracey1@verizon.net or Alex
Molnar (480) 965-1886 (email) epsl@asu.edu


Tempe, Ariz. (Tuesday, June 21, 2005)- No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) funds
flow from the government, through the states, and into the hands of private,
for-profit companies, according to "No Child Left Behind: Where Does the
Money Go?" a policy brief released by the Education Policy Studies
Laboratory at Arizona State University.

The brief's author, Gerald Bracey, finds that the money schools and
districts spend on implementing NCLB requirements and on sanctions for
failing to meet NCLB achievement goals are funneled mostly to private
companies in the testing, curriculum, and Supplemental Education Services
(SES) industries. Some of these companies have close ties to President
George W. Bush and his family. In addition, Bracey says testing companies
and SES providers are rarely held to the same level of accountability that
NCLB demands of public schools.

"It is clear that several billions of taxpayer dollars will be spent each
year and it is equally clear that, at present, no real process of
accountability is in place to monitor where the money is spent or how
effectively it is spent," Bracey wrote. "History shows that under such
conditions money is wasted and fraudulent expenditures are likely."

Through an analysis of the essential workings of NCLB, highlighting inherent
costs of the law and costs that come with each successive year of failing to
make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), this brief found the following:

--According to a Government Accounting Office study, NCLB funds cover only
the cost of testing all Title I students on a multiple-choice format. If a
district or state wants to test all schools (not just Title I schools) or
include open-ended questions, costs would exceed revenue.

--Reading First, a $1 billion a year federally funded primary reading
program, requires states to apply for funds. The states' proposed programs
must pass a panel of experts, many of whom have authored approved Reading
First curriculum materials. States use a narrow range of criteria to
approve their Reading First grants to districts, the criteria favoring
programs authored by some of those who also wrote the criteria.

--President Bush's ties with Harold McGraw III of McGraw-Hill (a testing and
textbook publishing company), lobbyist Sandy Kress, and
researchers-turned-appointees have caused conflicts of interest and the
appearance of an "interlocking directorate."

--After the second consecutive year of failing to make AYP, students are
given the choice to transfer to a "successful" school, and the
transportation costs are to be paid by the "failing" school. This
school-choice option has not worked as envisioned, and few students have
transferred.

--After the third consecutive year of failing to make AYP, schools are
expected to offer Supplemental Education Services (SES). More than 1,800
companies have their name on various state SES approved-provider lists.
Twenty-three of the 25 most listed SES providers are for-profit companies.

--Unlike public schools, SES companies are not required to hire
"highly-qualified" teachers.

--SES companies are not held to the level of accountability expected of
public schools because U.S. Department of Education officials have said they
want "as little regulation [of SES providers] as possible so the market [for
SES] can be as vibrant as possible." It is unknown if these services
increase student achievement.

Bracey calls on the U.S. Department of Education to establish policies and
procedures to account for the money and to hold private companies to the
same standards of accountability which it demands of public schools.


Find this document on the web at:
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/epru_2005_Research_Writing.htm

**********

The Education Policy Research Unit (EPRU) conducts original research,
provides independent analyses of research and policy documents, and
facilitates educational innovation. EPRU facilitates the work of leading
academic experts in a variety of disciplines to help inform the public
debate about education policy issues.

Visit the at EPRU website

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:22 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Folks need to be aware that these paramilitary folks are coming to Texas. If you want to learn more about these groups, check out their websites:
the American Resistance or T.A.R. and The Minuteman Headquarters. This symbolic violence and the threat of real violence is not only scary but racist.

They claim being against not immigration but the illegality of it. If they were so against the illegality of it and not the people, they would work within the system and adopt a constructive policy approach to address the factors that create the need to migrate to begin with.

That they're knowingly only treating the symptoms and not the root causes of immigration means that their efforts are largely symbolic. Symbolic of what, we should ask. The Minutemen and the American Resistance like to pass themselves off as "American patriots." Nothing could be farther from the truth. Their presence should concern us all.

-Angela


By ABE LEVY
Associated Press Writer


GOLIAD, Texas — The leader of a volunteer border-patrol group that began in Arizona told Texans Monday night he believes there is enough support in their state to form four chapters of the Minuteman Project.

The group, which drew international attention for monitoring the Arizona-Mexico border in April, plans to do the same in October, most notably along the Texas-Mexico border where drug-related violence has escalated in recent months.

Minuteman president Chris Simcox, who spoke Monday at a town meeting of about 250 people in Goliad, said one of the chapters would be expected in this historic Texas town of about 2,000 residents. Others would be in the Rio Grande Valley and in the Midland-Odessa area, he said.

"This is a political protest," he told the audience, most of whom began to clap. "You are voters and taxpayers and you are tired of not seeing a return on your investment."

The meeting drew several sheriffs from counties in the region and began with a video that linked images of the Sept. 11 tragedy with a message that President Bush and Congress are ignoring border security. During a question-and-answer session, emotions ran high as several Mexican-Americans engaged in heated debate with Simcox.

Illegal immigrants "come here for a better life," shouted Richard Villarreal of Goliad, echoing the feeling of several protesters outside. "I know what these (Minuteman) chapters are. The KKK had chapters."

Simcox responded: "We're no different than any other neighborhood watchdog group."

From here, Simcox is headed to California, Michigan and Canada where he said he has supporters ready to form chapters. Two chapters have formed in New Mexico, and requests for chapters to start have been received in all 50 states, he said.

Goliad-area landowners are among a reported 7,000 Texans supporting the Minuteman movement. Some South Texans are joining because they're tired of the periodic damage they say illegal immigrants have caused on their multi-thousand acre ranches, said Kenneth Buelter, from Sarco, where a united pocket of ranchers have reported high-speed vehicles and human smuggling in recent months.

They say the answer may be the Minuteman Project, which trains volunteers to spot suspected illegal immigrants crossing into the U.S. and contact local police. Still, their activities have been met with suspicion and concern from politicians, law enforcement officers and some South Texas residents who say the group is made up of vigilantes and possibly racists.

Despite urging from state legislators and members of Congress, Gov. Rick Perry has said he can't stop them from conducting legal activity along the border.

Unlike Arizona, where the border is largely public land, the Texas-Mexico border is mostly privately owned, overwhelmingly Hispanic and more urban. Minuteman opponents wonder how the volunteers will distinguish illegal immigrants from legal Hispanic residents. Supporters say they will use volunteers who own the land and already have familiarity with its illegal immigration patterns.

In Goliad County, Sheriff Robert DeLaGarza, who attended the Monday meeting, said he will not endorse the Minuteman Project but has met with Simcox, who assured him the group's tactics would remain within the law. He foresees minutemen simply contacting his agency to report suspicious activity without using weapons or engaging in confrontations.

"Local residents have been doing that anyway," DeLaGarza said. "So far from what I've heard, this is just bringing in publicity."

Simcox said that the meeting's location in Goliad, about 200 miles north of the border, is pure coincidence. In 1836, Mexican forces massacred Texas revolutionaries in a skirmish that is remembered in the battle cry: "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!"

Others see the location as significant.

"I felt it was fitting that the first Texas chapter start here," said Bill Parmley, a Goliad rancher who invited the Minutemen.

Parmley said local ranchers have complained that illegal immigrants have broken their fences and left piles of trash at campsites, among other damages.

Goliad, southeast of San Antonio, has become a hub for smuggling illegal immigrants. DeLaGarza said authorities have struggled to contain the problem. His police force is limited to 13 deputies who cover a 1,000-square-mile county.

Not all law enforcement in Texas is open to the help.

Laredo police spokesman Juan Rivera said any citizen has a right to contact police about illegal immigration. But he said officers will crack down on anyone who doesn't have proper concealed handgun documentation, is trespassing or disrupting police duties on the border.

"If we find they are hindering our operations, they're going to be held accountable," he said. "We've been doing this for a long time, and we know our territory better than anybody."

Also at the Monday meeting were a handful of members from Goliad's chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens whose president, Benny Martinez, met with Minutemen leaders beforehand.

"I hope they don't abuse people," he said. "I hope they can distinguish them from me. My family's been here for over 200 years."

Simcox assured Hispanic leaders that his group would not be armed and would only report suspicious activity.

___

June 20, 2005 - 9:21 p.m. CDT
Copyright 2005, The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP Online news report may not be published, broadcast or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:04 AM 0 comments Links to this post

79th LEGISLATURE

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

The House and Senate each passed school finance plans during the regular session but could not agree on a final measure. Key positions in plans pushed during the session included:


House:

•Cut maximum rate for school property taxes from $1.50 to $1 in fall 2006.

•Require companies to pay current corporate franchise tax or new payroll tax.

•Raise state sales tax by 1 cent and extend it to car repairs and bottled water.

•Raise cigarette tax by $1.01 per pack.

•Include $3 billion in budget for education spending.


Senate:

•Cut maximum rate for school property taxes from $1.50 to $1.15 this fall and $1.10 in 2006.

•Rework corporate franchise tax to tax net corporate income plus a fraction of payroll.

•Raise state sales tax by half a cent.

•Raise cigarette tax by 75 cents per pack; raise alcohol excise taxes by 13 percent.

•Generate about $2.5 billion for education with methods including one-time fund transfers and requiring companies to pay corporate franchise tax.


Gov. Rick Perry

•Publicly offered few specifics during the regular session about school finance plans he supported.

•Reportedly wants to increase state sales tax by seven-tenths of a cent and extend it to car repairs and cosmetic surgery during special session.

•Said special session should address property tax cuts, teacher pay, textbook funding, charter schools and changes to the share-the-wealth finance system, among other things.

 

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:59 AM 0 comments Links to this post

"Gov. Rick Perry boosted the political stakes last week when he vetoed the $35 billion that lawmakers agreed to spend on schools under the current finance system, raising the possibility that schools will be unable to open this fall." Perhaps a 30-day session will "resolve" school finance in Texas. We'll see. -Angela

79th LEGISLATURE: SPECIAL SESSION
30-day session begins Tuesday to revisit money for education.
By Jason Embry, W. Gardner Selby / AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Tuesday, June 21, 2005

Legislators who have failed three times since 2003 to approve a new system of paying for public schools will find the stakes higher than ever today when they return to the Capitol to take another swing at the issue.

They will begin a 30-day special session at noon with hopes of trading cuts in school property taxes for higher taxes elsewhere while putting more money into education than the incremental increases they approved earlier this year.

With the 2006 primary nine months away, they're also looking to blunt criticism that their regular session ended without action on one of the state's most pressing concerns.

"We do not have any kind of a deal on the revenue aspect," House Speaker Tom Craddick said about the key issue of how to replace money schools would lose if property taxes were cut. "We're here, and we're going to do the best and most we can to make this happen. Where we get, I can't say."

Gov. Rick Perry boosted the political stakes last week when he vetoed the $35 billion that lawmakers agreed to spend on schools under the current finance system, raising the possibility that schools will be unable to open this fall.

That's extremely unlikely because state leaders could restore the money if the special session fails, but even the mention of schools not starting turns up the heat on lawmakers.

Lawmakers already were under heavy pressure earlier this year to draft a new school finance system. A state judge has ruled the current system unconstitutional, largely because of underfunding, in a decision that is under review by the Texas Supreme Court.

One aspect lawmakers will review is whether property-wealthy school districts must continue to send money to districts with fewer resources.

Lawmakers are also hearing from constituents who are tired of property tax bill increases.

The House and Senate each passed proposals during the regular legislative session, but leaders could not agree on a final, compromise plan before the session ended May 30. Key lawmakers say those differences, particularly on taxes, remain.

The sticking point was how to replace at least $3.5 billion a year in reduced property taxes. House members wanted to rely more heavily on consumption taxes; the Senate put more of the burden on businesses.

Perry will unveil a proposal today that "will define the middle ground" between the House and Senate, spokesman Robert Black said. He refused to confirm or deny details.

Craddick and Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst said Perry would push for an increase of seven-tenths of a cent in the state sales tax, from 6.25 cents per dollar to 6.95, and extend it to car repair bills and cosmetic surgery. The House had pushed for a 1-cent increase in the sales tax; the Senate approved a half-cent boost.

Craddick said House members want to see at least a 35-cent cut in the property tax rate, which would put the maximum rate for school maintenanceoperations at $1.15 per $100 of assessed property value, with more cuts in future years.

"I don't think the members of the House will vote for a small bite," he said.

Steve Ogden, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, voiced a similar concern but added that senators realize they might have to phase in property tax cuts over several years to pass a credible plan.

In addition to the tax swap, lawmakers will use the special session to discuss teacher pay, testing, textbook funding, school ratings and other education reforms. Lawmakers have expressed optimism about reaching agreement on the education measures, saying they were close to one at the end of the regular session.

"We have a lot to build on, and I think that's exactly what we're going to do," said Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano.

Also Monday, House Democrats urged their colleagues to revisit a school finance plan that the House voted down in March.

The Democrats' plan calls for $45,000, instead of the current $15,000, of a home's value to be exempt from school property taxes. It also would give a smaller property tax cut to businesses than House and Senate negotiators had agreed to deliver by the end of the session.

The maximum rate for school taxation would fall to $1.25 per $100 in property value. Democratic leaders said their plan would deliver a larger tax cut than the one that passed the House for the owner of an average home in nearly every part of a state. They did not specify how they would raise the money to pay for the proposal.

"Our plan would provide more resources to Texas schools and greater tax savings to the vast majority of Texas homeowners," said Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston.

Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington, chairman of the House Public Education Committee, said he and Rep. Phil King, R-Weatherford, could file legislation expanding items covered by the state sales tax and use the extra revenue for cuts in local school property taxes, all subject to voter approval.

"I'm not married to any particular idea," Grusendorf said. "I like the idea of finding additional ways to reduce property taxes and allow voters to decide."

State officials estimate that a special session can cost about $1.7 million.

jembry@statesman.com; 445-3654
wgselby@statesman.com; 445-3644

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:52 AM 0 comments Links to this post

This captures the sad state of affairs for gays and lesbians in Texas. It responds to Governor Perry's earlier statement at a church that if gays in the military want to move to another state upon their return, they can. Reminds me of when people tell Mexicans to go back to where they came from. The deal is, though, that there's no where to go back to. Texas be it. Same for gays in the military who are laying their lives on the line for us all. This is what the ever-eloquent John Young is saying below by juxtaposing Perry's comments with gay activist, John Ball's taking of his life. This is very tragic and very sad—all the way around. -Angela

Sunday, June 19, 2005
John Young / Opinion page editor / Waco Tribune-Herald

The story on Page 2B was tragic. The story on Page 3B was just sad.

Not surprisingly, the tragedy got the smaller headline, being in the obituaries.

The story on the opposite page? Some will say it's about morality. Actually, it's about power, and not a higher one.

A higher power wouldn't be concerned with raw politics. That higher power would be intent on caressing and comforting those who hurt, and who cry out, someone like Bruce Ball.

Unfortunately, the story placement demands that we discuss politics first under the heading: “Perry backs anti-gay marriage group.”

That's Rick Perry, Texas governor. The story told about two men, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, helping set up the Texas Marriage Alliance. The two recently were indicted on charges of money laundering on behalf of a political action committee set up by U.S. House Speaker Tom DeLay.

Perry had filmed a testimonial for the Texas Marriage Alliance, saying a constitutional amendment on the Texas ballot is “your chance to protect marriage from fringe groups and liberal judges . . .”

Gee. I wonder if they'll be raising money.

Analysts call this “securing the base,” as was Perry's appearance at an Austin church for a bill-signing on the amendment (the signing signifies nothing; voters will have to make it law).

At the event, Ohio evangelist Rod Parsley made disparaging remarks about homosexuals and got a squeeze on the shoulder from Texas' chief executive.

You might call that inspiring. Then again, you might have agreed with Bruce Ball and me on the matter. It was just sad.

I can't know, but I cringe to think that such sadness is what overwhelmed Ball. On May 31 in Texas' lovely capital city, he took his life. Ball, a longtime Waco florist, had moved to Austin two years ago to work at the Planned Parenthood clinic.

No one who knew Ball will remember him as unhappy. Among friends, like the organization he helped found, the Waco chapter of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG), Ball was very much the jester.

But if you are homosexual in Texas, sadness comes with the territory.

“He was tired of fighting,” said Valerie Fallas, co-founder of PFLAG in Waco. Like many gays and lesbians, Ball took personally the slights aimed at a class of people. “The constant negative comments, he was tired of that.”

Friends who wrote his obituary, there on Page 2B, included some of his anger:

“His dream was of a human race that respected and honored ‘infinite diversity with infinite combinations,' ” they wrote, “but [he] yet left this planet disheartened, watching ‘Liberty die to the roar of thunderous applause.' “

As to that story about politics on the page opposite Ball's obituary: It's a sad specter when leaders who have important things to do for us instead lead us on side-road parades.

I can understand people's angst when on top of the personal issues of being marginalized, it becomes clear that the most convenient way a leader can find of “building the base” is to further marginalize people like you.

As many friends as Bruce Ball had, he apparently died alone. Call the matter moot, but I wonder: If a marriage, or civil union, had conferred a lifetime bond on him and a partner, would the angst of the moment that took him away have passed without event?

Another point: Rev. Parsley, the governor's rostrum partner, called gay sex “a veritable breeding ground of disease.” (Yes – and males and females don't share diseases, right?) In the age of AIDS, if you were concerned about disease, you'd promote laws that promoted monogamy, wouldn't you? Ah, but maybe the reverend's appearance with the governor wasn't really about public health.

Maybe it was about power, at other's expense.

Morality? You have your followers, Reverend. But I see the mirthful and inclusive Bruce Ball modeling it for me.

John Young's column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:04 AM 0 comments Links to this post

These extraordinary students, the progeny of legislative policy passed in Texas in 2001 (House Bill 1403), deserve the very opportunity that they have earned. Passage of the DREAM ACT is what’s needed.

The DREAM ACT will 1) enable immigrant youth who either go to college or join the military to acquire temporary (and later, permanent residential) status; and 2) enable the U.S. to recoup or make good on the cost of our nation's own investment in this population through the years of K-12 schooling that they receive. Though a hot-button issue, this is one that all of our leadership should seriously discuss—for our own nation's sake, as well as theirs. Indeed, there are at least 8 states that have copied Texas with comparable legislation for immigrants at the state level. Now, we need to get these degree holders employed!
-Angela

Law Leads to Degrees But Not Jobs in Texas
U.S. IMMIGRATION POLICY

www.sciencemag.org
SCIENCE VOL 308 3 JUNE 2005

Iride Gramajo’s dream of becoming a mathematics professor has always been a long shot. Growing up on a coffee plantation in Guatemala, she didn’t have access to a good school. And even after she slipped into Texas illegally with her family in 1995, a college education was unthinkable on her mother’s salary as a nanny. But a 2001 state law allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates made it possible for her to attend the University of Houston. And this spring she earned her B.S. degree and was accepted into Houston’s doctoral program in mathematics.

So far, so good. But despite their talents, undocumented residents like Gramajo and her classmates stand no chance of being hired by a reputable U.S. institution or company. In fact, it will take an act of Congress for Gramajo to work in her chosen profession. And that’s exactly what a bipartisan group of senators hopes will happen this year.

Gramajo is one of an estimated 90 undocumented students graduating this year from public 4-year colleges and universities in Texas, with another 1200 in the state’s community colleges. And their numbers will only increase: Since 2001, eight other states have passed their own in-state tuition laws making higher education more affordable to immigrants lacking proper documentation.

But granting them legal residency, which would allow them to work lawfully in the United States, is a federal matter. That’s why senators Orrin Hatch (R–UT) and Richard Durbin (D–IL) are hoping that their Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act will become part of a comprehensive immigration reform bill that Congress is expected to take up later this year. “These students should not be penalized for having an immigration status for which they are not responsible,” says Adam Elggren, a Hatch aide. Instead, says Elggren, “we should be welcoming them to become productive members of our society.”

The DREAM Act would put undocumented college students on the path to citizenship by qualifying them for a green card, which would enable them to join the nation’s workforce in science, engineering, and other occupations. “It seems like a huge waste to tell them in the end that they cannot contribute to the economy,” says an aide to Texas representative Rick Noriega (D–Houston), who helped write the state law.

But others say that giving them amnesty would snatch employment opportunities away from U.S. citizens and serve as an incentive for illegal immigration. “It would be a statement to the world that we have no intention of enforcing immigration laws,” says U.S. Senator Jeffrey Sessions (R–AL). A better alternative, says Jack Martin of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in Washington, D.C., would be for undocumented students to “return to their native countries and apply their education there.”

That logic is bewildering to Carlos Hernandez, a petroleum engineer graduating from the University of Texas (UT), Austin, who says he played no role in his family’s decision to move to the United States from Mexico when he was 9. When he was in high school his father, a construction worker, and his mother, a waitress, took him to a career fair in Houston where UT officials told him about the university’s perfect record of placing petroleum engineering grads. “If I got permission to work in the United States, it would not be a reward for illegal immigration but for the 4 years of effort I put in to become an engineer,” says Hernandez. Although he’s applied to work at Mexican companies, he’ll most likely end up pursuing graduate studies at UT.

Gramajo says she is optimistic that the DREAM Act will pass before she receives her doctorate. “My mentors have told me that there’s a high demand for math professors in the U.S., so much so that universities have to hire faculty from Europe and Asia,” she says. “That gives me hope of being able to work here.” – by Yudhijit Bhattacharjee

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 3:57 PM 2 comments Links to this post

Governor Perry is going for broke by calling a special session in order to fix school finance—which is to begin tomorrow, by the way. This summer's session will be a real test of everybody's willingness to really address Judge Dietz' call for equity in school funding. -Angela

Simone Sebastian
Express-News Staff Writer / 06/20/2005

Facing the start of a school year without state funding, some school district leaders are blasting Gov. Rick Perry's decision to veto lawmakers' $33.6 billion education budget, a move they say could prevent schools from opening on time. But others said the governor's move to force lawmakers to reform the state's school funding system is long overdue.

"It's risky, no doubt about it," said San Antonio School District Superintendent Rubén Olivárez. "But if you look at the (Legislature's) track record, they've been complete failures. This is the governor's last effort to force a consensus."

Olivárez said there is a real chance that the district's schools won't open in August if lawmakers fail to agree on a way to reform school funding.

"We don't have a backup plan," he said.

Unsuccessful efforts to pass a school funding reform bill have marred the Legislature's past two regular sessions and one special session. A state district judge declared the current school funding system unconstitutional because of its heavy reliance on local property taxes.

Northside Superintendent John Folks disagreed with the governor's approach to the issue, saying he doesn't believe lawmakers can fix the problem in two months.

"They've been at this a year and a half and haven't solved it," Folks said. "To hold schools hostage, it's penalizing schools because legislators haven't solved the problem."

Many school districts, including all of those in Bexar County, have levied the maximum property tax rate to cover expenditures. The House and Senate have repeatedly disagreed on how to compensate for lowering local school taxes. While the Senate seeks to rely more on an expanded business tax, the House has supported a greater reliance on raising the sales tax.

Perry vetoed an education budget that effectively offers the same amount of funding that districts received last year.

Though he wasn't thrilled with the budget, Folks said he would rather have some funding than none at all.

"We could have gone ahead without any risk or danger," he said, noting that about 35 percent of his district's funding comes from the state. "Now if (lawmakers) don't proceed, schools across Texas will not be able to operate."

Not all local school leaders agree. Edgewood School Board President Ramiro Nava said lawmakers tend to pull through when the stakes become high. Even if they don't, he added, most districts maintain a few months' worth of operating costs in savings.

"When August comes around, the schools will open. But at what cost, we don't know yet," he said.

Some superintendents said that dipping into the reserves would be reckless, possibly leaving districts penniless a few months into the school year.

All agreed that this summer would be a suspenseful one. In addition to general education funding, district administrators are also awaiting decisions on the school year start date and what textbooks they will be able to buy.

"It's the same thing we've heard over and over," said Judson School District health teacher Mary Mikels. "There's nothing we can do about it. Our hands are tied behind our back."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
ssebastian@express-news.net

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 3:12 PM 1 comments Links to this post

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS / June 20, 2005

AUSTIN, Tex., June 19 (AP) - Texas legislators will return to the Capitol for a special session beginning on Tuesday following Gov. Rick Perry's veto of the state's public education budget.

School financing has bedeviled Texas lawmakers for years. The session will be their fourth effort to find a solution in the last three years, including the last two regular sessions. Mr. Perry also called a special session last spring, but it ended in failure.

Last year, after hundreds of school districts sued the state, a state district judge, John Dietz, declared the financing system unconstitutional, arguing that it depended too heavily on property taxes imposed by local school districts. Judge Dietz ordered state financing for schools to cease by October 2005 if the system was not fixed by then.

The state has appealed the decision to the Texas Supreme Court, and a July 6 date has been set for oral arguments. Any action the Legislature takes in a special session is likely to be a factor in deliberations, but the court could still uphold the ruling or apply it to new legislation.

Lawmakers initially said they wanted to cut school property taxes by half, but finding additional revenue to compensate for lower property taxes and still invest more money in schools has proved difficult.

Past proposals have included a tax on snack food, increasing the state's 6.25 percent sales tax and a new tax on bottled water.

Most of the new money is likely to come from restructuring the state's business tax, which most businesses do not pay because of loopholes.

Mr. Perry had previously said he would call lawmakers back only if the leaders of the House and the Senate were ready to agree on a plan. But the House speaker, Tom Craddick of Midland, like Mr. Perry a Republican, said in an interview on Friday with a Midland television station that leaders "have no agreement or no plan that we've agreed upon at all at this point."

Abe Saavedra, superintendent of the Houston schools, whose district has cut more than $100 million from its budget in the last five years as revenue from the state declined, said he applauded Mr. Perry's "courage in approaching this issue, and we urge the Legislature to act swiftly and responsibly to give Texas children the kind of education funding they deserve."

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 3:06 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Krauthammer's piece appeared today in our newspaper today, as well. This reeks of jingoism. Those of us who know better—that is, of the direct relationship between bilingual education and the assimilation he seeks—should formulate a response to the Post. Go to this link for instructions on how to submit a letter or opinion-editorial piece. -Angela

Charles Krauthammer, THE WASHINGTON POST
Friday, June 17, 2005

One of the reasons for the success we've enjoyed in Afghanistan is that our viceroy — pardon me, ambassador — there, who saw the country through the founding of a democratic government, was not just a serious thinker and a skilled diplomat, but also spoke the language and understood the culture. Why? Because Zalmay Khalilzad is an Afghan-born Afghan-American.

It is not every country that can send to obscure faraway places envoys who are themselves children of that culture. Indeed, Americans are the only people that can do that for practically every country.

Being mankind's first-ever universal nation, to use Ben Wattenberg's felicitous phrase for our highly integrated polyglot country, carries enormous advantage. In the shrunken global world of the information age, we have significant populations of every ethnicity capable of making instant and deep connections — economic as well as diplomatic — with just about every foreign trouble spot, hothouse and economic dynamo on the planet.

It is true that other countries, particularly in Europe, have in the last several decades opened themselves up to immigration. But the real problem is not immigration but assimilation. Anyone can do immigration. But if you don't assimilate the immigrants — France, for example, has vast isolated exurban immigrant slums with populations totally alienated from the polity and the general culture — then immigration becomes not an asset but a liability.

America's genius has always been assimilation, taking immigrants and turning them into Americans. Yet our current debates on immigration focus on only one side of the issue — the massive waves of illegal immigrants that we seem unable to stop.

The various plans, all well-intentioned, have an air of hopelessness about them. Amnesty of some sort seems reasonable because there is no way we're going to expel 10 million-plus illegal immigrants, and we might as well make their lives more normal.

But that will not stop further illegal immigration. In fact, it will encourage it because every amnesty — and we have them periodically — tells potential illegals still in Mexico and elsewhere that if they persist long enough, they will get in, and if they stay here long enough, they can cut to the head of the line.

In the end, increased law enforcement, guest-worker programs and other incentives that encourage some of the illegals to go back home can only go so far. Which is why we should be devoting far more attention to the other half of the problem — not just how many come in but what happens to them once they're here.

The anti-immigrant types argue that there is something unique about our mostly Latin immigration that makes it unassimilable. First, that there's simply too much of it to be digested. But in fact, the percentage of foreign-born people living in America today is significantly below what it was in 1890 and 1910 — and those were spectacularly successful immigrations. And second, there is nothing about the Catholic-Hispanic culture that makes it any more difficult to assimilate than the Czechs and Hungarians, Chinese and Koreans, who came decades ago.

The key to assimilation of course, is language. The real threat to the United States is not immigration per se, but bilingualism and, ultimately, biculturalism. Having grown up in Canada, where a language divide is a source of friction and fracture, I can only wonder at those who want to duplicate that plague in the United States.

The good news, and the reason I am less panicked about illegal immigration than most, is that the vogue for bilingual education is now waning. It has been abolished by referendum in California, Arizona and even Massachusetts.

As the results in California have shown, it was a disaster for Hispanic children. It delays assimilation by perhaps a full generation. Those in "English immersion" have more than twice the rate of English proficiency of those in the old "bilingual" system.

By all means we should try to control immigration. Nonetheless, given our geography, our tolerant culture and the magnetic attraction of our economy, illegals will always be with us. Our first task, therefore, should be abolishing bilingual education everywhere, and requiring that our citizenship tests have strict standards for English language and American civics.

The cure for excessive immigration is successful assimilation. The way to prevent European-like immigration catastrophes is to turn every immigrant — and most surely his children — into an American. Who might one day grow up to be our next Zalmay Khalilzad.

http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/06/17krauthammer_edit.html

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:51 AM 8 comments Links to this post

Just because no statistical correlation is obtained doesn't mean that bilingual principals are "not vital." -Angela

DISD: Survey shows test scores unaffected by language leaders use

07:16 AM CDT on Friday, June 17, 2005

By TAWNELL D. HOBBS / The Dallas Morning News


At a time when some community leaders want all principals of mostly Hispanic schools to be bilingual, a DISD analysis suggests that wouldn't have much effect on student performance.

"There is no statistical significant difference between the performance of schools with bilingual principals and the schools without bilingual principals, in either reading or math," according to a June 10 Dallas Independent School District memo.

Trustee Joe May is pushing a proposal that principals at campuses where at least half of the students have been in limited English proficiency programs must learn the language spoken by the majority of the students. The principals would have three years to attain language proficiency at the district's expense.

The plan, brought to trustees last month, has been a contentious issue.

Trustee Hollis Brashear asked district administrators to assess whether such a plan would help students.

The review looked at state scores in the major core subjects of reading and math on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. According to the district's assessment, 89 schools would qualify for the plan.

For students who were supervised by principals who were not bilingual, the average reading pass rate was 76.08 percent. For students supervised by bilingual principals, the average reading pass rate was 76.06 percent.

The average math pass rate for students at schools with principals who were not bilingual was 69.95 percent, compared with an average pass rate of 72.65 percent at schools with bilingual principals.

The district's analysis said many factors could contribute to student performance, including having a supportive learning environment, opportunities to learn and high achievement expectations.

"The extent to which a principal speaking Spanish contributes to these factors for improving student achievement in [predominantly limited-English proficient] schools is unknown," the assessment states.

Mr. Brashear said he would not support the plan when it comes to the board in August.

"Requiring principals to speak another language doesn't make any difference," he said. "This appears on the surface a tactic to get more Hispanic-speaking people in leadership positions."

But Mr. May disputes the district's data.

"I have to think that my idea has never been embraced by the administration to begin with," he said. "I will be countering that data; I will be presenting my own."

Mr. May said the goal of the plan is to allow parents who don't speak English to communicate with their child's principal – and to provide principals with a communication tool. That, he said, is critical.

"All roads lead to parental participation," he said.

E-mail tdhobbs@dallasnews.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/education/stories/061705dnmetbilingual.17d5df3f.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:45 PM 10 comments Links to this post

This message is from Carolyn Boyle, Coalition For Public Schools to which LULAC belongs. -Angela

Texas newspapers are reporting in their on-line editions that Governor Perry is expected to veto the budget for Texas public schools tomorrow. If he takes that action, the governor would then issue a call for legislators to return to Austin for a 30-day special session on school finance starting at noon on Tuesday, June 21. Here are the links to some of the stories:

Dallas Morning News
Austin Am-Statesman
DFW News
Houston Chronicle

So fasten your seat belts, as another fast tumultuous ride may be about to begin! We are hearing there may be a plan to sneak private school vouchers into the legislation in conference committee or as an appropriations rider. The Coalition for Public Schools is preparing for whatever challenges are ahead, and we'll be sharing more details in the days to come.

What can you do this weekend? If you see a legislator anywhere, tell him or her not to get distracted by divisive schemes like private school vouchers!! Focus on adequately and fairly funding our neighborhood public schools so all children can succeed.

***********************************************************
Coalition for Public Schools

1005 Congress Avenue, Suite 550, Austin, Texas 78701-2491, (512) 474-9765, Cell: (512) 470-1215; Fax: (512) 474-2507, Carolyn Boyle, Coordinator
email: cboyleaust@aol.com

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:36 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Research is quite conclusive that English language immersion for linguistic minority children is submersion. Massachusetts could have avoided these pitfalls by knowing about the experience of Mexicans in Texas. Texas is the site for this grand experiment of English-only. It was against the law to teach Spanish for the greater part of the last century. An important work in this regard is the award winning, recently published book, THE STRANGE CAREER OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION IN TEXAS, written by Texas A & M colleague, Carlos K. Blanton. What resulted from this experiment? Extreme academic failure from which the Mexican American community has never quite recovered. I don't mean to say that Mexicans haven't made progress, but rather that progress is a moving target with the gap with Anglos remaining relatively constant. As my other recent posts on assimilation and language suggest, we seem as a nation destined to always be repeating history primarily due to the structured ignorance of the powerful.

-Angela

By Ken Maguire, Associated Press Writer | June 16, 2005

BOSTON --Most children who don't speak English as their first language may
need more than one year of English-only instruction before they move to regular
classrooms, according to test results released Thursday.

Voter-approved state law says those students should be sent to mainstream
classes after one year of "English immersion," but the first statewide test
results released since the law took effect in the fall of 2003 indicate most are
not ready.

State and federal laws require schools to assess the English proficiency of
all students who are identified as "limited English proficient" in nearly every
grade. They are tested for English skills in reading, writing, speaking and
listening.

About 31,000 of the state's nearly 50,000 LEP students were tested last fall
and again this spring.

Just 10 percent of first-year LEP students in grades three and four were
classified at the "transitioning" level -- basic fluency -- after the spring test.
Thirty percent of the second-year students in those grades were deemed fluent
and ready to be sent to mainstream classrooms.

Other grade levels were statistically similar, while high schoolers scored
higher after their first year (18 percent at basic fluency) and second year (28
percent).

The one-year-and-out law replaced the nation's first-ever bilingual education
program, which kept children in native-language instruction classrooms for
several years. Critics said these mostly urban, low-income children suffered in
the long term.

"There are some children who can transition in one year but those are
exceptional cases," said Jose M. Pinheiro, Brockton Public Schools' director of
bilingual education. "Students who have been here for three years do better than
the others."

State education Commissioner David Driscoll said he's not convinced the
one-year-and-out philosophy works.

"That bears some watching," he said. "I'm not sure where statistically how
true that is. Over time, hopefully we'll start to see the progress and we can
bring data to that question."

Driscoll said it's too soon, however, to draw conclusions.

"The reason that it's hard to talk about whether immersion is working versus
the old system is that we now have this strong system of standards and
assessments that we didn't have under the previous system."

Over time, he said, the immersion philosophy will prove to be more
successful.

"I think it's working. More kids are making progress," he said. "(But) We
don't have the data."

Not every child who took the fall test also took the spring test, but there's
"a pretty big overlap," said Kit Viator, the state Department of Educations's
director of student assessment.

Driscoll has said he won't force districts to move a child out of English
immersion at the end of a year, out of concern it may violate a child's federal
civil rights.

The mandated testing is just one measure -- grades and teacher observations
are others -- local districts use in determining whether to move a child into
regular classrooms. Districts are being encouraged to make those decisions this
summer.

Districts receive extra state and federal funds for the number of students
classified as LEP, Driscoll noted.

"The system ought to encourage movement," he said.

Silicon Valley millionaire Ron Unz, the financial force behind the ballot
initiative in Massachusetts -- and in California and Arizona -- criticized the
funding system.

"The schools get more money," he said. "If they move them into a regular
classroom, they get less money."

Unz said classifications aren't as important as academic results. Nearly 80
percent of LEP students passed the MCAS high school exit exam in 2004, for
example.

Fifty-five percent of the state's LEP students speak Spanish as their first
language, followed by 9 percent speaking Portuguese. Khmer, Haitian Creole,
Vietnamese, Chinese, Cape Verdean, Russian and Arabic are among other first
languages.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:19 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Here is the report by Texas Monthly on best and worst legislators of 2005. The following is on Grusendorf, chairman of Committee on Public Education. It should become clear with this succinct piece why so little was achieved this session in the area of school finance, while raising the question whether such can be obtained when the very interests of public schools, their teachers, and administrators and the communities that they serve are disregarded.
-Angela

Kent Grusendorf
R Arlington

THE WRONG MAN at the right time. Charged with writing a new school finance bill, Grusendorf was the John Bolton of the Texas Legislature—a man at war with the institution (public schools) and the people (educators) he was supposed to work with. No lawmaker had it in his power to do so much good, nor, thank goodness, accomplished so little.

Grusendorf produced a bill that had no support—zip, zilch—from Texas educators. Indeed, they had no input in crafting it; the bill reflected a report by an ideological think tank in California. Some ideas had merit—greater financial accountability for school districts, for example—but school finance is all about money, and here the bill was full of shams: $3 billion in “new” money for schools, which the bill did not raise; a teacher pay increase, which the bill did not fund; more money for bilingual education, which the bill allowed school districts to use for any purpose; mandates to local districts, which ate up 87 percent of the promised $3 billion. The bill was so bad that it perished in the session’s closing hours.

But its elegy had been pronounced months earlier, when Bob Griggs, a former superintendent turned Republican lawmaker, urged his House colleagues to vote against it. “This bill is just plain old junk food…It provides that sugar rush immediately, but the funding falls apart after a very short period of time. It just has no substance…I find it really ironic that we’re talking about improving nutrition in our schools when we’re willing to feed our school finance system the fiscal equivalent of a candy bar.” Given the way Grusendorf dropped the ball, let’s call it a Butterfinger.

Best and Worst Legislators 2005

The Best
Dianne Delisi
Sen. Robert Duncan
Dan Gattis
Charlie Geren
Fred Hill
Sen. Steve Ogden
Jim Pitts
Mike Villarreal
Sen. John Whitmire
Sen. Judith Zaffirini

The Worst
Sen. Gonzalo Barrientos
Dwayne Bohac
Mary Denny
Al Edwards
Sen. Mario Gallegos
Kent Grusendorf
Sen. Chris Harris
Terry Keel
Phil King
Robert Talton

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:34 AM 0 comments Links to this post

This is worth discussing. I dispute three points mentioned below. These are stated in my posted commentary. -Angela

THE EDUCATION GADFLY
A Weekly Bulletin of News and Analysis from the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation
Compulsory African history?
by Chester E. Finn

Philadelphia's public school system, under the leadership of Paul Vallas, has been making so much progress on so many fronts that it's a special disappointment when they blunder. But blunder they are doing.

In February, the "School Reform Commission" voted to offer courses in African and African American history in the city's high schools. Last week, the district decreed that every high school student, beginning with September's freshman class, will be required to take a year-long course in African and African-American history. That course, tentatively slated for 10th grade, becomes one of the 23.5 units required for graduation and joins U.S. history, world history, and geography on the list of mandatory high-school social studies courses. (Nobody has said what will happen to the African-American parts of the U.S. history course or the African parts of world history. One doubts they'll be axed to make time for other topics. Maybe they'll be taught twice.)

It's a fine thing to get students to study history, the more of it the better, and African/African-American history, properly conceived and taught, is a legitimate elective course. It deserves to be on the list, along with the history of China, the history of music, the history of science, the history of Europe, art history, and more.

But should every student in a vast municipal school system, regardless of their own race or interests, be required to take this particular history course? I think not.

Philadelphia's 196,000 public-school students are 65.5 percent black. The others are 5.3 percent Asian, 14.5 percent Latino, 14.2 percent white, 0.2 percent Native American and, presumably, 0.3 percent "other." It's a characteristically mixed urban school system that early in June staged a "multicultural fair." The head of the school system's "Office of Language, Culture and the Arts" (a woman named Chin, whose deputies are named Alvarez and de la Peña) sends out "Dear Parent" letters in eight languages, including Albanian and Khmer.

Yet every pupil must now take African and African-American history.

A founding principle of the republic is protecting minorities from the excesses of majority rule. The School District of Philadelphia is majority black. Everyone else is a minority. Yet who is protecting their interests? Why are they and their heritages being discriminated against? One imagines families of Mexican, Trinidadian, Irish, Korean, and Bangladeshi backgrounds asking why the school system is "privileging" its African-American students' heritage and neglecting their own.

System officials know better. Reform Commission chairman James Nevels said, "The ideal I would love to see is a rich, diverse, textural, and contextual history of all those who make up the fabric of America."

Exactly so. But instead of insisting on that "ideal," Nevels and Vallas are yielding to Mayor Street (who appoints two of the Commission's five members) and community activists bent on "reparations" for slavery. Says the education chief of the local NAACP chapter, when asked about equal time for other ethnic groups, "None of those people came here as slaves except for African Americans. . . . The Asians came over here because they wanted to. The Hispanics, too."

What sort of course will this be? The Inquirer says the African portion was designed by a controversial Temple University professor whose , website, modestly depicts him in these words: "Molefi Kete Asante, the founding preeminent theorist of Afrocentricity, is one of the most important intellectuals at work today. His works continue his tradition of combining an extraordinary intellectual range with impressive ability to identify and clarify central issues in the current discourse on Afrocentricity, Multiculturalism, race, culture, ethnicity, and related themes."

Asante is, to say the least, an outspoken fellow who analogizes the Iraq war to Hitler's invasion of Poland and opposes African history being taught by white professors and teachers. (He likens it to Nazis teaching Holocaust history.) He is, in fact, perhaps the nation's foremost proponent of what Diane Ravitch terms "particularistic multi-culturalism," which is precisely the opposite of the "ideal" espoused by James Nevels. Until now, advocates of this approach have merely urged schools to teach children the history and culture of their own ancestors. Philadelphia is going further, saying to kids of Lao or Italian or Nicaraguan or Navajo origin that, like it or not, they must study African history--and the heck with their own.

The Inquirer says the textbook for this course will be The African American Odyssey by Darline Hine, et al. It's published by Prentice Hall (now a branch of Pearson) and sells on Amazon for $77 a copy. I haven't seen it but spent a few minutes on its companion website, which contains at least a few troubling things. For example, in the book's last chapter ("Modern Black America"), the four recommended website links take students to the home pages of Louis Farrakhan's deeply anti-Semitic Nation of Islam and Jesse Jackson's ethically challenged Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, as well as the "Million Man March" (and a page of biography that I was unable to access). See link.

Philadelphia is setting a woeful precedent. If it holds firm to this mandate, it will either anger 35 percent of its own students by ignoring their stories, perhaps driving them out of the public schools and further segregating that system. Or it will have to follow its required course in African/African-American history with scads of others, tailored to the singular histories of other groups and places. The latter is obviously impossible, at least for required courses, though plenty of scope remains for electives. The former course of action is undesirable. The last thing America needs is for its schools to foster intergroup tension and resentment. And the last lesson our children need to learn in school is that any one group commands special attention from everyone.

Philadelphia, though, seems to be slipping into the reparations habit. A municipal ordinance passed earlier this year (following Chicago's lead) requires companies doing business with the city to disclose whether they or their corporate antecedents ever profited from slavery. The next step--a bill introduced last week--will require all such firms annually to provide the city with a "statement of financial reparations," i.e., a list of investments and contributions that seek to make amends.

This is racialist politics that's bad enough in city hall. It's even worse in the public school curriculum. Voucher opponents often make alarmist predictions that schools of choice will promulgate "centric" curricula of one sort or another and we'll head toward an American version of Islamic madrassas. Could the route in that direction instead be getting mapped by the Philadelphia School District itself?

"African study plan stirs debate," by Susan Snyder and Dale Mezzacappa, Philadelphia Inquirer, June 10, 2005

"Philly's African education plan may have merit in Milwaukee," by Eugene Kane, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, June 11, 2005

"Companies' ties to slavery disclosure, not punishment," Philadelphia Inquirer, June 12, 2005

Volume 5, Number 22. June 16, 2005
Current Issue On the Web

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:00 PM 1 comments Links to this post

Heard this amazing story on National Public Radio the other day. It was such a powerful account of the Navaho Nation's own "Trail of Tears." It provides fresh meaning to the concept of sacred ground and the sacrifice of ancestors. What's particularly poignant, if not chilling, is an interrupted speech by Senator Domenici as a tribal member begins to wail during a commemoration event. William Faulkner's words come to mind: “The past is not dead. It is not even past.” Indeed, this program illustrates how the past is an open wound, about which for many, healing has only just begun. -Angela

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 5:43 PM 0 comments Links to this post

By Betty J. Sternberg / Education Week
Vol. 40, Issue 24, Pages 31-32
Published: June 15, 2005

This is from Betty J. Sternberg, the commissioner of education for the state of Connecticut. Besides challenging the federal government re: NCLB, Sternberg critiques the unethical dimensions of standardized testing. Her words: High academic honor without high ethical behavior is no honor at all. Read on.

-Angela

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 3:56 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Fourth of 7 parts

Expansion of vouchers has resulted in unprecedented level of public funding of religious education

By ALAN J. BORSUK
aborsuk@journalsentinel.com
Posted: June 14, 2005

One: On doors throughout St. Margaret Mary School, at N. 92nd St. and Capitol Drive, there are small printed signs that say: "Be it known to all who enter here that Christ is the reason for this school."

Two: More than 10,000 students - over two-thirds of the total using publicly funded vouchers to attend private schools in Milwaukee this year - were attending religious schools.

Three: Wisconsin is putting money into religious schools in Milwaukee in ways and amounts that are without match in at least the last century of American history.

It was clear to Journal Sentinel reporters who visited 106 of the 115 schools that participated in the voucher program this year that without vouchers, there would be fewer religious kindergarten through eighth-grade schools left in the city. And aside from several strong parochial high schools that serve large numbers of suburban students, there wouldn't be many high schools, either.

Almost two-thirds of students who attended private schools in the city this year did so with vouchers. Because vouchers are limited to low-income families, few of these students could have done so without them. Most of the schools are religious.

Is it a public good that religious education is so widely available in Milwaukee at no cost to low-income families?

Many say it adds to the vitality of life in the city. Some schools have played key roles in strengthening neighborhoods. Proponents also point out that there is some precedent, that the G.I. Bill gave public money to use for education, with no regard to whether a school was public or had a religious affiliation.

Others say it's not right - that public money should not be used to pay for religious schools, period.

What cannot be debated is that thousands of parents are choosing religious schools for their children because they want the influence of faith in their children's education. Voucher payments to religious schools - now running about $60 million a year - have given new life to old Catholic and Lutheran schools and brought about the creation of more than 20 Christian schools run by African-Americans and serving almost all-black student bodies.

Thirty-five Catholic schools; 12 Wisconsin Synod Lutheran schools; 11 Missouri Synod Lutheran schools; 22 other Christian schools, some affiliated with specific denominations and others not; three Muslim schools; and one Jewish school are part of the program.

The percentage of voucher students in specific schools ranges from 2% to 100%. Overall, 60% of students in Catholic kindergarten through eighth-grade schools were attending on vouchers. The figure was about 66% for both groups of Lutheran schools.

For many schools, the voucher payments are 80% to 100% of their income. That simple math, combined with shrinking congregations in many urban Catholic and Lutheran churches, leaves many principals to acknowledge that they would not exist without vouchers.

No 'strange-type' schools

June 10, 1998 was the pivotal date in the history of religious schools and the voucher program.

On that day, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that including religious schools in the program was constitutional - the first decision by any state Supreme Court upholding school vouchers.

On a 4-2 vote, the court held that as long as voucher payments were based on parents' choices of schools, paying money to religious schools was not an impermissible form of state support for religion. It also held that there shouldn't be "excessive entanglement" between the state and the schools, which, in practical terms, has meant that the state has almost no power to tell a school what should go on in its classrooms.

The U.S. Supreme Court turned down an appeal of the Wisconsin decision, in effect letting it stand, then voted 5-4 in 2002 that a similar voucher program in Cleveland was constitutional.

The voucher movement has had limited impact nationally since then.

When the doors of the Milwaukee voucher program were opened to religious schools, some critics predicted that schools practicing extreme forms of religion - "some real strange-type schools," as then-state schools superintendent John Benson put it - would open. That has not happened. The religious schools speak to the mainstream of American life, not the fringes.

If you've ever been in a Catholic or Lutheran school, chances are you'd find visiting most of those schools - and they make up half the schools in the voucher program - a familiar experience.

They are traditional in their educational programs and conservative in their approaches to behavior. Most require uniforms such as light-colored polo shirts and dark pants or skirts. Their teachers are licensed, atmospheres are structured, and they generally have small classes meeting in buildings that haven't changed much in years.

Several Lutheran and Catholic schools are moving outside the traditional mold. In some ways, they are being even more traditional. St. Marcus Lutheran, the Hope School and Hope Christian School are each Lutheran schools that are taking a highly structured, no-compromises approach to academics and behavior, including drills and homework, rigorous enforcement of rules, and a strict dress code (ties and coats for boys at Hope School).

The religious schools vary widely in how intensely they teach the faith. In many instances, such as in a large number of Catholic schools, specific religious practices are not as front-and-center as they are elsewhere. People of other Christian faiths, even non-Christians, are comfortable there.

In other cases, the religious mission of the schools is so pervasive it would be illogical for someone who does not adhere to the school's belief system to attend.

Why would someone who isn't intent on Christianity attend a school named Believers in Christ? Why would anyone who isn't an Orthodox Jew attend a school such as Yeshiva Elementary School, where students spend about half of each day in such things as Talmudic study?

The answer is, they don't, although legally they have the right to.

The voucher law permits students to "opt out" of religious education in school - a major issue when the state Supreme Court found the law constitutional. Many religious schools worried that the opt-out rule would create difficult situations in school; that was one of several reasons some schools, particularly Lutheran schools, were slow to join the program after the 1998 decision.

In reality, opting out has been a non-issue. Except for isolated instances, it doesn't happen much.

Michael Brown, principal of St. Philip Neri Catholic School, 5501 N. 68th St., said: "People are smart. They're not going to send their kids to a religious school and then opt out of religion."

He estimated that only about 10% of the school's 183 students are Catholic, but said all take part in the religious aspect of the school, including daily prayer, weekly Mass and daily religious classes.

Brown said that several years ago, a couple of non-Catholic families said they did not want their children taking part in a specific religious program and that was no problem.

Numbers still falling

Even with the rise of the voucher program, the number of students attending private schools in the city has continued to fall in recent years and is now at the lowest level in a generation or more, according to the annual census of children in the city conducted by Milwaukee Public Schools.

MPS figures show that 21,829 children 4 to 19 years old were in private schools as of June 30, 2004, down from 27,723 in June 1998 - when the state Supreme Court opened the way for religious schools to get vouchers - and 49,306 in 1967.

That was a period when the religious schools in the city were much larger and stronger, before so many congregation members moved to the suburbs. Some had classrooms of 50. It is common to walk through a parochial school today that seems like it is fairly full when a couple hundred kids are present, then to be told that 500 or more used to attend the school.

In that era, the churches paired with the schools were much stronger and able to provide almost all the support a school needed. That is rarely the case in Milwaukee now. School enrollments are down, church support is a fraction of the budget and voucher money is, in many cases, the name of the financial game for religious schools, especially in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Serving African-Americans

If the No. 1 impact of school choice when it comes to religion has been to keep Catholic and Lutheran schools going in the city, an important second impact has been to open the door to the creation of religious schools connected to African-American churches.

Visitors to Holy Redeemer Christian Academy in recent years have included President George W. Bush and basketball legend Michael Jordan. Combine that high visibility with a large, beautiful new building at W. Hampton Ave. and Mother Daniels Way (N. 35th St.), and the school, which had 309 voucher students in January, is the one many people think of first on this score.

But Holy Redeemer is part of a broader picture. More than 20 Christian schools, with more than 2,300 students using vouchers, have arisen out of African-American community churches or have been started by people who wanted to head a Christian-oriented school serving African-Americans.

It could be said that one of the signs of being a vibrant church in the black community is to have launched a school connected to your church.

• Annie Oliver worked for Milwaukee Public Schools for 26 years, including six as an assistant principal of Washington High School. She says she left when her frustrations with MPS mounted and she felt there were better ways to reach children. In 1997, Mount Zion Assembly of the Apostolic Faith, headed by Bishop Earl Parchia, opened Early View Academy of Excellence with five students and Oliver heading its education program.

She says that within three years, the school had 300 students. For the last two years, the school has operated in a former budget movie theater at 7132 W. Good Hope Road, purchased and remodeled at a cost of more than $3 million. It now has kindergarten through 10th-grade classes with about 265 students, all but a dozen or so on vouchers. Its education program includes the highly scripted Direct Instruction method of teaching reading, and textbooks for general curriculum subjects put out by a Christian publishing company.

• The influential Christian Faith Fellowship Church at W. Good Hope Road and N. 86th St. started the Darrell L. Hines Academy as a voucher school. That school became a charter school, authorized to operate by City Hall, several years ago. It had to drop religious content from its program at that time, but it remains in the same set of buildings as the church.

• King's Academy Christian School is connected to Christ the King Baptist Church, 7798 N. 60th St., headed by Pastors John and Marilyn McVicker. Now a school of 100 (with 80% of them using vouchers), it will move into a new multimillion dollar building this fall.

On the other end of the spectrum, some of the African-American religious schools are small, not connected to churches with resources, and housed in converted offices, storefronts, homes or other unconventional space. They include several schools that did not allow Journal Sentinel reporters to enter and raised some of the strongest questions about quality of any schools in the choice program.

Schools that did not allow reporters to visit include Greater Holy Temple Christian Center and Texas Bufkin Academy.

Grace Christian Academy, Sa'Rai and Zigler Upper Excellerated Academy and Dr. Brenda Noach Choice School were among those that were visited and which appeared to have substantial weaknesses in their academic programs.

High schools differ

School choice has largely been an elementary and middle school program, with fewer students at the high school level. One reason for that: While some of the best private high schools in the city consider it part of their mission to admit some low-income students, these schools are at capacity and highly competitive on admissions.

Marquette University High School and Divine Savior Holy Angels High School have capped participation at 2% of their student bodies; Pius XI High School had 236 voucher students - 18% of its student body - this year; and about 9% of Wisconsin Lutheran High's 900 students are attending on vouchers.

On the other hand, at Messmer High School, which is often spotlighted as an example of the voucher program at its best, nearly three-fourths of the 575 students attend on vouchers. St. Joan Antida High School also serves a large number of low-income students - about 63% of its 320 girls were attending on vouchers this spring.

Religion permeates content

No matter the faith of the school, the long-term goals of the religious schools are to inculcate their students with the values, morals and sometimes the specific practices that the school espouses.

Carrie Miller, principal of Mount Calvary Lutheran School, at N. 53rd and Locust streets, said she emphasizes the school's goal of making the students "Christ-like witnesses" to parents considering sending their children there.

The school wants students to learn how God wants people to act and relate to each other, and wants religion to be an element not only in specific classes on the subject but in everything done in the day, she said.

Like many other principals, she said the voucher program has allowed the church "to become even more of a mission/outreach environment."

Benjamin Clemons, principal of Risen Savior Lutheran School, 9550 W. Brown Deer Road, said, "We have an obligation to reach out to people with the word."

That worries Elliot M. Mincberg, legal director of People for the American Way, a Washington-based group that has played a leading role in opposing vouchers, especially for religious schools.

Nothing about how things have unfolded in Milwaukee changes his view that it is "a fundamental founding principle that taxpayer money should not go to support religion and religious institutions in that way."

"The reason religion is so strong in this country," he said, "is because of the careful efforts to avoid interference with religion and to avoid government promotion of religion." Vouchers threaten that in a way that people may regret 50 years from now, he said.

Like many others working in religious schools, Clemons said he uses religion in setting standards for behavior and discipline. God's word is "an extremely powerful and potent tool" for dealing with kids, he said.

In many schools, religious and non-religious content blend together in classes.

One winter morning, first-graders at Community Vision Academy, an elementary school that is part of Community Baptist Church at N. Sherman Blvd. and W. North Ave., copied down the following sentences from the blackboard as part of their writing work for the day:

"Today is Monday. Jan. 31, 2005. It is cloudy and cold. This is the last day of January. Jacob was tricked and married Leah. Jacob had to work seven more years to marry Rachel his real love."

Even when the religious content is not overt, religion should be part of everything that goes on in a school such as hers, said Brenda White, principal of St. Margaret Mary School.

"What makes Catholic schools Catholic is how strongly what they're teaching in the classrooms is connected to their mission," she said.

And clearly, that's what a large number of parents want.

Yolande Lasky, principal of Our Lady of Good Hope Catholic School, 7140 N. 41st St., asked if any families in the school resist the religious content, said, "If anything, it goes the other way."

Parents choose the school because they want religion for their kids.

From the June 15, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333800.asp

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 2:29 PM 0 comments Links to this post

More on the voucher battle here in Texas. This time in the TEXAS OBSERVER. -Angela

BY JAKE BERNSTEIN AND DAVE MANN

Rep. Carter Casteel (R-New Braunfels) stands before her colleagues to offer an amendment that could endanger her political career. “So, I’ve made a decision,” she tells them. “It may send me home.”

The Texas Legislature is usually not a place for acts of political bravery, especially of late. Three years ago, a corporate-backed GOP campaign stacked the House with legislators selected, whenever possible, to be radical ideologues pliant to special interests. Republican representatives were defined by their fear of crossing a vengeful leadership ready to marshal lobby money against them if they didn’t cooperate. In 2003, Speaker Tom Craddick (R-Midland) used his new majority to ram through a list of action items coveted by major campaign contributors. But on the evening of May 23, in the 79th Legislature, there in the House chamber, Republican moderates like Casteel did the unthinkable, they followed their conscience and their constituents instead of their speaker.

Casteel hoped to amend Senate Bill 422, an innocuous-sounding bill to reauthorize the Texas Education Agency. But tucked inside the reauthorization legislation was one of Craddick’s only priorities for the session: a pilot school voucher plan. Under the proposal, the state would siphon off $600 million in public education money to be given to select students in eight inner-city school districts as “vouchers” for private school attendance. There is no groundswell of demand for vouchers in these areas or anywhere else in Texas—even the state Republican Party has qualms—but that didn’t matter. Delivering a successful vote on vouchers in the House was Craddick’s last unpaid debt from the 2002 campaign.

Casteel, who worked as a public school teacher for 17 years, explains why she is offering an amendment that would strip the voucher plan from the bill. The 63-year-old Casteel often presents herself as a proud grandparent. It’s a standard politician’s trope that in her case is boosted by a shock of white hair and a folksy West Texas accent. Yet tonight Casteel is all fire and scalding wit, musing about her role on the floor of the Texas House and whether it’s “to represent someone who visited with me with a lot of influence and power and money” or to “represent the people in my district who called me and wrote to me.” She notes that voucher proponents are circulating an opinion piece that calls for abolishing public schools in favor of private schools. “Today’s public schools have forfeited their right to exist,” wrote David Gelernter, a computer science professor from Yale, in an article that ran in the Austin American-Statesman. “Let’s get rid of them.”

“Baloney! Baloney!” Casteel cries in response. “We have a Texas Constitution that says it’s up to us to educate public children—all children and not take money away from the public school system.”

Rep. Bob Griggs (R-North Richland Hills) approaches the back microphone for a friendly question. Griggs is a former principal and school superintendent. In many parts of rural Texas, where schools and prisons are the only economic engines, the school superintendent is one of the most powerful people in the county. As one rural House member, who wishes to remain anonymous, will say after the debate: “I could fuck a goat and my constituents might forgive me, but I could never mess with the public schools in my district.”

Griggs cups his hand to his ear. “I’m hearing a noise that resembles that suction sound,” he says. “If I could run a very successful [private] school on a minimum amount of money, it might force me out of retirement, make me a very wealthy man.” Griggs leads Casteel through all the ways private schools receiving public voucher money wouldn’t be accountable. They don’t have to be accredited. They don’t have to comply with class size limits. They don’t have to take state exams. They don’t need certified teachers. (“We’ve made [public schools] so accountable that they can’t go to the bathroom without checking five boxes,” Casteel would later say. “We’re going to give this huge money drain to private schools with no accountability, it doesn’t make sense to me.”)

Griggs muses some more about his future private school and how he’d rent a warehouse with a big play area. He’d raid the local McDonald’s for his workforce. “I might put 40, 50, 60 students with this hired babysitter—I mean this aide—that I’m going to hire at minimum wage,” he says. And don’t worry about the parents. “They are going to be very happy at my academy because we are going to win the state championship every year. I am going to spend my money hiring a great coach.”

Griggs has little to lose in taunting Craddick and his pro-voucher leadership. The 56-year-old Republican already actively bucked the speaker on a critical school finance vote earlier in the session, and his hostility to vouchers is well known. But other House Republicans, less sure, need only look to the gallery for reminders of how this institution really works. Sitting next to each other are John Colyandro and Brooke Rollins. Colyandro is the research director of the Texas Conservative Coalition Research Institute. He’s also under criminal indictment for his role as executive director of Texans for a Republican Majority, the Tom DeLay-founded PAC that helped coordinate the 2002 GOP campaign. Rollins heads the idea factory for the state’s Republican leadership, the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF). (Earlier in the day, outside the chamber coordinating the pro-voucher lobby campaign was Bill Ceverha—the former treasurer of TRMPAC—who lobbied this session without registering as required by law. Ceverha was recently hit with a $197,000 civil judgment for his role in 2002, which he plans to appeal.) And somewhere in the Capitol complex—in the speaker’s private quarters or sitting with the governor, perhaps—is the grand puppeteer of this pro-voucher push.


Multi-millionaire doctor Jim Leininger has made the creation of voucher programs in Texas—and indeed around the nation—one of his life’s passions. He gave $142,500 to TRMPAC in 2002. He’s a patron and board member of TPPF. In the 2002 election cycle he gave a total of $1.35 million, almost entirely to GOP candidates. In 2004, he gave $1.31 million. The hospital equipment magnate has also founded and funded his own voucher program in San Antonio and bankrolled a minority “grassroots” pro-voucher advocacy group (see “One Man Groundswell,” April 29, 2005). Leininger drops huge sums on House races and has a knack for maximizing his dollars while he does it. He even owns a mail house that sends out campaign flyers so he can get some of his political contributions back.

The doctor has spent some of the previous week and much of this Monday meeting with wavering Republicans in the suite of offices kept by the speaker behind the House chamber. Gov. Rick Perry and Craddick also met with members. Leininger gave Texans for Rick Perry $62,968 in 2004. The governor is going to need a lot more of that money if U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison challenges him.

A sampling of those Republicans whom Leininger talked with say the good doctor was polite and focused on policy. They say he extolled the power of the market. Competing for voucher money would force public schools to improve. He also talked about the dire needs of inner-city public schools.

Following Carter Casteel on the House floor, Rep. Rob Eissler (R-The Woodlands) presents a slightly less polished, although perhaps more revealing, version of the leadership’s position. “This bill allows for demographically challenged people to get a voucher, to get a scholarship out of a low-performing public school,” he says. “It allows market forces to shape their education.”
The sudden Republican concern for the welfare of their constituents leaves representatives from minority districts more than a little skeptical. Former principal and current Houston Democratic Rep. Alma Alan points out that the voucher would be about $7,000 and a good private school can cost upward of $26,000. Rep. Sylvester Turner (D-Houston) asks repeatedly in his sonorous voice why this “pilot project” is limited to minority districts. “I am getting a little concerned with people who are willing to impose it on others but are not willing to impose it upon themselves.”

Finally, debate is cut off. It’s time to vote on the motion to table Casteel’s amendment. Tiny green and red lights light up on the large voting boards at the front of the chamber. Craddick looks up and realizes what’s happening. “Show the chair voting aye,” he says. By tradition, the speaker rarely votes. When Craddick says those words, it is more than a vote. This issue is important to the leadership, to Craddick personally. For Republicans in the House, it’s akin to a direct order from their commander. To disobey is to risk retaliation: Your bills may no longer reach the floor; funding for a new road in your district may vanish from the state budget; or worst of all, you may find yourself with a well-funded opponent in the 2006 primary.
Craddick gavels the vote to a close. It’s a tie. The motion to table fails. The amendment is still alive.

The vote not to table Casteel’s amendment is the second tie of the evening. Passage of both the voucher bill and the amendments lined up to destroy it is uncertain. The members watch the podium and wonder what the speaker will do. He could pull down the bill temporarily, pressure a few Republicans to vote his way and bring it back when the leadership is more assured of victory. In two sessions running the House, Craddick has yet to lose on any major legislation that he heavily supported.

He opts to continue.

Legislators, Republican and Democrat, will later wonder why. Is it because he wants Leininger to see exactly who needs to be eliminated in the next primary? Is it to show his patron that he, Craddick, personally, will not falter? Or is it just inconceivable to the terse Midlander that he could lose?

Casteel returns to the microphone and moves passage of her amendment to kill vouchers. Craddick casts another vote. This time the leadership wins. The amendment is defeated by a count of 72-70, and vouchers are still in the bill. Opponents go scrambling around the House floor to find out which votes they lost. Craddick and the leadership are looking for a few more votes too and continue to barrage Republicans, including a quiet freshman from Nacogdoches.

Roy Blake has bright blue eyes and a gentle demeanor. Like many rural reps, he’s never liked vouchers, never thought government should divert money from public schools. As a GOP backbencher in this, his first session, Blake naturally is just learning how the Capitol works. He’s best known for having been mayor of Nacogdoches when the space shuttle exploded over East Texas in 2002. On this night, however, he’s in the crosshairs. Blake is asked into the back hall for a meeting in the speaker’s office with Craddick’s chief of staff Nancy Fisher to pressure him to change his vote. He and his constituents abhor vouchers. But the House leadership and the party’s small collection of campaign moneymen could easily run a well-funded primary opponent against Blake that would unseat him or send him into debt.

A few minutes later, Blake walks back onto the floor looking a little dazed. Charlie Geren, a moderate Republican from Fort Worth and a leading voucher opponent, intercepts him, “You okay, Roy? Are you okay?” Blake nods wearily.

Geren is called away. His amendment to SB 422 is up next. He and other voucher opponents have spent months crafting and honing their amendments in anticipation of this floor fight. Geren’s amendment is just an empty shell, it doesn’t affect the bill. He comes to the microphone with a surprise. He has an amendment to his amendment, one that voucher supporters have not seen yet, that he will substitute for his original amendment. It gives the House leadership a taste of its own medicine.

Geren’s amendment would remove the Dallas and Fort Worth school districts from the proposed voucher pilot program and replace them with Arlington and Irving. The choices aren’t random. Arlington is Education Chairman and chief voucher cheerleader Kent Grusendorf’s district. Irving is home to Republican Linda Harper-Brown, who also sponsored the voucher proposal.

If vouchers are such a great idea, let’s try it in Grusendorf’s and Harper-Brown’s districts, argues Geren. He’s already surveyed a swath of pro-voucher Republicans, who told him they don’t object to the idea. Geren also knows that the Arlington and Irving school districts bleed into the districts of Republicans Ray Allen and Toby Goodman, both of whom may vote against the voucher plan if it will take money from their schools. “All I did was swap the districts so the authors of the bill could participate in the bill,” Geren says from the front microphone.

Grusendorf opposes the amendment, and moves to table it. Five pro-voucher Republicans flip to support Geren’s amendment. Grusendorf’s motion fails by a relatively resounding 76-67. An excited buzz rings through the House. It’s a huge defeat for the leadership. A team of lawmakers gathers in front of the dais to deliberate with Craddick about what to do. After five minutes, the conference breaks up, and Grusendorf announces he will accept Geren’s amendment. It goes into the bill without a vote. But the damage to Craddick’s cause has been done.

As luck would have it, the next amendment is another by Geren. (Geren and Casteel would later note that the order of the amendments favored their cause.) It would still allow school choice, Geren explains to his colleagues, but students could choose only among public schools. “It just takes private out,” Geren says, his eyes twinkling. “It still creates this competition which seems so important… still maintains choice.”

Grusendorf is plain in his opposition; a vote for Geren’s amendment will kill vouchers this session. When Geren returns to the microphone to urge passage, he quotes from the state GOP platform: “[Vouchers] can only be considered upon passage of a state constitutional amendment that prohibits imposition of state regulation on private and parochial schools.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this [bill] isn’t anything about a constitutional amendment.”

The vote begins. The House floor is silent as everyone stares at the even number of green and red lights springing to life on the giant boards. Craddick looks glum. A columnist from the Waco Herald Tribune will later describe the speaker appearing as if he “had swallowed a cobra.”

“There being 74 ayes and 70 nays, the amendment is adopted,” Craddick says flatly. Vouchers are out. Just as Geren thought, Ray Allen and Toby Goodman vote to gut vouchers from the bill rather than have it include their school districts.

But the leadership makes one final, desperate play. Grusendorf walks to the front microphone and moves to pull the bill down. There is still time to twist a few more arms and bring the bill back up. Before he can finish, Houston Democratic Rep. Senfronia Thompson darts to the front of the podium and snatches the microphone away. As she bends it back toward her, Thompson shouts, “Mr. Speaker! I call a point of order against this bill.”

Craddick overrules her point of order—a procedural weapon to kill bills on technicalities—that in this case would have killed the entire calendar of bills. But it’s over. Four minutes later, Craddick sustains another point of order, raised hours ago, that he had yet to rule on. It sinks SB 422 and vouchers with it.

In GOP circles, there’s little doubt that some of the rural Republicans who defied their leadership will find themselves fending off primary opponents funded by Leininger. Rural Republicans who voted with the leadership in defiance of their constituents might also find opposition in the primary from their public school community. Sixteen of these weak-willed Republicans lamely tried to explain away their pro-voucher votes with a statement placed in the House journal the next day. They wrote about an amendment—never offered—that would have ensured that no funds from rural school districts would be spent on the voucher pilot program. Their constituents might fall for this argument in 2006, but on May 23, Rep. Casteel and the other fighting moderates didn’t.

“If you think there are two or three pots of money up here I want you to show them to me,” she scolded her fellow Republicans.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:24 PM 1 comments Links to this post

Thu, Jun. 16, 2005

A school privatization effort in Chester Upland ends in disappointment and doubt.

By Dale Mezzacappa/ Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer


Edison Schools Inc. will leave the Chester Upland School District this month with losses the company puts at $30 million and modest improvements in student achievement, having failed in its effort to show that a private company could rescue such a troubled urban district.

It leaves in its wake a disappointed community, vexing questions for policymakers over what to do next, and doubts about privatization - one of the key strategies of the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The state-imposed partnership was troubled from the start. Edison shared authority with a wary district administration, and lost crucial support in the community when it could not deliver on its lofty promises. From the beginning, Edison said it lacked accurate information on what it could expect from the district.

"It may be erroneous to assume it is easy to turn around achievement in public schools simply by changing management structures," said Chad d'Entremont, assistant director for the National Center for the Study of Privatization in Education at Columbia University's Teachers College.

Chris Whittle, Edison's founder and president, said he believed that privatization can work and that Chester is an anomaly.

"I don't think anyone, us or the state, fully understood the extent of Chester's financial plight," Whittle said.

Edison's losses consist of $8.6 million in infrastructure investments, such as wiring and computers, and more than $20 million in operating costs, Edison officials said. Edison said it is still owed $2.2 million in fees.

Chester Upland has a decades-long history of problems.

In deep debt, it was declared fiscally distressed and taken over by the state in 1994. In 2000, the legislature passed the Education Empowerment Act targeting low-performing districts; for Chester Upland, it meant an immediate takeover and privatization.

The partnership, pushed by the state onto a reluctant district, had too many problems, Whittle said. A more cooperative partnership could have worked better, he said, pointing to Edison's records in Philadelphia, where it operates 20 schools, and Baltimore, where it operates three. Philadelphia, encouraged by Edison's progress, recently awarded the company control of two additional schools.

Thomas Persing, a member of the Board of Control that hired Edison, agrees that the hybrid administrative arrangement and confused lines of authority in Chester made Edison's job tougher.

"I would think that if there ever is going to be a school district that is going to be totally run by an organization such as Edison, it has to take complete control of the district, everything," he said.

Within 90 days of starting to run the schools - on Sept. 11, 2001 - Edison knew it faced heavy losses, said Richard O'Neill, the company's top-ranking official in Chester. He said financial records and enrollment projections from the district were not accurate.

The company decided to stay because Chester provided one of the nation's first examples of a state's taking over a district and employing a company to fix it, O'Neill said.

"If you look at state intervention as a line of new business, it had strategic value, and we were prepared to take financial losses as well as to honor the original spirit of the five-year engagement," he said.

Persing, chairman of the Board of Control at the time, said he found it hard to believe Edison lost as much money as it says. He also denied that the district somehow misled Edison about enrollment.

"We gave them the numbers that were enrolled in the district schools, we gave them the numbers enrolled in the charter schools," he said. "Their contention was that when they put together their wonderful curriculum, they would bring back kids from charters and parochial schools. They thought students would flock back, but it didn't happen."

Many were rooting for Edison to succeed.

"It was my personal hope that they would use Chester as a laboratory," said Charles Gray, a community activist who was on the Board of Control that brought the company in. "Give it a couple of years here, they could have turned this district around and taken it to market, to larger districts around the country."

Gov. Tom Ridge and other legislative leaders, unwilling to simply pour more state aid into an impoverished district, hoped that Chester Upland would be a shining example of the value of private management. And the people of Chester Upland hoped the experiment would provide them with the things they and their children did not have: state-of-the-art technology, small classes, better trained teachers.

All of those hopes were dashed.

"Edison had promised it would offer a second language starting in elementary school, they promised technology for those who didn't have technology in the home; that never happened," said Portia West, who initially opposed privatization but later spoke up for Edison. "They made promises they didn't keep."

Still, she said, "I loved the curriculum that they had. My daughter did extremely well in fourth grade when Edison came in."

In hindsight, too many things went wrong.

"The district controlled too many things that were directly related to instruction for us to be successful: personnel, security, maintenance, technology," O'Neill said. It could hire and fire teachers, and many of them declined to attend company-run professional development sessions.

The three-member Board of Control that ran the district had wanted competition for school management and initially awarded contracts to three companies after each had made presentations at community meetings.

But when the dust settled, Edison bought out one of the companies, Learn Now, while the other, Mosaica, pulled out.

As a result, both sides agree, the board and the district administration came to regard Edison as an adversary, not a partner in improving learning. Things got so bad, Edison officials said, that maintenance workers refused to move books and materials from storage rooms to classrooms.

Juan Baughn, who grew up in Chester, worked for Learn Now and then became Edison's first chief operating officer, said, "The community felt that Edison came in arrogantly. I also think that people would have been much more receptive if Mosaica and Learn Now had still been a part of the picture. I think they saw it as Big Brother bullying the little kids."

Founded by Whittle in 1992 as a private company, Edison went public in 1999. But its stock price plummeted after the company received a contract in Philadelphia that was not as large as expected, and Whittle and the stockholders took it private in November 2003.

Mark Jackson, an analyst for EduVentures Inc., said Edison's losses in Chester do not "put Edison at risk financially."

Since going private, he said, the company had done well by diversifying services and products it offers to districts.

"The expectations for profit in whole-school management that existed in the [privatization] movement... is not nearly as attractive as it was in the early days," he said. "It's laden with obstacles."

Chester Upland is searching for a new superintendent and school principals, even as it tries to deal with a charter school population that is still growing.

Edison's chief supporter in Chester Upland, former Pennsylvania Education Secretary Charles Zogby, said he was disappointed.

"Bringing in a management company, I thought we'd be bringing in the necessary capacity to really operate the schools as they needed to be. Obviously, not all of it went according to plan."

What will work in Chester now? "That's a good question, I truly don't know," Zogby said.

Contact staff writer Dale Mezzacappa at 215-854-5112 or dmezzacappa@phillynews.com.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/living/education/11904706.htm

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:19 PM 0 comments Links to this post

Go to the NPR website to hear this most recent report on undocumented immigrants in the U.S. -Angela

Study Details Lives of Illegal Immigrants in U.S.
by Carrie Kahn 
 
Areas of Origin
According to a new report from the Pew Hispanic Center, an estimated 10.3 million illegal immigrants lived in the United States as of March 2004. The majority are from Mexico and other Latin American countries. Source: Pew Hispanic Center
 
Dispersal in the U.S.

In the past, the U.S. foreign-born population was highly concentrated. Since the '90s, the most rapid growth in the immigrant population -- both illegal and legal -- has occurred in areas where they were previously a relatively small presence. Source: Pew Hispanic Center
 
Family Life

An estimated 6.3 million illegal immigrant families lived in the United States in 2004. A significant share had "mixed status": One or more parent was illegal, while one or more child was a U.S. citizen by birth. Source: Pew Hispanic Center
 

 
 
Read the Full Report

'Unauthorized Migrants: Numbers and Characteristics'

 

 
All Things Considered, June 14, 2005 · More than 10 million illegal immigrants are thought to live in the United States. The overwhelming majority are Hispanic; most are from Mexico. A new report from the Pew Hispanic Center examines where and how these undocumented immigrants live and work.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Among the key findings:
-- Most illegal immigrants live in families where the adults are undocumented, but the children are U.S.-born. An estimated 13.9 million people -- including 4.7 million children -- live in families in which the head of household or the spouse is an unauthorized immigrant.

-- Illegal immigrants continue to outpace the number of legal immigrants -- a trend that's held steady since the 1990s. While the undocumented continue to concentrate in places with existing large communities of Hispanics, they are also increasingly settling throughout the rest of the country.

-- Among the U.S. states experiencing the greatest growth in illegal immigrant population are Arizona, North Carolina, Utah, Colorado and Idaho -- places not traditionally considered centers of illegal immigrant communities.

-- Illegal immigrants arriving in recent years tend to have more education than those who've been in the country a decade or more. A quarter has at least some college education. Nonetheless, undocumented immigrants as a group are less educated than other sections of the U.S. population: 49 percent haven't completed high school, compared with 9 percent of native-born Americans and 25 percent of legal immigrants.

-- Illegal immigrants can be found working in many sectors of the U.S. economy. About 3 percent work in agriculture; 33 percent have jobs in service industries; and substantial numbers can be found in construction and related occupations (16 percent) and in production, installation and repair (17 percent).

-- Illegal immigrants have lower incomes than both legal immigrants and native-born Americans, but earnings do increase somewhat the longer an individual is in the country.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 1:11 PM 0 comments Links to this post

A message from the National Council de la Raza. -Angela

Take Action!

Marie Gonzalez has lived in this country since she was five years old.  She was on the track and tennis teams in high school, volunteered for her community and church, and graduated with honors.  In spite of her accomplishments and contributions, she is facing deportation – she and her family must leave the United States by July 5.

Every year, 65,000 immigrant students find themselves in situations like Marie’s.  Even though they have grown up in this country and met the same educational requirements as their native-born classmates, these students face serious limitations to realizing their dreams.

Under our broken immigration system, immigrant students like Marie have no way to adjust their immigration status.  Without legal status, doors to higher education, the workforce, and ultimately a full and productive future are closed to these students.  

Fortunately, Senators Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Richard Durbin (D-IL) created a bill called the “Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors” (DREAM) Act, and introduced it in the last Congress. 

The DREAM Act would change the dire situation that immigrant students find themselves in by:

* Paving a road to legalization for immigrant students that meet certain requirements, and

* Returning to states the right to extend in-state tuition relief to immigrant students regardless of their immigration status.

This bill had bipartisan support, was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee, and could have passed the entire Senate.  Unfortunately, the Senate never had the opportunity to vote on the DREAM Act.  Therefore, it must be reintroduced this year.

Reintroducing the DREAM Act and allowing the Senate to vote on and pass this bill would enable immigrant students to go to college, become citizens, and give back to this country, their home.  The DREAM Act may not be passed in time to help Marie, but it will help the thousands of students like her.  We cannot afford to lose another Marie.

Please help Marie and support the DREAM Act by:

1) Sending a letter to Senator Hatch, encouraging him to reintroduce the “DREAM Act,” by clicking here.

2) Signing an online petition supporting immigration relief for Marie by  click on this link.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:22 AM 0 comments Links to this post

More on choice in Milwaukee. Third of 7 parts. -Angela

Word-of-mouth, small classes count more than test scores

By SARAH CARR /Milwuakee Journal-Sentinal

scarr@journalsentinel.com

June 13, 2005

Ashli Cobbs (far left) and her eighth-grade classmates stand on their chairs at St. Marcus Lutheran School as part of a class exercise in changing perspectives. Ashli, a former underachiever, and her mother, Margaret Cobbs, say St. Marcus has given Ashli a new perspective on education.

Anthony, a fourth-grader, has attention deficit disorder, and Amaechi worried he would have difficulty learning in a traditional public school. So she enrolled him last fall in Louis Tucker Academy, a private school in the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program.

Amaechi chose Louis Tucker after a school employee approached her with a brochure promising licensed teachers and smaller classes. "I thought smaller class settings would make it easier for him to learn," she said. "At Lancaster (Elementary School) there were 20-some kids in one class."

Like Amaechi, parents selecting choice schools for their children sometimes are not making selections based on extensive research. Their choices are based on gut feelings and word-of-mouth. Something clicks for them, and it can be as simple as a uniform requirement, a kind exchange with a school staff person, or the fact that their sister's kids, or the children of their neighbor's brother, attend the school.

Thousands of parents are seeking - and finding - schools they believe are safer, better environments for their kids. But the informal nature of the school search process also means parents are less likely to spot troubled schools, or pull their kids from them immediately. As a result, weaker schools in the choice program manage to survive - in some cases, even thrive.

Even the staunchest advocates of school choice admit today that the marketplace theory, which held that parents would pull their kids out of bad schools, or not choose them to begin with, did not pan out.

"The reality is that it hasn't worked like we thought it would in theory," said Howard Fuller, head of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning, at Marquette University. "I don't think anyone that is truthful can say that has occurred."

This winter Louis Tucker collapsed in dramatic fashion after state officials who oversee the choice program called on the district attorney to investigate the school for possible fraud.

Amaechi is trying to pick up the pieces. She and another mother are suing a teacher at the school and the woman who ran it, Bertha Collier, claiming the teacher assaulted their sons and the school did not respond adequately. Collier declared bankruptcy shortly after hearing of the lawsuit. Her bankruptcy lawyer did not return repeated calls seeking comment.

Little formal marketing

In 1989, then-Wisconsin Gov. Tommy G. Thompson told a White House policy conference that he wanted a law that would allow any low-income child in Milwaukee to attend any public or non-sectarian school in Milwaukee County.

"Competition breeds accountability," he said. "Under the concept of parental choice, schools would be held accountable for their students' performance. Schools providing a high-quality education would flourish. Schools failing to meet the needs of their students would not be able to compete and, in effect, would go out of business."

The theory was nifty. Reality has proved messier.

Dolores Cooper, whose daughter is a junior at Messmer High School, heard about the school from a friend. Marvia Auffant home-schooled her kids until the children's step-grandmother told her about Blyden Delany Academy. Anthony Sprewer, who sends two of his kids to Believers in Christ Christian Academy, chose the school where most of his nieces and nephews already went. "It's a family affair," he said.

Of the 106 schools visited for this Journal Sentinel series on the choice program, surprisingly few reported extensive marketing efforts. Instead, school administrators said they relied predominantly on more informal strategies. "The best thing is word-of-mouth," said Paul Hohl, the principal at St. Sebastian School at 1747 N. 54th St. "We used to have a one-day open house. But that seems to be a dying breed."

Parents of all income levels tend to rely on informal networks when picking schools, said Paul Teske, a professor in the graduate school of public affairs at the University of Colorado-Denver. They talk to relatives, friends, co-workers, and people at church.

"The reality of the school search process for most parents, of all income levels, involves a lot more shortcuts than I might have thought about when I started to research this," said Teske, co-author of the book "Choosing Schools."

But networks of high-income parents more often include people who are informed when it comes to school and education issues, Teske added. They are more likely to know and talk with teachers, PTA members, and those familiar with education policies.

In the end, nearly everyone feels safer at a school that comes recommended by someone they trust. "Partly, it's just psychological attachment issues," Teske said. "If you know a teacher or a person you like at a school, you get a feeling of social attachment."

Smaller classes

Selena Buchanan worried that her child would be seen and understood as a file rather than a real person in an urban school district like MPS. "I like calling a school where they recognize my voice, and know these are my children," she said. Her children attend Blyden Delany, a small school in the choice program.

Many parents with students at private schools in the choice program said they felt lost in the public school system. In many cases, they sought out small class sizes, close-knit school communities, and a values- or religious-based curriculum in Milwaukee's network of private schools.

Few parents interviewed for this article mentioned factors such as accreditation, teacher background or graduation rates as the basis for their choices.

Yet most low-income parents say they want information about teacher qualifications, student achievement and curriculum, according to a study by the Public Policy Forum, a local non-profit research organization. The problem, the study found, is that the parents did not actually request or receive that information before making their decision.

"Parents want to make choices based on measurable facets of school quality," said Anneliese Dickman, a senior researcher at the forum. "But they are not getting that information, and therefore make a choice based on something else. Unfortunately, what's troubling about that is you really don't know if your choice has been a good one or not until you have invested a lot of time in your child's life in a school."

In interviews, parents repeatedly mentioned the small class sizes and close-knit school communities available at some private schools.

"With MPS, a lot of the classes are real large," said Marie Jacqué, whose 15-year-old son attended Academic Solutions Center for Learning, a choice school that closed during the winter after experiencing a series of problems. Her son now attends Messmer High School, a Catholic school. "What I like about choice and private schools is the classes aren't as big. The teacher has a chance to get around to most of the kids."

Buchanan likes the close-knit community at Blyden Delany. The school is Afrocentric, meaning the curriculum is rooted in lessons about African and African-American art, culture and history.

"If something was to happen to my son or someone else's child, you are more concerned because you know that other mother," she said. "You have that in an alternative school. You have that village."

Rating performance

You also have an emotional attachment, which can lead to a blindness of sorts.

"Parents at all income levels, on average, tend to like their child's school, kind of unreasonably sometimes," Teske said. "The majority of parents don't know that their school is low performing, if that is the case."

It's even tougher to know with schools in the choice program, where information about demographics or test scores isn't a click away - as it is on the public school Web site - and sometimes isn't available at all.

Dickman recalled one phone call she received from a mother who had enrolled her son in a new school after someone knocked on her door and pitched the school by reporting that there was a pizza party going on there. "She had never set foot in the place or talked to anyone who worked there. . . . And, then, at the end of the school year, she was upset by her son's grades."

Dorothy Smith was one of a small number of parents interviewed for this article who chose a school in response to a formal advertisement. Twelve years ago, the mother, foster mother and grandmother of several children was driving when she heard a radio ad for a Milwaukee private school called Marva Collins.

Smith revered the famed educator, who earned a national reputation after starting a central-city Chicago school in 1975. As quickly as she could, Smith turned the car around and drove to the school. She later enrolled her kids.

Today, Smith still has children at the school - although it is now a charter school called Milwaukee College Preparatory - as well as at Messmer High School and LaBrew Troopers Military University School. She's done her best to pick schools suited for each of her kids. Her foster daughter at LaBrew, for instance, has some behavioral problems, and Smith chose the school for its tough-love approach and discipline. "Some kids need a little more umph than other kids," she says.

She is pleased with Milwaukee College Preparatory and Messmer but has some concerns about the academics at LaBrew - which she regularly shares with the principal, who knows all of her worries.

"If you see a problem, don't just sit there," Smith said.

Amaechi, whose son attended Louis Tucker, learned this the hard way.

She said her son had several different teachers in his year at Louis Tucker, and that not all of them were "licensed and certified" as the school had promised. When she visited the school, Amaechi said the staff would not let her visit classrooms.

Anthony is now a fourth-grader at Willowglen Academy, a private school, where Amaechi said he is finally making progress.

"They let you know each day about your children's activities," she said. "They send home a sheet which you have to sign and send back. That way you are aware what is going on."

From the June 14, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333502.asp

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:51 PM 0 comments Links to this post

This sounds worth keeping track of—how vouchers have fared in Milwaukee, WI. -Angela

First in a seven-day series

How is Milwaukee's experiment to expand school choice for low-income students faring 15 years later?

By ALAN J. BORSUK AND SARAH CARR
scarr@journalsentinel.com

Posted: June 11, 2005

Now 15 years old, Milwaukee's school choice program is very much like a teenager - heartwarmingly good at times, disturbingly bad at others, and the subject of myths, misunderstandings and ignorance, even by the adults entrusted with its welfare.

Sixth-grader Kumasi Allen reads from “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” at Blyden Delany Academy in April. The Afrocentric school at 2466 W. McKinley Ave., is one of 115 schools in Milwaukee’s voucher program for low-income students, which began in 1990 and expanded in 1998 with the addition of religious schools.

Part One
15 years later: Lessons from the voucher schools
The Good: Some positive impressions
The Bad: Some questionable scenes
No visits: 9 voucher schools deny requests for classroom visits
Research: Voucher performance information is scarce
Elsewhere: Few states offer vouchers
Glossary: Choice terms to know
History: Timeline

Choice Facts
Who can enroll: In general - there are exceptions - students who live in the city of Milwaukee and whose families meet income guidelines - $28,492 for a household of three or $40,056 for a household of five, to give two examples from the 2005-'06 guidelines published by the state Department of Public Instruction.
Which schools can participate: Any private schools in the city of Milwaukee, including religious schools. They must meet an increased list of rules mostly related to business and finance issues.
How many participants: As of the official attendance count in January, 13,978 students.
Amount paid per student: This year, $5,943 per student or the actual cost of educating a child, whichever is lower.
Total payments by the state to schools: $83,034,407 (unaudited, expected total).

The Series
Sunday: Many popular assumptions about Milwaukee's school choice program are flawed - and sometimes, flat-out wrong.
Monday: Opening a voucher school is easy. Creating a good one? Much harder. That's why there is an increasing emphasis on accountability.
Tuesday: Parents pick schools for a slew of reasons, some having more to do with word-of-mouth than academic quality.
Wednesday: The breadth and depth of publicly funded religious education in Milwaukee as a result of the voucher program is without precedent.
Thursday: The influx of voucher students is challenging Catholic schools to re-examine their identity.
Friday: Marcia Spector's schools are stretching the notion of public education.
Saturday: Fifteen years on, three schools that helped define the choice movement in Milwaukee are doing it again.

The Reporters
Alan J. Borsuk: Borsuk has been a reporter and editor for The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1972. He has reported on education since 1996. Borsuk has played volunteer leadership roles in three schools his children attended. He also was a leader in founding a parochial school in Milwaukee in 1989 that later - after his involvement had ended - became part of the voucher program.

Sarah Carr: Carr joined the Journal Sentinel as an education reporter in 2002. She worked at The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Cape Cod Times, The Berkshire Eagle and The Charlotte Observer.

Leonard Sykes Jr.: Sykes has been a reporter, editor and urban affairs writer for The Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel since 1986. He has covered city hall, county government, crime and general assignment for the newspaper, and in 2001, he began reporting on urban affairs.

Online Extras
CHAT: Journal Sentinel reporters Alan J. Borsuk, Sarah Carr and Leonard Sykes will chat at noon Wednesday. Post a Question

DIRECTORY: Later this summer, the Journal Sentinel will post a detailed set of observations made during our visits to 106 of the schools in the program.
Choice Program

Enrollment and Payment History - 1990-2004

And like a teenager, it remains - for all its familiarity - a bit of a mystery. Few people, even state officials, know what is going on inside all 115 schools in the program.

Over the last five months, the Journal Sentinel attempted to visit each school and find out. In visits to 106 schools, the newspaper focused not on politics and court battles, but on the classrooms themselves - the experiences of the nearly 14,000 students now served by choice schools at a cost this year to taxpayers of $83 million.

Fifteen years ago, state government created in Milwaukee the biggest lab in the United States for one of the nation's most provocative education ideas: giving low-income parents the chance to send their children to private schools using "vouchers" to pay school costs. Eight years later, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program expanded dramatically, and religious schools of every kind were made available to those parents.

Those visits, along with dozens of interviews with parents, students, teachers, principals, administrators and academics, revealed that many of the popular conceptions and politically motivated depictions of the program are incomplete and, in some cases, flat-out wrong.

The Journal Sentinel found that:

• The voucher schools feel, and look, surprisingly like schools in the Milwaukee Public Schools district. Both MPS and the voucher schools are struggling in the same battle to educate low-income, minority students.

• About 10% of the choice schools demonstrate alarming deficiencies. The collapse of four schools and the state's limited ability to take action against others have led to some agreement on the need for increased oversight to help shut down bad schools.

• The voucher program has brought some fresh energy to the mission of educating low-income youth in the city by fostering and financially supporting several very strong schools that might not exist otherwise. There are at least as many excellent schools as alarming ones.

• The amount of taxpayer money going to pay for religious education in Milwaukee has no parallel in the last century of American life. About 70% of the students in the program attend religious schools. Religion guides the choices that parents make, and the curriculum that a majority of schools choose, and has led to a network of dozens of independent church schools led by African-American ministers throughout the city.

• The choice program regenerated parochial schools in the city, including dozens of Catholic and Lutheran schools, which were experiencing declining enrollment. Overall, it has preserved the status quo in terms of schooling options in the city more than it has offered a range of new, innovative or distinctive schools.

• Parental choice by itself does not assure quality. Some parents pick bad schools - and keep their children in them long after it is clear the schools are failing. This has allowed some of the weakest schools in the program to remain in business.

• There is no evidence that voucher schools have "creamed" the best students from Milwaukee Public Schools, an early concern expressed by some critics. Except for the fact that the public schools are obligated to serve all special education students, the kids in the voucher program appear have the same backgrounds - and bring the same problems - as those in the public schools.

• Creating a new school through the choice program is easier than most people expected. Creating a good new school is harder than most thought it would be.

Dorothy Smith, a mother, grandmother, foster mother and adoptive mother, has seen many different stripes of the program over the last 10 years. She has enrolled several kids in choice schools, as well as MPS schools. She stresses above all else the importance of parents getting into the schools to see for themselves what they have to offer.

"A lot of time information is sugarcoated," she said. "For me, the best way to find out is to go and see for yourself."

Indeed, the Journal Sentinel found that too much of the political debate over vouchers is divorced from what's going on in classrooms. With the exception of the element of religion, it's the same story that's being played out in urban classrooms across America - a story of poverty, limited resources, poor leadership and broken families.

Many people pit school choice and the Milwaukee Public Schools against each other, emphasizing the differences, suggesting that one must fail for the other to succeed. But more than many politicians and educators realize - or some would care to admit - the challenges of school choice are the challenges of Milwaukee Public Schools.

Some of the articles in this series will touch on what makes the voucher schools unique. But the heart of the series will address the more universal challenges of educating urban, low-income youth, including the struggle to shut down the worst schools, improve the mediocre ones, and create more of the best.

Preserving private schools

What school best reflects the realities of the voucher program?

Is it Eastbrook Academy, where elementary school students learn Latin, where top-notch student work fills the hallways and where the principal, Julie Loomis, draws on her years on the staff of blue-blooded Brookfield Academy to set similar expectations for central-city kids?

Is it Grace Christian Academy, located in a dimly lighted, rented space in the basement of a church? Here, school leaders say they have developed their own curriculum, but one staff member said privately that there is none. When a reporter visited, many of the bookshelves were empty and students completed worksheets downloaded from an Internet site. Only one of four teachers on the staff has a teaching credential. The principal, Reginald Armstrong, said the founder of Grace Christian is a "very godly woman" who had a vision she should start a school.

Or is it St. Adalbert Catholic School, a century-old school, a once all-Polish but now all-Latino program, where a traditional curriculum is taught by fully licensed teachers in a crowded, bubblingly energetic atmosphere?

The answer may well be the third option. The principal effect of choice has been more to preserve the city's private schools, many of them Lutheran and Catholic ones, than to create schools that innovate or reform. Simply going by the numbers, more than half of the students in the program attend Catholic and Lutheran schools that operate in time-tested ways and rarely attract outside attention. Add in other religious schools, and nearly three-quarters of the students in the program attend religious institutions of learning.

Many of the schools feature drill-oriented instruction in math, a heavy reliance on phonics in reading, strict discipline codes and uniforms. More scarce are experimental or "student-centered" approaches.

The voucher program has led to the creation of more than 50 new private schools in the city, and those schools offer examples of both the best and the worst of the program.

The range includes Notre Dame Middle School, an all-girls program on the south side, where the expectations are high and the students often meet them. At Notre Dame, the teachers and administrators work with the predominantly Latina students and families even after they graduate, trying to make sure they make it through high school and on to college. But the range also includes the Academy of Excellence Preparatory School, where reporters found only one administrator and two students the day they visited. The trio was about to leave for McDonald's.

Based on firsthand observations and other reporting, Journal Sentinel reporters concluded that at least 10 of the 106 schools they visited appeared to lack the ability, resources, knowledge or will to offer children even a mediocre education. Most of these were led by individuals who had little to no background in running schools and had no resources other than the state payments.

Nine other schools would not allow reporters to observe their work. The quality of several of those has been questioned by educators and policy-makers outside the schools who are familiar with their operations.

Uphill climb to success

Even major advocates for the program say they did not realize 15 years ago how hard it was to start good schools from scratch.

Consider CEO Leadership Academy, a high school finishing its first year. It has strong support from an influential group of ministers. The school has been given expert advice on how to create both educational and business operations; it benefited from financial boosts to get started; and it is housed in a beautiful new wing of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, 2433 W. Roosevelt Drive.

But Denise Pitchford, a former assistant principal in Milwaukee Public Schools who heads the school, says the first year has been a struggle. Many of the school's 60-plus students came to the school years behind in their basic abilities. Catching up became the top priority.

Instead of diving into project-based learning as they had hoped, teachers had to return to the basics. In one English class this last winter, 15 students tried to label different types of sentences as declarative, interrogative, or exclamatory. In a religion class, the teacher reviewed the story of Adam and Eve. Although the academics started slowly, attendance has been strong, at about 96%.

"We see sparks," Pitchford sad. "We see kids actually want to be here."

Building on what has been started at CEO is one matter. Cracking down on schools that didn't start with the strengths of CEO - sometimes to startling degrees - is another challenge altogether.

Sa'Rai Nance was a teacher's aide when she says she heard from God that she should open a school. But, judging by the lack of a curriculum and structure at Sa'Rai and Zigler Upper Excellerated Academy, the charge appears to have come with few details about how she could do that successfully.

A big surprise has been the ease with which new schools, some poorly prepared, are able to join the program, said David Prothero, the director of Catholic education for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. "We never saw that coming," he noted, adding that recent efforts to put the worst schools out of business are good, but "about eight years too late."

The issue came to the forefront last year when the now-defunct Mandella School of Science and Math turned into a public catastrophe after the owner over-reported students and used state dollars to buy two Mercedes-Benz automobiles. He is currently trying to withdraw a guilty plea made earlier this year in the case.

The Department of Public Instruction, which oversees the program, is working toward a much tighter system of financial regulations, including more extensive audits. The theory is that schools with financial problems are more likely to be troubled in other areas as well, including educationally, said Tony Evers, the deputy state superintendent.

For the most part, the school choice community supports increased financial regulation. Staff at School Choice Wisconsin even took the step of doing background checks last winter on 50 new school proposals, in an effort to alert state officials to potential problems.

Sense of family

One core idea behind vouchers - that parents could be counted on to pick a strong school for their children or pull their kids from the worst - has not proved uniformly true. Some parents continue to send children to weak schools.

Alex's Academics of Excellence, a school started by a convicted rapist, continued to enroll students even after facing two evictions, allegations of drug use by staff on school grounds, and an investigation by the district attorney.

Four of the worst schools have closed - Alex's, Mandella, Academic Solutions Center for Learning and Louis Tucker Academy. But the closures were the result of outside intervention or financial malfeasance, not parents voting with their feet.

Interviews with dozens of parents made it apparent that families pick schools in idiosyncratic, unexpected and misunderstood ways.

Above all else, parents appear to be looking for a feeling of community and safety.

They might trade off trained teachers for small class sizes. Or geographic proximity for a feeling of intimacy. Or overall academic success for a school their child likes.

Some seek a smaller school after struggling against what they perceive as an impersonal bureaucracy at Milwaukee Public Schools. They might desire education in a particular religious community, or simply among people they feel comfortable around.

Nicole Franklin, a parent and teacher at Blyden Delany Academy, an Afrocentric school, said, "When there's a 'situation' it's like a big family here. It really feels good working with people who feel comfortable with you, who are coming from your world."

Often, the families - and some of the school founders themselves - appeared to be motivated more by a dissatisfaction and personal frustration with MPS than anything else.

Indeed, the students at the vast majority of these schools are not high achievers from the public schools. Early critics of the program charged that the schools would "cream" the best and brightest from MPS. While a very small number of schools in the choice program draw more motivated students, and choice schools are not obligated to serve special-education students, many of the schools serve large numbers of at-risk students or even specialize in students who have struggled in MPS.

Of the parents interviewed for this series, many more had children who were struggling than soaring in public schools.

Embracing religion

If any single factor distinguishes the families and parents at the choice schools from those in MPS, it is religion. Students in the choice program pray together in class. They read the Bible, the Qur'an or the Torah. They attend Mass. Most schools report that even students from families outside of their faith accept - and seek out - religion as part of education.

"I wanted (my granddaughter) to get a Catholic education," said Dolores Cooper, a Baptist whose granddaughter, also named Dolores, attends Messmer High School. "It teaches values."

At Dr. Brenda Noach Choice School, middle school students recently were watching Mel Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ." Pastor Charles Ewing, who runs the school's daily operations, explained afterward that the school, and its curriculum, are centered on God.

On one recent Friday afternoon at Salam School, a Muslim school on the city's south side, the students gathered for a schoolwide prayer service. The girls all wore light-blue scarves covering their heads; rows of sneakers lined the walls of the room. Kneeling on carpets spread across the gym floor, the children listened as an imam prayed: "Allah make us better Muslims; Allah make us proud Muslims."

Not only has choice fostered religious start-ups like Ewing's school, it has preserved many of the existing religious schools in the city.

Some, such as Messmer High School, where Dolores Cooper's granddaughter attends, have embraced a new mission, educating a largely non-Catholic student body in a Catholic tradition. Others are uncertain whether they will try to retain their identity as parish schools, serving predominantly Catholic pupils, or stake out a new role.

To Kenneth Marton, the principal of Christ Memorial Lutheran school, choice means one thing above all else: "We can continue our mission to bring Jesus Christ, evangelize, work with the students."

Assessing the broader impact of choice - the effect it has had on the lives of the thousands of students who have participated, and on the quality of education in the city overall - is a trickier task.

There has been almost no research using fresh data about the performance of students in voucher schools since 1995, when the state Legislature dropped a requirement that there be an annual performance report on the schools.

Nor have the voucher schools provided a real solution to the problems confronting inner-city youth.

Howard Fuller, the former MPS superintendent who is the most prominent advocate of the voucher program, argues that school choice has prompted some talented educators to open schools and given low-income families a chance to make the private schooling choice that wealthier families have always had.

But Martin Carnoy, a Stanford University professor who has been critical of vouchers, says: "I don't see what the big impact of all of this was. Milwaukee's on the map as having done this. Not many other places jumped on the bandwagon, and I think the reason is they don't see anything spectacular and terrific happening. Basically, they can live without it."

There is a case to be made that the voucher schools have had a positive effect on the Milwaukee Public Schools as a whole, but it is anecdotal and strongly subject to opinion.

There are signs that the performance of MPS students on standardized tests has improved, and that a sense of reform has taken hold in MPS, as shown by the work of the current and most recent school superintendents, William Andrekopoulos and Spence Korte.

Others argue that the voucher program has drained resources and attention from MPS and crimped efforts to advance the far greater number of students - more than 85,000 - who still attend the main body of MPS schools.

The biggest impact of choice may be intangible. It opened the door for the spread of other forms of school choice, including charter schools, which have taken innovative paths and have been growing rapidly in enrollment. The voucher movement elicited soul-searching among educators as to the definition, and nature, of a public school.

When the state created the Milwaukee voucher program, nothing like it existed in the U.S. It was a blank slate, an opportunity for both parents and school operators to do things that hadn't been done before.

As Paul Hill, chairman of the National Working Commission on Choice in K-12 Education, a Brookings Institution effort, wrote in 2003, " 'Choice' does not educate anyone. Choice is not a teacher, a classroom or an instructional resource. If choice affects what students learn, it works indirectly, by leading to changes in what students experience, read and hear."

After 15 years, the slate is no longer blank. Some that has been written on it has been good; some of it bad. It is unfortunate, then, that the debates about the program often seem removed from the real dynamics that play out in classrooms each day.

It is in the city's classrooms that common ground, and a common cause, can be found.

Leonard Sykes Jr. of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

From the June 12, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333144.asp

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:40 PM 0 comments Links to this post

More school choice. Second of 7 parts, from the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal. -Angela

It's tougher to assess the quality of a voucher school than an open one

By ALAN BORSUK AND SARAH CARR
scarr@journalsentinel.com

Posted: June 12, 2005

Chris Lawrence’s fifth-grade class plays a game of football during recess in the alley behind the Clara Mohammed School, 317 W. Wright St. Because the school does not have a playground, the children play in the alley supervised by a teacher. Along with the normal school curriculum, the Muslim-based school teaches children the Arabic language.

Part Two
Accountability: It's tougher to assess quality of voucher school
Success: How a church built a thriving voucher school

She asked, " 'A shelter?' He said, 'No, a school.' "

A school it was.

Cliff is Clifford Zigler. He worked as a teacher at Louis Tucker. He agreed to open a school with Nance.

And so Sa'Rai and Zigler Upper Excellerated Academy opened last fall in rented space at St. Patrick's Congregation, 1115 S. 7th St., a worn school building well over a century old, partly modernized but still subpar by today's standards.

The rules of the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program make it easy to open a school. Regulators have limited influence over how a school operates. Supporters say the freedom to open a school is a key to improving education in Milwaukee for the better; critics say it leads to bad education and wasted public money.

Key voucher supporters admit there are a small number of schools operating in Milwaukee that ought not to exist. Four voucher schools have closed in the last 18 months, each under pressure from regulators or legal authorities, each beset by questions about quality. One was Louis Tucker.

Journal Sentinel reporters visited 106 of the remaining 115 schools this spring to see what kind of education programs they were operating. The remaining nine did not allow reporters to observe. The large majority of those visited were either conventional parochial schools, with professional staff and clear, well-executed academic programs, or newer schools, both religious and non-religious, some of them very good, some of them mediocre.

But it was also clear that there were about 10 to 15 schools where professionalism appeared lacking, facilities were not good, and the overall operation appeared alarming when it came to the basic matter of educating children. And the quality of several of the nine schools that did not allow visits has been questioned by voucher school experts who are familiar with their operations.

Limited teaching tools

The Sa'Rai and Zigler school is not run by people grounded in school operations. Zigler is administrator of the school. Nance is principal. According to the state Department of Public Instruction, Zigler has an expired license as a substitute teacher. He said he has taught and worked as a security guard in schools in Chicago and Milwaukee. Nance said she has worked as a teacher's aide in Chicago and Milwaukee and is a certified reading tutor.

Is it a problem that she doesn't have a teaching license and is principal? "It's not a problem at all. . . . It's not necessary," she said.

Zigler said, "All you need to do is to have common sense, good communication skills and work with people."

Nance said: "It's all about heart anyway. . . . You have to love children and make sure they have what they need."

As for the school's name, "Upper" refers to "the upper room where Jesus prayed," Nance said. She said "Excellerated" is "short for anything that starts with excel." Zigler said it's a fusion word combining accelerated and excellent. Nance added, "It's spelled wrong on purpose."

Eighty students attended the school as of the official attendance day in January. They were in kindergarten through eighth grade and all were supported by vouchers. The school received $414,524 in voucher payments this year, according to the Department of Public Instruction.

On an afternoon in March, fewer than 50 students appeared to be present. There were almost no signs of student work in any classroom or in the hallways. Most rooms had few textbooks or other reading material. "We have what they need," Nance said, but she added they could use more.

In a combined third- and fourth-grade class, 11 students were present. The teacher was drilling students on multiplication facts. Four times six, four times eight - they were supposed to master facts up to 13 times 13. He called on them individually. An hour later, the math drills were still under way. On a wall was a poster set up to mark progress by students as they completed assignments. There were 21 names on the chart. No entries had been made in three months.

In a combined first- and second-grade classroom, the teacher was drawing animals such as a kangaroo and an alligator on a marker board, using letters as parts of the animals. The students copied what she did.

In a seventh- and eighth-grade classroom, Nance talked to eight students about who should win upcoming student awards. The kids laughed as she suggested some students who might win. A student showed Nance a paper he put together on the beating of Frank Jude Jr., allegedly by off-duty Milwaukee police officers. It consisted of newspaper photos and what appeared to be a hand-copied, word-for-word repetition of what a newspaper story said.

On a doorway, a sign said, "Please keep gym door closed at all times. No exceptions. Thank you. Administrations (sic)." The door was open throughout the afternoon.

Accountability at issue

You don't need any credentials to open a voucher school. Your teachers don't need any, either. You don't need to meet any detailed standards of educational progress or performance. You can hold school in just about any place, as long as you can get an occupancy permit from the city building inspector.

Basically, all you need to run a voucher school is a building, parents who are willing to enroll their kids and the ability to meet the administrative rules of the state Department of Public Instruction.

"I believe there are about 10 schools that ought to be closed immediately and there are about 30 schools that are consistently worthy of children's intelligence and parents' commitment and support," said Robert Pavlik, director of the School Design and Development Center at Marquette University's Institute for the Transformation of Learning. The rest, he said, are in the middle.

The institute, headed by former Milwaukee Public Schools Superintendent Howard Fuller, is a major supporter of the voucher movement. It has found itself in the unexpected position in recent years of working hard to keep many potential voucher school operators from actually opening schools, even as it works to help a couple of dozen to get better.

In the meantime, DPI regulators have been working to strengthen their hand in dealing with problem schools. Barred from taking on educational aspects of voucher schools, they have focused on administrative and financial issues.

Deputy State School Superintendent Tony Evers said that regulators assume that problems in a school's business operations are often accompanied by problems in its educational program.

Although they still have strongly divergent views on what kind of accountability systems there ought to be, DPI officials and leading advocates of voucher schools have cooperated to a greater degree in the last couple of years than in the past to give the state more tools to go after problems in voucher schools. Many voucher school leaders have been stung by the low quality of some schools in the program and want to see problems cleaned up.

Strong boards

In an interview, Fuller was asked what he knew now about opening schools that he didn't know in 1990, when the contemporary voucher movement was launched in Milwaukee.

"I don't think I understood how hard it is to create a really good school," he said. He used to think having people who are totally committed to a school and who care deeply was enough to make a difference. Now he thinks those qualities are necessary, but not sufficient.

He said much more needs to be done to develop both the academic and business operations of schools. Many schools are underfunded even for routine operations. And he suggests that things which may be necessary to succeed with low-income, central-city children - such as evening and weekend classes, and summer school - are being done only in a small number of schools in Milwaukee, public or private.

Pavlik said one of the common characteristics of weak schools is the absence of a meaningful board of directors that can support the work of the principal and provide checks against mistakes.

It also is clear that the problems in the voucher movement are not due only to well-intentioned people falling short. The use of state money by David Seppeh, founder of the Mandella School of Science and Math, to buy himself two Mercedes-Benz cars has become a lasting and embarrassing symbol of how some school operators have not put students first.

Seppeh is currently trying to withdraw his earlier guilty plea to stealing more than $300,000 from the state.

A leading critic of the voucher schools, Stan Johnson, president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state teachers union, said the lack of accountability in the school choice program and the lack of information about how individual schools are doing means that almost nothing can be concluded about what the program has accomplished after 15 years.

Johnson said: "I'm sure there are some wonderful things that go on in those schools, but how can anyone say that, except for anecdotal information, because they do not take the same tests that we take in public schools."

Check to check

What can you do with $6,000?

The amount of money paid in the voucher program, up to $5,943 per student this year, is enough to pay for modest to slightly better than modest school operations if it's used well, many school administrators indicated. And there appeared to be little reason, in general, to think schools were not using their money to pay for just that - schooling - especially given the state's stronger financial oversight.

Kenneth Marton, principal of 84-student Christ Memorial Lutheran School at 5719 N. Teutonia Ave., said the school has enough money to be financially stable, but only by offering "not too many bells and whistles, a very good basic, generic education." The building and classroom observations support his description.

He said even some of his colleagues who head Lutheran schools outside the city assume he is rolling in money because of school choice. "We're still struggling, choice payment to choice payment," he said.

The state voucher payments are not linked to what a school charges in tuition but are intended to reflect the actual cost of educating a child.

Some of the choice schools visited by the Journal Sentinel were clearly short on money.

At LaBrew Troopers Military University School, which was housed this year in a former Catholic high school downtown, children in one classroom were working with the lights off when reporters visited. The daylight coming in through windows was adequate, but the principal, Shirley McCarty, said the school was so short of money that it needed to get by with the lights out to hold down utility bills.

Some schools that are dependent on vouchers have cash-flow problems because the state pays them only four times a year. In some cases, staff paychecks have been held up until the voucher checks arrive.

Lower pay, benefits

Few, if any, choice schools offer their staffs pay and benefits on par with MPS.

In many schools visited by the Journal Sentinel, it was clear that if finances are limited, the way to work it out has not been to pay a small number of teachers well, but to pay a larger number of teachers lower wages, sometimes below $10 an hour, to keep class sizes down.

Many parents sending their children to voucher schools are making a choice - perhaps knowingly - to put their children in smaller, more personalized classes in exchange for teachers who do not have much background in education.

In the more established schools, the ability of teachers is less in question. The Catholic schools generally insist on teachers who are licensed by the state. Lutheran schools also generally use teachers who are licensed.

Five voucher schools, including Hickman Academy Preparatory School and Noah's Ark Preparatory, are working to obtain Wisconsin Religious and Independent Schools Accreditation (WRISA), which includes setting standards for teaching credentials. More than 30 schools, most of them Catholic, have that accreditation.

Seven parochial high schools that have voucher students and two kindergarten through eighth grade schools in the program have accreditation from the North Central Association Commission on Accreditation, the most widely recognized accrediting body.

Some Lutheran schools in the voucher program are accredited through organizations within the church's synod.

Many schools - about half of those in the program - do not have accreditation from an outside body.

Catholic schools typically aim to pay 80% of what public school salaries are, but the gap widens as teachers become more experienced. Fringe benefits, especially health insurance, fall far short of the packages most public school teachers have.

In schools that depend entirely on choice money, the gaps in pay, benefits and teacher quality appear to only grow.

'Just baby-sitting'

There are schools where even brief observations of classrooms left strong and troubling impressions about the quality of the teaching.

In some cases, voucher schools are really only a step up from day care centers, serving only very young children.

For example, reporters tried to visit the Academy of Excellence Preparatory School twice, each time finding a large, empty classroom in the back of the Parklawn YMCA on the north side. The classroom appeared unused, with few books or toys in sight.

On a third visit, the school's principal, Joe Nixon, said she kept the supplies in a back room. On that day, she had only two students. The school said it had seven choice students on the January student count date. The two students, a 4-year-old and a 5-year-old, were drawing. Nixon said she was getting ready to take them on a field trip to McDonald's.

At Milwaukee School of Choice, the teachers and principal, Michael Hutchinson, did not appear to have a well-developed curriculum. The school, at 5211 W. Hampton Ave., has only 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten students, and works in collaboration with Milwaukee Multicultural Academy. Hutchinson, in his first year as principal, was vague on the goals and teaching approach.

"It's a lot of just baby-sitting," he said. "We try to teach them the fundamentals of pretty much every subject."

At Carter's Christian Academy, 3936 W. Fond du Lac Ave., which is new to the choice program this year, James Carter, who runs the tiny school with his wife, said in February that the highest-paid teacher at the school makes $8 an hour.

"The amount we get from the DPI is not enough to pay staff, utilities and for a building," Carter said. Since the enrollment at the school is so small - 14 kids in 4- and 5-year-old kindergarten - the school works with a small amount of revenue.

The two tiny classrooms have only bare-bones furniture. There are no toys in sight, and few books or other educational materials.

"The curriculum that we have is so basic that someone with just a high school diploma is able to teach it," Carter said.

Shoestring buildings

Schools operating on shoestrings are often operating in shoestring buildings.

Churches generally provide a school they are connected to with a facility, whether it is an older, unfancy building such as the one used by St. Philip's Lutheran School at 3012 N. Holton St., or a first-rate new building, such as the one King's Academy Christian School connected to Christ the King Baptist Church, 7798 N. 60th St., will move into this fall.

And some schools have succeeded in attracting the support of major philanthropists.

Without such support, schools become much rockier financially, and particularly appear to lack resources to pay for decent buildings - a situation made worse if they choose to use their limited funds to pay for such things as busing to school, which many choice schools offer. As a result, many schools bend the traditional notion of what a school looks like - at least from the outside.

D.J. Perkins Academy of Excellence, a first-year school with 25 students in kindergarten through third grade, is on the second floor of a small building at 3622 W. Silver Spring Drive, with a vacuum cleaner shop and hair salon on the first floor. The classrooms were formerly used as offices for a doctor, a dentist and a lawn service. Some are cramped. Getting to the principal's office requires going through the combined second- and third-grade class; only a partial wall separates the lunchroom and the first-grade classroom.

Dr. Brenda Noach Choice School has perhaps the most unlikely location of any school in Milwaukee - it's in the Milwaukee County War Memorial Center, connected to the Milwaukee Art Museum. The school rents several classrooms on the ground level of the north side of the building - space that is windowless, cramped and unattractive - plus two upper-floor classrooms that are spacious, well-lighted and offer gorgeous views of Lake Michigan.

Does bad space make for a bad school? Not necessarily. Community Vision Academy, a school connected to Community Baptist Church, has classes in buildings on all four corners of W. North Ave. and N. Sherman Blvd., including some in the basement of the church itself. It also has kindergarten operations on both floors of a duplex across the street, which means 4- and 5-year-olds are often led across North Ave. to get lunch.

But the staff members are mostly retired MPS teachers who appear to be providing a strong, religious-oriented program in a capable manner. The school is working to get everyone under one roof by September.

Different testing

Critics of the voucher program point frequently to the fact that the voucher schools do not need to follow the state's educational goals and do not need to take the state's standardized tests each year. Public schools are required not only to administer tests but to release detailed reports on results.

Almost every school that reporters visited reported that students take standardized tests each year. In many cases, school officials provided reporters with summaries of student performance, sometimes in detail.

"We believe in testing, totally, absolutely," said Julie Loomis, principal of Eastbrook Academy, 5375 N. Green Bay Ave. She said students at the school tested overall at the 91st percentile on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills.

But given that different tests are used - many private schools use the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills, not the tests used by public schools - no meaningful comparison of test scores was feasible even when data was presented.

Catholic schools, in particular, appear to be headed toward more participation in the state testing system and more openness with test results. The Milwaukee Archdiocese has asked all schools with eighth-grade students to take the same tests that public school eighth-graders take, and that may expand to include fourth-graders. Most Catholic schools were willing to share some or all of their schoolwide test scores with reporters.

In broad terms, most of the scores provided by Catholic and Lutheran schools appeared to be in the ballpark of scores in Milwaukee Public Schools, especially when the socioeconomics of the schools' student bodies were comparable.

No research has been done using data on student performance in voucher schools since 1995, when a state requirement for an annual research report ended. There have been efforts in the state Legislature to launch new research, but they have faltered amid highly partisan politics. Voucher program backers are close to agreement with researchers from Georgetown University to undertake a privately funded, long-term study of the voucher program.

Weeding out applicants

Pavlik, of the pro-voucher institute at Marquette, said he has worked in recent years with 184 people who were planning to open schools. Only 41 schools have actually opened, he said, which he took as a good thing.

More than 50 new schools or potential schools have applied to join the voucher program for next year, which could swell the number of schools to more than 170. But that won't happen. The DPI's Evers expects that come fall, fewer than 20 new schools will be in operation.

Susan Mitchell, a leading advocate of the voucher program, said she hopes many of the applicants don't succeed in opening schools because of their lack of qualifications.

Partners Advancing Values in Education, a private, non-profit organization that has provided scholarships, grants and other services involving voucher schools for more than a decade, declines to give money to some schools because of similar concerns. Executive Director Dan McKinley recently told the group's board that he believes about 10% of choice schools have serious quality issues.Whatever happens in the state Legislature in regard to the size, regulation and funding of the voucher program, it is clear that it will not be as easy in the future to open a school as it has been or to keep a weak school going.

As for Sa'Rai and Zigler Upper Excellerated Academy, more than a half-dozen calls to the school on different days since June 1 have been answered by a recording that urges applicants to file enrollment applications for this fall by Feb. 20. No one has responded to messages left on the answering machine. A secretary at St. Patrick's, the school's landlord, says the church is trying to get in touch with the school's owners to find out the status of the school.

In March, Sa'Rai Nance said her goal was to expand the school eventually to include a high school. But first, it must make it to September.

Leonard Sykes Jr. of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

From the June 13, 2005, editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
http://www.jsonline.com/news/metro/jun05/333336.asp

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:59 AM 0 comments Links to this post

June 7, 2005 | Volume 3 | Number 12
Public and Private Schools’ Performance: Does Governance Matter?

The Question
Does a difference in school governance (public versus private) result in a difference in students’ achievement?

The Context
Researchers and activists have long debated the different effects of school governance on student achievement. Some studies have purportedly found that students in private schools significantly outperform their public school counterparts. In fact, much of the argument for market reforms in education—including vouchers and charter schools—revolves around the assumption that private governance results in higher student achievement at similar (or lower) cost when compared to public governance. As highlighted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank that advocates for market-based education reform, as far back as 1981 research by James Coleman suggested that private school students performed much better than their public school counterparts.

Research on voucher programs—which are reliant on such governance assumptions—remains mixed, however (see ResearchBrief, Volume 1, Number 6), and some researchers have argued that once student background traits are taken into account, the difference in achievement between public and private school students virtually vanishes. In effect, these researchers say, the difference in achievement may have little to do with how a school is funded and governed; rather, it may be an artifact of other variables, including student socioeconomic status (SES), parental education, community support, or peer group characteristics.1  The study highlighted in this ResearchBrief adds to the research base focusing on public versus private school governance, using a particularly powerful measure for determining the effects of SES variables on student achievement.

The Details
Sarah and Christopher Lubienski conducted the study highlighted in this issue of ResearchBrief (see below for full citation). The study was actually the by-product of a larger research project the authors were conducting using National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data from the year 2000 to study issues related to mathematics instruction and equity. As they were analyzing the data for the larger study, they unexpectedly found that public school students seemed to outperform their private school counterparts in mathematics, once SES variables were held constant. As a result, the authors embarked on a more detailed analysis of the data to explore the strength of their initial findings.

The National Assessment of Educational Progress is a nationally representative assessment of student academic performance. In this case, the authors used data from the NAEP assessment for mathematics in grades 4 and 8. The 4th grade sample comprised more than 13,000 students in 385 public schools and 222 private schools; more than 15,000 students in 383 public and 357 private schools were included in the 8th grade sample.

The authors created a measure of SES by combining student responses to a number of questions on a survey administered as part of NAEP. Previous research on SES has tended to focus on the number of students in free and reduced-price lunch programs, but the authors felt there was an opportunity to create a richer measure of SES by combining multiple measures that prior research has associated with poverty. At the 8th grade level, the authors used student responses to eight items to create their measure:

* Types of reading material in students’ homes (newspapers, magazines, books, and encyclopedias)

* Computer access at home
* Internet access at home
* Extent to which studies are discussed at home
* Free and reduced-price lunch eligibility
* Title I eligibility
* Mother’s education level
* Father’s education level


The composite measure for 4th grade students did not include the parent education item, because that information was not collected from 4th grade students in 2000. Most of the measures were based on student self-reports, but the authors obtained school lunch and Title I eligibility information from school records. After creating this measure, the authors split the population into four quartiles representing low to high SES. As has been the case with previous SES measures, there was a higher proportion of white students in the high SES groupings and a higher proportion of black students in the low SES groupings. Finally, to create a measure that emphasized the schoolwide and individual effects of SES, the authors combined the student-level SES data with two school-level items: the percentage of students eligible for school lunch programs and the percentage of students qualifying for Title I services (for this school-level variable, the authors emphasized school lunch participation over Title I participation because of variation in defining eligibility for Title I services).
Once the SES variable was created, the authors compared the performance of students in public and private schools on the mathematics assessment in NAEP. As a whole, students in private schools outperformed students in public schools; however, private schools also tended to have many more high SES students than did the public schools. To find out whether the high SES population of the private schools was skewing the average, the authors analyzed performance by quartile (low SES, low–mid SES, mid–high SES, and high SES). When broken into SES subgroups, the researchers found Simpson’s Paradox at work. At each level—low SES through high SES—the researchers found that students in public schools slightly outscored their private school peers.

The Bottom Line
When the mathematics performance of students in public and private schools was compared while controlling for individual and school-level socioeconomic status, students in public schools were found to outperform their private school peers at each SES level: low SES, low–mid SES, mid–high SES, and high SES.

Who’s Affected?
Students in public and private schools at the 4th and 8th grades were the focus of this study.

Caveats
The researchers noted that because the SES data are based largely on self-reports and represent only the 2000 administration of the NAEP, the correlation between SES and achievement may not be causal. In addition, because the researchers focused only on mathematics achievement, this study indicates little about achievement in other subjects. Although the SES measure the authors created is based on a set of characteristics associated with a low SES, each component is not necessarily associated with only SES (for example, although research suggests that low SES children are less likely to have computer access at home, not all children without a computer at home are low SES).

The Study
Lubienski, S., & Lubienski, C. (2005). A new look at public and private schools: Student background and mathematics achievement. Phi Delta Kappan, 86(9), 696. Retrieved May 15, 2005, from http://www.pdkintl.org/kappan/k_v86/k0505lub.htm. (Note: Some of the details in this ResearchBrief were found in the larger study of NAEP conducted by the authors, Reform-oriented mathematics instruction, achievement, and equity: Examinations of race and SES in 2000 main NAEP data.)

Other Resources

Voucher Effects Revisited. ResearchBrief 1(6)

Simpson’s Paradox and Other Statistical Mysteries. American School Board Journal

Endnote

1  This is not to say that schools have no impact on student achievement. If school-level practices were similar across all schools (e.g., teachers use similar pedagogy, teach similar content, and work through similar structures—such as individual grade levels, subject-specific classes, and similar contact time), then differences in achievement based on academic variables would be hard to track. Instead, measures where there is variation (such as SES) would become more apparent.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 7:57 PM 0 comments Links to this post

As Education Committee Chair of this organization, I want to not only post this legislative report but also reiterate the importance of coalitions for legislative success. Moreover, I applaud Ana and Erick for their extraordinary leadership this session, as well as the UT LULAC Longhorn Council, generally. All of these young people inspire the hope that the next generation will indeed keep the world on track.

B/4 getting too comfortable though, check out the other post titled, "Call the Governor," to let him know what you think about bills on his desk. Hope all are having a good Sunday. -Angela

79th Legislative Session Summary for Texas LULAC
by Ana Yanez-Correa, LULAC’s Legislative Liaison to the Southwest
and Erick Fajardo, UT LULAC Longhorn Council

If it can happen in Texas….

Coalition building, grass roots organizing and strategic planning produce legislative results in Texas

The 140-day-long 79th Texas Legislative Session included a multitude of debates over legislation that could have had potentially devastating effects on the citizens of Texas, particularly the state’s Latino population. At the beginning, however, there was hope that the climate at the capitol would reflect a change this time around.

But with each new bill filed, it became clear that the proposed pieces of legislation would leave advocates working “damage control” on critical areas of policy, such as education. Issues like criminal justice, on the other hand, seemed to be in an ideal position for advocates to take a proactive approach on creating change in Texas.

Coalition Building and Bipartisanship

In a hostile environment, organizations who advocate for change must make lemonade out of lemons. An effective tool utilized throughout the legislative session was the art of coalition building. In a historical joint effort, Texas LULAC and the Texas State Branches of the NAACP headed to the capitol to seek real change for concerns that affect the collective communities. LULAC and NAACP young adults gathered with over a hundred of their adult counterparts to meet with their legislators during the LULAC & NAACP Legislative Mobilization Day. As that day would come to demonstrate,the courage and strength of its organizational members is directly responsible for LULAC’s successes in Texas.

As mentioned above, “damage control” and other preventive measures were needed in several areas of state policy, specifically when it came to issues concerning education and immigration. With the help of United Farm Workers, People for the American Way, the ACLU, the Intercultural Development Research Association, the Center for Public Policy Priorities, MALDEF, and thousands of grass roots activists, Texas LULAC volunteer legislative liaisons acted swiftly when it came time to block potentially detrimental legislation from passing. Such harmful measures included several proposals to implement a private school vouchers program; a bill that would have prohibited the use of a matricula consular as a valid form of identification; several proposals to either undo or cap the Top Ten Percent Plan; over 100 bills that would have enhanced certain low level misdemeanors to the category of felony; and a bill that would have allowed the State Board of Education to omit certain historical facts from high school textbooks.

But civil rights groups like LULAC were not alone in their struggle. Groups from all over the state headed to the capitol to obtain support from state legislators to address reforms for outlined issues with the state’s criminal justice system. These groups advocated for improvement of community conditions through effective policy solutions. Together, a group of unlikely coalition partners, including ministers, civil rights groups, and formerly incarcerated persons made an impact on public opinion and Texas legislators. These groups included Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, Restorative Justice Ministries Network, Winner’s Circle Peer Support Network, Mothers (Fathers) for the Advancement of Social Systems, the Ministry Advisory Council, Texas Inmate Families Association, 2000 Roses, and Texas Justice Network and many others.

House Bill 2193 was written to focus the state's resources on the most dangerous offenders while giving judges more discretion to place nonviolent offenders in treatment and community supervision. HB 2193 makes sure people on probation have positive incentives to earn back their rights through good conduct, while freeing up millions for public schools, healthcare and drug treatment. It also gives back to judges the authority and duty to determine who should get probation, what the conditions of supervision should be and when and how supervision should be ended.

In addition to refurbishing the probation system, LULAC, NAACP, ACLU, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) and the National Rifle Association (NRA) strove toward a common purpose to formulate legislative proposals that would further protect Texans’ fourth amendment rights – the right to be free of unlawful searches and seizures. The collective work of coalition members at both the capitol and the grassroots level ultimately contributed to the passage of SB 1195.

Advocacy groups over the years had learned that many Texans do not realize that they have the right to say ‘no’ to a consent search. As a result, they are consenting to searches in instances where officers have no legal basis for conducting a search. But more importantly, it became apparent that these “no cause” searches have been wasting tax dollars. In fact, Texas data reveals that nearly 90% of these searches do not expose any wrongdoing, while in the meantime other crimes go unsolved. Many jurisdictions have already banned consent searches, thereby shifting their officers’ focus towards criminal behavior – and, in effect, shifting their time and energy away from inefficient and ineffective policing practices. Though SB 1195 would not ban consent searches, the bill would require police officers to obtain written consent before searching a vehicle – allowing citizens to learn of their rights before being searched.

Another piece of legislation that was years in the making and made it through this session was HB 3152, a bill addressing the inequities in the court system for the indigent. It is no secret Texas courts are disproportionately punitive to low-income individuals, especially for those unable to pay for an attorney. In over half of Texas counties, fewer than 10% of defendants facing possible imprisonment receive their appointed counsel. Unfortunately, it is not unusual for prosecutors or judges to encourage a defendant to enter an uncounseled plea, despite that defendant’s request for appointed counsel. Such clear violations of constitutional law create the risk that warranted convictions might be overturned because they were illegally obtained. In the end, every defendant facing imprisonment should have access to counsel. Without the protected right to an attorney in Texas, families are harmed, public confidence in the criminal justice system is undermined, and taxpayers waste money on repeated trials and wrongful incarcerations.

These bills that represent a major correction in Texas criminal justice policy are a positive step forward. HB 2193, HB 3152, and SB 1195 now await a decision from Texas Governor, Rick Perry.

The Success of Activism

The support and activism of our organizational members in Texas inspired our legislators to create policy that makes Texas a better place. Beyond legislative victories, it is important to note that the coalition building that successfully occurred in Texas can serve as a model for others to use. This strategy can have a boundless impact on the on going struggle to advocate for change and can be used as a national model.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:41 AM 3 comments Links to this post

June 11, 2005

Leg. Summary - Support Needed
League of United Latin American Citizens

79th Legislative Session Summary

We ask that each and every one of you examine this list and call (800) 252-9600 or (512) 463-2000 also, fax letters to Governor Perry (fax: 512-463-1849) urging him to do the right thing. Your involvement could swing the balance toward Texas becoming a more just and hospitable place for families and communities of color. Don't waste a minute!

BILLS WE SUPPORT

· HB 2193: It costs about $2 per day to supervise non-violent offenders on probation, compared to $40 per day to incarcerate them. Our prisons are full, and Texas can't afford to continue its "lock-em up" policies. HB 2193 passed the House and Senate with unprecedented bipartisan support. If passed, it will provide significant improvements for community-based alternatives to imprisonment like the early discharge incentive, more effective lengths of probation, more flexible probation conditions, progressive sanction programs, and more effective deferred adjudication.

· SB 1195: In Texas, a series of court decisions have weakened drivers' Fourth Amendment rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, especially at traffic stops. SB 1195 would require Texas peace officers to obtain written consent before searching vehicles at traffic stops. Aside from being unjustified and intrusive, consent searches are seldom fruitful. A preliminary review of contraband findings as a result of consent searches (derived from Texas racial profiling data) indicates that little contraband is being found. This suggests that consent searches are an ineffective and inefficient use of law enforcement resources.

· HB 3152: Current law provides that a person accused of a crime is entitled to be represented by an attorney. A defendant may waive the right to counsel, but that waiver is valid only if it is knowingly and voluntarily made. Although current law recognizes the right to counsel, it does not adequately or expressly prohibit some long-standing practices utilized in Texas that produce invalid waivers of counsel. It does not forbid prosecutorial and judicial practices that tend to produce invalid waivers and that jeopardize the finality of criminal convictions obtained subject to such waivers. H.B. 3152 will ensure that waivers of the right to counsel are validly obtained.

· HB1239: Funding from the federal Byrne Grant has been used to fund unscrupulous and unethical drug task forces that have caused internationally renowned scandals in places like Tulia and Hearne, Texas as well as many other towns throughout the Lone Star State. Instead of using this money to put more people in jail each year, the grant funds can be better spent on productive programs that STOP crime such as programs to combat domestic violence and other violent crimes, rehabilitation programs and drug courts.

HB 1239 would disallow funding from the Byrne grant program for drug task forces--which would save Texas taxpayers millions this biennium and millions in the next biennium. It would also free up over $22 million in Byrne Grant money for more productive social uses.


BILLS WE OPPOSSE
· HB 2 and HB 3 both failed but there could be a special session on this issue: There is still time to weigh in on this highest-profile issue facing the legislature. From the beginning, we have argued that the approach taken to school finance by the 79th Legislature has failed on a number of fronts: by not genuinely increasing funding, by taking equity out of the system, by exposing school children to a new battery of discriminatory standardized tests, by eliminating funding weights for bilingual and compensatory education programs, by not setting aside a dedicated funding source for facilities, and by shifting the burden of paying for education to the poorest Texans through the use of regressive sales taxes. Please remind Gov. Perry that the Texas Constitution requires that any system of school funding be equitable, stable, and flexible enough to adapt to changing needs. House Bills 2 and 3 fail to live up to that standard.

· SB 6: While lauded as one of the "successes" of the legislative session, SB 6, which endeavors to reform CPRS (Child Protective and Regulatory Services), does not include language that deals specifically with the disturbing trend of minority children being removed from their homes at substantially greater rate than white children, nor with the problem of psychotropic drugs being heavily over-prescribed. This is a major piece of legislation that will have far-reaching effects, and in its current form does not contain any strong anti-discrimination language.


League of United Latin American Citizens



National President
Hector Flores

Executive Director
Brent A. Wilkes

(Letter also signed by previous national president, current national officers, as well as current state directors and officers.)

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 9:12 AM 0 comments Links to this post

I somehow missed this very important post. This was written by the son of a colleague in Ohio who was not allowed to graduate because of his opposition to high-stakes testing. This was tough for his father as his Dad is the principal of his school. Of course, they discussed all of this over and over and I'm pleased to see just how, in the final analysis, it was a question of conscience that the father—as his parent—supported as well.

John, BTW, is going to be fine. He'll be attending a private university in the fall. Note the comments by Susan Ohanion and Carol Holst below.

-Angela

Sunday was my high-school graduation. However, despite being ranked
sixth in my class, I did not cross the stage or receive a diploma. I did
not drop out at the last minute and I was not expelled. I didn't
graduate because I refused to take the Ohio Proficiency Tests.

I did this because I believe these high-stakes tests (which are required
for graduation) are biased, irrelevant and unnecessary.

The bias of these tests is demonstrated by Ohio's own statistics. They
show consistently that schools with high numbers of low-income and/or
minority students score lower on state tests. It is argued (in defense
of testing) that this is not the test's fault, that the scores are only
a reflection of the deeper social economic injustices. This is very
likely true. What makes the test biased is the fact that the state does
little or nothing to compensate for the differences that the students
experience outside the classroom.

In fact, the state only worsens the situation with its funding system.
Ohio's archaic school-funding system underfunds schools in poorer areas
because it is based on property taxes. The way we fund our schools has
been declared unconstitutional four times, and yet the state Legislature
refuses to fix the problem.

The irrelevance of these tests is also demonstrated by state
statistics -- in this case, the lack of them. In 13 years of testing,
Ohio has failed to conduct any studies linking scores on the proficiency
test to college acceptance rates, college grades, income levels,
incarceration rates, dropout rates, scores on military recruiting tests,
or any other similar statistic.

State officials have stated that it would be too difficult or costly to
keep track of their students after high school but I find this hard to
believe. My high school is tracking my class for five years with help
from the Coalition of Essential Schools. Certainly, the state, with all
its bureaucrats, could do the same.

Both of these factors, the test's biases and irrelevance, contribute to
making it unnecessary. This system is so flawed it should not be used to
determine whether or not students should graduate.

More importantly, a system already exists for determining when students
are ready to graduate. The ongoing assessment by teachers who spend
hours with the students is more than sufficient for determining when
they are ready to graduate.

However this assessment is being undermined by a focus on test
preparation that has eliminated many advanced courses and enrichment
experiences. Additionally, since the tests do not and cannot measure
things such as critical thinking, the ability to work with others,
public speaking, and other characteristics of democratic citizenship,
these things are pushed aside while we spend more time memorizing for
tests.

After almost a decade and a half of testing, many people cannot imagine
what could be done in place of high-stakes testing, but here in
southeast Ohio, alternative assessments are alive and kicking. At my
school, Federal Hocking High School, every senior has to complete a
senior project (I built a kayak), compile a graduation portfolio, and
defend his or her work in front of a panel of teachers in order to
graduate. These types of performance assessments are much more
individualized and authentic, and are certainly difficult, something I
can attest to, having completed them myself.

There may be a place for standardized testing in public education, but
it should not be used to determine graduation.

Because of these reasons, I decided to take a stand against the Ohio
Proficiency Tests, even though it would cost me my graduation and
diploma. But why such a drastic measure? The reason is simple; someone
has to say no. Education is the key to maintaining our democracy, and I
have become disgusted by the indifference displayed by lawmakers who
make statements about the value of public education while continuing to
fail to fairly and adequately fund it or commit to performance-based
assessments.

I have written a number of state senators and representatives from both
parties recommending the state allow districts to set alternatives to
high-stakes tests for graduation. Having done everything required for
graduation but take the tests, I thought I would provide them an
opportunity to rethink testing. Sadly, I have not received a response
from any of them, even after personally approaching and rewriting them.

What this has taught me is that one voice is not enough, and to make a
difference in our democracy, the people must speak with a unified voice.
I encourage everyone concerned about the damage being done by
high-stakes testing and inadequate funding of public education to speak
out. Join me in just saying no to high-stakes testing.

Editor's note: John Wood is a non-graduate of Federal Hocking High
School in Stewart. He will be attending Warren Wilson College in
Ashville, N.C.

— John Wood
Athens News
2005-06-02
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=20780
________________________________________________________________
Susan Ohanian Comment: Note what happened when this young man made his case to
state politicians. Nonetheless, he pleads, "Someone has to say no." When
will teachers stop relying on politicians for solutions, and start
refusing to give the tests they know are wrong?

Carol's comment: A Texas parent can issue a home-school diploma to their
graduate and it will be recognized as coming from an unaccredited
private school. Why can't we use this information to advance a student
boycott of the taks test (assuming one's conscience leads that
direction)?

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 7:40 AM 1 comments Links to this post

LULAC NATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
2000 L Street, NW, Suite 610; Washington, DC 20036
(202) 833-6130; (202) 833-6135 FAX; www.LULAC.org

For Immediate Release
Contact: Luis Vera (210) 225-3300

June 9, 2005

LULAC LIKELY TO APPEAL TEXAS REDISTRICTING DECISION TO SUPREME COURT
Three Judge Panel's Decision to Uphold the Retrogressive and Discriminatory
Texas Redistricting Plan is Disappointing but Expected

Austin, TX - The League of United Latin American Citizens is likely to appeal the decision of a three-judge federal panel in the Eastern District of Texas upholding the blatantly retrogressive and discriminatory 2003 Texas congressional redistricting plan that violates the constitutional protection of one person one vote.

"We are disappointed but not surprised that the three-judge panel upheld the redistricting plan again," stated Roger Rocha, Texas State Director. "The fact remains that this plan is clearly retrogressive and discriminatory toward minority voters."

Texas LULAC will study the memorandum and opinion of the three-judge federal panel which ruled on the Texas redistricting case and will probably appeal the decision to the United States Supreme Court which has already ruled once in our favor.

"We never expected to get relief from the three-judge federal panel," stated LULAC General Counsel Luis Vera. "It will be up to the Supreme Court to decide if minority voting interests will still be protected or if the Voting Rights Act is rendered meaningless."

LULAC is encouraged that Justice Ward sided with the LULAC position that Texas must uphold the constitutional protection of one person one vote. The 2003 redistricting plan used outdated Census figures that shortchanged over a million Hispanic residents. Ironically, the three-judge panel issued its decision the same day the US Census Bureau released a report that the Hispanic population in Texas is growing faster than ever.

"The National Office of LULAC will continue to support the efforts of our Texas membership to preserve minority voting rights in their state," said Hector M. Flores, LULAC National President. "Our entire membership is keenly aware of the dangerous precedent that this decision will have on the Voting Rights Act if it is allowed to stand."

The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the oldest and largest Latino civil rights organization in the United States. LULAC advances the economic condition, educational attainment, political influence, health, and civil rights of Hispanic Americans through community-based programs operating at more than 700 LULAC councils nationwide.

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 10:35 AM 5 comments Links to this post

Districts vow an all-out effort

08:19 AM CDT on Thursday, June 9, 2005
By JOSHUA BENTON / The Dallas Morning News

Ending social promotion isn't turning out to be as easy as state education leaders may have hoped.

After two tries, about 40,000 Texas fifth-graders still haven't passed the math and reading sections of the TAKS test. That means a summer full of stress and, for many, another year of fifth grade.

"These kids are trying so very hard," said Jennifer Costa, a fifth-grade bilingual teacher at Irving's Townsell Elementary. "It's frustrating, but we're going to keep working at it until these kids have the skills they need."

There is still hope that some of the fifth-graders will pass on their third try later this month. But the large number of failing students, about 15 percent of the state's fifth-graders, could weaken support for what has been a relatively peaceful adoption of high-stakes promotion tests for young children.

"Having accountability is good," said Harley Eckhart, associate executive director of the Texas Elementary Principals and Supervisors Association.

The unusually high failure rate has forced some districts to reshuffle their priorities. In Irving, for example, district leaders originally planned to offer summer school for students in grades two through five. But when it became clear how many failing fifth-graders the district would have to deal with, officials decided they had to cancel summer school for second- and fourth-graders.

"We just didn't have the resources to go beyond that," said Cheryl Jennings, Irving's director of elementary teaching and learning. "We had to give the fifth-graders attention first."

Earning promotion

The testing requirements are part of the Student Success Initiative, which was one of the centerpieces of Gov. George Bush's legislative agenda in 1999. The idea is to stop social promotion, the practice of pushing kids to the next grade even if they don't have the necessary academic skills.

The high stakes have followed the Class of 2012 as they march through the school system. In 2003, third-graders had to pass the TAKS reading test to advance to fourth grade. This year, fifth-graders have to pass the reading and math tests. In 2008, eighth-graders will also have to pass reading and math exams.

Students get three chances to pass: two during the school year and one in the summer.

Some educators recoiled at the prospect of such a high-stakes test for 8-year-olds. But third-graders had surprising success when the measure debuted in 2003. In the end, only about 5,000 students were held back, out of more than 290,000 third-graders statewide.

This year's fifth-grade failure rate is much higher. TEA officials are still analyzing results from this spring's tests and can't say exactly how many students are still in TAKS limbo. But they announced Wednesday that about 34,000 fifth-graders have yet to pass the math test, along with thousands more on the reading test.

In the Dallas Independent School District, more than 30 percent of fifth-graders have yet to meet the TAKS promotion requirements.

Running out of time

Sue Harris, the Grand Prairie district's executive director of planning and evaluation, said: "We're not at a panic level, but we're at a point where we need to re-evaluate what we do at that grade."

At Grand Prairie's Milam Elementary, 12 of the school's 55 fifth-graders haven't yet passed TAKS. "People are trying as hard as they can to keep up with the changes," principal Michele Loper said.

There are a number of reasons for the poor performance. Most obvious is that fifth-graders must pass both math and reading tests, while third-graders have only a reading test to worry about. The state has also raised the passing standards required on the TAKS each of the last two years.

Mr. Eckhart also pointed to teacher training as a possible reason. In the years leading up to the debut of the third-grade test, the state paid for intensive training for reading teachers from kindergarten through third grade. The Legislature then cut funding for training teachers in higher grades.

"These are the same students who were the first to take the third-grade test, and they did well," Dr. Jennings said. "Now they're in fifth and they're not passing. That just boggles my mind."

Townsell Elementary put on a "bridging" ceremony last week to celebrate the transition fifth-graders will make to Sam Houston Middle School next year. School officials allowed all the students to participate, even though several still hadn't passed TAKS and may not cross that bridge after all.

"It really pumped the students up and got them very excited about wanting to be middle-schoolers next year," Ms. Costa said. "One of our parents said her boy came home after the ceremony just bubbling over with excitement: 'I'm gonna pass that test!' "

Outcome expected

State officials said the lower fifth-grade performance is a natural part of the adjustment to a new system.

"The agency obviously wishes the passing rate was higher, but I don't think it's out of line with expectations," TEA spokeswoman Suzanne Marchman said.

She said scores will probably improve as time passes, as they have on previous state assessments as teachers get used to teaching topics on the test.

In any event, it's likely that a majority of the children who haven't passed TAKS already will have to repeat fifth grade. Under state law, they're required to attend intensive summer school for the month of June, with many districts offering three hours of small-group instruction every day.

In Irving, for example, the district will be employing about 50 teachers for the failing fifth-graders' summer school. During the regular school year, employs about 140 fifth-grade teachers.

"We're doing the very best we can," Dr. Jennings said. "We love every one of those children, and we want to see them all pass."

After summer school, students will have one final chance to pass the TAKS tests: June 28 for math, June 29 for reading.

But even strike three won't mean they're out. A special committee made up of a student's parent, principal and teacher can decide to promote the student anyway if they decide the youth's academic performance was strong enough to justify it. In 2003, 41 percent of third-graders who failed TAKS three times were still promoted to fourth grade. In some districts, the rate was more than 80 percent.

E-mail jbenton@dallasnews.com
______________
Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/education/stories/060905dnmetfifth.12b967b5b.html

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 8:39 AM 0 comments Links to this post

Most jobs are safe, but schools say there's no room for major upgrades
 
* Complete Legislature coverage
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, June 8, 2005

Local schools will have enough money to preserve the status quo over the next year, but educators say any costly efforts to reduce class sizes or overhaul classroom programs will have to wait.

The collapse of school finance reform efforts at the end of the legislative session last month left schools with the money they need to pay for expected enrollment growth over the next two years but without the $3 billion that key lawmakers had hoped to deliver. Schools will see some revenue bump as their property tax bases grow, but that growth is expected to be modest in some Central Texas districts.

So as school board members sit down this summer to develop budgets for the upcoming year, they'll find little new money to spend on an education system that a state judge has deemed unconstitutional because of underfunding.

"It would be very difficult to increase staffing at schools beyond what's already out there," said Larry Throm, the Austin school district's chief financial officer.

Gov. Rick Perry could call a special session to give the Legislature another try at the issue, but it would have to start soon to affect the upcoming school year.

The upside for school employees is that officials in some of the largest local districts, including Austin, Round Rock and Pflugerville, say they expect to have enough money to avoid layoffs and to replace teachers who have left their jobs. Throm said that's because inflation has little overall effect on school budgets, unless salaries increase.

He said the Austin district cannot afford to raise salaries this year but is likely to spend $6 million to continue paying all of employees' health insurance costs. Employees still will have to pay some of their own money to cover family members.

Lawmakers had discussed giving across-the-board raises of as much as $3,000 over two years, plus incentive pay for some teachers based partly on student test scores. Now it appears that the state, which ranked 32nd in average teacher pay according to a 2004 National Education Association study, will struggle to move up on that list.

"Whatever we do with salaries will determine what kind of a tax increase we have," said Carter Scherff, chief financial officer in the Hays Consolidated school district.

Hays is part of a shrinking group of districts that do not already tax at the maximum rate for maintenance and operations, which is $1.50 per $100 in assessed property valuation. Another district in that group is Pflugerville, but Gerrell Moore, assistant superintendent for finance and operations, said he expects Pflugerville to make the one-cent jump to the $1.50 rate this year.

In the Leander school district, officials plan to hire enough teachers to staff a new elementary school and to teach more than 1,000 new students. District leaders will decide in coming weeks whether to raise teacher salaries, Assistant Superintendent Bret Champion said.

Leander will have more to spend because its growing enrollment will draw more money from the state and because of a property tax base that, according to preliminary estimates, is about 10 percent higher than last year.

Eanes Superintendent Nola Wellman said her district might have to cut about 15 of its 860 jobs, which she hopes to do through attrition instead of layoffs. District residents raised some money privately this year to prevent more severe cuts, saving about 10 positions.

One reason Eanes leaders are looking at staff cuts is that they're also considering pay increases for employees. The repeated talk of higher salaries by lawmakers working on the school finance issue raised teachers' expectations for more money, Wellman said.

Local officials began planning their budgets well before the end of the legislative session, and several said they did not assume there would be much new money to spend.

School officials said throughout the legislative session that the spending increases that lawmakers proposed would have been constrained by new mandates, such as incentive pay for teachers and electronic testing.

"There were so many constraints on the money, our local trustees were given so many things that tied their hands, that it's better for us that we say, 'OK, let's start over,' " Wellman said.

One area where schools will see more money is through the Student Success Initiative, which provides extra help for students who need to pass state tests to move on to the next grade. This spring, lawmakers increased funding for that program by about $150 million over two years to prepare students for eighth-grade promotion requirements that will take effect in 2008.

Other standards, such as state graduation requirements and federal benchmarks that determine whether students can transfer out of low-performing schools, are increasing as well. For example, less than 70 percent of Texas 11th-graders passed the state graduation test on the first try this spring, and the state will make it even harder for next year's 11th-graders to pass.

"Everybody is at a disadvantage to a certain degree," said Catherine Clark of the Texas Association of School Boards. "The standards we're holding up for student performance and school improvement continue on, whether there's new money or not."

jembry@statesman.com; 445-3654

School spending

Central Texas school districts are bracing for minimal funding increases this year in the wake of the Legislature's failure to reform the school finance system. Below are schools' per-student spending amounts on operating expenses for the 2003-04 school year, the latest period for which complete data is available. Schools receive extra money for students who come from low-income families, for example, or who speak limited English.

School districtSpending per student
Austin $7,751
Del Valle $7,716
Eanes $7,358
Lake Travis $6,682
Manor $7,557
Pflugerville $6,362
Georgetown $7,219
Leander $6,504
Round Rock $6,826
Dripping Springs $7,044
Hays Consolidated $6,924
San Marcos $7,346


Source: Texas Education Agency

Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/wednesday/news_246a990432dd427c00bf.html
 

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 11:29 PM 0 comments Links to this post

So this smacks of the provision in the failed H.B. 2 that calls for incentive teacher pay. In looking at what teachers want and need, look at this recent “Texas Teachers, Moonlighting, and Morale” report by David and Travis Henderson has been conducted every two years since 1980.

-Angela

June 10, 2005, 1:13AM

HISD program is designed to aid 3 failing campuses
By JASON SPENCER
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle


A plan to recruit top teachers to three of HISD's lowest-performing high schools by offering performance bonuses worth up to $3,000 a year won unanimous approval from the school board Thursday.

Teachers at Sam Houston, Yates and Kashmere high schools will be eligible for up to $1,500 in bonus pay for reaching campuswide goals on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills. Individual teachers in subject areas tested on the TAKS can earn an additional $1,500 in incentive pay if students in their classes score high enough on the exam.

The Houston Independent School District has committed to three years for the pilot bonus program, which could cost up to nearly $800,000 a year.

The school board voted earlier this year to reform the schools, ranked "academically unacceptable" by the state, by requiring every employee at Yates, Sam Houston and Kashmere to reapply for their jobs. About 40 percent of the schools' teachers from last school year won't be back in the fall. Most of the turnover is happening at Sam Houston, where 61 teachers must be replaced. The school plans to rely heavily on first-year teachers trained in the Teach for America program.

Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, told trustees the bonus money will not attract better teachers. The union represents about half of HISD's 12,000 teachers.

"Folks, it's not an incentive," Fallon said. "So far, we haven't found a taker. ... We've gotten remarks like, 'You think I'm going to leave Lamar High School for $1,500 a year?' "

She warned trustees that the schools will open with too many unseasoned teachers.

But trustee Larry Marshall said he's not convinced that inexperienced teachers are less effective than veterans.

"There is the assumption that new teachers can't contribute," he said. "They are usually very eager and enthusiastic."

jason.spencer@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/printstory.mpl/metropolitan/3219516

posted by Dr. Angela Valenzuela at 4:16 PM 0 comments Links to this post