I agree with the editors of the L.A, Times that there is a failure of federal and state policies, and clearly, leadership as well. The lack of political will to address students’ needs is indeed tragic and costly, both to them personally and to society. Conversely, there is undue concern in our nation over students’ test scores to the detriment of the children themselves.
Yesterday on NPR, I heard an interview with the principal, Chris Dunshee, of Red Lake High School in Bemidji, Minn. where student Jeff Weise killed fellow students before turning the gun on himself. He reflects on priorities. (I’m paraphrasing) Last week, he said, it was No Child Left Behind and raising students' test scores. He said that test scores won’t matter so much anymore since they’re not really what’s important; rather, it’s getting the kids healed. Listen yourself to the NPR interview.
We should all monitor this school’s/district’s scores since 1) they are among the lowest in the state of Minnesota, and 2) this one will likely be slotted for a series of sanctions or school closure if it continues to do poorly (i.e., failing to meet AYP under NCLB). And how cruel and disgusting would that be?!
This, plus the L.A. story appearing below attests to educational aims in our country that are so astoundingly off base that they render the architects of this system suspect, if not conspiratorial.
-Angela
EDITORIAL
L.A. Schools' Silent Scandal ...
March 25, 2005
It took a study last month by the Education Trust-West, a policy and advocacy group for disadvantaged students, to show conclusively that, even within the same districts, California schools spend less money on poor and minority students. Now, a Harvard report reveals that dropout rates among black and Latino students in California are substantially higher than the state has been reporting. What else don't we know about our schools?
Confronted with the data on Los Angeles schools — where a shockingly low 39% of Latino students and 47% of African Americans graduate on time — school officials offered excuses identical to those they used regarding those students' inability to read: They're poor, their parents don't get involved, the culture works against them. But the district also has almost the state's highest dropout rates of white and Asian students.
If the Army was losing people as fast as the Los Angeles schools, generals would lose their stars and the Defense secretary his job. In part, the outcry over schools has been muted by their legerdemain in calculating dropout rates — and their lack of transparency in explaining how they use their money.
While the school reform movement has emphasized test scores, neither state nor federal officials have put teeth into demands for lower dropout rates. As it happens, the push for higher test scores has at times coincided with counselors advising failing students to leave. It's a scandal, but a shushed one because dropouts make the schools look better while harming communities and businesses and filling prisons, as the Harvard study all too sharply shows.
Microsoft founder Bill Gates has made major press lately with his gripe that high schools need to adopt a more rigorous, college-bound curriculum. That doesn't address the crisis. Few of the dropouts are complaining about their college preparation.
The nation still needs its plumbers (try outsourcing that to India) and mechanics — hands-on jobs that interest many otherwise disengaged students. Yet vocational education has made only tiny comebacks here and there. These programs help keep students in high school and, a bonus, give them a practical reason to learn academic subjects.
U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings, long a trusted advisor to President Bush, should be using her position to urge increased funding for vocational education instead of the cuts the administration proposes. And if Spellings were to give dropout rates the same weight as test scores under No Child Left Behind, educators would be working a lot harder to keep kids in school. The Education secretary also should make the system for tracking dropouts far more rigorous. Start by requiring that schools do more to find out what happens to students who stop showing up.
Any school, large or small, can connect better with kids — if each counselor is given a caseload of fewer than thousands of students. Because school districts are spending less on the salaries of the less-experienced teachers at schools attended by poor and minority students, they should be required to even up the score with more counselors at these campuses. Given a realistic workload, counselors should meet tough standards for acting as student advocates and forging relationships with parents. Teachers should also be part of the solution, but has anyone asked them for their ideas lately?
The study itself raises bigger issues about the rigidity of school systems that designate as dropouts anyone who doesn't graduate by the expected month of the expected year. But who said high school has to end in four years?
The superintendent of the Santa Ana schools has proposed both a fifth year of high school and a two-year kindergarten for students who need the extra boost. He has parental support for the proposals — in a district that's more than 90% Latino, the very parents who supposedly don't get involved in their children's education. A budget crisis kept both ideas from fruition, but at least a door was opened.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-dropout25mar25,1,3921033.story?ctrack=3&cset=true
Friday, March 25, 2005
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Vampire Vouchers Rise Again!
We all need to try and attend the Tuesday, April 5 hearing on vouchers, beginning at 2PM at the state capitol. Folks should consider testifying and/or producing written testimony. You can do this when you get there. I provide links on my sidebar on committee hearing schedule. Click the house link on the morning of the 5th. It'll be a LONG hearing so don't worry if you arrive late, meaning afternoon or evening. I also want to urge, in particular, my fellow colleagues to attend. It promises to be a spectacle.
The article below reports on another privatization scheme that's afoot. -Angela
'Virtual' or 'Pilot' – Lege begins the biennial campaign to siphon money from public schools
BY AMY SMITH
Does it surprise anyone that the legislators who voted to deny health insurance to thousands of low-income children in 2003 are now invoking poor kids to justify school vouchers? Poor kids, indeed. Put in that light, the pro-voucher rhetoric comes across sounding wholly disingenuous – but don't expect that to stand in the way of lawmakers propelling this ideological agenda forward.
Exhibit A is House Bill 1445 – a "virtual voucher" proposal and the first of a handful of related bills to go to a public hearing this week before the House Public Education Committee (see below). The House killed a virtual relative of this bill in 2003, which gives opponents some measure of optimism for a similar rejection this year. But in the larger scheme of things, school vouchers will command more attention this session, if for no other reason than that Gov. Rick Perry and House Speaker Tom Craddick have already deemed the "choice" issue a key component of education "reform." With that, expect both vouchers and an expansion of charter schools to figure into lawmakers' discussions when they take up a sunset bill to reauthorize the Texas Education Agency.
The dilemma for several House Republicans, however, is that they may have to decide between their constituents' wishes and the speaker's marching orders. Carolyn Boyle, coordinator of the anti-voucher Coalition for Public Schools, says she is sympathetic to the GOP members' predicament, given the strong-arming that went on during the debate on the widely unpopular House school finance package (House Bills 2 and 3, currently undergoing cosmetic surgery in the Senate). Boyle believes, however, that there is a certain amount of safety in numbers – and the numbers, at least at this writing, tell her that there aren't enough votes to pass a full-on voucher bill. "There seems to be more bipartisan opposition to vouchers than there was last time," Boyle said. "But what complicates the issue is [political] pressure." That pressure is further compounded, she continued, by a common refrain of "Let's just give vouchers a try and get it over with."
That's one of the reasons the pilot proposal of HB 1263 has emerged as a particular favorite, evidenced by the nine other lawmakers who have signed on to the legislation authored by Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, R-Irving, and co-author Rep. Ken Paxton, R-McKinney. ("Re-emerged" is perhaps more precise, since some form of the pilot proposal has been a voucher stalking horse for several sessions.) The bill would create a pilot school-choice program for low-income students in eight school districts in five urban counties – Travis, Bexar, Harris, Dallas, and Tarrant. (Proponents have even established a Web site, www.texaschoice.org, devoted to the HB 1263 cause.)
Chronicle readers will be shocked to learn that many of the legislative backers of the bill have received substantial political money from pro-voucher funding sources. Harper-Brown and Paxton, for example, were among the recipients of a huge windfall of cash that the national pro-voucher group All Children Matter dropped on a select number of (mostly GOP) House candidates in the 2004 election cycle. The Grand Rapids-based outfit gave $15,000 to Harper-Brown and $10,000 to Paxton, although it was unclear at press time whether they also benefited from the group's last-minute money drop just before the election.
In Texas, right-wing millionaire Dr. James Leininger finances the younger state affiliate of All Children Matter, along with a number of other pro-voucher entities. The San Antonio tycoon's money is driving much of this session's voucher phalanx, which includes lobbyists Richard H. McBride, Sabrina Thomas Brown, Mindy Ellmer, and Charles W. Evans, all registered gents of Leininger's Texans for Educational Excellence. Even with this bounty of riches, it's still uncertain how proponents will make the argument for a tax-funded voucher program in the face of an increasingly tight budget, especially for schools. Harper-Brown's chief of staff, Erin Sanders, offers a familiar argument that school vouchers won't cost the state additional money, because the per-child cost remains the same with or without the voucher program.
Boyle, of the Coalition for Public Schools, takes issue with that. "Schools typically don't budget on a per-child basis, but on a per-classroom basis," she pointed out. And since school funding for districts is based on the number of enrolled students, every student who leaves costs the district money. Boyle also points out that the pilot boundaries for Harper-Brown's bill are neatly drawn to include Edgewood ISD as one of the proposed pilot districts. She suspects it was a deliberate maneuver to serve as a "government bailout" for Leininger, who seven years ago pledged $50 million to the privately funded Horizon Voucher Program for children who live in the low-income San Antonio district made famous by the school financing lawsuit that brought us the "Robin Hood" funding scheme for public education. At the time, Leininger said he would contribute up to $5 million a year for up to 10 years, or until a state-funded voucher program was established to pick up the tab.
State Rep. Richard Raymond, D-Laredo, has added a new dimension to the debate with a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow voters to decide the issue of tax-financed school vouchers. Raymond acknowledges his bill likely won't go anywhere, but he hopes that it will provide some leverage in the voucher debate. Last month, a Scripps Howard Texas Poll on private school vouchers found that 55% of those surveyed opposed tax-financed private school vouchers. Last week, the Texas Association of Business boasted of another poll – by Baselice and Associates – that showed 74% in favor of a pilot voucher program if, as the TAB press says, "it does not cost taxpayers any additional money."
By contrast, John Stevens, executive director of the Texas Business & Education Coalition, said that while his group supports the concept of school choice, "We think there are a lot of options for students to choose from within the public school system. The bottom line," he added, "is that since the vast majority of students are going to be educated in public schools, is it really a good investment to spend public money on private schools? If so, then they should be subjected to the same accountability standards as public schools."
2 Best Book in Texas History—BOTH IN EDUCATION
I am very pleased to announce two recent book awards by two dear friends and colleagues, Professors Amilcar Shabazz (University of Alabama) and Carlos K. Blanton (Texas A & M University) both of whom are also on this list. Professor Shabazz won the T. R. Fehrenbach Book Award for his book, "Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas" while Professor Blanton won the Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize by the Texas State Historical Association for the best book on Texas. His book is titled, "The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836–1981." My students did read the Blanton text this semester and found it to be engaging, informative and nuanced on the topic of bilingual education. I look forward to reading the Shabazz book. What’s particularly cool is that these awards seldom go to educational histories in great part because so few are written. And this year, we have two such texts! I hope that these books will spur greater interest in research on education in Texas and beyond. I’m so proud of you and so very happy for you and your families, as well! -Angela
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The T. R. Fehrenbach Book Award honors original research and publication of material that preserves, records and recounts the prehistory and history of Texas. The program is named in honor of T. R. Fehrenbach, former Texas Historical Commission chair and Texas history author.
"Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas"
Amilcar Shabazz
As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it is important to consider the historical struggles that led to this groundbreaking decision. Four years earlier in Texas, the Sweatt v. Painter decision allowed blacks access to the University of Texas's law school for the first time. Amilcar Shabazz shows that the development of black higher education in Texas--which has historically had one of the largest state college and university systems in the South--played a pivotal role in the challenge to Jim Crow education.
Shabazz begins with the creation of the Texas University Movement in the 1880s to lobby for equal access to the full range of graduate and professional education through a first-class university for African Americans. He traces the philosophical, legal, and grassroots components of the later campaign to open all Texas colleges and universities to black students, showing the complex range of strategies and the diversity of ideology and methodology on the part of black activists and intellectuals working to promote educational equality. Shabazz credits the efforts of blacks who fought for change by demanding better resources for segregated black colleges in the years before Brown, showing how crucial groundwork for nationwide desegregation was laid in the state of Texas.
You may purchase this text at www.amazon.com or at UNC Press
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winner of the 2005 Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize awarded by the Texas State Historical Association for the best book on Texas
"The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836–1981"
Carlos Kevin Blanton
Despite controversies over current educational practices, Texas boasts a rich and vibrant bilingual tradition—and not just for Spanish-English instruction, but for Czech, German, Polish, and Dutch as well. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Texas educational policymakers embraced, ignored,
rejected, outlawed, then once again embraced this tradition.
In The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836–1981, Carlos Kevin Blanton traces the educational policies and their underlying rationales, from Stephen F. Austin's proposal in the 1830s to "Mexicanize" Anglo children by teaching them Spanish along with English and French, through the 1981 passage of the most encompassing bilingual education law in the state's history. Drawing on primary materials, Blanton presents the Texas experience in light of national trends and movements, such as Progressive Education, the Americanization Movement, and the Good Neighbor Movement.
By tracing the many changes that eventually led to the re-establishment of bilingual education in its modern form in the 1960s and the 1981 passage of a landmark state law, Blanton reconnects Texas with its bilingual past.
You may purchase this text at www.amazon.com or at Tx A & M Press
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The T. R. Fehrenbach Book Award honors original research and publication of material that preserves, records and recounts the prehistory and history of Texas. The program is named in honor of T. R. Fehrenbach, former Texas Historical Commission chair and Texas history author.
"Advancing Democracy: African Americans and the Struggle for Access and Equity in Higher Education in Texas"
Amilcar Shabazz
As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education (1954), it is important to consider the historical struggles that led to this groundbreaking decision. Four years earlier in Texas, the Sweatt v. Painter decision allowed blacks access to the University of Texas's law school for the first time. Amilcar Shabazz shows that the development of black higher education in Texas--which has historically had one of the largest state college and university systems in the South--played a pivotal role in the challenge to Jim Crow education.
Shabazz begins with the creation of the Texas University Movement in the 1880s to lobby for equal access to the full range of graduate and professional education through a first-class university for African Americans. He traces the philosophical, legal, and grassroots components of the later campaign to open all Texas colleges and universities to black students, showing the complex range of strategies and the diversity of ideology and methodology on the part of black activists and intellectuals working to promote educational equality. Shabazz credits the efforts of blacks who fought for change by demanding better resources for segregated black colleges in the years before Brown, showing how crucial groundwork for nationwide desegregation was laid in the state of Texas.
You may purchase this text at www.amazon.com or at UNC Press
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Winner of the 2005 Coral Horton Tullis Memorial Prize awarded by the Texas State Historical Association for the best book on Texas
"The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836–1981"
Carlos Kevin Blanton
Despite controversies over current educational practices, Texas boasts a rich and vibrant bilingual tradition—and not just for Spanish-English instruction, but for Czech, German, Polish, and Dutch as well. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Texas educational policymakers embraced, ignored,
rejected, outlawed, then once again embraced this tradition.
In The Strange Career of Bilingual Education in Texas, 1836–1981, Carlos Kevin Blanton traces the educational policies and their underlying rationales, from Stephen F. Austin's proposal in the 1830s to "Mexicanize" Anglo children by teaching them Spanish along with English and French, through the 1981 passage of the most encompassing bilingual education law in the state's history. Drawing on primary materials, Blanton presents the Texas experience in light of national trends and movements, such as Progressive Education, the Americanization Movement, and the Good Neighbor Movement.
By tracing the many changes that eventually led to the re-establishment of bilingual education in its modern form in the 1960s and the 1981 passage of a landmark state law, Blanton reconnects Texas with its bilingual past.
You may purchase this text at www.amazon.com or at Tx A & M Press
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Texas Stands Behind Own Testing Rule
Texas may be opening the floodgates around the country with their defiant stance vis-a-vis NCLB. We'll see. -Angela
March 9, 2005
EDUCATION WEEK
Move Puts State at Odds With NCLB Policy
By David J. Hoff
Faced with a conflict between state and federal laws, Texas officials have come down on the side of their own law and set up a possible showdown with the U.S. government over millions of dollars in education aid.
In determining which schools and districts were meeting annual goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the state last month granted a host of appeals from districts and schools that said they should get credit for following less stringent state rules for assessing special education students.
As a result, 431 districts and 1,312 schools were considered by Texas to be making adequate yearly progress, or AYP, even though they didn’t follow the federal law’s strict rules for counting the test scores of students with disabilities.
“There was simply no way that schools could have followed [federal rules] without violating state statutory requirements,” said Criss Cloudt, the associate commissioner for accountability and data quality for the Texas Education Agency.
States will be watching how the U.S. Department of Education reacts to the Texas decision and whether it withholds any of Texas’ $1 billion annual share from the No Child Left Behind Act.
“If [federal officials] do anything to grant Texas this, it could open the floodgates around the country,” said Scott Young, a senior policy specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures.
A U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman said last week that the federal officials haven’t decided how to respond to Texas’ action.
“We’re reviewing the information we currently have and will be talking to them to get a better grasp of what they’re doing,” Susan Aspey, a department spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Federalism in Question
As state officials nationwide have faced carrying out the 3-year-old law, they have chafed at complying with federal requirements that conflict with their state laws. A proposed measure in Utah, for instance, calls for letting state laws trump the federal law.
Two days before the Texas announcement, the Denver-based NCSL issued a report saying the law championed by President Bush unfairly usurps state policies. The group listed changes it wants from Congress and the federal Education Department. ("NCLB Law Needs Work, Legislators Assert," Feb. 24, 2005.) State officials also have been seeking waivers from Margaret Spellings, who was sworn in as the U.S. secretary of education in January.
While Secretary Spelling has said she would consider granting states leeway on the rules for compliance with the law, she has said she won’t bend on its key requirements.
Last week, for example, she denied a request from Connecticut to waive the law’s requirement that students be tested in grades 3-8 and once in high school. The state had asked to continue its practice of assessing students in grades 4, 6, 8, and 10.
“We must measure annually and in each grade to determine if these [achievement] gaps are being closed, and, if they are not, adjustments must be made,” Ms. Spellings said in a Feb. 28 letter to Connecticut’s commissioner of education, Betty J. Sternberg.
Ms. Spelling added that the Education Department is “committed to including every student in the assessment and accountability system,” citing the federal rule that Texas officials overrode in making its AYP decisions.
The federal testing rule says that 1 percent of a school’s or district’s enrollment may be tested against other than their grade-level standards and still be considered proficient for accountability purposes.
Any students above the 1 percent figure who don’t take state or alternative tests for the grade level in which they are enrolled are to be considered as not proficient for purposes of determining AYP.
State officials argue that the 1 percent rule is unfair because special education students aren’t always equally distributed across districts or among schools, Mr. Young of the NCSL said.
In Texas’ case, local school officials followed state law allowing for alternative tests for special education students when the students’ individualized education programs call for them. Under state law, the IEP team, rather than the state, gets to set a student’s passing standard for such tests.
In the spring of 2004, almost 10 percent of all students took a state-approved alternative test instead of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS.
Shared Goals
Texas officials also point out that the federal Education Department didn’t make the so-called 1 percent rule final until December 2003, just two months before Texas began testing. “You just can’t turn the ship that quickly,” said Gene Lenz, the deputy associate commissioner for special programs, monitoring, and interventions for the Texas Education Agency.
In deciding which districts and schools made adequate yearly progress for the 2003-04 school year, Texas Commissioner of Education Shirley Neeley granted appeals to districts and schools that said their special education populations failed to reach the districts’ achievement targets solely because of the 1 percent rule.
After the appeals, 86 districts failed to make AYP. Without the appeals, almost half the state’s 1,227 districts would have fallen short of the AYP goals. Without the waivers, 1,718 of the state’s 7,813 schools, or 22 percent, wouldn’t have made AYP. With the waivers, all but 402 did.
The Texas decision is at odds with the basic tenet of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to a supporter of the federal law.
“That’s a real step backward to say they have an alternative test and they’re not going to count [students with disabilities] for AYP,” said Delia Pompa, the director of the Achievement Alliance, a Washington-based coalition that supports the No Child Left Behind Act.
Ms. Cloudt said the agency was working with state legislators to revise state law. “Our goals are identical to No Child Left Behind,” she said. “We’re trying very hard to implement policies in concert with the federal accountability system.”
Vol. 24, Issue 26, Pages 1,23
www.edweek.org
March 9, 2005
EDUCATION WEEK
Move Puts State at Odds With NCLB Policy
By David J. Hoff
Faced with a conflict between state and federal laws, Texas officials have come down on the side of their own law and set up a possible showdown with the U.S. government over millions of dollars in education aid.
In determining which schools and districts were meeting annual goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the state last month granted a host of appeals from districts and schools that said they should get credit for following less stringent state rules for assessing special education students.
As a result, 431 districts and 1,312 schools were considered by Texas to be making adequate yearly progress, or AYP, even though they didn’t follow the federal law’s strict rules for counting the test scores of students with disabilities.
“There was simply no way that schools could have followed [federal rules] without violating state statutory requirements,” said Criss Cloudt, the associate commissioner for accountability and data quality for the Texas Education Agency.
States will be watching how the U.S. Department of Education reacts to the Texas decision and whether it withholds any of Texas’ $1 billion annual share from the No Child Left Behind Act.
“If [federal officials] do anything to grant Texas this, it could open the floodgates around the country,” said Scott Young, a senior policy specialist for the National Conference of State Legislatures.
A U.S. Department of Education spokeswoman said last week that the federal officials haven’t decided how to respond to Texas’ action.
“We’re reviewing the information we currently have and will be talking to them to get a better grasp of what they’re doing,” Susan Aspey, a department spokeswoman said in an e-mail.
Federalism in Question
As state officials nationwide have faced carrying out the 3-year-old law, they have chafed at complying with federal requirements that conflict with their state laws. A proposed measure in Utah, for instance, calls for letting state laws trump the federal law.
Two days before the Texas announcement, the Denver-based NCSL issued a report saying the law championed by President Bush unfairly usurps state policies. The group listed changes it wants from Congress and the federal Education Department. ("NCLB Law Needs Work, Legislators Assert," Feb. 24, 2005.) State officials also have been seeking waivers from Margaret Spellings, who was sworn in as the U.S. secretary of education in January.
While Secretary Spelling has said she would consider granting states leeway on the rules for compliance with the law, she has said she won’t bend on its key requirements.
Last week, for example, she denied a request from Connecticut to waive the law’s requirement that students be tested in grades 3-8 and once in high school. The state had asked to continue its practice of assessing students in grades 4, 6, 8, and 10.
“We must measure annually and in each grade to determine if these [achievement] gaps are being closed, and, if they are not, adjustments must be made,” Ms. Spellings said in a Feb. 28 letter to Connecticut’s commissioner of education, Betty J. Sternberg.
Ms. Spelling added that the Education Department is “committed to including every student in the assessment and accountability system,” citing the federal rule that Texas officials overrode in making its AYP decisions.
The federal testing rule says that 1 percent of a school’s or district’s enrollment may be tested against other than their grade-level standards and still be considered proficient for accountability purposes.
Any students above the 1 percent figure who don’t take state or alternative tests for the grade level in which they are enrolled are to be considered as not proficient for purposes of determining AYP.
State officials argue that the 1 percent rule is unfair because special education students aren’t always equally distributed across districts or among schools, Mr. Young of the NCSL said.
In Texas’ case, local school officials followed state law allowing for alternative tests for special education students when the students’ individualized education programs call for them. Under state law, the IEP team, rather than the state, gets to set a student’s passing standard for such tests.
In the spring of 2004, almost 10 percent of all students took a state-approved alternative test instead of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, or TAKS.
Shared Goals
Texas officials also point out that the federal Education Department didn’t make the so-called 1 percent rule final until December 2003, just two months before Texas began testing. “You just can’t turn the ship that quickly,” said Gene Lenz, the deputy associate commissioner for special programs, monitoring, and interventions for the Texas Education Agency.
In deciding which districts and schools made adequate yearly progress for the 2003-04 school year, Texas Commissioner of Education Shirley Neeley granted appeals to districts and schools that said their special education populations failed to reach the districts’ achievement targets solely because of the 1 percent rule.
After the appeals, 86 districts failed to make AYP. Without the appeals, almost half the state’s 1,227 districts would have fallen short of the AYP goals. Without the waivers, 1,718 of the state’s 7,813 schools, or 22 percent, wouldn’t have made AYP. With the waivers, all but 402 did.
The Texas decision is at odds with the basic tenet of the No Child Left Behind Act, according to a supporter of the federal law.
“That’s a real step backward to say they have an alternative test and they’re not going to count [students with disabilities] for AYP,” said Delia Pompa, the director of the Achievement Alliance, a Washington-based coalition that supports the No Child Left Behind Act.
Ms. Cloudt said the agency was working with state legislators to revise state law. “Our goals are identical to No Child Left Behind,” she said. “We’re trying very hard to implement policies in concert with the federal accountability system.”
Vol. 24, Issue 26, Pages 1,23
www.edweek.org
The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators through High-Stakes Testing
I can't say enough good things about this recent study by my colleague, Professor David Berliner (Arizona State University) and his co-author, Professor Sharon L. Nichols (UT—San Antonio).
The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators through High-Stakes Testing
It provides excellent workable analogies on the harmful effects of high-stakes-anything across wide-ranging arenas like medicine, industry, police enforcement, sports, academia in order to make the strong and convincing claim why high-stakes testing in education is bad policy for kids and bad for schools.
It provides an enormous amount of evidence on the collateral effects of high-stakes testing. And it's written in accessible language that newspaper reporters and the public in general can understand.
Read their piece—long but actually a quick read and share it with everyone you know.
Angela
It provides excellent workable analogies on the harmful effects of high-stakes-anything across wide-ranging arenas like medicine, industry, police enforcement, sports, academia in order to make the strong and convincing claim why high-stakes testing in education is bad policy for kids and bad for schools.
It provides an enormous amount of evidence on the collateral effects of high-stakes testing. And it's written in accessible language that newspaper reporters and the public in general can understand.
Read their piece—long but actually a quick read and share it with everyone you know.
Angela
HARRIS COUNTY DEMOCRATIC PARTY CHAIR SPEAKS OUT ON HB 3
by Gerry Birnberg
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
A good friend whom I respect and admire greatly just told me he read my recent post about the vote on HB3 and thought I was saying that I support that legislation. I was aghast. Let me be absolutely and unmistakably clear: HB3 is a terrible piece of legislation which (for the most part) is contrary to the values of the Democratic Party and must never be permitted to become law.
HB3 raises taxes on anyone making less than $100,000 per year. The Bush tax cuts have already favored tremendously the very wealthiest among us at the expense of the rest of us. Now HB3 seeks to do the very same thing at the state level - give a big tax cut to millionaires by raising the taxes the rest of us must pay.
How does HB3 accomplish that? It lowers state property taxes, but then raises state sales taxes by the same amount. Now, for many of us who are fortunate enough to own homes, property taxes on our houses are indeed too high, and should be reduced. But that can be accomplished by increasing homestead exemptions or limiting taxes on owner-occupied residential properties, especially on those having values of, say, less than $500,000. If we did that, we wouldnâ•˙t have to raise sales taxes (probably at all, but at least not to 9Âπ%). But HB3 lowers property taxes on all property - including commercial as well as residential property and on properties (like shopping centers or office buildings) worth many millions of dollars, and replaces those taxes with revenue generated by increasing sales taxes to 9Âπ% - the highest in the nation. So, your sales taxes go up by over 12% to give the Walmarts and the Trammel Crows of this state a huge reduction in their property taxes. Tax the middle class and the poor, this bill provides, to pay for tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthy.
Lots of Texans will never see a dime of tax relief from the property tax reductions: if they live in apartments, the landlord gets the tax break, but they donâ•˙t. On the contrary, their taxes go up, because they will have to pay more sales tax to finance the tax cuts for the apartment complex owners.
So how does a legislator like a Joe Nixon, for example, explain to his constituents why he voted for this bill? 62% of Nixonâ•˙s constituents live in apartments and so they wonâ•˙t receive any benefit from the reduction in property taxes - only their landlords will. Yet their sales taxes will go up to 9Âπ% because of the bill he voted for. The real reason he voted for this bill is that his Republican leadership told him to - not because itâ•˙s good for the constituents he supposedly represents (it isnâ•˙t). Quite simply, he sold them out.
And as far as business taxes are concerned, HB3 creates a new tax on jobs to replace the current tax on businesses. Big companies will no longer have to pay franchise taxes; instead, small businesses will have to pay a tax on each employee on their payroll. I guess the Republicans in the state legislature think we have too many jobs in Texas, so they have decided to tax payrolls instead of corporate profits (which is what the franchise tax does). And if wages are income (and they are), HB3 creates a state income tax, since it imposes taxes based on how much money wage-earners make (up to $80,000 per year; earnings over $80,000 per year are exempt from this new tax). At all events, it ainâ•˙t right in my book to pass a tax on wages to pay for a reduction in taxes on corporate profits. But you see who gets the shaft here - working men and women - and who gets the goodies - big business and wealthy executives.
Now all this might be acceptable if it raised revenues we could use to improve education in this state or to provide health care, for example. (Notice I said might.) By and large, Democrats are willing to sacrifice to achieve those objectives, even if it means foregoing some tax cuts. But that isnâ•˙t the effect of HB3. It doesnâ•˙t raise one penny more for education or health care (or any other government program) than the current tax structure. It simply changes the tax burden to make poor and middle class Texans shoulder more of it, without increasing the pie one dime. Whatever taxes are raised by raising sales taxes to 9Âπ% are used to reduce property taxes (including for commercial properties and mansions). Whatever revenues are realized from the jobs tax go to relieve corporations from the franchise tax. Thereâ•˙s no new money for education or health care resulting from HB3. Just an increase in the taxes most Texans pay in order to give tax relief mainly to folks and corporations who donâ•˙t need it.
If there was any confusion about where I stand on HB3, let me be perfectly clear: this bill is a travesty, an abomination, an unmitigated rip-off, and an outrage - just what youâ•˙d expect from a House presided over by Tom Craddick.
Paid for by Harris County Democratic Party, www.hcdp.org. Not authorized by any
candidate or candidate's committee.
Chair, Harris County Democratic Party
A good friend whom I respect and admire greatly just told me he read my recent post about the vote on HB3 and thought I was saying that I support that legislation. I was aghast. Let me be absolutely and unmistakably clear: HB3 is a terrible piece of legislation which (for the most part) is contrary to the values of the Democratic Party and must never be permitted to become law.
HB3 raises taxes on anyone making less than $100,000 per year. The Bush tax cuts have already favored tremendously the very wealthiest among us at the expense of the rest of us. Now HB3 seeks to do the very same thing at the state level - give a big tax cut to millionaires by raising the taxes the rest of us must pay.
How does HB3 accomplish that? It lowers state property taxes, but then raises state sales taxes by the same amount. Now, for many of us who are fortunate enough to own homes, property taxes on our houses are indeed too high, and should be reduced. But that can be accomplished by increasing homestead exemptions or limiting taxes on owner-occupied residential properties, especially on those having values of, say, less than $500,000. If we did that, we wouldnâ•˙t have to raise sales taxes (probably at all, but at least not to 9Âπ%). But HB3 lowers property taxes on all property - including commercial as well as residential property and on properties (like shopping centers or office buildings) worth many millions of dollars, and replaces those taxes with revenue generated by increasing sales taxes to 9Âπ% - the highest in the nation. So, your sales taxes go up by over 12% to give the Walmarts and the Trammel Crows of this state a huge reduction in their property taxes. Tax the middle class and the poor, this bill provides, to pay for tax cuts for big corporations and the wealthy.
Lots of Texans will never see a dime of tax relief from the property tax reductions: if they live in apartments, the landlord gets the tax break, but they donâ•˙t. On the contrary, their taxes go up, because they will have to pay more sales tax to finance the tax cuts for the apartment complex owners.
So how does a legislator like a Joe Nixon, for example, explain to his constituents why he voted for this bill? 62% of Nixonâ•˙s constituents live in apartments and so they wonâ•˙t receive any benefit from the reduction in property taxes - only their landlords will. Yet their sales taxes will go up to 9Âπ% because of the bill he voted for. The real reason he voted for this bill is that his Republican leadership told him to - not because itâ•˙s good for the constituents he supposedly represents (it isnâ•˙t). Quite simply, he sold them out.
And as far as business taxes are concerned, HB3 creates a new tax on jobs to replace the current tax on businesses. Big companies will no longer have to pay franchise taxes; instead, small businesses will have to pay a tax on each employee on their payroll. I guess the Republicans in the state legislature think we have too many jobs in Texas, so they have decided to tax payrolls instead of corporate profits (which is what the franchise tax does). And if wages are income (and they are), HB3 creates a state income tax, since it imposes taxes based on how much money wage-earners make (up to $80,000 per year; earnings over $80,000 per year are exempt from this new tax). At all events, it ainâ•˙t right in my book to pass a tax on wages to pay for a reduction in taxes on corporate profits. But you see who gets the shaft here - working men and women - and who gets the goodies - big business and wealthy executives.
Now all this might be acceptable if it raised revenues we could use to improve education in this state or to provide health care, for example. (Notice I said might.) By and large, Democrats are willing to sacrifice to achieve those objectives, even if it means foregoing some tax cuts. But that isnâ•˙t the effect of HB3. It doesnâ•˙t raise one penny more for education or health care (or any other government program) than the current tax structure. It simply changes the tax burden to make poor and middle class Texans shoulder more of it, without increasing the pie one dime. Whatever taxes are raised by raising sales taxes to 9Âπ% are used to reduce property taxes (including for commercial properties and mansions). Whatever revenues are realized from the jobs tax go to relieve corporations from the franchise tax. Thereâ•˙s no new money for education or health care resulting from HB3. Just an increase in the taxes most Texans pay in order to give tax relief mainly to folks and corporations who donâ•˙t need it.
If there was any confusion about where I stand on HB3, let me be perfectly clear: this bill is a travesty, an abomination, an unmitigated rip-off, and an outrage - just what youâ•˙d expect from a House presided over by Tom Craddick.
Paid for by Harris County Democratic Party, www.hcdp.org. Not authorized by any
candidate or candidate's committee.
School Tax Bill Doesn't Add Up, Strayhorn Says
Strayhorn is being accused of playing politics. She is enormously competent. My guess is that she/her office was largely left out of the discussions on HB3 and to legislators' detriment. -Angela
79th LEGISLATURE
Comptroller's Office Signed Off on Proposal, House Leaders Claim.
By Jason Embry, Stephen Scheibal
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Statewide school finance reform was thrown into further disarray Tuesday when Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn assailed the tax overhaul passed last week by the House.
She said it would raise taxes on Texans in the short term and then fail to generate enough money for the state in the long term.
"My heart goes out to them. They just passed the largest tax bill in history, and it does not balance," Strayhorn said.
But House leaders insisted that the numbers add up and said Strayhorn's staff signed off on the bill before the House approved it.
"It's just another frustrating day working with your comptroller," said Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and House Bill 3's chief architect.
"We can only conclude that the comptroller's office is either inept, purposely misleading the media and the public, or just playing politics — or maybe all three," Keffer said.
The bill, a key component of a plan to change the way Texas pays for public schools, would raise a series of taxes and would create a business tax to offset a proposed one-third reduction in property taxes for school maintenance and operations. House leaders have said the bill is revenue neutral, shorthand for a measure that creates as much money as it costs, and doesn't raise overall taxes.
Even when officials worked on the premise that the bill is revenue neutral, it faced a very uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers have long been working on their own tax plan. Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, showed no plans to pull the bill back, meaning that its differences with a Senate plan will be worked out in a conference committee before returning for votes from both bodies.
"We still feel the numbers are correct. We delayed the vote twice to make sure everything was right," Craddick said. "We don't see where anything has changed."
Strayhorn, a possible GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2006, has a history of tangling with lawmakers but has been relatively quiet during the first half of this session. Until Tuesday.
She said the bill would bring in $6.8 billion in new taxes in the next two years while reducing property taxes by only $5.8 billion, netting an extra $1 billion in tax revenue statewide. The bill would create a surplus, she said, because the property tax cuts would not take effect until the 2007 budget year, the second half of the two-year cycle.
After that, she said, the scales would tip the other way: In the next two years, the cuts in property taxes would exceed the state tax increases by $4.3 billion.
"The imbalance continues to grow each year thereafter," Strayhorn said in a letter to Keffer and Craddick.
Strayhorn said the problem lies in proposed changes to the business tax. The bill would allow businesses to pay either the current franchise tax or a new payroll tax. It originally called for all businesses to pay a payroll tax, but House leaders changed it during the floor debate to give companies the option and appease concerns about a payroll tax punishing labor-intensive businesses such as restaurants.
"The bill does not provide for a minimum tax," Strayhorn said in her letter. "Taxpayers will simply plan around the tax as easily as they do the current franchise tax."
Most businesses in Texas legally avoid paying the franchise tax, many by organizing as partnerships, which are not subject to it. Strayhorn said one way companies could reduce tax payments under the House plan is to replace existing staff with leased staff.
At a Capitol news conference with Craddick, Keffer and other House members launched into an accusatory recounting of the bill's history, saying Strayhorn's staff repeatedly assured lawmakers that the bill was revenue neutral. House leaders accused Strayhorn of contradicting the very advice that, they said, led them to bring the tax bill forward.
Rep. Mike Villarreal, a San Antonio Democrat and the Ways and Means vice chairman, was no softer on Strayhorn.
"Our hands are tied, our work becomes completely impossible, when the calculator that we rely on changes its mind from one day to the next, from one week to the next, and does not accurately report what the numbers are adding up to," he said.
Craddick and Strayhorn offered differing accounts of her staff's involvement. On the day it was passed, when House leaders met for most of the day and considered dozens of amendments to it, Strayhorn aides had no time to analyze the full bill, said Deputy Comptroller Billy Hamilton.
"It was not something we could raise the alarm on," Hamilton said. "Our estimators were deluged with the amendments."
Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, dismissed the criticisms of Strayhorn, saying the comptroller followed the proper channels in making her concerns known, and he called it disappointing that House leaders lashed out at her.
Enactment of a bill that raises taxes overall or leaves schools starving for revenue probably would help Strayhorn if she challenges Gov. Rick Perry in next year's Republican pri- mary. But Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said Strayhorn will be judged most on the accuracy of her analysis.
"There's certainly going to be politics in the executive summary, the headline on the analysis," Jillson said. "But if the headline isn't right and the numbers aren't sound, she will pay a terrible price for that, because that's her job."
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/03/23strayhorn.html
79th LEGISLATURE
Comptroller's Office Signed Off on Proposal, House Leaders Claim.
By Jason Embry, Stephen Scheibal
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Statewide school finance reform was thrown into further disarray Tuesday when Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn assailed the tax overhaul passed last week by the House.
She said it would raise taxes on Texans in the short term and then fail to generate enough money for the state in the long term.
"My heart goes out to them. They just passed the largest tax bill in history, and it does not balance," Strayhorn said.
But House leaders insisted that the numbers add up and said Strayhorn's staff signed off on the bill before the House approved it.
"It's just another frustrating day working with your comptroller," said Rep. Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee and House Bill 3's chief architect.
"We can only conclude that the comptroller's office is either inept, purposely misleading the media and the public, or just playing politics — or maybe all three," Keffer said.
The bill, a key component of a plan to change the way Texas pays for public schools, would raise a series of taxes and would create a business tax to offset a proposed one-third reduction in property taxes for school maintenance and operations. House leaders have said the bill is revenue neutral, shorthand for a measure that creates as much money as it costs, and doesn't raise overall taxes.
Even when officials worked on the premise that the bill is revenue neutral, it faced a very uncertain future in the Senate, where lawmakers have long been working on their own tax plan. Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, showed no plans to pull the bill back, meaning that its differences with a Senate plan will be worked out in a conference committee before returning for votes from both bodies.
"We still feel the numbers are correct. We delayed the vote twice to make sure everything was right," Craddick said. "We don't see where anything has changed."
Strayhorn, a possible GOP gubernatorial candidate in 2006, has a history of tangling with lawmakers but has been relatively quiet during the first half of this session. Until Tuesday.
She said the bill would bring in $6.8 billion in new taxes in the next two years while reducing property taxes by only $5.8 billion, netting an extra $1 billion in tax revenue statewide. The bill would create a surplus, she said, because the property tax cuts would not take effect until the 2007 budget year, the second half of the two-year cycle.
After that, she said, the scales would tip the other way: In the next two years, the cuts in property taxes would exceed the state tax increases by $4.3 billion.
"The imbalance continues to grow each year thereafter," Strayhorn said in a letter to Keffer and Craddick.
Strayhorn said the problem lies in proposed changes to the business tax. The bill would allow businesses to pay either the current franchise tax or a new payroll tax. It originally called for all businesses to pay a payroll tax, but House leaders changed it during the floor debate to give companies the option and appease concerns about a payroll tax punishing labor-intensive businesses such as restaurants.
"The bill does not provide for a minimum tax," Strayhorn said in her letter. "Taxpayers will simply plan around the tax as easily as they do the current franchise tax."
Most businesses in Texas legally avoid paying the franchise tax, many by organizing as partnerships, which are not subject to it. Strayhorn said one way companies could reduce tax payments under the House plan is to replace existing staff with leased staff.
At a Capitol news conference with Craddick, Keffer and other House members launched into an accusatory recounting of the bill's history, saying Strayhorn's staff repeatedly assured lawmakers that the bill was revenue neutral. House leaders accused Strayhorn of contradicting the very advice that, they said, led them to bring the tax bill forward.
Rep. Mike Villarreal, a San Antonio Democrat and the Ways and Means vice chairman, was no softer on Strayhorn.
"Our hands are tied, our work becomes completely impossible, when the calculator that we rely on changes its mind from one day to the next, from one week to the next, and does not accurately report what the numbers are adding up to," he said.
Craddick and Strayhorn offered differing accounts of her staff's involvement. On the day it was passed, when House leaders met for most of the day and considered dozens of amendments to it, Strayhorn aides had no time to analyze the full bill, said Deputy Comptroller Billy Hamilton.
"It was not something we could raise the alarm on," Hamilton said. "Our estimators were deluged with the amendments."
Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, dismissed the criticisms of Strayhorn, saying the comptroller followed the proper channels in making her concerns known, and he called it disappointing that House leaders lashed out at her.
Enactment of a bill that raises taxes overall or leaves schools starving for revenue probably would help Strayhorn if she challenges Gov. Rick Perry in next year's Republican pri- mary. But Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University, said Strayhorn will be judged most on the accuracy of her analysis.
"There's certainly going to be politics in the executive summary, the headline on the analysis," Jillson said. "But if the headline isn't right and the numbers aren't sound, she will pay a terrible price for that, because that's her job."
http://www.statesman.com/metrostate/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/03/23strayhorn.html
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
The Wal-Martization of Education
Check out this piece in the Black Commentator. The market-based money-making, profit-seeking agenda is laid bare in this, as well as the Saltman piece mentioned below. -Angela
The Wal-Martization of Education
This message is from Monty Neill at Fairtest. We all need to check out the following book on the story of Edison schools:
The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling And The Assault On Public Educaton (2005) Routledge
by Kenneth J. Saltman
The story of the Edison Schools is a gripping tale of money, kids, and greed. What began in the 1980s as an enterprise to transform public schools quickly became a troubled business battling falling test scores and dismal stock prices. How did the most ambitious for-profit education company in U.S. history lose respect, money, and credibility in such a short time?
Revealing how American McEducation went from glory to crisis, The Edison Schools tracks entrepreneur Christopher Whittle's plan to introduce a standardized nationwide curriculum and cutadministrative waste.
Education specialist Kenneth J. Saltman finds that the critics' predictions came true in Edison schools across the country: Experienced teachers left in droves, students were virtually given answers to standardized tests to drive up scores, and difficult students were
"counselored" out.
Saltman uses the Edison saga to highlight key debates about the role of schools in American democracy and illuminate broader issues of privatization and cultural diversity. Showing how the profit motive helped created "Edron," the book will force teachers, parents, students,and general readers to reconsider the role of private money in this critical part of our public life.
* A full expose of the Edison schools, the largest attempt ever to privatize public education
* Uses the schools to studylarger issues ofaccountability, trust in our institutions, and the social role of publiceducation
* Uncovers the reasons for the collapse of Edison, from falsified score reports and accounting scandals to a near-takeover by right-wing radicals
Kenneth J. Saltman is the co-editor of Education as Enforcement, and author of Collateral Damage and Strange Love: Or How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Market.
This message is from Monty Neill at Fairtest. We all need to check out the following book on the story of Edison schools:
The Edison Schools: Corporate Schooling And The Assault On Public Educaton (2005) Routledge
by Kenneth J. Saltman
The story of the Edison Schools is a gripping tale of money, kids, and greed. What began in the 1980s as an enterprise to transform public schools quickly became a troubled business battling falling test scores and dismal stock prices. How did the most ambitious for-profit education company in U.S. history lose respect, money, and credibility in such a short time?
Revealing how American McEducation went from glory to crisis, The Edison Schools tracks entrepreneur Christopher Whittle's plan to introduce a standardized nationwide curriculum and cutadministrative waste.
Education specialist Kenneth J. Saltman finds that the critics' predictions came true in Edison schools across the country: Experienced teachers left in droves, students were virtually given answers to standardized tests to drive up scores, and difficult students were
"counselored" out.
Saltman uses the Edison saga to highlight key debates about the role of schools in American democracy and illuminate broader issues of privatization and cultural diversity. Showing how the profit motive helped created "Edron," the book will force teachers, parents, students,and general readers to reconsider the role of private money in this critical part of our public life.
* A full expose of the Edison schools, the largest attempt ever to privatize public education
* Uses the schools to studylarger issues ofaccountability, trust in our institutions, and the social role of publiceducation
* Uncovers the reasons for the collapse of Edison, from falsified score reports and accounting scandals to a near-takeover by right-wing radicals
Kenneth J. Saltman is the co-editor of Education as Enforcement, and author of Collateral Damage and Strange Love: Or How We Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Market.
Monday, March 21, 2005
SCIENTIFIC AMERICA from the Editors of The Scientific American
Check this out from the April 2005 issue of the Scientific American http://www.sciamdigital.com/. I wish this were mere satire or hyperbole. Indeed, check out the following proposed legislation HB 2067 that calls for removing science and social studies from the K-3 curriculum in Texas. I'm not really sure what this is about, but it amazingly coincides with this Scientific American piece. -Angela
SCIENTIFIC AMERICA
April 2005
Okay, We Give Up
There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told
us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't
mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues
as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice
and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should
be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even
Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is
turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right,
and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of so –called evolution has been
hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that
endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of
common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying
concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all
time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the
answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism?
Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or
that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They
dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens
of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no
business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.
Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by
lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed
all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that
at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or
maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's
what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in
details.
Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to
present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories
simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor
should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand
their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do.
Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem
untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without
com–ment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore
wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views
in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.
Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science
should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an
anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens
of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't
hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's
antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates
that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No
more discussions of how policies affect science either-so what if the budget
for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be
dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the
science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.
The Editors editors@sciam.com
SCIENTIFIC AMERICA
April 2005
Okay, We Give Up
There's no easy way to admit this. For years, helpful letter writers told
us to stick to science. They pointed out that science and politics don't
mix. They said we should be more balanced in our presentation of such issues
as creationism, missile defense and global warming. We resisted their advice
and pretended not to be stung by the accusations that the magazine should
be renamed Unscientific American, or Scientific Unamerican, or even
Unscientific Unamerican. But spring is in the air, and all of nature is
turning over a new leaf, so there's no better time to say: you were right,
and we were wrong.
In retrospect, this magazine's coverage of so –called evolution has been
hideously one-sided. For decades, we published articles in every issue that
endorsed the ideas of Charles Darwin and his cronies. True, the theory of
common descent through natural selection has been called the unifying
concept for all of biology and one of the greatest scientific ideas of all
time, but that was no excuse to be fanatics about it. Where were the
answering articles presenting the powerful case for scientific creationism?
Why were we so unwilling to suggest that dinosaurs lived 6,000 years ago or
that a cataclysmic flood carved the Grand Canyon? Blame the scientists. They
dazzled us with their fancy fossils, their radiocarbon dating and their tens
of thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles. As editors, we had no
business being persuaded by mountains of evidence.
Moreover, we shamefully mistreated the Intelligent Design (ID) theorists by
lumping them in with creationists. Creationists believe that God designed
all life, and that's a somewhat religious idea. But ID theorists think that
at unspecified times some unnamed superpowerful entity designed life, or
maybe just some species, or maybe just some of the stuff in cells. That's
what makes ID a superior scientific theory: it doesn't get bogged down in
details.
Good journalism values balance above all else. We owe it to our readers to
present everybody's ideas equally and not to ignore or discredit theories
simply because they lack scientifically credible arguments or facts. Nor
should we succumb to the easy mistake of thinking that scientists understand
their fields better than, say, U.S. senators or best-selling novelists do.
Indeed, if politicians or special-interest groups say things that seem
untrue or misleading, our duty as journalists is to quote them without
com–ment or contradiction. To do otherwise would be elitist and therefore
wrong. In that spirit, we will end the practice of expressing our own views
in this space: an editorial page is no place for opinions.
Get ready for a new Scientific American. No more discussions of how science
should inform policy. If the government commits blindly to building an
anti-ICBM defense system that can't work as promised, that will waste tens
of billions of taxpayers' dollars and imperil national security, you won't
hear about it from us. If studies suggest that the administration's
antipollution measures would actually increase the dangerous particulates
that people breathe during the next two decades, that's not our concern. No
more discussions of how policies affect science either-so what if the budget
for the National Science Foundation is slashed? This magazine will be
dedicated purely to science, fair and balanced science, and not just the
science that scientists say is science. And it will start on April Fools' Day.
The Editors editors@sciam.com
"NPR : Testing Scandal in Texas Schools"
This came out on NPR this morning. It focuses on the recent cheating scandal. I think that it's wrong to focus on these individual acts and NOT to focus on the system. While the story indeed implies something systemic is going on, no analysis is provided to the listener. -Angela
"NPR : Testing Scandal in Texas Schools"
NPR Story
Please click on the headline to the story using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player.
For players or technical support, please visit NPR's Audio Help page.
"NPR : Testing Scandal in Texas Schools"
Please click on the headline to the story using a RealAudio or WindowsMedia player.
For players or technical support, please visit NPR's Audio Help page.
Gambling Backers, Foes Face Off at Capitol
Increased gaming could gain momentum as budget hole widens
By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, March 21, 2005
Nearly a year after legislators soundly spurned video lottery terminals as a way to pay for education, expanded gambling appears close to winning a fresh look as new forces work opposite sides of the perennial fight at the Capitol.
Key lawmakers in both houses say momentum for gaming could swell once legislators get a fix on funding gaps for public schools, health care, criminal justice and higher education in the 2006-07 state budget.
"Gambling has a chance of resurrecting itself," said Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, "just because it's going to be hard to make everything balance."
And while conservative opponents of gaming say they still have enough clout to thwart the efforts in the GOP-controlled Legislature, their political rivals also like their chances.
Bill Stinson, a lobbyist for the pro-casino group Let the People Decide, said legislators will realize their choice boils down to legalizing casinos or implementing a big tax increase on top of $5.4 billion a year in taxes the House approved Monday to pay for reduced local school property taxes.
"I'll bet you a cup of coffee they're going to be $3 billion to $5 billion short" in the budget, Stinson said.
Let the People Decide, backed by real estate developers who see opportunities in the legalization of casinos, is encouraging a public vote on the issue. The group touts a study projecting up to $1.2 billion a year in state revenue from 40,000 video lottery terminals, which are similar to slot machines, and more than $2.1 billion if voters permit 12 casinos and 22 related restaurants, hotels and businesses statewide.
On the other side of the issue this year, amateur lobbyists Rob Kohler and David Bales of Austin have joined the typically outspent anti-gambling lobby, delivering breakfast tacos to legislators on behalf of a nonprofit think tank they've created. Along with the tacos, they deliver a warning against buying into rosy forecasts on gambling, and they put an economic spin on an argument often framed in moral terms.
"There's a whole lot of Texans who don't buy into the idea that it's free money falling from the sky and there's really nobody out there looking at it with knowledge making sure that when people make decisions about it a spade is called a spade," said Kohler, a former Texas Lottery Commission employee who also runs a private consulting company. "This isn't a moral issue for me. This is business and economics."
Legislative options
Expanding gambling in Texas would probably require a change in the state constitution, which requires two-thirds support in both houses of the Legislature as well as voter approval.
Lawmakers have been exploring different ways to make that happen:
* State Reps. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus Christi, and Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who heads the appropriations panel, are among 10 to 20 House members who have privately ruminated since last summer about writing a gambling proposal likely to draw House support
* Pitts and Rep. Kino Flores, D-Mission, each filed proposed constitutional amendments last week that could lead to voter action on video lottery terminals at race tracks and on Indian-owned lands, an idea pitched unsuccessfully by Gov. Rick Perry last spring.
* Another proposal by Flores includes language authorizing up to 12 casino developments statewide. Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, have filed similar proposals.
Pitts said last week he sees gambling as the only way legislators can afford more aid for schools, including money for a teacher pay raise, beyond the $3 billion the House already wants to commit by taking money from yet-to-be-finalized changes elsewhere in the budget.
The study updated for Let the People Decide by Waco economist Ray Perryman suggests the state could take in $1.2 billion a year in profits from the machines.
Last May, House members rejected 119-26 a proposed constitutional amendment that would have sought voter approval of video lottery terminals. The action contributed to the collapse of a special session on school finance and taxes.
Momentum for gambling seemed to drain in the GOP-majority Legislature, with House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, telling reporters at the time that the House can't pass video gaming.
After the session, the Republican Party of Texas inserted anti-gambling language in the party platform, saying any expanded gambling would have devastating effects on Texas families.
"We strongly oppose gambling, in any form, as a means to fund education," the platform says
Allen Blakemore of Houston, who advises conservative candidates, all but rules out a gambling measure winning this year, though he said he admires the "pluck" of those who could attempt to win the two-thirds margins in each body needed to propose constitutional changes to voters.
"There's no way the conservative grass roots will allow the Legislature to do that," Blakemore said. "The elected officials who want to stay, who want to keep their jobs, understand and won't vote for that."
Blakemore said Perry, a Republican poised to seek re-election next year, would "certainly" veto any gambling legislation that reaches his desk .
Perry has said he doesn't see video lottery having much of a chance this year. A spokeswoman said he will leave gaming issues up to legislators.
Betting on the ballot
Against that opposition, most advocates now echo an argument that worked to send the state lottery to the ballot in 1991: Let voters decide.
"A lot of people are questioning why they can't vote on gambling," said Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, who watches buses routinely hauling Texans past his hometown to gambling houses in nearby Louisiana. "Society has changed. A lot of people view it as entertainment, no different than going to a picture show."
Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, likened the economic effect of casinos to 20 new truck plants like the Toyota factory under construction in San Antonio.
Among gambling foes, Rep. Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land, took issue with turning to voters. "Why don't we do that with everything we do up here? Then we don't need to be here," he said. "We are elected representatives. Some (members) don't have the guts to take a position."
Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria, said he's found a way to make it easier to approve gaming at the Capitol.
He suggested that lawmakers authorize county gaming districts to oversee video lottery terminals, a step he said would avoid the need to amend the constitution. The untested strategy would reduce to a majority of each body the margin needed to expand gambling.
As the debate plays out, nearly 200 lobbyists list gambling as an interest in reports to the Texas Ethics Commission, though fewer than 20 lobbyists appear to be representing big-dollar clients.
Big City Capital, a Nevada-incorporated business headed by former Fort Worth nightclub owner Billy Bob Barnett, has enlisted six lobbyists, including Mike Toomey, who stepped down as Perry's chief of staff last fall. The lobbyists estimate their "prospective" fees total $600,000 to nearly $1 million. The company was founded in 2002 and, so far, has applied for permits to stage concerts in Galveston, according to a report by the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice.
Kohler and Bales, the newcomers to the anti-gambling cause, represent the Common Sense & Sound Public Policy Think Tank. They base their opposition on analyses of Lottery Commission data.
Kohler and Bales, a real estate businessman whose late father, Larry, owned the Scholz Garten restaurant in downtown Austin and was a state representative from Travis County, said they have paired up drawing from Kohler's money to make a case that slot-style machines and other gaming amount to gimmicks likely to cost people more than they help government. They say their motivation is simple: avoid bad public policy that will rely too heavily on low-income Texans and provide a bad return for the state.
Kohler said other state governments that draw money from slot-style machines generally receive only about 4 cents from every dollar spent on the machines, far lower than the traditional return on lottery sales of about 30 cents on the dollar.
He said Texans would have to spend $37 billion on gambling in a single year, equal to the money they've spent on the lottery since September 2002, for the state to net the $1.2 billion proponents promise.
Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, fielded a taco from Kohler and a document stating that low-income people disproportionately play the lottery and estimating the costs to local government of treating people who become gambling addicts.
Strama, undecided on gambling before the visit, said later: "I can't see a way that I can stomach gambling. His argument is persuasive."
wgselby@statesman.com; 445-3644
Playing the numbers
Lobbyists on both sides of the issue point to statistics to show how Texas will be affected by video lottery terminals at racetracks or a broader proposal to build a network of casinos across the state.
Supporters say:
Jobs created
* 15,000 from video lottery terminals
* 200,000 from casinos
Government revenue generated:
* $1.2 billion a year from video terminals
* $2.8 billion from casinos
Critics counter:
Costs to society:
* $1.5 billion to $3 billion a year because of pathological gambling
Money lost:
* $250 by nearby businesses for every $1,000 gambled
Sources: The Perryman Group, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Legislative Budget Board, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Common Sense and Sound Policy Think Tank, Center for Public Policy Priorities drawing on historic participation in Texas lottery
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/monday/news_24e3f70437f5f00f0061.html
By W. Gardner Selby
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, March 21, 2005
Nearly a year after legislators soundly spurned video lottery terminals as a way to pay for education, expanded gambling appears close to winning a fresh look as new forces work opposite sides of the perennial fight at the Capitol.
Key lawmakers in both houses say momentum for gaming could swell once legislators get a fix on funding gaps for public schools, health care, criminal justice and higher education in the 2006-07 state budget.
"Gambling has a chance of resurrecting itself," said Sen. Steve Ogden, R-Bryan, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, "just because it's going to be hard to make everything balance."
And while conservative opponents of gaming say they still have enough clout to thwart the efforts in the GOP-controlled Legislature, their political rivals also like their chances.
Bill Stinson, a lobbyist for the pro-casino group Let the People Decide, said legislators will realize their choice boils down to legalizing casinos or implementing a big tax increase on top of $5.4 billion a year in taxes the House approved Monday to pay for reduced local school property taxes.
"I'll bet you a cup of coffee they're going to be $3 billion to $5 billion short" in the budget, Stinson said.
Let the People Decide, backed by real estate developers who see opportunities in the legalization of casinos, is encouraging a public vote on the issue. The group touts a study projecting up to $1.2 billion a year in state revenue from 40,000 video lottery terminals, which are similar to slot machines, and more than $2.1 billion if voters permit 12 casinos and 22 related restaurants, hotels and businesses statewide.
On the other side of the issue this year, amateur lobbyists Rob Kohler and David Bales of Austin have joined the typically outspent anti-gambling lobby, delivering breakfast tacos to legislators on behalf of a nonprofit think tank they've created. Along with the tacos, they deliver a warning against buying into rosy forecasts on gambling, and they put an economic spin on an argument often framed in moral terms.
"There's a whole lot of Texans who don't buy into the idea that it's free money falling from the sky and there's really nobody out there looking at it with knowledge making sure that when people make decisions about it a spade is called a spade," said Kohler, a former Texas Lottery Commission employee who also runs a private consulting company. "This isn't a moral issue for me. This is business and economics."
Legislative options
Expanding gambling in Texas would probably require a change in the state constitution, which requires two-thirds support in both houses of the Legislature as well as voter approval.
Lawmakers have been exploring different ways to make that happen:
* State Reps. Vilma Luna, D-Corpus Christi, and Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who heads the appropriations panel, are among 10 to 20 House members who have privately ruminated since last summer about writing a gambling proposal likely to draw House support
* Pitts and Rep. Kino Flores, D-Mission, each filed proposed constitutional amendments last week that could lead to voter action on video lottery terminals at race tracks and on Indian-owned lands, an idea pitched unsuccessfully by Gov. Rick Perry last spring.
* Another proposal by Flores includes language authorizing up to 12 casino developments statewide. Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, and Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, have filed similar proposals.
Pitts said last week he sees gambling as the only way legislators can afford more aid for schools, including money for a teacher pay raise, beyond the $3 billion the House already wants to commit by taking money from yet-to-be-finalized changes elsewhere in the budget.
The study updated for Let the People Decide by Waco economist Ray Perryman suggests the state could take in $1.2 billion a year in profits from the machines.
Last May, House members rejected 119-26 a proposed constitutional amendment that would have sought voter approval of video lottery terminals. The action contributed to the collapse of a special session on school finance and taxes.
Momentum for gambling seemed to drain in the GOP-majority Legislature, with House Speaker Tom Craddick, R-Midland, telling reporters at the time that the House can't pass video gaming.
After the session, the Republican Party of Texas inserted anti-gambling language in the party platform, saying any expanded gambling would have devastating effects on Texas families.
"We strongly oppose gambling, in any form, as a means to fund education," the platform says
Allen Blakemore of Houston, who advises conservative candidates, all but rules out a gambling measure winning this year, though he said he admires the "pluck" of those who could attempt to win the two-thirds margins in each body needed to propose constitutional changes to voters.
"There's no way the conservative grass roots will allow the Legislature to do that," Blakemore said. "The elected officials who want to stay, who want to keep their jobs, understand and won't vote for that."
Blakemore said Perry, a Republican poised to seek re-election next year, would "certainly" veto any gambling legislation that reaches his desk .
Perry has said he doesn't see video lottery having much of a chance this year. A spokeswoman said he will leave gaming issues up to legislators.
Betting on the ballot
Against that opposition, most advocates now echo an argument that worked to send the state lottery to the ballot in 1991: Let voters decide.
"A lot of people are questioning why they can't vote on gambling," said Rep. Allan Ritter, D-Nederland, who watches buses routinely hauling Texans past his hometown to gambling houses in nearby Louisiana. "Society has changed. A lot of people view it as entertainment, no different than going to a picture show."
Rep. Charlie Geren, R-Fort Worth, likened the economic effect of casinos to 20 new truck plants like the Toyota factory under construction in San Antonio.
Among gambling foes, Rep. Charlie Howard, R-Sugar Land, took issue with turning to voters. "Why don't we do that with everything we do up here? Then we don't need to be here," he said. "We are elected representatives. Some (members) don't have the guts to take a position."
Sen. Ken Armbrister, D-Victoria, said he's found a way to make it easier to approve gaming at the Capitol.
He suggested that lawmakers authorize county gaming districts to oversee video lottery terminals, a step he said would avoid the need to amend the constitution. The untested strategy would reduce to a majority of each body the margin needed to expand gambling.
As the debate plays out, nearly 200 lobbyists list gambling as an interest in reports to the Texas Ethics Commission, though fewer than 20 lobbyists appear to be representing big-dollar clients.
Big City Capital, a Nevada-incorporated business headed by former Fort Worth nightclub owner Billy Bob Barnett, has enlisted six lobbyists, including Mike Toomey, who stepped down as Perry's chief of staff last fall. The lobbyists estimate their "prospective" fees total $600,000 to nearly $1 million. The company was founded in 2002 and, so far, has applied for permits to stage concerts in Galveston, according to a report by the watchdog group Texans for Public Justice.
Kohler and Bales, the newcomers to the anti-gambling cause, represent the Common Sense & Sound Public Policy Think Tank. They base their opposition on analyses of Lottery Commission data.
Kohler and Bales, a real estate businessman whose late father, Larry, owned the Scholz Garten restaurant in downtown Austin and was a state representative from Travis County, said they have paired up drawing from Kohler's money to make a case that slot-style machines and other gaming amount to gimmicks likely to cost people more than they help government. They say their motivation is simple: avoid bad public policy that will rely too heavily on low-income Texans and provide a bad return for the state.
Kohler said other state governments that draw money from slot-style machines generally receive only about 4 cents from every dollar spent on the machines, far lower than the traditional return on lottery sales of about 30 cents on the dollar.
He said Texans would have to spend $37 billion on gambling in a single year, equal to the money they've spent on the lottery since September 2002, for the state to net the $1.2 billion proponents promise.
Rep. Mark Strama, D-Austin, fielded a taco from Kohler and a document stating that low-income people disproportionately play the lottery and estimating the costs to local government of treating people who become gambling addicts.
Strama, undecided on gambling before the visit, said later: "I can't see a way that I can stomach gambling. His argument is persuasive."
wgselby@statesman.com; 445-3644
Playing the numbers
Lobbyists on both sides of the issue point to statistics to show how Texas will be affected by video lottery terminals at racetracks or a broader proposal to build a network of casinos across the state.
Supporters say:
Jobs created
* 15,000 from video lottery terminals
* 200,000 from casinos
Government revenue generated:
* $1.2 billion a year from video terminals
* $2.8 billion from casinos
Critics counter:
Costs to society:
* $1.5 billion to $3 billion a year because of pathological gambling
Money lost:
* $250 by nearby businesses for every $1,000 gambled
Sources: The Perryman Group, Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, Legislative Budget Board, Texas Public Policy Foundation, Common Sense and Sound Policy Think Tank, Center for Public Policy Priorities drawing on historic participation in Texas lottery
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/monday/news_24e3f70437f5f00f0061.html
Sunday, March 20, 2005
State's dropout rate 'not accurate'
By NICOLE C. BRAMBILA
nbrambila@sastandardtimes.com
March 20, 2005
Forget the dropout rate. Education researchers have dubbed the exodus from public school ''the push-out rate.''
For more than 15 years, the San Antonio-based Intercultural Development Research Association has tracked statewide attrition rates. Originally commissioned by the Texas Department of Commerce, the IDRA conducted a study that looked at the number of dropouts and the economic cost to the state, Executive Director Maria Robledo Montecel said.
The result of the inaugural report, Montecel said, was the creation of a state law defining dropouts and counts being conducted.
According to an IRDA newsletter, the initial study found 86,000 students did not graduate in the 1986-87 school year. Although the Texas Education Agency counted for dropouts differently, the numbers were comparable to those produced by the IDRA, Montecel said.
That was then. Today's numbers, she said, show a slight of hand.
The IDRA reported a 40-percent attrition rate in 2000 while the TEA reported a dropout rate of 1 percent for the same year.
Why the discrepancy?
The number of TEA-approved ''leaver codes,'' or acceptable exits of students from public schools, has increased - from obtaining a General Equivalency Diploma to being incarcerated.
''As more leaver codes are added, the dropout number becomes lower and lower,'' Montecel said. ''The method that is being used allows for these more than 30 ways of exempting them from the count.
''As long as the dropout counts are not accurate and credible, then it's quite difficult to know whether what we're doing is helping or not.''
The way school districts calculate the dropout rate, as mandated by state law, masks the scope of the problem, Montecel said.
The San Angelo Independent School District reported a 1.3-percent dropout rate in 2000. Census data from 2000 showed 18.6 percent of San Angeloans age 18-24 had not obtained a high school diploma or equivalent.
Sue Vanhoozer, the district's executive director of east-side campuses, noted that the census counts everyone, whether educated in San Angelo or not.
The school district's report to the TEA in 2000 showed the four-year completion rate - including those who dropped out and took the GED - at 86 percent. Completion rates account for students who earn a high school diploma or an equivalent, namely a GED certificate.
''I feel like we're doing better,'' said Joanne Rice, assistant superintendent of educational support services. ''We're nowhere near where we need to be.''
Rice conceded some of the leaver codes - such as for incarceration - shouldn't be considered a ''positive exit.''
''I don't agree with all the leaver codes,'' Rice said. ''But that's something we have to report.''
Some of the identified 30 codes include withdrawing to join the military or pursue a job, to marry or because of pregnancy. Of the 30 leaver codes districts use to identify why a student leaves school, 20 are not included in calculating the dropout rate for accountability purposes, according to the TEA Web site.
With a person's earning power related to education level, Montecel said, it is high time schools be held accountable for the number of students who graduate. Children, she said, count.
''There are still too many children that are thought to be expendable in school,'' Montecel said.
Copyright 2005, San Angelo Standard-Times. All Rights Reserved.
nbrambila@sastandardtimes.com
March 20, 2005
Forget the dropout rate. Education researchers have dubbed the exodus from public school ''the push-out rate.''
For more than 15 years, the San Antonio-based Intercultural Development Research Association has tracked statewide attrition rates. Originally commissioned by the Texas Department of Commerce, the IDRA conducted a study that looked at the number of dropouts and the economic cost to the state, Executive Director Maria Robledo Montecel said.
The result of the inaugural report, Montecel said, was the creation of a state law defining dropouts and counts being conducted.
According to an IRDA newsletter, the initial study found 86,000 students did not graduate in the 1986-87 school year. Although the Texas Education Agency counted for dropouts differently, the numbers were comparable to those produced by the IDRA, Montecel said.
That was then. Today's numbers, she said, show a slight of hand.
The IDRA reported a 40-percent attrition rate in 2000 while the TEA reported a dropout rate of 1 percent for the same year.
Why the discrepancy?
The number of TEA-approved ''leaver codes,'' or acceptable exits of students from public schools, has increased - from obtaining a General Equivalency Diploma to being incarcerated.
''As more leaver codes are added, the dropout number becomes lower and lower,'' Montecel said. ''The method that is being used allows for these more than 30 ways of exempting them from the count.
''As long as the dropout counts are not accurate and credible, then it's quite difficult to know whether what we're doing is helping or not.''
The way school districts calculate the dropout rate, as mandated by state law, masks the scope of the problem, Montecel said.
The San Angelo Independent School District reported a 1.3-percent dropout rate in 2000. Census data from 2000 showed 18.6 percent of San Angeloans age 18-24 had not obtained a high school diploma or equivalent.
Sue Vanhoozer, the district's executive director of east-side campuses, noted that the census counts everyone, whether educated in San Angelo or not.
The school district's report to the TEA in 2000 showed the four-year completion rate - including those who dropped out and took the GED - at 86 percent. Completion rates account for students who earn a high school diploma or an equivalent, namely a GED certificate.
''I feel like we're doing better,'' said Joanne Rice, assistant superintendent of educational support services. ''We're nowhere near where we need to be.''
Rice conceded some of the leaver codes - such as for incarceration - shouldn't be considered a ''positive exit.''
''I don't agree with all the leaver codes,'' Rice said. ''But that's something we have to report.''
Some of the identified 30 codes include withdrawing to join the military or pursue a job, to marry or because of pregnancy. Of the 30 leaver codes districts use to identify why a student leaves school, 20 are not included in calculating the dropout rate for accountability purposes, according to the TEA Web site.
With a person's earning power related to education level, Montecel said, it is high time schools be held accountable for the number of students who graduate. Children, she said, count.
''There are still too many children that are thought to be expendable in school,'' Montecel said.
Copyright 2005, San Angelo Standard-Times. All Rights Reserved.
Students pressured to quit?
San Angelo schools accused of using 'home schooling' to skew dropout rate
By NICOLE C. BRAMBILA nbrambila@sastandardtimes.com
March 20, 2005
Vanessa Martinez never thought one of her biggest obstacles to graduating high school would be her teachers.
Martinez wanted a diploma - especially after her older sister, who would have been the first in her family to graduate, was run over while walking home from a New Year's Eve party.
After her sister's death, Martinez found herself in and out of alternative school because of a litany of disciplinary issues - failure to display school ID, fighting and truancy.
That's when a Central High School teacher, she said, encouraged her to quit.
Martinez was 16 - and a mother.
''They would discourage me,'' said Martinez, now 18. ''They don't give those kids a chance. They don't see how much potential they have. ... They just throw 'em to the dogs.''
Encouraging Martinez to leave school would make sense if the goal was to rid the campus of a problem student. But as school districts are aware, the state frowns on high dropout rates.
If, however, Martinez agreed to ''transfer'' out of the San Angelo Independent School District so she could be ''home schooled,'' the school would be rid of a problem student, and the dropout rate would remain unchanged. It might even improve with the transfer of a student who was likely to drop out eventually.
Parents, social workers and municipal judges say that is exactly what is happening in San Angelo. Some students are being pressured, they charge, into ''home schooling,'' even in cases in which their parents are illiterate.
Rise in home schooling
More than 130 students left the SAISD in the 2002-03 academic year to home school. That figure had risen steadily since the 1998-99 school year, when 43 students left the district to home school.
The Texas Education Agency considers home-school students as transfers.
As the number of dropouts in the district declined in recent years, the number of students opting to home school increased,
according to data obtained in a Freedom of Information request. Of the 430 students the district lost in the 2002-03 school year, 138, or 32 percent, withdrew to home school.
The following school year, 126 students withdrew to home school.
The number of San Angelo students who left public schools to home school is about double the number in the Abilene, Ector County and Midland districts - similar-sized West Texas school systems.
To date, approximately 90 San Angelo students have withdrawn from public schools this year to home school.
SAISD officials dispute that the schools have driven the rise in home schoolers. They note that the administration has created a myriad of services - programs for migrant families, young scholars and after-school care, among them - to serve students who are at risk of dropping out, to keep them in school and to help them earn a diploma.
Marty Jonas, the district's executive director of west-side campuses, contends that parents, not the schools, initiate the move to home schooling.
''By state law, a parent does have a right to educate their children if they so choose,'' Jonas said. ''I personally have a hard time with the home schooling. Home schooling is good. There are strong home school organizations locally and statewide.
''What I'm concerned with is the parent who, to get out of the court system or who is worn down by the child, decides to go and home school.''
Jonas said she has seen many such cases, recalling an illiterate woman who couldn't sign her name on district documents, yet removed her child to home school.
''I closed my door and cried because I know that child isn't going to get an education,'' Jonas said. ''Every time I sign one of those sheets, it breaks my heart.''
Jonas blamed the increasing home-school numbers not on pressure from school officials but on ''word of mouth'' among parents of problem students wanting to avoid courts and fines for truancy.
Parents of elementary school students, not secondary school students having difficulty in public schools, typically join the San Angelo Christian Home School Association, said former association board member Becca Levesque.
The number of families in the association has not generally increased as the number of SAISD students who transfer to home schools has risen. The association's membership has fluctuated between 65 and 100 families in the past five years, Levesque said.
Illiterate 'teachers'
Dee Guerra, a Healthy Families of San Angelo support worker, backed Martinez's version of her split with the SAISD, recalling Central High officials telling Martinez they didn't want her back.
Healthy Families is a nonprofit in-home visitation program for first-time parents of newborns.
Family-support worker Ruby Harlow said everyone at Healthy Families has ''a story like'' Martinez's.
Carolyn Wiseheart, director of Healthy Families, said her agency's family-support workers have witnessed teen moms wanting to go back to school being told ''they're not a candidate for graduation.'' She estimated the agency serves a dozen home-schooled teen moms and dads - some, she said, ''taught'' by parents who are illiterate or can't speak English.
Parents such as Laura Perez, a high school dropout and single mom who could not read aloud the materials that her son's Lincoln Junior High School teachers sent home.
After years of struggling with her son, who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, special education teachers gave up on him and pressured her to home school last year, Perez said. Her son was 12.
When the home-school books that Perez said administrators promised never materialized, she abandoned the idea of home schooling. For the past year, her seventh-grade son - who reads on a third-grade level, according to district documents from a year ago - has received no schooling.
''The way I felt,'' she said, ''was I didn't have a decision.''
Parents who remove their children from public schools to home school often contact a local home-school association for help picking a curriculum. As the new member coordinator for the San Angelo Christian Home School Association, Susan Clearley said she has fielded calls from distraught parents saying district officials pressured them into home schooling their children.
''These parents were panicked because they were told this is what they needed to do,'' Clearley said. ''Some felt they had no choice. They saw that they couldn't afford private school and if the school district was telling them there wasn't anything else they could do for them, they felt like there weren't any other options.''
Municipal judges Jay Daniel and Allen Gilbert, who deal with truant students and those facing disciplinary action, said such stories are all too familiar.
''I'm getting the same story you are,'' Daniel said. ''Parents tell me the school said, 'Why don't you home school?'''
In a year's time, Gilbert estimated a half-dozen parents have said district officials suggested they home school rather than drop out.
Because the municipal court is not an investigative agency, neither judge has pursued the complaints, Daniel said.
The state's 'hammer'
The rise in home-school transfer students began after the school district fell into non-compliance with the Texas Education Agency, when its Hispanic dropout rate climbed to 6.8 percent in the 1994-95 school year. The maximum acceptable rate is 6 percent.
Students are considered dropouts if they miss 30 straight days of class or, if after pre-enrolling, fail to show up.
Suzanne Marchman, a TEA spokeswoman, said dropout rates can adversely affect campus and district rates.
''That's a pretty good motivator,'' Marchman said. ''That's like having an 'F' you have to display everywhere.''
The ripple effects of a bad rating can be far reaching, Marchman said, from parents choosing to move to better-performing districts to administrators and teachers losing pay increases.
''Public scrutiny is the biggest hammer there is, and that's a good thing,'' said David Smith, executive director for the Region XV Education Service Center in San Angelo. The center is a staff-development organization that serves 43 school districts in 18 counties.
A campus that fails to comply with TEA guidelines on academic performance or the dropout rate could face on-site scrutiny, or, in extreme cases, be closed and consolidated with another campus, Smith said.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, accountability is about students such as Vanessa Martinez, whose school years were often troubled.
A district progress report indicates she was enrolled in gifted-and-talented classes in junior high school and performed well - A's and B's - when she completed her work.
Martinez also appeared - again and again - before judges in municipal court for many of the same problems that landed her in alternative school.
As a 16-year-old mother who was no longer enrolled in school, Martinez could have easily been another statistic. Under the law, Martinez was not eligible to take the exam for a General Equivalency Diploma for another year.
Healthy Families, however, petitioned a judge on her behalf for an exemption. Today Martinez is engaged to be married and planning to take classes at Howard College to become a pharmacy technician. Without support, Wiseheart said, the outcome could have been different.
Students who sit out a couple of years are not likely to go back and get their GED certificate, she said.
The way Wiseheart sees it, playing with the dropout numbers hurts students.
''Whatever pressure that the school district is under to reduce dropouts,'' she said, ''this isn't the way to do it.''
http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_3636643,00.html
By NICOLE C. BRAMBILA nbrambila@sastandardtimes.com
March 20, 2005
Vanessa Martinez never thought one of her biggest obstacles to graduating high school would be her teachers.
Martinez wanted a diploma - especially after her older sister, who would have been the first in her family to graduate, was run over while walking home from a New Year's Eve party.
After her sister's death, Martinez found herself in and out of alternative school because of a litany of disciplinary issues - failure to display school ID, fighting and truancy.
That's when a Central High School teacher, she said, encouraged her to quit.
Martinez was 16 - and a mother.
''They would discourage me,'' said Martinez, now 18. ''They don't give those kids a chance. They don't see how much potential they have. ... They just throw 'em to the dogs.''
Encouraging Martinez to leave school would make sense if the goal was to rid the campus of a problem student. But as school districts are aware, the state frowns on high dropout rates.
If, however, Martinez agreed to ''transfer'' out of the San Angelo Independent School District so she could be ''home schooled,'' the school would be rid of a problem student, and the dropout rate would remain unchanged. It might even improve with the transfer of a student who was likely to drop out eventually.
Parents, social workers and municipal judges say that is exactly what is happening in San Angelo. Some students are being pressured, they charge, into ''home schooling,'' even in cases in which their parents are illiterate.
Rise in home schooling
More than 130 students left the SAISD in the 2002-03 academic year to home school. That figure had risen steadily since the 1998-99 school year, when 43 students left the district to home school.
The Texas Education Agency considers home-school students as transfers.
As the number of dropouts in the district declined in recent years, the number of students opting to home school increased,
according to data obtained in a Freedom of Information request. Of the 430 students the district lost in the 2002-03 school year, 138, or 32 percent, withdrew to home school.
The following school year, 126 students withdrew to home school.
The number of San Angelo students who left public schools to home school is about double the number in the Abilene, Ector County and Midland districts - similar-sized West Texas school systems.
To date, approximately 90 San Angelo students have withdrawn from public schools this year to home school.
SAISD officials dispute that the schools have driven the rise in home schoolers. They note that the administration has created a myriad of services - programs for migrant families, young scholars and after-school care, among them - to serve students who are at risk of dropping out, to keep them in school and to help them earn a diploma.
Marty Jonas, the district's executive director of west-side campuses, contends that parents, not the schools, initiate the move to home schooling.
''By state law, a parent does have a right to educate their children if they so choose,'' Jonas said. ''I personally have a hard time with the home schooling. Home schooling is good. There are strong home school organizations locally and statewide.
''What I'm concerned with is the parent who, to get out of the court system or who is worn down by the child, decides to go and home school.''
Jonas said she has seen many such cases, recalling an illiterate woman who couldn't sign her name on district documents, yet removed her child to home school.
''I closed my door and cried because I know that child isn't going to get an education,'' Jonas said. ''Every time I sign one of those sheets, it breaks my heart.''
Jonas blamed the increasing home-school numbers not on pressure from school officials but on ''word of mouth'' among parents of problem students wanting to avoid courts and fines for truancy.
Parents of elementary school students, not secondary school students having difficulty in public schools, typically join the San Angelo Christian Home School Association, said former association board member Becca Levesque.
The number of families in the association has not generally increased as the number of SAISD students who transfer to home schools has risen. The association's membership has fluctuated between 65 and 100 families in the past five years, Levesque said.
Illiterate 'teachers'
Dee Guerra, a Healthy Families of San Angelo support worker, backed Martinez's version of her split with the SAISD, recalling Central High officials telling Martinez they didn't want her back.
Healthy Families is a nonprofit in-home visitation program for first-time parents of newborns.
Family-support worker Ruby Harlow said everyone at Healthy Families has ''a story like'' Martinez's.
Carolyn Wiseheart, director of Healthy Families, said her agency's family-support workers have witnessed teen moms wanting to go back to school being told ''they're not a candidate for graduation.'' She estimated the agency serves a dozen home-schooled teen moms and dads - some, she said, ''taught'' by parents who are illiterate or can't speak English.
Parents such as Laura Perez, a high school dropout and single mom who could not read aloud the materials that her son's Lincoln Junior High School teachers sent home.
After years of struggling with her son, who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, special education teachers gave up on him and pressured her to home school last year, Perez said. Her son was 12.
When the home-school books that Perez said administrators promised never materialized, she abandoned the idea of home schooling. For the past year, her seventh-grade son - who reads on a third-grade level, according to district documents from a year ago - has received no schooling.
''The way I felt,'' she said, ''was I didn't have a decision.''
Parents who remove their children from public schools to home school often contact a local home-school association for help picking a curriculum. As the new member coordinator for the San Angelo Christian Home School Association, Susan Clearley said she has fielded calls from distraught parents saying district officials pressured them into home schooling their children.
''These parents were panicked because they were told this is what they needed to do,'' Clearley said. ''Some felt they had no choice. They saw that they couldn't afford private school and if the school district was telling them there wasn't anything else they could do for them, they felt like there weren't any other options.''
Municipal judges Jay Daniel and Allen Gilbert, who deal with truant students and those facing disciplinary action, said such stories are all too familiar.
''I'm getting the same story you are,'' Daniel said. ''Parents tell me the school said, 'Why don't you home school?'''
In a year's time, Gilbert estimated a half-dozen parents have said district officials suggested they home school rather than drop out.
Because the municipal court is not an investigative agency, neither judge has pursued the complaints, Daniel said.
The state's 'hammer'
The rise in home-school transfer students began after the school district fell into non-compliance with the Texas Education Agency, when its Hispanic dropout rate climbed to 6.8 percent in the 1994-95 school year. The maximum acceptable rate is 6 percent.
Students are considered dropouts if they miss 30 straight days of class or, if after pre-enrolling, fail to show up.
Suzanne Marchman, a TEA spokeswoman, said dropout rates can adversely affect campus and district rates.
''That's a pretty good motivator,'' Marchman said. ''That's like having an 'F' you have to display everywhere.''
The ripple effects of a bad rating can be far reaching, Marchman said, from parents choosing to move to better-performing districts to administrators and teachers losing pay increases.
''Public scrutiny is the biggest hammer there is, and that's a good thing,'' said David Smith, executive director for the Region XV Education Service Center in San Angelo. The center is a staff-development organization that serves 43 school districts in 18 counties.
A campus that fails to comply with TEA guidelines on academic performance or the dropout rate could face on-site scrutiny, or, in extreme cases, be closed and consolidated with another campus, Smith said.
The bottom line
At the end of the day, accountability is about students such as Vanessa Martinez, whose school years were often troubled.
A district progress report indicates she was enrolled in gifted-and-talented classes in junior high school and performed well - A's and B's - when she completed her work.
Martinez also appeared - again and again - before judges in municipal court for many of the same problems that landed her in alternative school.
As a 16-year-old mother who was no longer enrolled in school, Martinez could have easily been another statistic. Under the law, Martinez was not eligible to take the exam for a General Equivalency Diploma for another year.
Healthy Families, however, petitioned a judge on her behalf for an exemption. Today Martinez is engaged to be married and planning to take classes at Howard College to become a pharmacy technician. Without support, Wiseheart said, the outcome could have been different.
Students who sit out a couple of years are not likely to go back and get their GED certificate, she said.
The way Wiseheart sees it, playing with the dropout numbers hurts students.
''Whatever pressure that the school district is under to reduce dropouts,'' she said, ''this isn't the way to do it.''
http://www.sanangelostandardtimes.com/sast/news_local/article/0,1897,SAST_4956_3636643,00.html
Austin Effort to Improve Schools Disappoints Again
March 20, 2005, 7:18PM
What do lawmakers hope paltry funding will achieve?
By F. SCOTT MCCOWN
The Texas House has finished its education and tax bills. Now the Senate goes to work. Let's compare what the House has adopted with where the Senate is starting.
The House provides an increase of about $3 billion for the biennium. Sounds like a lot, except that 1) it doesn't get us out of the hole we dug in 2003 with cuts and cost shifts in education; 2) a big chunk, perhaps a billion, is merely money to schools for things the state normally pays for directly such as textbooks, so it isn't really new money for education; 3) in any event, the money doesn't cover inflation; and 4) it must mostly pay for new state mandates anyway.
Texas is simply not doing what we must to ensure a highly educated citizenry and workforce. We have one of the most ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged student populations in the nation. Yet, average per student spending nationally is about 12 percent higher than Texas spending.
Even so, over the last decade, our public schools have made gains. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation's report card, Texas student demographic groups are now performing near the top compared to their counterparts in other states. Nevertheless, we have a long way to go to close the gaps between groups. Poor and minority students still fall far behind. If adequately funded, our public schools can help them catch up.
The House does give some favored districts more money — much more money. For example, under the House plan, even before local enrichment, Highland Park in Dallas would see their per student spending increase by as much as $3,000, while Houston Independent School District would see increased per student spending of about $250. After local enrichment, the gap grows even larger.
While the number of children in our public schools will almost double from the current 4.3 million by 2040, the House provides nothing for school facilities, claiming there will be a second bill for facilities, even though there is no money to fund such a bill.
Indeed, the House insisted that all new money for education come from cuts in the budget, even though state government is underfunded and went through devastating cuts in 2003.
The House does propose to raise state taxes, but only to lower school district property taxes. The House calls this a revenue neutral tax swap, but it actually increases taxes for the bottom 80 percent of Texas households, while lowering taxes for the top 20 percent.
To make matters worse, the House dedicates 15 percent of state revenue growth to reduce property taxes more in the future. Given our underfunded state budget, we can't afford to set aside revenue growth to continue to reduce taxes.
In contrast, the Senate has tentatively proposed $4.3 billion in new money over the biennium; not enough, but more than the House. Its plan is somewhat more equitable than the House plan, though it still allows the gap between the rich and poor to grow. The Senate doesn't confront our facilities problem but does provide some new money for fast-growing districts.
Like the House, the Senate raises state taxes to lower school property taxes, but unlike the House, the Senate is considering a partial exemption from the state sales tax for very low-income families and a requirement that landlords pass through property tax relief for renters. Unlike the House, the Senate is not proposing to divert revenue growth from vital needs to reduce property taxes even more.
The Senate does propose a state property tax for education, but this is in lieu of, not on top of, a local tax. Some oppose a state property tax, suggesting that school districts will lose local control. In fact, however, school districts have already lost local control because most are at or near their property tax cap.
The Senate plan actually gives back local control by providing a 15 cent local enrichment tax, while still leaving total property taxes below what we now pay. Perhaps 15 cents is not quite enough, and certainly it isn't adequately equalized, but the approach is basically sound. With a state property tax, all districts would share in the growing property wealth of the state.
Where the Senate ends up remains to be seen, as does whether the Senate out wrestles the House in conference, but our only hope is that the Senate will support public education to secure a prosperous future for Texas.
McCown was the Travis County district judge who heard Texas' school finance cases from 1990 until he retired in 2002 to become director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3094393
What do lawmakers hope paltry funding will achieve?
By F. SCOTT MCCOWN
The Texas House has finished its education and tax bills. Now the Senate goes to work. Let's compare what the House has adopted with where the Senate is starting.
The House provides an increase of about $3 billion for the biennium. Sounds like a lot, except that 1) it doesn't get us out of the hole we dug in 2003 with cuts and cost shifts in education; 2) a big chunk, perhaps a billion, is merely money to schools for things the state normally pays for directly such as textbooks, so it isn't really new money for education; 3) in any event, the money doesn't cover inflation; and 4) it must mostly pay for new state mandates anyway.
Texas is simply not doing what we must to ensure a highly educated citizenry and workforce. We have one of the most ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged student populations in the nation. Yet, average per student spending nationally is about 12 percent higher than Texas spending.
Even so, over the last decade, our public schools have made gains. On the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the nation's report card, Texas student demographic groups are now performing near the top compared to their counterparts in other states. Nevertheless, we have a long way to go to close the gaps between groups. Poor and minority students still fall far behind. If adequately funded, our public schools can help them catch up.
The House does give some favored districts more money — much more money. For example, under the House plan, even before local enrichment, Highland Park in Dallas would see their per student spending increase by as much as $3,000, while Houston Independent School District would see increased per student spending of about $250. After local enrichment, the gap grows even larger.
While the number of children in our public schools will almost double from the current 4.3 million by 2040, the House provides nothing for school facilities, claiming there will be a second bill for facilities, even though there is no money to fund such a bill.
Indeed, the House insisted that all new money for education come from cuts in the budget, even though state government is underfunded and went through devastating cuts in 2003.
The House does propose to raise state taxes, but only to lower school district property taxes. The House calls this a revenue neutral tax swap, but it actually increases taxes for the bottom 80 percent of Texas households, while lowering taxes for the top 20 percent.
To make matters worse, the House dedicates 15 percent of state revenue growth to reduce property taxes more in the future. Given our underfunded state budget, we can't afford to set aside revenue growth to continue to reduce taxes.
In contrast, the Senate has tentatively proposed $4.3 billion in new money over the biennium; not enough, but more than the House. Its plan is somewhat more equitable than the House plan, though it still allows the gap between the rich and poor to grow. The Senate doesn't confront our facilities problem but does provide some new money for fast-growing districts.
Like the House, the Senate raises state taxes to lower school property taxes, but unlike the House, the Senate is considering a partial exemption from the state sales tax for very low-income families and a requirement that landlords pass through property tax relief for renters. Unlike the House, the Senate is not proposing to divert revenue growth from vital needs to reduce property taxes even more.
The Senate does propose a state property tax for education, but this is in lieu of, not on top of, a local tax. Some oppose a state property tax, suggesting that school districts will lose local control. In fact, however, school districts have already lost local control because most are at or near their property tax cap.
The Senate plan actually gives back local control by providing a 15 cent local enrichment tax, while still leaving total property taxes below what we now pay. Perhaps 15 cents is not quite enough, and certainly it isn't adequately equalized, but the approach is basically sound. With a state property tax, all districts would share in the growing property wealth of the state.
Where the Senate ends up remains to be seen, as does whether the Senate out wrestles the House in conference, but our only hope is that the Senate will support public education to secure a prosperous future for Texas.
McCown was the Travis County district judge who heard Texas' school finance cases from 1990 until he retired in 2002 to become director of the Center for Public Policy Priorities in Austin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3094393
Schools Hope Senate Neuters Bad Education Bill
by JOHN YOUNG Opinion page editor
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Let's hear it for bicameralism.
That's is the concept of government, our government, that takes pains not to put too much power in the hands of a single legislative body.
A lot of schools and education associations this week are cheering on bicameralism as they hiss at a House-passed bill chock full of dubious and out-of-the-blue reforms.
Indeed, few pieces of legislation in the last 20 years seem to have raised such universal enmity among education forces as House Bill 2.
It ladles on new mandates. It changes school dates. It changes school board election dates. It sets in motion the privatization of low-performing schools. It could change how principals are certified.
On the issue of money, it barely provides enough to schools to keep pace with inflation and enrollment growth. Then it tells them that almost half of the money must go to teacher pay raises including raises based on merit. But when school officials calculate mandates and costs, particularly factoring in enrollment growth, they don't see how they can deliver on the pay raises.
Education groups swarmed the capital to protest the many provisions of HB 2, hard-pressed, mainly, in choosing where to begin.
After its passage on a mostly party-line vote, Republicans said, effectively, that those critics from the world of education had their say and that the people had spoken through the House majority.
When Democrats offered an alternative that had more support from schools and education groups, Waco Republican State Rep. Charles Anderson told the Trib's Dan Genz, "There have been hundreds of folks down there [in Austin] testifying, and it seems like their ideas should have been brought up at that time."
But representatives of education groups who were in on the hearing process, or observing it, say that too often input that veered from or was critical of education chairman Kent Grusendorf's blueprint got the brushoff. Much of the testimony in hearings was by invitation.
This is a continuation of trends in Tom Craddick's first session as House speaker in 2003, when debate was minimized and the public was frozen out of deliberations on congressional redistricting.
Critics of this bill can only hope that the Senate is the deliberative body it advertises. Its counterpart has become the denuded body, denuded of any pretenses of true deliberation outside of the GOP caucus.
Ken McCraw, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Schools, said this approach almost guarantees lawmaking debacles.
"Without hearing some dissent you make bad policy. [The bill's problems are] going to come out," McCraw said. "It's just a matter of whether it's before or after the bill is adopted."
Bad policy can be well-meant, said McCraw, like a directive in HB 2 that 44 percent of new money or an average of $3,000 apiece go to teacher pay hikes. Schools obviously want to pay their teachers more. But McCraw said that once some of the districts put the calculator to the requirement, with what else the state is requiring, and factoring in inflation and new enrollment, "all that money is spent" before teachers could get it.
Possibly the most draconian and dangerous intrusion is the mandate under which schools rated among the bottom 5 percent based on state standards two years in a row could be subject to "alternative management" by for-profit firms.
Since Texas' school reforms of the 1980s, state takeover, the "death penalty" of school governance, has been an extraordinary action reserved for the most grievous and chronic offenders. Under HB 2, state takeover would get bumped into the ordinary, with for-profit firms feasting on all those tax dollars.
It is stunning that such a death-star scheme made it out of a chamber of our Legislature. Right now schools are counting on the fact that it takes two.
John Young's column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
© 2005 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. - The Waco Tribune-Herald
Sunday, March 20, 2005
Let's hear it for bicameralism.
That's is the concept of government, our government, that takes pains not to put too much power in the hands of a single legislative body.
A lot of schools and education associations this week are cheering on bicameralism as they hiss at a House-passed bill chock full of dubious and out-of-the-blue reforms.
Indeed, few pieces of legislation in the last 20 years seem to have raised such universal enmity among education forces as House Bill 2.
It ladles on new mandates. It changes school dates. It changes school board election dates. It sets in motion the privatization of low-performing schools. It could change how principals are certified.
On the issue of money, it barely provides enough to schools to keep pace with inflation and enrollment growth. Then it tells them that almost half of the money must go to teacher pay raises including raises based on merit. But when school officials calculate mandates and costs, particularly factoring in enrollment growth, they don't see how they can deliver on the pay raises.
Education groups swarmed the capital to protest the many provisions of HB 2, hard-pressed, mainly, in choosing where to begin.
After its passage on a mostly party-line vote, Republicans said, effectively, that those critics from the world of education had their say and that the people had spoken through the House majority.
When Democrats offered an alternative that had more support from schools and education groups, Waco Republican State Rep. Charles Anderson told the Trib's Dan Genz, "There have been hundreds of folks down there [in Austin] testifying, and it seems like their ideas should have been brought up at that time."
But representatives of education groups who were in on the hearing process, or observing it, say that too often input that veered from or was critical of education chairman Kent Grusendorf's blueprint got the brushoff. Much of the testimony in hearings was by invitation.
This is a continuation of trends in Tom Craddick's first session as House speaker in 2003, when debate was minimized and the public was frozen out of deliberations on congressional redistricting.
Critics of this bill can only hope that the Senate is the deliberative body it advertises. Its counterpart has become the denuded body, denuded of any pretenses of true deliberation outside of the GOP caucus.
Ken McCraw, executive director of the Texas Association of Community Schools, said this approach almost guarantees lawmaking debacles.
"Without hearing some dissent you make bad policy. [The bill's problems are] going to come out," McCraw said. "It's just a matter of whether it's before or after the bill is adopted."
Bad policy can be well-meant, said McCraw, like a directive in HB 2 that 44 percent of new money or an average of $3,000 apiece go to teacher pay hikes. Schools obviously want to pay their teachers more. But McCraw said that once some of the districts put the calculator to the requirement, with what else the state is requiring, and factoring in inflation and new enrollment, "all that money is spent" before teachers could get it.
Possibly the most draconian and dangerous intrusion is the mandate under which schools rated among the bottom 5 percent based on state standards two years in a row could be subject to "alternative management" by for-profit firms.
Since Texas' school reforms of the 1980s, state takeover, the "death penalty" of school governance, has been an extraordinary action reserved for the most grievous and chronic offenders. Under HB 2, state takeover would get bumped into the ordinary, with for-profit firms feasting on all those tax dollars.
It is stunning that such a death-star scheme made it out of a chamber of our Legislature. Right now schools are counting on the fact that it takes two.
John Young's column appears Thursday and Sunday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
© 2005 Cox Texas Newspapers, L.P. - The Waco Tribune-Herald
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Grusendorf's Laboratory
by JOHN YOUNG Opinion page editor
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
WACO TRIBUNE
Where was the clamor for changing Texas' school year?
Did I miss the popular tumult, the sea swell of insistence, for changing the way school board members are elected? I must have.
And just when did Texans decide that awarding the management of public schools to for-profit groups was an imperative?
They didn't. But the Texas House of Representatives did last week when a party-line vote produced House Bill 2. It would do all of the above and a lot more.
HB 2 is a monster bill. It not only dictates how money is divided up but sets in motion new requirements for teacher merit pay, administrator certification and how schools are managed if they are at the top or bottom of the state curve in state standards.
For instance, those at the top would be freed of state mandates such as the kindergarten-through-grade four class-size ratio that many people considered the most important school reform of the 1980s.
Meanwhile, those in the lowest 5 percent based on state criteria two years in a row would be subject to "alternative management," which could include for-profit firms.
If that were to become law, Texas would become a mecca for profiteers who just know they can run public schools better than the public can. Ominously for our schools, HB 2 is only the beginning.
In the days ahead, undoubtedly the House leadership will bump to the forefront other initiatives for which support on the street is so faint you'd need a stethoscope to hear it:
* To spend millions of dollars on school vouchers;
* To fund "virtual" schools in which the taxpayers buy (and profiteers sell) computers and software for home-schoolers.
All of this we'd fund with money we'd have to find "somewhere" in the state budget, because we're not going to raise more revenue under the House plan. We're going to reallocate the dollars we have.
Does any of the above, with the possible exception of raising no new money, sound remotely like the will of the clamoring masses? I didn't think so.
But if any of these measures becomes law, it will be because Kent Grusendorf is in a position to help make it so. The Arlington Republican, chairman of the House Public Education Committee and author of HB 2, is an ardent supporter of school vouchers and other wrinkles like "virtual charters." Having been growing gray on the "outs" as a critic of public schools while Democrats held power, Grusendorf now is the kid who inherited a gumball factory.
Fortunately, not many of his initiatives have made it through all the wickets that representative government entails, even a government dominated by his party.
It will be fascinating to see how much of HB 2 survives. It is based on curious assumptions about money. It provides public schools with an additional $3 billion, but the money is not to come from new revenue. It's to come from scrubbing a budget that since 2003 is already beyond "bare bones." It is down to "dried and bleached." Another curiosity: It would give teachers a $3,000-a-year pay raise, but without visible means of paying for it.
So much else about HB 2 makes one wonder.
From where comes the requirement that school start after Labor Day? Certainly some resort areas want it. But why make everyone start at the same time? Most districts start in August for the expressed purpose of getting the first semester done before Christmas break. What business has the state in forbidding this?
Then there are local school board seats. They would become four-year seats, elected in November, rather than in the spring as they are now. What is the imperative for this? The state meddles in so much. Why this, too?
Fortunately, Texas has two houses. Though controlled by the same party, they don't necessarily think as one.
John Young's column appears Thursday, Sunday and occasionally Tuesday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
WACO TRIBUNE
Where was the clamor for changing Texas' school year?
Did I miss the popular tumult, the sea swell of insistence, for changing the way school board members are elected? I must have.
And just when did Texans decide that awarding the management of public schools to for-profit groups was an imperative?
They didn't. But the Texas House of Representatives did last week when a party-line vote produced House Bill 2. It would do all of the above and a lot more.
HB 2 is a monster bill. It not only dictates how money is divided up but sets in motion new requirements for teacher merit pay, administrator certification and how schools are managed if they are at the top or bottom of the state curve in state standards.
For instance, those at the top would be freed of state mandates such as the kindergarten-through-grade four class-size ratio that many people considered the most important school reform of the 1980s.
Meanwhile, those in the lowest 5 percent based on state criteria two years in a row would be subject to "alternative management," which could include for-profit firms.
If that were to become law, Texas would become a mecca for profiteers who just know they can run public schools better than the public can. Ominously for our schools, HB 2 is only the beginning.
In the days ahead, undoubtedly the House leadership will bump to the forefront other initiatives for which support on the street is so faint you'd need a stethoscope to hear it:
* To spend millions of dollars on school vouchers;
* To fund "virtual" schools in which the taxpayers buy (and profiteers sell) computers and software for home-schoolers.
All of this we'd fund with money we'd have to find "somewhere" in the state budget, because we're not going to raise more revenue under the House plan. We're going to reallocate the dollars we have.
Does any of the above, with the possible exception of raising no new money, sound remotely like the will of the clamoring masses? I didn't think so.
But if any of these measures becomes law, it will be because Kent Grusendorf is in a position to help make it so. The Arlington Republican, chairman of the House Public Education Committee and author of HB 2, is an ardent supporter of school vouchers and other wrinkles like "virtual charters." Having been growing gray on the "outs" as a critic of public schools while Democrats held power, Grusendorf now is the kid who inherited a gumball factory.
Fortunately, not many of his initiatives have made it through all the wickets that representative government entails, even a government dominated by his party.
It will be fascinating to see how much of HB 2 survives. It is based on curious assumptions about money. It provides public schools with an additional $3 billion, but the money is not to come from new revenue. It's to come from scrubbing a budget that since 2003 is already beyond "bare bones." It is down to "dried and bleached." Another curiosity: It would give teachers a $3,000-a-year pay raise, but without visible means of paying for it.
So much else about HB 2 makes one wonder.
From where comes the requirement that school start after Labor Day? Certainly some resort areas want it. But why make everyone start at the same time? Most districts start in August for the expressed purpose of getting the first semester done before Christmas break. What business has the state in forbidding this?
Then there are local school board seats. They would become four-year seats, elected in November, rather than in the spring as they are now. What is the imperative for this? The state meddles in so much. Why this, too?
Fortunately, Texas has two houses. Though controlled by the same party, they don't necessarily think as one.
John Young's column appears Thursday, Sunday and occasionally Tuesday. E-mail: jyoung@wacotrib.com.
Are Gay Rights and Black Civil Rights Linked?
COMMENTARY
It's a Different Battle, but a Similar Struggle
Tobias Barrington Wolff, EQUAL JUSTICE SOCIETY
Saturday, March 19, 2005
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer made a bold choice in Monday's opinion recognizing the equal right of gay couples to marry: He invoked Brown v. Board of Education and the American legacy of segregation to explain a part of his ruling.
Isn't it sufficient, the state had asked in its briefs, to allow gay couples to enter into "domestic partnerships" with all the basic rights of marriage under a different name? Absolutely not, responded Kramer in his decision, because such a "separate but equal" institution would give gay people a "feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community" — the same type of harm that segregated students experienced under Jim Crow and that led the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 to outlaw school segregation.
It was bold to wrap the marriage ruling in the mantle of Brown because, frankly, many blacks take offense when people draw parallels between gay rights and the issue of race in the United States. The comparison, many say, feels like a misappropriation of their history. The problem is made worse by the fact that the public face of the gay community is too often exclusively white.
I come to the issue as both a gay white man and a constitutional scholar who has tried hard to understand the history of slavery and Jim Crow in our nation. From that vantage, I see the need for more care on all sides in making these arguments.
First, there is a historical reality that we must acknowledge. The oppression of gay people in the United States is not morally equivalent to the oppression that black Americans have endured. It just isn't. I cringe when gay people, rightly outraged at the discrimination that they face, take that extra step and say, "Excluding us from the right to marry is like telling us that we're three-fifths of a person."
This nation's treatment of black Americans is its defining, original sin. Black people survived 250 years of chattel slavery and a century more of segregation, disenfranchisement and lynchings.
The effect of that history continues to define their struggle for equal opportunity and advancement. Only the genocide of Native Americans occupies a similar place in the nation's moral ledger.
When the Supreme Court declared in Brown that the tradition of "separate but equal" has no place in our public institutions and recognized individual dignity as a constitutional value that must be respected, that statement was uniquely the result of the black experience in the United States.
But the enduring power of Brown derives from the fact that its principles are not limited to black Americans. In the same year that the court decided Brown, it also recognized the right of Mexican Americans to equal citizenship through jury service. Within 20 years, the court had applied those same principles to women and religious minorities. And just two years ago, in Lawrence v. Texas, the court finally began to recognize the equal dignity of gay Americans when it struck down the sodomy laws that had sought to criminalize their relationships.
Gay people do have a right to claim a place in that constitutional tradition. The second-class citizenship that gay people continue to endure may not be as bad as Jim Crow and slavery, but it is bad enough.
Excluded from open military service, unable to claim federal workplace protection and denied equal support for their families in most parts of the country, gay people can have little doubt what it means for their place within the community when the state refuses to allow them to marry.
Gay people enter a house built by the labor of others when they invoke the tradition of Brown, and they should claim that place with a degree of humility. Nonetheless, they have earned that place through blood and tears. It is no threat to the legacy of the civil rights movement to recognize their claim. It is a vindication.
Thus, the San Francisco court was correct to rely upon Brown in analyzing the exclusion of gay couples from civil marriage. Brown does not require us to ask who among us is the most oppressed. It requires us to ask how discrimination against any group of people affects their status as equal citizens.
Wolff, a professor at University of California, Davis Law School, is on the executive board of the Equal Justice Society, a civil rights advocacy group. He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/03/19Gay_edit.html
It's a Different Battle, but a Similar Struggle
Tobias Barrington Wolff, EQUAL JUSTICE SOCIETY
Saturday, March 19, 2005
San Francisco Superior Court Judge Richard Kramer made a bold choice in Monday's opinion recognizing the equal right of gay couples to marry: He invoked Brown v. Board of Education and the American legacy of segregation to explain a part of his ruling.
Isn't it sufficient, the state had asked in its briefs, to allow gay couples to enter into "domestic partnerships" with all the basic rights of marriage under a different name? Absolutely not, responded Kramer in his decision, because such a "separate but equal" institution would give gay people a "feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community" — the same type of harm that segregated students experienced under Jim Crow and that led the U.S. Supreme Court in 1954 to outlaw school segregation.
It was bold to wrap the marriage ruling in the mantle of Brown because, frankly, many blacks take offense when people draw parallels between gay rights and the issue of race in the United States. The comparison, many say, feels like a misappropriation of their history. The problem is made worse by the fact that the public face of the gay community is too often exclusively white.
I come to the issue as both a gay white man and a constitutional scholar who has tried hard to understand the history of slavery and Jim Crow in our nation. From that vantage, I see the need for more care on all sides in making these arguments.
First, there is a historical reality that we must acknowledge. The oppression of gay people in the United States is not morally equivalent to the oppression that black Americans have endured. It just isn't. I cringe when gay people, rightly outraged at the discrimination that they face, take that extra step and say, "Excluding us from the right to marry is like telling us that we're three-fifths of a person."
This nation's treatment of black Americans is its defining, original sin. Black people survived 250 years of chattel slavery and a century more of segregation, disenfranchisement and lynchings.
The effect of that history continues to define their struggle for equal opportunity and advancement. Only the genocide of Native Americans occupies a similar place in the nation's moral ledger.
When the Supreme Court declared in Brown that the tradition of "separate but equal" has no place in our public institutions and recognized individual dignity as a constitutional value that must be respected, that statement was uniquely the result of the black experience in the United States.
But the enduring power of Brown derives from the fact that its principles are not limited to black Americans. In the same year that the court decided Brown, it also recognized the right of Mexican Americans to equal citizenship through jury service. Within 20 years, the court had applied those same principles to women and religious minorities. And just two years ago, in Lawrence v. Texas, the court finally began to recognize the equal dignity of gay Americans when it struck down the sodomy laws that had sought to criminalize their relationships.
Gay people do have a right to claim a place in that constitutional tradition. The second-class citizenship that gay people continue to endure may not be as bad as Jim Crow and slavery, but it is bad enough.
Excluded from open military service, unable to claim federal workplace protection and denied equal support for their families in most parts of the country, gay people can have little doubt what it means for their place within the community when the state refuses to allow them to marry.
Gay people enter a house built by the labor of others when they invoke the tradition of Brown, and they should claim that place with a degree of humility. Nonetheless, they have earned that place through blood and tears. It is no threat to the legacy of the civil rights movement to recognize their claim. It is a vindication.
Thus, the San Francisco court was correct to rely upon Brown in analyzing the exclusion of gay couples from civil marriage. Brown does not require us to ask who among us is the most oppressed. It requires us to ask how discrimination against any group of people affects their status as equal citizens.
Wolff, a professor at University of California, Davis Law School, is on the executive board of the Equal Justice Society, a civil rights advocacy group. He wrote this column for the Los Angeles Times.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/03/19Gay_edit.html
Friday, March 18, 2005
More on State Legislative Challenge of NCLB by ASCD
FROM ED POLICY UPDATE, ASCD
March 2005—Vol. 4, No. 2
States Weigh In on Education Reform
State legislators and governors are stepping up the dialogue around education reform. On separate occasions last month, state legislators and governors called for changes to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and rallied around the need to make high school more rigorous.
State Legislators Challenge NCLB
The National Conference of State Legislatures released a bipartisan report criticizing NCLB and asserting that states need more authority in implementing the law. Task force cochair Steve Saland, a Republican state senator from New York, said the law is excessively intrusive and has turned states that were once pioneers into prisoners by undermining their ability to innovate.
Calling for fundamental changes to the law, the report lists 43 recommendations for revising how student progress is measured, resolving conflicts between NCLB and the nation's main special education law, and granting states flexibility to address schools' and districts' unique needs and situations. Finding that there are minimal new federal resources, the report also calls for a federal study to determine the costs associated with NCLB.
Although the newly appointed Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has stressed her willingness to work with states, it remains to be seen how flexible the Department of Education will be. Reacting to the report, Ray Simon, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, said "the report could be interpreted as wanting to reverse the progress we've made … We will not reverse course."
Federal-State Negotiations
Meanwhile, however, the Department of Education is engaged in ongoing negotiations with states to shape the rules that govern the implementation of NCLB, even though it is not scheduled for reauthorization until 2007.
In Utah, state officials have halted the progress of a bill that would give the state's educational goals priority over NCLB, saying they will take more time to negotiate with the Department of Education. State leaders credit the legislation and the national attention it has garnered for increasing the federal government's willingness to listen to them.
Texas recently became the second state to outright refuse to follow NCLB requirements. While the law allows no more than 1 percent of students to be exempted from grade-level tests because of learning disabilities, Texas allowed nearly 10 times that amount to take an alternate state test. Although the state had requested a waiver to do so last April, that request was denied by the Department of Education in July. The repercussions of Texas' action are yet to be determined. The only other state to consciously defy NCLB, Minnesota, was fined $113,000 in 2003.
A waiver also was refused to Connecticut recently when officials in that state sought to continue its 20-year practice of testing students every other year. In response to the request, the Department of Education said some aspects of NCLB are "not negotiable," including the requirement that students are tested every year in grades 3 through 8. Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg expressed disappointment that they were not able to have a "real discussion" about the issue. Connecticut also announced this week that $41.6 million of the state's own money will be required to implement NCLB through 2008.
Virginia also is concerned about the cost of NCLB. Its state legislature has requested a cost analysis to be completed by October 1 to aid the state in weighing the cost of withdrawing from NCLB. Virginia lawmakers have said the federal government is interfering with the state's preexisting accountability system.
Governors Call for Rigor in High Schools
State governors, who called for raising high school standards at a recent education summit, are also concerned about the cost and ramifications of NCLB implementation, including a proposed expansion of the law's goals to high schools. Republican governors from Vermont and Nebraska said they would need to hear the details of the expansion before deciding, but both expressed resistance. "We don't want another burdensome federal program," said Vermont governor James Douglas.
What the governors want is to boost high school graduation rates and college and work-readiness. However, Virginia's Democratic governor, Mark Warner, asserted that NCLB "is not a model for legislation." At the summit, a coalition of 13 states announced plans to raise diploma requirements and require more difficult high school classes. The coalition states serve more than a third of the nation's high school students and their work will be supported by $42 million dollars from six foundations and public grants.
With lawmakers and business leaders rallying around the need to better align high school with the demands of college and the workforce, other goals of education, such as preparing students for citizenship, received little attention.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about EDPolicy Update, please contact Christy Guilfoyle (cguilfoyle@ascd.org).
© 2005 Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
March 2005—Vol. 4, No. 2
States Weigh In on Education Reform
State legislators and governors are stepping up the dialogue around education reform. On separate occasions last month, state legislators and governors called for changes to the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) and rallied around the need to make high school more rigorous.
State Legislators Challenge NCLB
The National Conference of State Legislatures released a bipartisan report criticizing NCLB and asserting that states need more authority in implementing the law. Task force cochair Steve Saland, a Republican state senator from New York, said the law is excessively intrusive and has turned states that were once pioneers into prisoners by undermining their ability to innovate.
Calling for fundamental changes to the law, the report lists 43 recommendations for revising how student progress is measured, resolving conflicts between NCLB and the nation's main special education law, and granting states flexibility to address schools' and districts' unique needs and situations. Finding that there are minimal new federal resources, the report also calls for a federal study to determine the costs associated with NCLB.
Although the newly appointed Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings has stressed her willingness to work with states, it remains to be seen how flexible the Department of Education will be. Reacting to the report, Ray Simon, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education, said "the report could be interpreted as wanting to reverse the progress we've made … We will not reverse course."
Federal-State Negotiations
Meanwhile, however, the Department of Education is engaged in ongoing negotiations with states to shape the rules that govern the implementation of NCLB, even though it is not scheduled for reauthorization until 2007.
In Utah, state officials have halted the progress of a bill that would give the state's educational goals priority over NCLB, saying they will take more time to negotiate with the Department of Education. State leaders credit the legislation and the national attention it has garnered for increasing the federal government's willingness to listen to them.
Texas recently became the second state to outright refuse to follow NCLB requirements. While the law allows no more than 1 percent of students to be exempted from grade-level tests because of learning disabilities, Texas allowed nearly 10 times that amount to take an alternate state test. Although the state had requested a waiver to do so last April, that request was denied by the Department of Education in July. The repercussions of Texas' action are yet to be determined. The only other state to consciously defy NCLB, Minnesota, was fined $113,000 in 2003.
A waiver also was refused to Connecticut recently when officials in that state sought to continue its 20-year practice of testing students every other year. In response to the request, the Department of Education said some aspects of NCLB are "not negotiable," including the requirement that students are tested every year in grades 3 through 8. Connecticut Education Commissioner Betty Sternberg expressed disappointment that they were not able to have a "real discussion" about the issue. Connecticut also announced this week that $41.6 million of the state's own money will be required to implement NCLB through 2008.
Virginia also is concerned about the cost of NCLB. Its state legislature has requested a cost analysis to be completed by October 1 to aid the state in weighing the cost of withdrawing from NCLB. Virginia lawmakers have said the federal government is interfering with the state's preexisting accountability system.
Governors Call for Rigor in High Schools
State governors, who called for raising high school standards at a recent education summit, are also concerned about the cost and ramifications of NCLB implementation, including a proposed expansion of the law's goals to high schools. Republican governors from Vermont and Nebraska said they would need to hear the details of the expansion before deciding, but both expressed resistance. "We don't want another burdensome federal program," said Vermont governor James Douglas.
What the governors want is to boost high school graduation rates and college and work-readiness. However, Virginia's Democratic governor, Mark Warner, asserted that NCLB "is not a model for legislation." At the summit, a coalition of 13 states announced plans to raise diploma requirements and require more difficult high school classes. The coalition states serve more than a third of the nation's high school students and their work will be supported by $42 million dollars from six foundations and public grants.
With lawmakers and business leaders rallying around the need to better align high school with the demands of college and the workforce, other goals of education, such as preparing students for citizenship, received little attention.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information about EDPolicy Update, please contact Christy Guilfoyle (cguilfoyle@ascd.org).
© 2005 Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
HIGH-STAKES TESTS FOR STUDENTS OFTEN FAIL TO MAKE THE GRADE, NATIONAL ANALYSIS FINDS
HIGH-STAKES TESTS FOR STUDENTS OFTEN FAIL TO MAKE THE GRADE,
NATIONAL ANALYSIS FINDS
The Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) would like to call your
attention to “The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through
High-Stakes Testing,” released by the Great Lakes Center for Education
Research and Practice.
EAST LANSING, Mich. (Friday, March 18, 2005)—America’s public schools are
setting goals and making harmful, irreversible decisions based on test
results that in an increasing number of cases can’t be trusted, said an
independent study from the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State
University.
The report, made possible by a grant from the Great Lakes Center for
Education Research and Practice, determined that the pressure of high-stakes
tests is forcing school districts to take short cuts to avoid being labeled
as failing for not meeting certain benchmarks. As a result, their scores
are subject to corruption.
“Policy makers have oversold the public on the notion that high-stakes test
scores are the best way to hold schools accountable,” said Teri Moblo,
director of the Great Lakes Center. “Because of No Child Left Behind and
other measures, school districts know that the results of one or two tests
determine if they are considered successful. This creates enormous pressure
on educators and their students, because long-term decisions are being made
based on scores that can’t be trusted.”
David Berliner and Sharon Nichols, co-authors of the report, “The Inevitable
Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing,” point
to examples of how unbridled pressure to reach unrealistic goals, whether in
the boardroom, on the playing field, or in our own government, can
inevitably lead to a “beat-the-system” mentality.
“Now we see this kind of mentality seeping into our schools, where future
generations are training merely to beat the system,” Berliner said.
“Learning subject matter in depth is no longer the goal of schools in
high-stakes states. We are witnessing proof of a well-known social science
law, which basically says the greater the pressure to perform at a certain
level, the more likely people will find a way to distort and corrupt the
system to achieve favorable results.”
Dr. Berliner suggests scrapping high-stakes tests and building an
accountability system that is less inviting to cheating and distortions, and
better measures students’ and schools’ achievement. A second report on
high-stakes testing commissioned by the Great Lakes Center due out in the
coming weeks will look at the relationship between the pressures to succeed
on high-stakes tests in a particular state, and whether that pressure
actually does improve student learning.
In this study, however, the researchers looked at other effects that
high-stakes tests have on our nation’s school systems. Hundreds of news
articles about high-stakes testing were examined. “Because it would be
impossible to comprehensively catalogue every incident where high-stakes
testing led to serious problems, our survey seems only to have uncovered the
tip of the iceberg,” said Berliner.
Some of the findings included:
• Teachers’ and administrators’ inability to be flexible about test
administration meant a 14-year-old student whose brother was recently
murdered was not allowed to be excused from a test;
• Eighty percent of North Carolina’s elementary school teachers report
they spent more than 20 percent of their total teaching time practicing for
high-stakes tests;
• In New York, city school officials were accused of pushing thousands
of students out of high school and into high school equivalency programs.
Students who enrolled in such programs did not count as dropouts and didn’t
have to pass the Regents’ exams necessary for a high school diploma; and
• A Georgia science teacher estimated 10 percent of the questions on
the science section lacked a “best” answer because of errors in the
information provided to students. State administrators acknowledged the
errors even as some students failed to receive a high school diploma because
they didn’t pass the tests.
“Teachers are desperate to help their students and schools succeed. We
found example after example where teachers worked very hard to help students
from challenged schools raise their scores, but in the end they were still
labeled as failing,” said Berliner.
Drs. Berliner and Nichols identified 10 trends that outline the consequences
of high-stakes testing, which ultimately all negatively impact the quality
of education for our nation’s children. The trends are:
• Administrator and Teacher Cheating;
• Student Cheating;
• Exclusion of Low-Performance Students from Testing;
• Misrepresentation of Student Dropouts;
• Teaching to the Test;
• Narrowing the Curriculum;
• Conflicting Accountability Ratings;
• Questions about the Meaning of Proficiency;
• Declining Teacher Morale; and
• Score Reporting Errors.
The full report is available at www.greatlakescenter.org. The mission of
the Great Lakes Center is to identify, develop, support, publish, and widely
disseminate empirically sound research on education policy and practices
with the explicit goal of improving the quality of public education for all
students within the Great Lakes Region.
This document is also available on the web at:
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU.pdf
Contact: David C. Berliner (480) 965-3921 (email) berliner@asu.edu or Teri
Moblo (248) 444-7071 (email) tmoblo@mymea.org or Alex Molnar (480) 965-1886
(email) epsl@asu.edu
NATIONAL ANALYSIS FINDS
The Education Policy Studies Laboratory (EPSL) would like to call your
attention to “The Inevitable Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through
High-Stakes Testing,” released by the Great Lakes Center for Education
Research and Practice.
EAST LANSING, Mich. (Friday, March 18, 2005)—America’s public schools are
setting goals and making harmful, irreversible decisions based on test
results that in an increasing number of cases can’t be trusted, said an
independent study from the Education Policy Research Unit at Arizona State
University.
The report, made possible by a grant from the Great Lakes Center for
Education Research and Practice, determined that the pressure of high-stakes
tests is forcing school districts to take short cuts to avoid being labeled
as failing for not meeting certain benchmarks. As a result, their scores
are subject to corruption.
“Policy makers have oversold the public on the notion that high-stakes test
scores are the best way to hold schools accountable,” said Teri Moblo,
director of the Great Lakes Center. “Because of No Child Left Behind and
other measures, school districts know that the results of one or two tests
determine if they are considered successful. This creates enormous pressure
on educators and their students, because long-term decisions are being made
based on scores that can’t be trusted.”
David Berliner and Sharon Nichols, co-authors of the report, “The Inevitable
Corruption of Indicators and Educators Through High-Stakes Testing,” point
to examples of how unbridled pressure to reach unrealistic goals, whether in
the boardroom, on the playing field, or in our own government, can
inevitably lead to a “beat-the-system” mentality.
“Now we see this kind of mentality seeping into our schools, where future
generations are training merely to beat the system,” Berliner said.
“Learning subject matter in depth is no longer the goal of schools in
high-stakes states. We are witnessing proof of a well-known social science
law, which basically says the greater the pressure to perform at a certain
level, the more likely people will find a way to distort and corrupt the
system to achieve favorable results.”
Dr. Berliner suggests scrapping high-stakes tests and building an
accountability system that is less inviting to cheating and distortions, and
better measures students’ and schools’ achievement. A second report on
high-stakes testing commissioned by the Great Lakes Center due out in the
coming weeks will look at the relationship between the pressures to succeed
on high-stakes tests in a particular state, and whether that pressure
actually does improve student learning.
In this study, however, the researchers looked at other effects that
high-stakes tests have on our nation’s school systems. Hundreds of news
articles about high-stakes testing were examined. “Because it would be
impossible to comprehensively catalogue every incident where high-stakes
testing led to serious problems, our survey seems only to have uncovered the
tip of the iceberg,” said Berliner.
Some of the findings included:
• Teachers’ and administrators’ inability to be flexible about test
administration meant a 14-year-old student whose brother was recently
murdered was not allowed to be excused from a test;
• Eighty percent of North Carolina’s elementary school teachers report
they spent more than 20 percent of their total teaching time practicing for
high-stakes tests;
• In New York, city school officials were accused of pushing thousands
of students out of high school and into high school equivalency programs.
Students who enrolled in such programs did not count as dropouts and didn’t
have to pass the Regents’ exams necessary for a high school diploma; and
• A Georgia science teacher estimated 10 percent of the questions on
the science section lacked a “best” answer because of errors in the
information provided to students. State administrators acknowledged the
errors even as some students failed to receive a high school diploma because
they didn’t pass the tests.
“Teachers are desperate to help their students and schools succeed. We
found example after example where teachers worked very hard to help students
from challenged schools raise their scores, but in the end they were still
labeled as failing,” said Berliner.
Drs. Berliner and Nichols identified 10 trends that outline the consequences
of high-stakes testing, which ultimately all negatively impact the quality
of education for our nation’s children. The trends are:
• Administrator and Teacher Cheating;
• Student Cheating;
• Exclusion of Low-Performance Students from Testing;
• Misrepresentation of Student Dropouts;
• Teaching to the Test;
• Narrowing the Curriculum;
• Conflicting Accountability Ratings;
• Questions about the Meaning of Proficiency;
• Declining Teacher Morale; and
• Score Reporting Errors.
The full report is available at www.greatlakescenter.org. The mission of
the Great Lakes Center is to identify, develop, support, publish, and widely
disseminate empirically sound research on education policy and practices
with the explicit goal of improving the quality of public education for all
students within the Great Lakes Region.
This document is also available on the web at:
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0503-101-EPRU.pdf
Contact: David C. Berliner (480) 965-3921 (email) berliner@asu.edu or Teri
Moblo (248) 444-7071 (email) tmoblo@mymea.org or Alex Molnar (480) 965-1886
(email) epsl@asu.edu
State of the Beat: How Are the Kids
State of the Beat: How Are the Kids
Publication Date: 2005-03-14
By LynNell Hancock
The author, former education editor at Newsweek, is an assistant professor
in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She observes that
the scandal in Houston shines a Texas-sized spotlight on the new world
facing education reporters around the nation, reporters too tied to top-down
reporting habits.
Columbia Journalism Review
March-April 2005
"We have no dropouts!” Robert Kimball declared in a sarcastic e-mail to his
boss, the principal of Houston’s Sharpstown High School, in November 2002.
Sharpstown had just reported that none of its 1,650 students had left
without graduating or transferring elsewhere, and the assistant principal
could not believe the math. “Amazing! We go from 1,000 freshmen to less than
300 seniors with no dropouts.”
Kimball soon learned that Sharpstown’s strange statistics were no anomaly.
Two other inner-city Houston high schools that ordinarily lost about half
their students by graduation also reported zero dropouts. A dozen more
schools reported losses of less than 1 percent. His suspicion grew when he
calculated that Sharpstown’s teachers and administrators had received
$75,000 in bonuses as accountability rewards for keeping children in school.
In February 2003 a local television station checked out Kimball’s worst
fears. Investigative reporters at the CBS affiliate KHOU-TV tracked down
several actual dropouts, including a seventeen-year-old student who
Sharpstown officials claimed was enrolled in a private school. In fact, she
was working behind the counter at a Wendy’s. Following up on the story,
Texas state auditors discovered that the district including Sharpstown
falsely recorded nearly 3,000 high schoolers as “moved away” or
“transferred” instead of as “dropouts.”
Months later, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and 60 Minutes
weighed in with their own analyses of Houston’s dropout data, finding more
inconsistencies along the way. The big media were attracted to the story
because Houston was at the epicenter of the “Texas Miracle,” the standards
and accountability reform movement championed by former Governor George W.
Bush. Their stories revealed that scores of mostly black and Latino students
in Houston were held back in the ninth grade for several years, enabling
them to avoid taking the tenth-grade graduation exam, a test that had been
diluted over time to include many questions better suited to sixth- through
eighth-graders. Children who repeated ninth grade ended up dropping out in
large numbers, and only half the students who did graduate went on to higher
education. Not exactly the stuff of miracles.
The tricks and truths were buried by the numbers, and all but ignored for
years by The Houston Chronicle. The city’s only remaining daily paper should
have owned the story, and years earlier, but its coverage habits were
cemented in a model that kept reporters out of classrooms. Education
reporters were conditioned to cover “schools” instead of “education,” to
come at the beat from the top down by reporting on district policies without
comparing them to real-life results or assessing their classroom relevance.
So the Chronicle’s initial dropout stories simply repeated the district’s
1.5 percent rate, and gave critics the token, brush-off-for-balance
treatment at a story’s end.
The scandal in Houston shines a Texas-sized spotlight on the new world
facing education reporters around the nation. It’s a complex beat, in flux,
under new scrutiny. Old top-down reporting habits — never adequate to begin
with — become even more dangerous when used to analyze the impact of such
far-reaching, top-down reforms as the elimination of social promotion and No
Child Left Behind, the landmark federal act that brings President Bush’s
twin philosophies of accountability and market competition to bear on the
messy business of education. Not surprisingly, these reforms, which have
more to do with managing school systems than teaching kids, work best when
they operate in a centralized, businesslike manner. Since management systems
depend heavily on measuring tools, the standardized test — education’s most
popular assessment measure — takes on added importance. All this exacerbates
the press’s tendency to rely on official sources, and on the seductive power
of the test score as the sole measure of success. To avoid the trap of
oversimplification, reporters need a working knowledge of everything from
psychometrics to education theory in order to untangle where the numbers end
and the truth begins.
At the same time, education reporters are continually trying to figure out
who’s really in charge as they negotiate a changing bureaucratic terrain. At
least seven big-city mayors have assumed control over their school systems
from school boards in recent years. And as their appointees, often
tight-lipped lawyers and corporate executives, replace educators as school
superintendents, accessible sources such as principals or school board
members have become scarce. Parents, often the most credible school sources,
have been effectively pushed further down in the pecking order.
Ironically, just when some reporters are losing touch with their true
subjects — children — many parents are becoming more curious about what
exactly is happening in the classroom. In wealthier districts, so-called
“helicopter parents” hover over every aspect of their children’s lives,
scouring relevant reports as they groom their offspring for success in the
world of high-stakes testing and college admissions. In low-income
neighborhoods, parents rely on the media to help them negotiate the new
rules and new tests, along with the new possibilities for tutoring or
transferring as they angle to keep their children from being left behind.
Both groups of parents want to know the difference between standards and
standardized tests, between reading scores and real knowledge. But such
stories don’t lend themselves to simple answers, and so are too often missed
by reporters who come at the beat from the wrong end.
Education reporters at The Houston Chronicle could have provided their
readers with trustworthy coverage of the high school dropout paradox had
they looked for stories in closer proximity to the blackboard. A simple head
count of freshmen and seniors in homerooms on any given day would have
confirmed suspicions. How could there be so many more ninth-graders than
twelfth-graders? Where had all those kids gone? Any high school student or
teacher would have been able to tell a reporter about one or two people who
had left school before graduating, thereby disproving the zero-dropout
assertions.
But no one was there to tell.
It’s always tempting to say that today’s pressures on journalists are more
overwhelming than those of the recent past. But in the world of public
education, the evidence is stark. The story has branched off into broader
and more complex directions in a relatively short span of time. Large-scale
school reforms in the works for more than two decades are becoming more
prevalent, the tools that measure them more potent, and the punishment for
failure more dire. Voters and parents demand more and better information in
order to know where their kids and their schools stand. At the same time,
the high-level politicians in charge have a pressing interest in keeping a
lid on unfavorable school data, and in keeping journalists away from the
schoolhouse door. Their political lives are at stake.
President Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind Act is one such politically
charged management plan that has altered the reporting landscape. The
federal government has never played such a powerful monitoring role in the
life of individual public school students, even though it still contributes
less than 10 percent of total school funding. The measure glided through
Congress with unprecedented bipartisan back-slapping during the tumultuous
months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Both sides of the aisle were
eager to find something positive to unite them, and in No Child Left Behind
— the fruit of decades of growing centralization — they found goals that few
could reasonably debate. No Child is based on the premise that all children
in public schools should receive a high-quality education from a
well-prepared teacher, and that schools should be accountable for serving
every child, regardless of race or disability. Children in failing schools
are technically eligible to transfer to better ones or receive free
tutoring. The law seeks to close the achievement gap between whites and
minorities by requiring schools to openly report their data by race and
ethnicity, and by imposing a variety of sanctions on any school that fails
to improve learning for all students.
But the devil is in the solutions, which have little to say about proven but
expensive goals like reducing class size or offering incentives for highly
qualified teachers. The act recognizes standardized test scores alone as
measurements of achievement; it ignores performance assessments that can
include students’ writing skills and teachers’ views. (Close to $400 million
was added to No Child Left Behind for testing companies to design new
high-stakes exams, and a burgeoning $2 billion test-preparation industry has
moved into a place of national prominence.)
The second part of No Child Left Behind reflects Bush’s belief that the
private sector is best equipped to carry out public reforms. Schools that
don’t report adequate test scores over time could face being taken over by
for-profit companies or charter schools. Students in failing schools can
technically transfer to better ones or receive tutoring, preferably from
private test-prep companies. Other hidden line items betray the law’s
politically conservative agenda. Federal money to train history teachers can
be used only for “traditional” American history, meaning a fact-based
curriculum about national leaders, and not a multicultural approach about
social movements. Sex education must emphasize abstinence even though no
scientific data show that this curriculum approach helps reduce AIDS or teen
pregnancy. The public was largely unaware of these consequences when the
bill passed.
If No Child Left Behind raised the stakes for school districts, it also
raised the stakes for those who cover them. The education story became a
national political story (read: more important) the day the bill passed, and
its initial handler was the Washington press corps. The coverage underscored
the benefits of the unusual Democratic-Republican alliance that helped push
the bill into being. It heralded the importance of imposing high standards
and requiring full disclosure for schools that can no longer hide the
failure of their most vulnerable students. And it forecast four years of
welcome attention to the public schools. In other words, the news was good.
But Washington reporters did little to shed light on the 1,000-page
measure’s finer points, at least initially, preferring instead to parse its
political implications.
Now that the law’s full effects are settling into elementary and middle
school classroom reality, more critics are speaking out against it, and
talking to reporters. The Department of Education was so concerned about the
growing bipartisan wave of criticism that it paid $700,000 to a public
relations firm to promote No Child and rank individual reporters’ coverage
of it. Then, in January, USA Today broke the story that the department had
paid Armstrong Williams, a conservative black pundit and radio host,
$240,000 to shill for the Bush administration’s main education initiative.
Everyone agrees that quality standardized tests can be useful as one of many
measures of success, or of failure, but they’ve been given an elevated role
that they cannot sustain. Under No Child Left Behind, mandatory testing for
third- through eighth-graders will be used to make decisions that the test
makers agree their products were never meant for — whether a child passes, a
teacher fails, a principal is rewarded, or an entire school is shut down.
During the next four years, the Bush administration plans to spend another
$1.5 billion to expand this testing strategy into the nation’s high schools.
Assessing the meaning and validity of such tests requires a pool of
sophisticated reporters who can navigate the world of statistics, business,
human development, teaching and learning methods, neuroscience, politics,
race, and culture. A few news organizations, like the Baltimore Sun, are
responding to the changes wrought by the federal act by redesigning the
education beat as an investigative challenge. And the Chicago Tribune now
employs five reporters to cover a beat with more than 400,000 students. Less
impressively, The New York Times deploys just three writers to cover a local
school system more than twice the size of Chicago’s. Most papers, though,
like The Houston Chronicle, have undergone cutbacks, leaving their education
reporter, if they even have one, with little time for much more than chasing
the latest press release. Lisa Walker, executive director of the Education
Writers’ Association, estimates that newspapers lost as many as 15 percent
of their reporter positions nationwide over the last five years, up to 30
percent at some larger papers. “We’re concerned,” she says. “With fewer
people, are they going to be able to go beyond the surface?”
National education reporters such as Sam Dillon and Diana Jean Schemo of The
New York Times have made the new federal law a natural focus within their
beat, contributing insight into the general knowledge of its impact on
education. Each has probed the law’s positive impact as well as chronicling
the games states play by lowering their passing grade or finding ways to
keep disabled and new immigrant children from taking the tests at all.
Dillon wrote movingly about the absurdity of holding troubled children to
the same standards as those whose parents do not routinely lose their jobs
and move their families from school to school. For some of those children,
it’s a triumph to get them inside the school building, without further
traumatizing them as test failures.
Still, by far the best No Child Left Behind stories have percolated straight
up from local schools, where the voices of teachers and children bring the
national policy home to readers. The Chicago Tribune has devoted rare energy
to such a project. Its city and metro staff have produced more than 400
stories on the subject since the act was passed, many of them memorable.
Instead of battling a torrent of numbers or playing poker with test
rankings, Tribune reporters dug behind the data, analyzing their origins and
putting a human face on their percentages.
Tracy Dell’Angela told the story of a public elementary school in the suburb
of Aurora that had turned around its failing school, pouring efforts into
new reading specialists and extra programs. Morale at Rollins elementary was
high, as children began responding and Rollins’s reputation grew. But then
low results from a test for new-immigrant children, required by No Child
Left Behind, pummeled the school into a failing category. “We celebrated our
scores. We know we did well. But we’re still considered a failure,”
Principal Karen Hart told Dell’Angela. “It’s just hard to put on your game
face and keep going when it’s not recognized beyond our four walls.” The
Rollins school, Hart explained, now faces the “painful prospect of setting
aside money that once went to reading specialists and after-school programs”
for tutoring and transportation costs.
Another Tribune reporter examined the fruit of moving children out of
failing schools. Stephanie Banchero followed third-grader Rayola Carwell
from her South Side Chicago home in the morning until she arrived, two hours
later, tired, hungry, and late at a better school thirteen miles away.
Banchero illustrated through the experience of a nine-year-old why only 500
out of 270,000 eligible children transferred out of their failing Chicago
schools last year, and why 37 percent who left ended up leaving their new
schools as well.
Media coverage in Chicago was not always this probing. During the
mid-nineties, when the dynamic ceo Paul Vallas was running the schools,
reporting hewed more closely to his aggressive agenda. Vallas, who now heads
Philadelphia’s schools, understood that strategic media relations would be
vital to his success. Reporters complained they could not get him off the
phone, an odd phenomenon for big-city beat reporters. And the coverage in
the heady early years of reform in Chicago was held captive by Vallas’s
announcements, rarely leavened by the reality, or analytic research, on the
ground.
Vallas was pushing a top-down, high-stakes policy that has become popular
with the new breed of mayors and businessmen leading public schools:
preventing “social promotion” by holding underperforming students back a
grade. The strategy appeals to educational bureaucrats because it advertises
their zero tolerance for mediocrity. And it appeals to bored education
reporters in search of stories charged with the drama of sink-or-swim
scores.
Unfortunately, like No Child Left Behind, the story of social promotion is
rarely reported from a student’s or school’s perspective. Even more
surprising, stories about the campaign against social promotion barely hint
at the raft of research showing that retention in grade does more harm than
good. Philadelphia has tried it, as have Baltimore, Houston, Washington,
D.C., and New York City (three times), along with about twenty-one other
school districts nationwide, all with similar results. Instead of infusing
coverage with knowledge of the past, reporters hungry for some excitement on
the beat tend to embroider official pronouncements, writing as if the policy
is a new idea.
Just last year, New York City residents were subjected to yet another ritual
of misleading stories about grade-retention policies. New York’s education
reporters should be well schooled on the subject, but they’re not. In the
early 1980s, the city school system installed a massive “Gates” program that
held back students in the fourth and seventh grades who failed a
standardized test. In other words, the test serves as a “gate” that opens
and closes for fourth- and seventh-graders, depending on the scorer. The
program was eventually scrapped as an ineffective waste of money. Then, more
than fifteen years later, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani famously and ambitiously
revived the practice late in his second term, imposing grade retention in
six consecutive grades, third through eighth, at a cost estimated at $564
million a year. At the time, most reporters seemed too absorbed in the
squabbles between the mayor and his chancellor to pay much attention to
behind-the-scenes program details. The “Gates” fiasco was almost never
mentioned. Education research assessing grade retention was not considered
in the coverage. Few in the media revisited Giuliani’s big initiative after
the initial burst of confetti was swept away.
The clearest indication that Giuliani’s idea was an academic bust came five
years later, at a March 2004 press conference held by his successor, Michael
Bloomberg. The current chancellor, Joel Klein, a former antitrust lawyer and
Clinton White House deputy counsel, lamented that 37 percent of the city’s
ninth graders were failing. “We can’t continue the way we’re going,” Klein
told reporters, “which is pushing children through the elementary schools.”
The chancellor was endorsing the mayor’s idea, announced a few weeks
earlier. Bloomberg, the first mayor in more than 130 years to have direct
control over the school system, said he would launch a program to hold
failing third-graders back. No one in the press noted that the same
ninth-graders whose failure Klein deplored had already been subjected to a
far more sweeping grade retention plan for six straight years — which
apparently hadn’t done much good. “It’s as if collective amnesia had
overtaken everyone,” lamented Noreen Connell, executive director of
Education Priorities Panel, a New York City research group. “Reporters and
politicians.”
The New York Daily News has since clambered onto Bloomberg’s grade retention
plan as a civic cause, printing editorials extolling the “glorious” numbers
of third graders passing out of mandatory summer school. News stories about
the plan in the tabloid, meanwhile, tend to be free of analysis and barely
mention the conflicting research. Both Daily News editorials and news
stories framed the policy as a political volley: a “win” for the mayor and a
“loss” for status-quo critics. Only The New York Times examined this third
attempt to hold third graders back with a data-based glance at the past. A
Times education beat reporter, David Herszenhorn, dug up a seminal 1998
study by the National Research Council on the issue. He spoke to a range of
respected education experts. In the midst of the controversy a University of
Chicago research group released a long-term study showing that Chicago’s
aggressive eight-year practice of holding third-graders back did more harm
than good.
Herszenhorn needed only to pull the clips of a predecessor’s 1997 school
coverage to understand the complexities of teaching a class of
eight-year-olds to read, mysteries that remote test results could never hope
to capture. Nearly a decade ago, after convincing his editors at the Times
that an immersion approach would be the best way to document the new era of
high-stakes testing among those who were supposed to matter most, Jacques
Steinberg spent a full year ducking in and out of Ted Kesler’s third-grade
class at Public School 75 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The result was a
potent glimpse into the stew of human triumphs and tragedies in the city’s
public school classrooms.
Steinberg followed Kesler from home to work, brambling through the nine-year
teaching veteran’s whims and tragedies. He entered the homes of many of the
third-graders, watching one eight-year-old vie for homework space with her
five siblings. An immigrant boy struggled with kindergarten-level books. The
series of stories showed on a profound level the daunting daily journey of
thirty children, all at different stages of reading, with varying capacities
and passion for English. Their education was far more daunting and far more
miraculous than an end-of-the-year test could gauge, yet the test loomed
like the story’s villain, waiting to deliver its defining judgment.
Of course, blending this level of depth and color into education stories
requires that educators open their classrooms to reporters, an invitation
that has grown even rarer under the new era of top-down management regimes.
In New York City, Joel Klein heads a newly centralized school system that
tries to shield itself from public scrutiny more scrupulously than any
previous administration. Most principals now routinely tell reporters they
need permission from central headquarters before speaking to the press —
permission that rarely materializes, and certainly not on deadline.
Herszenhorn said a story he wanted to pursue on changes, including the new
standardized math and reading curriculum, was put on hold because the
chancellor’s office initially insisted on choosing which schools he could
observe — obviously, an unacceptable bargain. By the time the Department of
Education relented, the Times had dropped the idea.
Access to public school systems should be a given in a democracy (a right
that demands a large helping of media responsibility). Narratives from
inside and outside the classroom are powerful testaments to a shared sense
of civic values, and an understanding of the role of education in sustaining
a democracy. The best coverage confronts the complicated world of education
not as a managed system of test results and ordered reforms, but as a busy
intersection of culture, race, child development, pedagogy, neuroscience,
and politics.
Ira Glass painted on such a canvas last October with a piece on This
American Life he called “Two Steps Back.” Glass focused on a gregarious
Chicago public school teacher on the verge of quitting because of changes
wrought in her school by the city bureaucracy.
The piece is distinguished by a ten-year journey back into the archives.
Glass dug up tapes he compiled in 1994 when he spent a year for NPR’s All
Things Considered inside two schools, including Washington Irving Elementary
School, which had transformed itself into a model of urban success amid
Chicago’s ambitious reforms. Glass had wanted to know how. It had no extra
money, no special status as a magnet. What he learned about Washington
Irving was this: kids simply wrote all the time and read all the time. The
crusading principal was a master at fending off bureaucratic mandates.
Teachers took over the curriculum. They made sure the parents came to school
at least three times a year. The faculty designed elaborate narrative report
cards that guided their curriculum. They stayed late, came in early, and
found ways to keep respect for learning and for each other alive in the
classroom.
Ten years later, Glass found the exemplary Washington Irving teacher, Cathy
La Luz, in her classroom, near tears on his first day of reporting. La Luz
was watching helplessly as the teachers’ carefully honed programs were
slowly unraveling. Mandates from central headquarters were flooding in, and
the new principal was doing little to divert them. Little indignities, like
a new requirement to turn in daily lesson plans, were eroding the teachers’
sense of autonomy. Their self-designed report cards were scrapped. Teachers
were required to write the state education goal of the day every day on the
blackboard. The demand for uniformity from Chicago Public Schools
headquarters had become overbearing. Officials were setting goals that La
Luz felt were vague and lower than the school’s own.
Glass took listeners inside La Luz’s classroom, where children’s voices took
over as they hashed out new endings for a book they were reading. We hear La
Luz coax a daydreaming child to find where his attention had disappeared to.
We hear the children banter with her about her new hairstyle and her new
outfit. Then we hear the despair in her voice as she agonizes over whether
she can endure the slow erosion of the profession she deeply loves. It is
education journalism at its best, rich with nuances and context, alive with
children’s voices and conflicts. The story said as much about the future of
high-stakes, top-down reforms as it did about the future of urban teaching.
Glass noted that the X factor in school reform is the chemistry between
teachers and children, a fragile eloquence that can easily be garbled if it
is not respected by outside contractors, outside authorities, outside
monitors. “Not that anybody wants to hear that,” Glass commented at the end.
“They don’t want to hear it.”
But perhaps they do.
Publication Date: 2005-03-14
By LynNell Hancock
The author, former education editor at Newsweek, is an assistant professor
in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. She observes that
the scandal in Houston shines a Texas-sized spotlight on the new world
facing education reporters around the nation, reporters too tied to top-down
reporting habits.
Columbia Journalism Review
March-April 2005
"We have no dropouts!” Robert Kimball declared in a sarcastic e-mail to his
boss, the principal of Houston’s Sharpstown High School, in November 2002.
Sharpstown had just reported that none of its 1,650 students had left
without graduating or transferring elsewhere, and the assistant principal
could not believe the math. “Amazing! We go from 1,000 freshmen to less than
300 seniors with no dropouts.”
Kimball soon learned that Sharpstown’s strange statistics were no anomaly.
Two other inner-city Houston high schools that ordinarily lost about half
their students by graduation also reported zero dropouts. A dozen more
schools reported losses of less than 1 percent. His suspicion grew when he
calculated that Sharpstown’s teachers and administrators had received
$75,000 in bonuses as accountability rewards for keeping children in school.
In February 2003 a local television station checked out Kimball’s worst
fears. Investigative reporters at the CBS affiliate KHOU-TV tracked down
several actual dropouts, including a seventeen-year-old student who
Sharpstown officials claimed was enrolled in a private school. In fact, she
was working behind the counter at a Wendy’s. Following up on the story,
Texas state auditors discovered that the district including Sharpstown
falsely recorded nearly 3,000 high schoolers as “moved away” or
“transferred” instead of as “dropouts.”
Months later, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and 60 Minutes
weighed in with their own analyses of Houston’s dropout data, finding more
inconsistencies along the way. The big media were attracted to the story
because Houston was at the epicenter of the “Texas Miracle,” the standards
and accountability reform movement championed by former Governor George W.
Bush. Their stories revealed that scores of mostly black and Latino students
in Houston were held back in the ninth grade for several years, enabling
them to avoid taking the tenth-grade graduation exam, a test that had been
diluted over time to include many questions better suited to sixth- through
eighth-graders. Children who repeated ninth grade ended up dropping out in
large numbers, and only half the students who did graduate went on to higher
education. Not exactly the stuff of miracles.
The tricks and truths were buried by the numbers, and all but ignored for
years by The Houston Chronicle. The city’s only remaining daily paper should
have owned the story, and years earlier, but its coverage habits were
cemented in a model that kept reporters out of classrooms. Education
reporters were conditioned to cover “schools” instead of “education,” to
come at the beat from the top down by reporting on district policies without
comparing them to real-life results or assessing their classroom relevance.
So the Chronicle’s initial dropout stories simply repeated the district’s
1.5 percent rate, and gave critics the token, brush-off-for-balance
treatment at a story’s end.
The scandal in Houston shines a Texas-sized spotlight on the new world
facing education reporters around the nation. It’s a complex beat, in flux,
under new scrutiny. Old top-down reporting habits — never adequate to begin
with — become even more dangerous when used to analyze the impact of such
far-reaching, top-down reforms as the elimination of social promotion and No
Child Left Behind, the landmark federal act that brings President Bush’s
twin philosophies of accountability and market competition to bear on the
messy business of education. Not surprisingly, these reforms, which have
more to do with managing school systems than teaching kids, work best when
they operate in a centralized, businesslike manner. Since management systems
depend heavily on measuring tools, the standardized test — education’s most
popular assessment measure — takes on added importance. All this exacerbates
the press’s tendency to rely on official sources, and on the seductive power
of the test score as the sole measure of success. To avoid the trap of
oversimplification, reporters need a working knowledge of everything from
psychometrics to education theory in order to untangle where the numbers end
and the truth begins.
At the same time, education reporters are continually trying to figure out
who’s really in charge as they negotiate a changing bureaucratic terrain. At
least seven big-city mayors have assumed control over their school systems
from school boards in recent years. And as their appointees, often
tight-lipped lawyers and corporate executives, replace educators as school
superintendents, accessible sources such as principals or school board
members have become scarce. Parents, often the most credible school sources,
have been effectively pushed further down in the pecking order.
Ironically, just when some reporters are losing touch with their true
subjects — children — many parents are becoming more curious about what
exactly is happening in the classroom. In wealthier districts, so-called
“helicopter parents” hover over every aspect of their children’s lives,
scouring relevant reports as they groom their offspring for success in the
world of high-stakes testing and college admissions. In low-income
neighborhoods, parents rely on the media to help them negotiate the new
rules and new tests, along with the new possibilities for tutoring or
transferring as they angle to keep their children from being left behind.
Both groups of parents want to know the difference between standards and
standardized tests, between reading scores and real knowledge. But such
stories don’t lend themselves to simple answers, and so are too often missed
by reporters who come at the beat from the wrong end.
Education reporters at The Houston Chronicle could have provided their
readers with trustworthy coverage of the high school dropout paradox had
they looked for stories in closer proximity to the blackboard. A simple head
count of freshmen and seniors in homerooms on any given day would have
confirmed suspicions. How could there be so many more ninth-graders than
twelfth-graders? Where had all those kids gone? Any high school student or
teacher would have been able to tell a reporter about one or two people who
had left school before graduating, thereby disproving the zero-dropout
assertions.
But no one was there to tell.
It’s always tempting to say that today’s pressures on journalists are more
overwhelming than those of the recent past. But in the world of public
education, the evidence is stark. The story has branched off into broader
and more complex directions in a relatively short span of time. Large-scale
school reforms in the works for more than two decades are becoming more
prevalent, the tools that measure them more potent, and the punishment for
failure more dire. Voters and parents demand more and better information in
order to know where their kids and their schools stand. At the same time,
the high-level politicians in charge have a pressing interest in keeping a
lid on unfavorable school data, and in keeping journalists away from the
schoolhouse door. Their political lives are at stake.
President Bush’s signature No Child Left Behind Act is one such politically
charged management plan that has altered the reporting landscape. The
federal government has never played such a powerful monitoring role in the
life of individual public school students, even though it still contributes
less than 10 percent of total school funding. The measure glided through
Congress with unprecedented bipartisan back-slapping during the tumultuous
months following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Both sides of the aisle were
eager to find something positive to unite them, and in No Child Left Behind
— the fruit of decades of growing centralization — they found goals that few
could reasonably debate. No Child is based on the premise that all children
in public schools should receive a high-quality education from a
well-prepared teacher, and that schools should be accountable for serving
every child, regardless of race or disability. Children in failing schools
are technically eligible to transfer to better ones or receive free
tutoring. The law seeks to close the achievement gap between whites and
minorities by requiring schools to openly report their data by race and
ethnicity, and by imposing a variety of sanctions on any school that fails
to improve learning for all students.
But the devil is in the solutions, which have little to say about proven but
expensive goals like reducing class size or offering incentives for highly
qualified teachers. The act recognizes standardized test scores alone as
measurements of achievement; it ignores performance assessments that can
include students’ writing skills and teachers’ views. (Close to $400 million
was added to No Child Left Behind for testing companies to design new
high-stakes exams, and a burgeoning $2 billion test-preparation industry has
moved into a place of national prominence.)
The second part of No Child Left Behind reflects Bush’s belief that the
private sector is best equipped to carry out public reforms. Schools that
don’t report adequate test scores over time could face being taken over by
for-profit companies or charter schools. Students in failing schools can
technically transfer to better ones or receive tutoring, preferably from
private test-prep companies. Other hidden line items betray the law’s
politically conservative agenda. Federal money to train history teachers can
be used only for “traditional” American history, meaning a fact-based
curriculum about national leaders, and not a multicultural approach about
social movements. Sex education must emphasize abstinence even though no
scientific data show that this curriculum approach helps reduce AIDS or teen
pregnancy. The public was largely unaware of these consequences when the
bill passed.
If No Child Left Behind raised the stakes for school districts, it also
raised the stakes for those who cover them. The education story became a
national political story (read: more important) the day the bill passed, and
its initial handler was the Washington press corps. The coverage underscored
the benefits of the unusual Democratic-Republican alliance that helped push
the bill into being. It heralded the importance of imposing high standards
and requiring full disclosure for schools that can no longer hide the
failure of their most vulnerable students. And it forecast four years of
welcome attention to the public schools. In other words, the news was good.
But Washington reporters did little to shed light on the 1,000-page
measure’s finer points, at least initially, preferring instead to parse its
political implications.
Now that the law’s full effects are settling into elementary and middle
school classroom reality, more critics are speaking out against it, and
talking to reporters. The Department of Education was so concerned about the
growing bipartisan wave of criticism that it paid $700,000 to a public
relations firm to promote No Child and rank individual reporters’ coverage
of it. Then, in January, USA Today broke the story that the department had
paid Armstrong Williams, a conservative black pundit and radio host,
$240,000 to shill for the Bush administration’s main education initiative.
Everyone agrees that quality standardized tests can be useful as one of many
measures of success, or of failure, but they’ve been given an elevated role
that they cannot sustain. Under No Child Left Behind, mandatory testing for
third- through eighth-graders will be used to make decisions that the test
makers agree their products were never meant for — whether a child passes, a
teacher fails, a principal is rewarded, or an entire school is shut down.
During the next four years, the Bush administration plans to spend another
$1.5 billion to expand this testing strategy into the nation’s high schools.
Assessing the meaning and validity of such tests requires a pool of
sophisticated reporters who can navigate the world of statistics, business,
human development, teaching and learning methods, neuroscience, politics,
race, and culture. A few news organizations, like the Baltimore Sun, are
responding to the changes wrought by the federal act by redesigning the
education beat as an investigative challenge. And the Chicago Tribune now
employs five reporters to cover a beat with more than 400,000 students. Less
impressively, The New York Times deploys just three writers to cover a local
school system more than twice the size of Chicago’s. Most papers, though,
like The Houston Chronicle, have undergone cutbacks, leaving their education
reporter, if they even have one, with little time for much more than chasing
the latest press release. Lisa Walker, executive director of the Education
Writers’ Association, estimates that newspapers lost as many as 15 percent
of their reporter positions nationwide over the last five years, up to 30
percent at some larger papers. “We’re concerned,” she says. “With fewer
people, are they going to be able to go beyond the surface?”
National education reporters such as Sam Dillon and Diana Jean Schemo of The
New York Times have made the new federal law a natural focus within their
beat, contributing insight into the general knowledge of its impact on
education. Each has probed the law’s positive impact as well as chronicling
the games states play by lowering their passing grade or finding ways to
keep disabled and new immigrant children from taking the tests at all.
Dillon wrote movingly about the absurdity of holding troubled children to
the same standards as those whose parents do not routinely lose their jobs
and move their families from school to school. For some of those children,
it’s a triumph to get them inside the school building, without further
traumatizing them as test failures.
Still, by far the best No Child Left Behind stories have percolated straight
up from local schools, where the voices of teachers and children bring the
national policy home to readers. The Chicago Tribune has devoted rare energy
to such a project. Its city and metro staff have produced more than 400
stories on the subject since the act was passed, many of them memorable.
Instead of battling a torrent of numbers or playing poker with test
rankings, Tribune reporters dug behind the data, analyzing their origins and
putting a human face on their percentages.
Tracy Dell’Angela told the story of a public elementary school in the suburb
of Aurora that had turned around its failing school, pouring efforts into
new reading specialists and extra programs. Morale at Rollins elementary was
high, as children began responding and Rollins’s reputation grew. But then
low results from a test for new-immigrant children, required by No Child
Left Behind, pummeled the school into a failing category. “We celebrated our
scores. We know we did well. But we’re still considered a failure,”
Principal Karen Hart told Dell’Angela. “It’s just hard to put on your game
face and keep going when it’s not recognized beyond our four walls.” The
Rollins school, Hart explained, now faces the “painful prospect of setting
aside money that once went to reading specialists and after-school programs”
for tutoring and transportation costs.
Another Tribune reporter examined the fruit of moving children out of
failing schools. Stephanie Banchero followed third-grader Rayola Carwell
from her South Side Chicago home in the morning until she arrived, two hours
later, tired, hungry, and late at a better school thirteen miles away.
Banchero illustrated through the experience of a nine-year-old why only 500
out of 270,000 eligible children transferred out of their failing Chicago
schools last year, and why 37 percent who left ended up leaving their new
schools as well.
Media coverage in Chicago was not always this probing. During the
mid-nineties, when the dynamic ceo Paul Vallas was running the schools,
reporting hewed more closely to his aggressive agenda. Vallas, who now heads
Philadelphia’s schools, understood that strategic media relations would be
vital to his success. Reporters complained they could not get him off the
phone, an odd phenomenon for big-city beat reporters. And the coverage in
the heady early years of reform in Chicago was held captive by Vallas’s
announcements, rarely leavened by the reality, or analytic research, on the
ground.
Vallas was pushing a top-down, high-stakes policy that has become popular
with the new breed of mayors and businessmen leading public schools:
preventing “social promotion” by holding underperforming students back a
grade. The strategy appeals to educational bureaucrats because it advertises
their zero tolerance for mediocrity. And it appeals to bored education
reporters in search of stories charged with the drama of sink-or-swim
scores.
Unfortunately, like No Child Left Behind, the story of social promotion is
rarely reported from a student’s or school’s perspective. Even more
surprising, stories about the campaign against social promotion barely hint
at the raft of research showing that retention in grade does more harm than
good. Philadelphia has tried it, as have Baltimore, Houston, Washington,
D.C., and New York City (three times), along with about twenty-one other
school districts nationwide, all with similar results. Instead of infusing
coverage with knowledge of the past, reporters hungry for some excitement on
the beat tend to embroider official pronouncements, writing as if the policy
is a new idea.
Just last year, New York City residents were subjected to yet another ritual
of misleading stories about grade-retention policies. New York’s education
reporters should be well schooled on the subject, but they’re not. In the
early 1980s, the city school system installed a massive “Gates” program that
held back students in the fourth and seventh grades who failed a
standardized test. In other words, the test serves as a “gate” that opens
and closes for fourth- and seventh-graders, depending on the scorer. The
program was eventually scrapped as an ineffective waste of money. Then, more
than fifteen years later, Mayor Rudolph Giuliani famously and ambitiously
revived the practice late in his second term, imposing grade retention in
six consecutive grades, third through eighth, at a cost estimated at $564
million a year. At the time, most reporters seemed too absorbed in the
squabbles between the mayor and his chancellor to pay much attention to
behind-the-scenes program details. The “Gates” fiasco was almost never
mentioned. Education research assessing grade retention was not considered
in the coverage. Few in the media revisited Giuliani’s big initiative after
the initial burst of confetti was swept away.
The clearest indication that Giuliani’s idea was an academic bust came five
years later, at a March 2004 press conference held by his successor, Michael
Bloomberg. The current chancellor, Joel Klein, a former antitrust lawyer and
Clinton White House deputy counsel, lamented that 37 percent of the city’s
ninth graders were failing. “We can’t continue the way we’re going,” Klein
told reporters, “which is pushing children through the elementary schools.”
The chancellor was endorsing the mayor’s idea, announced a few weeks
earlier. Bloomberg, the first mayor in more than 130 years to have direct
control over the school system, said he would launch a program to hold
failing third-graders back. No one in the press noted that the same
ninth-graders whose failure Klein deplored had already been subjected to a
far more sweeping grade retention plan for six straight years — which
apparently hadn’t done much good. “It’s as if collective amnesia had
overtaken everyone,” lamented Noreen Connell, executive director of
Education Priorities Panel, a New York City research group. “Reporters and
politicians.”
The New York Daily News has since clambered onto Bloomberg’s grade retention
plan as a civic cause, printing editorials extolling the “glorious” numbers
of third graders passing out of mandatory summer school. News stories about
the plan in the tabloid, meanwhile, tend to be free of analysis and barely
mention the conflicting research. Both Daily News editorials and news
stories framed the policy as a political volley: a “win” for the mayor and a
“loss” for status-quo critics. Only The New York Times examined this third
attempt to hold third graders back with a data-based glance at the past. A
Times education beat reporter, David Herszenhorn, dug up a seminal 1998
study by the National Research Council on the issue. He spoke to a range of
respected education experts. In the midst of the controversy a University of
Chicago research group released a long-term study showing that Chicago’s
aggressive eight-year practice of holding third-graders back did more harm
than good.
Herszenhorn needed only to pull the clips of a predecessor’s 1997 school
coverage to understand the complexities of teaching a class of
eight-year-olds to read, mysteries that remote test results could never hope
to capture. Nearly a decade ago, after convincing his editors at the Times
that an immersion approach would be the best way to document the new era of
high-stakes testing among those who were supposed to matter most, Jacques
Steinberg spent a full year ducking in and out of Ted Kesler’s third-grade
class at Public School 75 on Manhattan’s Upper West Side. The result was a
potent glimpse into the stew of human triumphs and tragedies in the city’s
public school classrooms.
Steinberg followed Kesler from home to work, brambling through the nine-year
teaching veteran’s whims and tragedies. He entered the homes of many of the
third-graders, watching one eight-year-old vie for homework space with her
five siblings. An immigrant boy struggled with kindergarten-level books. The
series of stories showed on a profound level the daunting daily journey of
thirty children, all at different stages of reading, with varying capacities
and passion for English. Their education was far more daunting and far more
miraculous than an end-of-the-year test could gauge, yet the test loomed
like the story’s villain, waiting to deliver its defining judgment.
Of course, blending this level of depth and color into education stories
requires that educators open their classrooms to reporters, an invitation
that has grown even rarer under the new era of top-down management regimes.
In New York City, Joel Klein heads a newly centralized school system that
tries to shield itself from public scrutiny more scrupulously than any
previous administration. Most principals now routinely tell reporters they
need permission from central headquarters before speaking to the press —
permission that rarely materializes, and certainly not on deadline.
Herszenhorn said a story he wanted to pursue on changes, including the new
standardized math and reading curriculum, was put on hold because the
chancellor’s office initially insisted on choosing which schools he could
observe — obviously, an unacceptable bargain. By the time the Department of
Education relented, the Times had dropped the idea.
Access to public school systems should be a given in a democracy (a right
that demands a large helping of media responsibility). Narratives from
inside and outside the classroom are powerful testaments to a shared sense
of civic values, and an understanding of the role of education in sustaining
a democracy. The best coverage confronts the complicated world of education
not as a managed system of test results and ordered reforms, but as a busy
intersection of culture, race, child development, pedagogy, neuroscience,
and politics.
Ira Glass painted on such a canvas last October with a piece on This
American Life he called “Two Steps Back.” Glass focused on a gregarious
Chicago public school teacher on the verge of quitting because of changes
wrought in her school by the city bureaucracy.
The piece is distinguished by a ten-year journey back into the archives.
Glass dug up tapes he compiled in 1994 when he spent a year for NPR’s All
Things Considered inside two schools, including Washington Irving Elementary
School, which had transformed itself into a model of urban success amid
Chicago’s ambitious reforms. Glass had wanted to know how. It had no extra
money, no special status as a magnet. What he learned about Washington
Irving was this: kids simply wrote all the time and read all the time. The
crusading principal was a master at fending off bureaucratic mandates.
Teachers took over the curriculum. They made sure the parents came to school
at least three times a year. The faculty designed elaborate narrative report
cards that guided their curriculum. They stayed late, came in early, and
found ways to keep respect for learning and for each other alive in the
classroom.
Ten years later, Glass found the exemplary Washington Irving teacher, Cathy
La Luz, in her classroom, near tears on his first day of reporting. La Luz
was watching helplessly as the teachers’ carefully honed programs were
slowly unraveling. Mandates from central headquarters were flooding in, and
the new principal was doing little to divert them. Little indignities, like
a new requirement to turn in daily lesson plans, were eroding the teachers’
sense of autonomy. Their self-designed report cards were scrapped. Teachers
were required to write the state education goal of the day every day on the
blackboard. The demand for uniformity from Chicago Public Schools
headquarters had become overbearing. Officials were setting goals that La
Luz felt were vague and lower than the school’s own.
Glass took listeners inside La Luz’s classroom, where children’s voices took
over as they hashed out new endings for a book they were reading. We hear La
Luz coax a daydreaming child to find where his attention had disappeared to.
We hear the children banter with her about her new hairstyle and her new
outfit. Then we hear the despair in her voice as she agonizes over whether
she can endure the slow erosion of the profession she deeply loves. It is
education journalism at its best, rich with nuances and context, alive with
children’s voices and conflicts. The story said as much about the future of
high-stakes, top-down reforms as it did about the future of urban teaching.
Glass noted that the X factor in school reform is the chemistry between
teachers and children, a fragile eloquence that can easily be garbled if it
is not respected by outside contractors, outside authorities, outside
monitors. “Not that anybody wants to hear that,” Glass commented at the end.
“They don’t want to hear it.”
But perhaps they do.
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