Career classes make a comeback
High-tech centers, expanded programs fuel enrollment boom
06:06 PM CDT on Monday, March 12, 2007
By JAY PARSONS / The Dallas Morning News
jparsons@dallasnews.com
After almost two decades flirting with a one-size-fits-all dose of liberal arts instruction, school districts are bringing back – and vamping up – vocational classes.
Classes such as wood shop and auto mechanics began disappearing from traditional high schools in the 1980s, but they're reappearing at district-run trade schools alongside new classes such as advertising design, computer repair, engineering and health sciences.
Three area districts – Denton, Irving and Mansfield – opened stand-alone career and technology schools in recent years. Birdville, Frisco and Grand Prairie have plans to build them.
And Lewisville ISD, with long waiting lists at its career center, hopes to build a second. Others, including Dallas, have added career magnets to traditional high schools.
"There's been a real resurgence in opening career centers," said Alan Strong, principal of Lewisville's Dale Jackson Career Center. "They're finally realizing that not all kids go to college, but all kids go to work."
Statewide, vocational enrollment jumped 170 percent from 1996 to 2006 – three times the rate of enrollment in bilingual courses and nine times the overall enrollment growth, according to a state report.
"That's pretty significant," said Karen Batchelor, the Texas Education Agency's director of career and technology education. "School districts are offering more engaging CTE programs, ones where students can see the benefit of education."
School officials said the concentrated setup helps kids find their niche and understand practical uses from core classes – a combination they say lowers dropout rates.
But the concept is still not widely accepted, as proponents of vocational education fight to make over an image of stitch-and-stew blow-off classes.
"Even when I was in high school in the '80s, those vocational programs were thought to be just for the dumb kids who weren't going to college," said Lisa Karr, Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD's director of career and technology education.
"It's not like that anymore," she continued. "They're great, industry-focused programs in state-of-the-art buildings. You're not just going to bang a hammer anymore."
Some of the changes spurring growth are cosmetic. Educators have pushed away from the vocational label, re-branding as career and technology education. Wood shop is now referred to as construction systems, and auto mechanics as auto technology.
But the changes go deeper. Modern vehicles require mastering numerous small computers – often more than 20 – and that means learning advanced math in auto technology.
And no longer is vocational education only for those not headed to college. Districts have added classes such as media tech, health sciences, law, finance, engineering, electronics and computer maintenance.
How do those information-age careers fit alongside traditional vocational classes that don't require college degrees? They're all jobs in demand.
For kids not heading to a four-year college, schools offer credits toward an associate's degree and professional trade certifications that lead to better-paying jobs.
In cosmetology, students earn certifications through two classes – an education that private trade schools charge thousands of dollars for.
"I'm not going to college," said Laura Fuentes, a Lewisville senior and cosmetology student. "This is what all my family does, and this is what I want to do."
The classes help students get jobs with high-end salons that pay $45,000 a year and more, according to industry data.
Irving goes so far as to tailor its core curriculum to students' career focus. For example, a health sciences student takes science and math classes customized for the practical demands of nurses and doctors. Students attend The Academy of Irving ISD full time. In most districts, students are bused to and from career centers for classes.
But even in districts without customized core classes, educators said, students perform better once engaged in a career track with clear expectations of what it takes to get a job.
"We have fewer students who drop out if they see a purpose to why they're in school," said Marty Thompson, dean of Denton's $22 million Advanced Technology Complex, which opened last fall. "TAKS performance is better because it makes sense. They know how to apply it."
Mansfield ISD officials said students taking at least two classes at its Ben Barber Career Tech Academy, which opened in 2005, outperformed their peers at traditional high schools in math and language arts.
The career schools hire teachers with work experience in the fields they teach. That makes it tough to find good teachers willing to give up higher salaries, but districts make do by finding professionals tired of long hours or just eager to teach.
The centers also give students real-world experience. Many offer haircuts and manicures and vehicle tune-ups. Mansfield culinary students will soon open a restaurant.
And in Lewisville, media tech students film and produce programming for the city's cable station.
Michael Garza, a Lewisville senior, plans to go to a one-year trade college next year in Houston to pursue a career as an auto technician, where salaries average $58,000 – significantly more than the salary for a starting teacher with a bachelor's degree.
"I didn't know what an engine was, and you really do learn everything here," he said. "I saw I could make money doing it, and now my future is set on it."
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/localnews/stories/DN-vocational_12met.ART.State.Edition1.44989e0.html#
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
High-Stakes Testing is Putting the Nation At Risk
Also consider getting Nichols’ and Berliners’ recently published book titled, Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America's Schools. -Angela
Published: March 12, 2007
Commentary
High-Stakes Testing is Putting the Nation At Risk
By David C. Berliner & Sharon L. Nichols
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush claimed success for the federal No Child Left Behind Act. “Students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap,” he said, calling on Congress to reauthorize this “good law.” Apparently, the president sees in No Child Left Behind what he sees in Iraq: evidence that his programs are working. But, as with Iraq, a substantial body of evidence challenges his claim.
—Peter Lui
We believe that this federal law, now in its sixth year, puts American public school students in serious jeopardy. Extensive reviews of empirical and theoretical work, along with conversations with hundreds of educators across the country, have convinced us that if Congress does not act in this session to fundamentally transform the law’s accountability provision, young people and their educators will suffer serious and long-term consequences. If the title were not already taken, our thoughts on this subject could be headlined “A Nation at Risk.”
We note in passing that only people who have no contact with children could write legislation demanding that every child reach a high level of performance in three subjects, thereby denying that individual differences exist. Only those same people could also believe that all children would reach high levels of proficiency at precisely the same rate of speed.
Validity problems in the testing of English-language learners and special education students also abound, but we limit our concerns in this essay to the No Child Left Behind law’s reliance on high-stakes testing. The stakes are high when students’ standardized-test performance results in grade retention or failure to graduate from high school. The stakes are high when teachers and administrators can lose their jobs or, conversely, receive large bonuses for student scores, or when humiliation or praise for teachers and schools occurs in the press as a result of test scores. This federal law requires such high-stakes testing in all states.
More than 30 years ago, the eminent social scientist Donald T. Campbell warned about the perils of measuring effectiveness via a single, highly consequential indicator: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking,” he said, “the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” High-stakes testing is exactly the kind of process Campbell worried about, since important judgments about student, teacher, and school effectiveness often are based on a single test score. This exaggerated reliance on scores for making judgments creates conditions that promote corruption and distortion. In fact, the overvaluation of this single indicator of school success often compromises the validity of the test scores themselves. Thus, the scores we end up praising and condemning in the press and our legislatures are actually untrustworthy, perhaps even worthless.
The scores we end up praising and condemning in the press and our legislatures are actually untrustworthy, perhaps even worthless.
Campbell’s law is ubiquitous, and shows up in many human endeavors. Businesses, for example, regularly become corrupt as particular indicators are deemed important in judging success or failure. If stock prices are the indicator of a company’s success, for example, then companies like Enron, Qwest, Adelphia, and WorldCom manipulate that indicator to make sure they look good. Lives and companies are destroyed as a result. That particular indicator of business success became untrustworthy as both it and the people who worked with it were corrupted.
Similarly, when the number of criminal cases closed is the indicator chosen to judge the success of a police department, two things generally happen: More trials are brought against people who may be innocent or, with a promise of lighter sentences, deals are made with accused criminals to get them to confess to crimes they didn’t commit.
When the indicators of success and failure in a profession take on too much value, they invariably are corrupted. Those of us in the academic world know that when researchers are judged primarily by their publication records, they have occasionally fabricated or manipulated data. This is just another instance of Campbell’s law in action.
We have documented hundreds of examples of the ways in which high-stakes testing corrupts American education in a new book, Collateral Damage. Using Campbell’s law as a framework, we found examples of administrators and teachers who have cheated on standardized tests. Educators, acting just like other humans do, manipulate the indicators used to judge their success or failure when their reputations, employment, or significant salary bonuses are related to those indicators.
The law makes all who engage in compliance activities traitors to their own profession. It forces education professionals to ignore the testing standards that they have worked so hard to develop.
We found examples of administrators who would falsify school test data or force low-scoring students out of school in their quest to avoid public humiliation. We documented the distortion of instructional values when teachers focused on “bubble” kids—those on the cusp of passing the test—at the expense of the education of very low or very high scorers. We found instances where callous disregard for student welfare had replaced compassion and humanity, as when special education students were forced to take a test they had failed five times, or when a student who had recently suffered a death in the family was forced to take the test anyway.
Because so much depends on how students perform on tests, it should not be surprising that, as one Florida superintendent noted, “When a low-performing child walks into a classroom, instead of being seen as a challenge, or an opportunity for improvement, for the first time since I’ve been in education, teachers are seeing [that child] as a liability.” Shouldn’t we be concerned about a law that turns too many of the country’s most morally admired citizens into morally compromised individuals?
We also documented the narrowing of the curriculum to just what is tested, and found a huge increase in time spent in test preparation instead of genuine instruction. We found teachers concerned about their loss of morale, the undercutting of their professionalism, and the problem of disillusionment among their students. Teachers and administrators told us repeatedly how they were not against accountability, but that they were being held responsible for their students’ performance regardless of other factors that may affect it. Dentists aren’t held responsible for cavities and physicians for the onset of diabetes when youngsters don’t brush their teeth, or eat too much junk food, they argue.
Teachers know they stand a better chance of being successful where neighborhoods and families are healthy and communicate a sense of efficacy, where incomes are both steady and adequate, and where health-care and child-care programs exist. So the best of them soon move to schools with easier-to-teach students. This is no way to close the achievement gap.
Dozens of assessment experts have argued eloquently and vehemently that the high-stakes tests accompanying the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act are psychometrically inadequate for the decisions that must be made about students, teachers, and schools. Furthermore, the testing standards of the American Educational Research Association are being violated in numerous ways by the use of high-stakes tests to comply with the law. The law, therefore, makes all who engage in compliance activities traitors to their own profession. It forces education professionals to ignore the testing standards that they have worked so hard to develop. We wonder, would the federal government treat members of the American Medical Association or the National Academy of Sciences with such disdain?
In reauthorization hearings for the law, members of Congress should abandon high-stakes testing and replace it with an accountability system that is more reasonable and fair.
What might such a system look like?
A move to more “formative” assessments and an abandonment of our heavy commitment to “summative” assessments would be welcome. Assessment for learning, as opposed to assessment of learning, has produced some impressive gains in student achievement in other countries, and ought to be tried here. Likewise, the use of an inspectorate—an agency that sends expert observers into schools—has proved itself useful in other countries, and could also help improve schools in the United States.
End-of-course exams designed by teachers, as some states are now offering, increase teachers’ commitment to the testing program and, if the teachers get to score the tests, can also be a great professional-development opportunity. There are other alternatives to high-stakes testing, as well.
Our research informs us that high-stakes testing is hurting students, teachers, and schools. It is putting the nation at risk. By restricting the education of our young people and substituting for it training for performing well on high-stakes examinations, we are turning America into a nation of test-takers, abandoning our heritage as a nation of thinkers, dreamers, and doers.
David C. Berliner is the Regents’ professor of education at Arizona State University, in Tempe, and a past president of the American Educational Research Association. Sharon L. Nichols is an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. They are the co-authors of Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools, published this month by Harvard Education Press.
Vol. 26, Issue 27, Pages 36,48
Published: March 12, 2007
Commentary
High-Stakes Testing is Putting the Nation At Risk
By David C. Berliner & Sharon L. Nichols
In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush claimed success for the federal No Child Left Behind Act. “Students are performing better in reading and math, and minority students are closing the achievement gap,” he said, calling on Congress to reauthorize this “good law.” Apparently, the president sees in No Child Left Behind what he sees in Iraq: evidence that his programs are working. But, as with Iraq, a substantial body of evidence challenges his claim.
—Peter Lui
We believe that this federal law, now in its sixth year, puts American public school students in serious jeopardy. Extensive reviews of empirical and theoretical work, along with conversations with hundreds of educators across the country, have convinced us that if Congress does not act in this session to fundamentally transform the law’s accountability provision, young people and their educators will suffer serious and long-term consequences. If the title were not already taken, our thoughts on this subject could be headlined “A Nation at Risk.”
We note in passing that only people who have no contact with children could write legislation demanding that every child reach a high level of performance in three subjects, thereby denying that individual differences exist. Only those same people could also believe that all children would reach high levels of proficiency at precisely the same rate of speed.
Validity problems in the testing of English-language learners and special education students also abound, but we limit our concerns in this essay to the No Child Left Behind law’s reliance on high-stakes testing. The stakes are high when students’ standardized-test performance results in grade retention or failure to graduate from high school. The stakes are high when teachers and administrators can lose their jobs or, conversely, receive large bonuses for student scores, or when humiliation or praise for teachers and schools occurs in the press as a result of test scores. This federal law requires such high-stakes testing in all states.
More than 30 years ago, the eminent social scientist Donald T. Campbell warned about the perils of measuring effectiveness via a single, highly consequential indicator: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decisionmaking,” he said, “the more subject it will be to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor.” High-stakes testing is exactly the kind of process Campbell worried about, since important judgments about student, teacher, and school effectiveness often are based on a single test score. This exaggerated reliance on scores for making judgments creates conditions that promote corruption and distortion. In fact, the overvaluation of this single indicator of school success often compromises the validity of the test scores themselves. Thus, the scores we end up praising and condemning in the press and our legislatures are actually untrustworthy, perhaps even worthless.
The scores we end up praising and condemning in the press and our legislatures are actually untrustworthy, perhaps even worthless.
Campbell’s law is ubiquitous, and shows up in many human endeavors. Businesses, for example, regularly become corrupt as particular indicators are deemed important in judging success or failure. If stock prices are the indicator of a company’s success, for example, then companies like Enron, Qwest, Adelphia, and WorldCom manipulate that indicator to make sure they look good. Lives and companies are destroyed as a result. That particular indicator of business success became untrustworthy as both it and the people who worked with it were corrupted.
Similarly, when the number of criminal cases closed is the indicator chosen to judge the success of a police department, two things generally happen: More trials are brought against people who may be innocent or, with a promise of lighter sentences, deals are made with accused criminals to get them to confess to crimes they didn’t commit.
When the indicators of success and failure in a profession take on too much value, they invariably are corrupted. Those of us in the academic world know that when researchers are judged primarily by their publication records, they have occasionally fabricated or manipulated data. This is just another instance of Campbell’s law in action.
We have documented hundreds of examples of the ways in which high-stakes testing corrupts American education in a new book, Collateral Damage. Using Campbell’s law as a framework, we found examples of administrators and teachers who have cheated on standardized tests. Educators, acting just like other humans do, manipulate the indicators used to judge their success or failure when their reputations, employment, or significant salary bonuses are related to those indicators.
The law makes all who engage in compliance activities traitors to their own profession. It forces education professionals to ignore the testing standards that they have worked so hard to develop.
We found examples of administrators who would falsify school test data or force low-scoring students out of school in their quest to avoid public humiliation. We documented the distortion of instructional values when teachers focused on “bubble” kids—those on the cusp of passing the test—at the expense of the education of very low or very high scorers. We found instances where callous disregard for student welfare had replaced compassion and humanity, as when special education students were forced to take a test they had failed five times, or when a student who had recently suffered a death in the family was forced to take the test anyway.
Because so much depends on how students perform on tests, it should not be surprising that, as one Florida superintendent noted, “When a low-performing child walks into a classroom, instead of being seen as a challenge, or an opportunity for improvement, for the first time since I’ve been in education, teachers are seeing [that child] as a liability.” Shouldn’t we be concerned about a law that turns too many of the country’s most morally admired citizens into morally compromised individuals?
We also documented the narrowing of the curriculum to just what is tested, and found a huge increase in time spent in test preparation instead of genuine instruction. We found teachers concerned about their loss of morale, the undercutting of their professionalism, and the problem of disillusionment among their students. Teachers and administrators told us repeatedly how they were not against accountability, but that they were being held responsible for their students’ performance regardless of other factors that may affect it. Dentists aren’t held responsible for cavities and physicians for the onset of diabetes when youngsters don’t brush their teeth, or eat too much junk food, they argue.
Teachers know they stand a better chance of being successful where neighborhoods and families are healthy and communicate a sense of efficacy, where incomes are both steady and adequate, and where health-care and child-care programs exist. So the best of them soon move to schools with easier-to-teach students. This is no way to close the achievement gap.
Dozens of assessment experts have argued eloquently and vehemently that the high-stakes tests accompanying the implementation of the No Child Left Behind Act are psychometrically inadequate for the decisions that must be made about students, teachers, and schools. Furthermore, the testing standards of the American Educational Research Association are being violated in numerous ways by the use of high-stakes tests to comply with the law. The law, therefore, makes all who engage in compliance activities traitors to their own profession. It forces education professionals to ignore the testing standards that they have worked so hard to develop. We wonder, would the federal government treat members of the American Medical Association or the National Academy of Sciences with such disdain?
In reauthorization hearings for the law, members of Congress should abandon high-stakes testing and replace it with an accountability system that is more reasonable and fair.
What might such a system look like?
A move to more “formative” assessments and an abandonment of our heavy commitment to “summative” assessments would be welcome. Assessment for learning, as opposed to assessment of learning, has produced some impressive gains in student achievement in other countries, and ought to be tried here. Likewise, the use of an inspectorate—an agency that sends expert observers into schools—has proved itself useful in other countries, and could also help improve schools in the United States.
End-of-course exams designed by teachers, as some states are now offering, increase teachers’ commitment to the testing program and, if the teachers get to score the tests, can also be a great professional-development opportunity. There are other alternatives to high-stakes testing, as well.
Our research informs us that high-stakes testing is hurting students, teachers, and schools. It is putting the nation at risk. By restricting the education of our young people and substituting for it training for performing well on high-stakes examinations, we are turning America into a nation of test-takers, abandoning our heritage as a nation of thinkers, dreamers, and doers.
David C. Berliner is the Regents’ professor of education at Arizona State University, in Tempe, and a past president of the American Educational Research Association. Sharon L. Nichols is an assistant professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at San Antonio. They are the co-authors of Collateral Damage: How High-Stakes Testing Corrupts America’s Schools, published this month by Harvard Education Press.
Vol. 26, Issue 27, Pages 36,48
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Don't punish children for acting their age
Glad to see that the Miami-Herald is making a statement. Check earlier post--horrible things are happening in New Bedford, MA with parents getting separated from children as a result of aggressive immigrant hunts and raids. -Angela
Posted on Wed, Mar. 07, 2007
Don't punish children for acting their age
Families in immigration custody shouldn't be treated like criminals. Yet this is how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement now treats families routinely picked up at the border or elsewhere. The families are held in prison-like settings, and children are separated from parents as a form of punishment, according to a recent report by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
Cake confiscated
Families, especially children, shouldn't be detained when no one has committed a crime. Less expensive, more humane alternatives exist. Congress already has told ICE to stop separating families and to find alternatives to penal detention. Lawmakers should send a stronger message to end the mistreatment.
The new report, Locking Up Family Values, describes the conditions of families at two ICE facilities -- and particularly at the euphemistically named T. Don Hutto Residential Center. Located in Texas, Hutto is a former prison now operated for ICE by Corrections Corporation of America, which specializes in prisons. Hutto still has razor wire, prison cells and punitive treatment, even for children.
One former detainee, a 28-year-old Honduran, spent three months in Hutto with her daughters, ages 4 and 9. The pregnant detainee was released after a doctor determined that her baby wasn't developing, according to a report in The Houston Chronicle. The woman was constantly hungry, and her girls didn't go outside to play for weeks. When a guard brought a birthday cake for the 4-year-old, the cake was confiscated and the guard suspended. Why such cruelty?
Locking Up Family Values cites other examples of rigid, punitive treatment: children punished for behaving their age, parents stripped of their authority. Entire families traumatized. This is inhumane. ''The penal model of family detention leads to babies in uniforms with name tags, cribs inside prison cells, parents losing the ability to discipline their children and families unable to live as a normal family unit,'' the report said.
Less-costly alternatives
For these results, taxpayers currently pay about $200 a day per detainee in one of ICE's family-detention centers. The report recommends better, less-costly alternatives: ICE must stop locking up families in penal settings and close Hutto altogether. Asylum seekers should be released, as ICE policy directs. Families facing immigration proceedings should not be separated. Most should be released, adults under supervision and with ankle monitors, if needed. Worst case, families should be held in ''nonpenal, homelike'' settings.
Congress must ensure that ICE treats such families humanely.
© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/454/story/33657.html
Posted on Wed, Mar. 07, 2007
Don't punish children for acting their age
Families in immigration custody shouldn't be treated like criminals. Yet this is how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement now treats families routinely picked up at the border or elsewhere. The families are held in prison-like settings, and children are separated from parents as a form of punishment, according to a recent report by the Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children and the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.
Cake confiscated
Families, especially children, shouldn't be detained when no one has committed a crime. Less expensive, more humane alternatives exist. Congress already has told ICE to stop separating families and to find alternatives to penal detention. Lawmakers should send a stronger message to end the mistreatment.
The new report, Locking Up Family Values, describes the conditions of families at two ICE facilities -- and particularly at the euphemistically named T. Don Hutto Residential Center. Located in Texas, Hutto is a former prison now operated for ICE by Corrections Corporation of America, which specializes in prisons. Hutto still has razor wire, prison cells and punitive treatment, even for children.
One former detainee, a 28-year-old Honduran, spent three months in Hutto with her daughters, ages 4 and 9. The pregnant detainee was released after a doctor determined that her baby wasn't developing, according to a report in The Houston Chronicle. The woman was constantly hungry, and her girls didn't go outside to play for weeks. When a guard brought a birthday cake for the 4-year-old, the cake was confiscated and the guard suspended. Why such cruelty?
Locking Up Family Values cites other examples of rigid, punitive treatment: children punished for behaving their age, parents stripped of their authority. Entire families traumatized. This is inhumane. ''The penal model of family detention leads to babies in uniforms with name tags, cribs inside prison cells, parents losing the ability to discipline their children and families unable to live as a normal family unit,'' the report said.
Less-costly alternatives
For these results, taxpayers currently pay about $200 a day per detainee in one of ICE's family-detention centers. The report recommends better, less-costly alternatives: ICE must stop locking up families in penal settings and close Hutto altogether. Asylum seekers should be released, as ICE policy directs. Families facing immigration proceedings should not be separated. Most should be released, adults under supervision and with ankle monitors, if needed. Worst case, families should be held in ''nonpenal, homelike'' settings.
Congress must ensure that ICE treats such families humanely.
© 2007 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/454/story/33657.html
Friday, March 09, 2007
In War Over Teaching Reading, a U.S.-Local Clash
MADISON, Wis. — Surrounded by five first graders learning to read at Hawthorne Elementary here, Stacey Hodiewicz listened as one boy struggled over a word.March 9, 2007
By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO
“Pumpkin,” ventured the boy, Parker Kuehni.
“Look at the word,” the teacher suggested. Using a method known as whole language, she prompted him to consider the word’s size. “Is it long enough to be pumpkin?”
Parker looked again. “Pea,” he said, correctly.
Call it the $2 million reading lesson.
By sticking to its teaching approach, that is the amount Madison passed up under Reading First, the Bush administration’s ambitious effort to turn the nation’s poor children into skilled readers by the third grade.
The program, which gives $1 billion a year in grants to states, was supposed to end the so-called reading wars — the battle over the best method of teaching reading — but has instead opened a new and bitter front in the fight.
According to interviews with school officials and a string of federal audits and e-mail messages made public in recent months, federal officials and contractors used the program to pressure schools to adopt approaches that emphasize phonics, focusing on the mechanics of sounding out syllables, and to discard methods drawn from whole language that play down these mechanics and use cues like pictures or context to teach.
Federal officials who ran Reading First maintain that only curriculums including regular, systematic phonics lessons had the backing of “scientifically based reading research” required by the program.
But in a string of blistering reports, the Education Department’s inspector general has found that federal officials may have violated prohibitions in the law against mandating, or even endorsing, specific curriculums. The reports also found that federal officials overlooked conflicts of interest among the contractors that advised states applying for grants, and that in some instances, these contractors wrote reading programs competing for the money, and stood to collect royalties if their programs were chosen.
Education Secretary Margaret Spellings has said that the problems in Reading First occurred largely before she took over in 2005, and that her office has new guidelines for awarding grants. She declined a request for an interview.
Madison officials say that a year after Wisconsin joined Reading First, in 2004, contractors pressured them to drop their approach, which blends some phonics with whole language in a program called Balanced Literacy. Instead, they gave up the money — about $2 million, according to officials here, who say their program raised reading scores.
In New York City, under pressure from federal officials, school authorities in 2004 dropped their citywide balanced literacy approach for a more structured program stronger in phonics, in 49 low-income schools. At stake was $34 million.
Across the country — in Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maine and New Jersey — schools and districts with programs that did not stress phonics were either rejected for grants or pressured to change their methods even though some argued, as Madison did, that their programs met the law’s standard.
“We had data demonstrating that our children were learning at the rate that Reading First was aiming for, and they could not produce a single ounce of data to show the success rates of the program they were proposing,” said Art Rainwater, Madison’s superintendent of schools.
Both the House and the Senate are laying the groundwork for tough hearings on Reading First, which is up for renewal this year.
Robert Sweet Jr., a former Congressional aide who wrote much of the Reading First legislation, said the law aimed at breaking new ground by translating research into lesson plans. Under the law, the yardstick of a reading program’s scientific validity became a 2000 report by the National Reading Panel.
That panel, created by Congress, with members selected by G. Reid Lyon, a former head of a branch of the National Institutes of Health, set out to review the research and tell Americans what worked. It named phonics and related skills, vocabulary, fluency and reading comprehension as the cornerstones of effective reading instruction.
Mr. Sweet firmly believes that phonics is the superior method of instruction; he is now president of the National Right to Read Foundation, a pro-phonics group. His e-mail address begins phonicsman.
With Reading First, he said, “we felt we could put education on a new path.”
Dr. Lyon, another architect of the legislation, also strongly favors phonics. Teaching children to read by reason and context, as Parker did in Madison, rather than by sounding out letters to make words, is anathema, he said in an interview, suggesting that teachers of the whole language approach be prosecuted for “educational malpractice.”
Mr. Sweet agreed. “You’ve got billions used for the purchase of programs that have no validity or evidence that they work, and in fact they don’t, because you have so many kids coming out of the schools that can’t read,” he said.
But educators in Madison and elsewhere disagree about the effectiveness of phonics, and say their results prove their method works.
Under their system, the share of third graders reading at the top two levels, proficient and advanced, had risen to 82 percent by 2004, from 59 percent six years earlier, even as an influx of students in poverty, to 42 percent from 31 percent of Madison’s enrollment, could have driven down test scores. The share of Madison’s black students reading at the top levels had doubled to 64 percent in 2004 from 31 percent six years earlier.
And while 17 percent of African-Americans lacked basic reading skills when Madison started its reading effort in 1998, that number had plunged to 5 percent by 2004. The exams changed after 2004, making it impossible to compare recent results with those of 1998.
Other reading experts, like Richard Allington, past president of the International Reading Association, also challenge the case for phonics. Dr. Allington and others say the national panel’s review showed only minor benefits from phonics through first grade, and no strong support for one style of instruction. They also contend that children drilled in phonics end up with poor comprehension skills when they tackle more advanced books.
“This revisionist history of what the research says is wildly popular,” Dr. Allington said. “But it’s the main reason why so much of the reading community has largely rejected the National Reading Panel report and this large-scale vision of what an effective reading program looks like.”
Under Reading First, many were encouraged to use a pamphlet, “A Consumer’s Guide to Evaluating a Core Reading Program Grades K-3,” written by two special education professors, then at the University of Oregon, to gauge whether a program was backed by research.
But the guide also rewards practices, like using thin texts of limited vocabulary to practice syllables, for which there is no backing in research. Dr. Allington said the central role Washington assigned the guide effectively blocked from approval all but a few reading programs based on “made-up criteria.”
Deborah C. Simmons, who helped write the guide, said it largely reflected the available research, but acknowledged that even now, no studies have tested whether children learn to read faster or better through programs that rated highly in the guide.
Fatally for Madison, the guide does not consider consistent gains in reading achievement alone sufficient proof of a program’s worth.
In making their case, city officials turned to Kathryn Howe of the Reading First technical assistance center at the University of Oregon, one of several nationwide paid by the federal Education Department that helped states apply for grants. But early on, they began to suspect that Dr. Howe wanted them to dump their program.
At a workshop, she showed them how the guide valued exposing all children to identical instruction in phonics. Madison’s program is based on tailoring strategies individually, with less emphasis on drilling.
Dr. Howe used the Houghton Mifflin program as a model; officials here believed that approval would be certain if only they switched to that program, they said.
In interviews, Dr. Howe said she had not meant to endorse the Houghton Mifflin program and used it only for illustration, and had no ties to the company. She added that she might have been misunderstood.
“I certainly didn’t say, ‘You should buy Houghton Mifflin,’ ” she said. “I do remember saying: ‘You can do this without buying a purchased program. It’s easier if you have a purchased program, so you might think about that.’ ”
Dr. Howe said Madison’s program might have suited most students, but not those in the five schools applying for grants. “Maybe those students needed a different approach,” she said.
Mary Watson Peterson, Madison’s reading chief, said the city did use intensive phonics instruction, but only for struggling children.
After providing Dr. Howe extensive documentation, Madison officials received a letter from her and the center’s director, saying that because the city’s program lacked uniformity and relied too much on teacher judgment, they could not vouch to Washington that its approach was grounded in research.
Ultimately Madison withdrew from Reading First, said Mr. Rainwater, the superintendent, because educators here grew convinced that approval would never come. “It really boiled down to, we were going to have to abandon our reading program,” the superintendent said.
A subsequent letter from Dr. Howe seemed to confirm his view. “Madison made a good decision” in withdrawing, she wrote, “since Reading First is a very prescriptive program that does not match your district’s reading program as it stands now.”
Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/09/education/09reading.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Slavery: Trying to atone, but why now?
MSNBC.com
Slavery: Trying to atone, but why now?
Politics, history help explain groundswell of apology for ‘peculiar institution’
ANALYSIS
The Associated Press
Updated: 7:11 a.m. MT March 9, 2007
America is once again struggling to atone for slavery and its aftermath.
In a nation with an unquenchable need to analyze its racial past, there is now a fresh flow of contrition from public officials for the many wrongs of U.S. history.
Inspired by a resolution apologizing for slavery that Virginia legislators passed last month, black lawmakers in Georgia said Thursday they plan to introduce a similar measure there. Maryland and Missouri also are discussing an apology. And so far, a white Memphis congressman has gathered 36 co-sponsors for a bill that, if passed, would bring an apology to the federal level.
The FBI announced last week it is actively reinvestigating about a dozen cases of blacks slain in the 1950s and '60s as possible civil rights violations. As many as 100 more cases are being considered for similar treatment....
Click title to read rest of story. -Angela
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17522875/from/ET/
© 2007 MSNBC.com
US immigration system at its worst
A child was held by her mother at a news conference in New Bedford the day after her father was among 327 employees of Michael Bianco Inc. who were detained by immigration officials. (Peter Periera/The New Bedford Standard Times via Associated Press)
This is very disturbing. I’ve compiled several reports for you (below). This is a humanitarian crisis indeed. How can our policies and our nation be so cruel to children?
A way to think about immigrants—a much more positive way—is that Americans are outsourcing their labor needs no differently than is currently being done with India and China. The difference is that Latina/o immigrants remain as a domestic population in the U.S. which means that they re-invest in our economy. I credit this re-articulation to John Guerra, President of the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce.
-Angela
US immigration system at its worst
By Ali Noorani in the Boston Globe, March 9, 2007
Ali Noorani is executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition
NEW BEDFORD
"HAS ANYONE seen my wife? She left for work yesterday and never came home. Our newborn baby is hungry and crying. Can someone please help?" asks a young father in the basement of a crowded church, one clear voice above the din of the hundreds gathered. The fear is palpable in the young man's eyes. He implores the listener to offer solace, hope, and encouragement.
There were hundreds of people searching for news about their loved ones, fighting back nervous tears. They found no information and no answers. Only chaos. And pain. And fear.
For the past three days, this has been the scene at St. James Church in New Bedford.
This is the result of failed immigration laws. This is the nation's immigration system at its worst.
On Tuesday, more than 500 armed homeland security officers descended upon Michael Blanco Inc. The owner of the factory, and a few of his senior staff, were arrested for hiring undocumented workers and creating false documents. They were out on bail and home with their families that night.
Approximately 350 employees, mostly mothers with young children, were swept up in the raid, shackled together in groups of three by their wrists and ankles and marched to buses bound for Fort Devens, 100 miles away. Without any legal representation or due process, these workers were asked for their immigration documentation and encouraged by immigration officers to choose voluntary deportation regardless of whether an immigration application was in process.
The irony of the story is that these employees were manufacturing the materials that keep US soldiers in Iraq safe from harm. Their skills as craftspeople served our country at a time of great need. Yet instead of being treated like heroes for their role in the war effort, they and their families are treated like traitors.
President Bush and his administration have decided to prioritize the detention and deportation of young mothers at taxpayer expense, and at the expense of our troops.
These families in New Bedford escaped severe poverty and oppressive governments because they dared to believe in the American Dream. Ineligible for public benefits, they work every day and pay taxes in hopes of providing a better future for their children and their communities.
These families are victims of unscrupulous employers and an ad hoc set of laws.
Immigration laws today are unjust not only for those yearning to be free, but also for everyone struggling for a better future for their children.
Now, New Bedford manufacturers and fish cutters feel the impact. In the days ahead, it will reverberate throughout Southeastern Massachusetts and the rest of the state.
The immigration reform debate will again emerge in the weeks ahead as legislation is introduced in Congress. We hope for the best but fear the worst. We hope our elected officials show the courage to make sure immigrant families, our families, are protected; we fear our officials and the politics of hate will let us down.
How can we look into the eyes of a young mother who has fled the repressive government and economic perils of Guatemala to stitch safety vests for our troops and tell her to leave? How can we look into the eyes of a young father of an eight- month old baby dehydrated because his mother has been detained and tell him he doesn't belong here?
If we allow this to continue, we will turn our backs on liberty and the American Dream. Irrational fears will only drive us to the wrong side of history. Let us live up to the dreams of every immigrant of every generation that had the courage to come to this country to make a better life for their families.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Workers, families unsure of next step after raid
>By BECKY W. EVANS, New Bedford (MA) Standard-Times staff writer
>March 8, 2007
>
>New Bedford is facing a "humanitarian mess," with children separated from
>their parents and hundreds of illegal immigrants almost certain to be sent
>to out-of-state detention facilities, advocates charged yesterday.
>"Families are totally being torn apart," said Carly Burton, a policy
>associate with the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition.
>"Kids don't know where their parents are. It's a humanitarian mess."
>
>"We are extremely concerned about the effect on these people's rights if
>they are shipped out of the area to a place they don't know and have no
>community," said Nancy Kelly, a managing attorney for the immigration unit
>at Greater Boston Legal Services.
>
>Meanwhile, Bay State congressional leaders yesterday called for changes to
>U.S. immigration policy, and Gov. Deval Patrick mobilized the Department of
>Social Services to provide emergency support for children and families
>affected by the raid.
>
>Tuesday's massive sweep by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents at
>Michael Bianco Inc. in the South End resulted in the detainment of 320
>illegal immigrants, of which 275 were taken by bus to Fort Devens in Ayer.
>The illegal workers include illegal immigrants from Mexico, El Salvador,
>Honduras, Guatemala, Cape Verde, Portugal and Brazil. They were hired by
>Francesco Insolia, owner of Michael Bianco, and paid minimum wage without
>health benefits.
>
>Mr. Insolia and three of the company's managers were arrested during the
>raid and charged in connection with the alleged hiring of illegal
>immigrants. A fifth person was arrested on charges that he provided factory
>workers with false identification documents.
>
>The detainees spent Tuesday night in dormitories at Fort Devens, a former
>Army base. One New Bedford man said his Brazilian friend reported that she
>was placed in a room with five other people.
>
>The man, fearful of giving his name, stood outside the brick factory
>yesterday waiting to see if his friend would be released back to New
>Bedford. He was joined by family and friends who also waited for the return
>of their loved ones.
>
>At the plant yesterday, employee Grace Melo said she was worried about
>keeping her job.
>
>She said she was told by a supervisor to come to work, but said "I have no
>idea what will happen."
>
>She described yesterday's raid as "scary."
>
>"It was a shock to all of us."
>
>Legal employees of Michael Bianco returned to work yesterday, but many
>seemed unsure of what to do.
>
>Administrative assistant Nancy Franco said the plant was open, but that
>nothing was being done.
>
>She said she had yet to speak to the company's owner.
>
>Some employees said they were concerned about keeping their jobs given the
>uncertainty of the company's future.
>
>At Fort Devens, federal agents began a second round of interviews with
>detainees, ICE spokesman Richard Rocha said.
>
>He said the majority will be flown to detention facilities outside of
>Massachusetts, where they will appear before an immigration court judge for
>deportation proceedings.
>
>Depending on the judge's decision, the detainees will either be deported to
>their home countries or allowed to return to New Bedford, he said.
>
>The length of stay at the detention facilities depends on where the
>immigrants are from, Mr. Rocha said. Deportation to Mexico is quicker than
>those to other countries such as El Salvador and Honduras, he said.
>"Every country has a different type of immigration policy," he said.
>He estimated that the average stay at detention facilities in Texas is 18
>days. If detainees appeal, they could stay longer, he said.
>
>If deported, immigrants will face poverty and political unrest when they
>return to countries that many left for the same reasons, said Corinn
>Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Center of
>Southeastern Massachusetts.
>
>"Guatemala is one of the most violent countries," she said.
>
>Rev. Marc Fallon of Catholic Social Services spoke during a press conference
>yesterday at Our Lady of Guadelupe Parish at St. James Church. He said most
>of the detainees are "refugees of civil war" who suffer from post-traumatic
>stress disorder.
>
>He blamed federal enforcement agents for increasing their stress by raiding
>the factory and surrounding it with helicopters. He said the focus of the
>operation should have remained on the owners of the factory, not the illegal
>immigrants who worked there.
>
>"The detainees are being punished for the sin of corporate perpetrators," he
>said.
>
>When the detainees will leave Fort Devens and where they will go remained
>uncertain yesterday, but Mr. Rocha noted that there are facilities along the
>U.S.-Mexico border equipped to hold detainees.
>
>Once the detainees are moved out of Massachusetts it will be more difficult
>for family and friends to arrange and pay for legal services, said Ms.
>Kelly, an attorney with Greater Boston Legal Services.
>
>"This raid happened in Massachusetts, and even the ability to rally lawyers
>for pro bono cases will be affected" if the detainees are sent out of state,
>she said.
>
>Ms. Kelly spent Tuesday night at Fort Devens offering free legal counsel to
>the detainees. She was joined by seven colleagues from GBLS and one attorney
>from ACLU Boston.
>
>The lawyers provided counsel to 10 detainees - mostly women with children,
>Ms. Kelly said.
>
>"They were frantic," she said. "We tried to figure out what was going on
>advise them of what rights they have and figure out if there was a mother
>with a child so we could bring it to the attention of ICE."
>
>Many of the Fort Devens detainees have children, Ms. Kelly said.
>"I can say anecdotally that a lot of people hesitate to tell immigration
>agents that they have children, because they don't know what is going to
>happen to them," she said. "They don't want DSS to take them, and they fear
>what is going to happen."
>
>During the press conference, immigrant advocates estimated that between 70
>and 210 children were missing a parent who had been caught in the raid.
>Mr. Rocha reported that 45 detainees were released from the factory Tuesday
>after the raid for humanitarian reasons, which included medical problems and
>family and childcare issues.
>
>An additional 15 detainees - all women - were released yesterday from Fort
>Devens, also for humanitarian reasons, ICE spokeswoman Paula Grenier said.
>The women were transported to New Bedford.
>
>Mr. Rocha said those who have been released are "not free from immigration
>laws."
>
>If they fail to appear for their court hearing, they "will be a fugitive
>from the law," he said.
>
>Mothers and fathers with children who are U.S. citizens will face a
>difficult choice if they are deported, Mr. Rocha said.
>
>They can either take the child with them or leave them in the United States
>under the care of a family member or friend, he said.
>
>He said those who are deported usually opt to take their children with them.
>The office of Rep. William Delahunt, who serves on the House Judiciary
>Committee which has oversight over federal policies on immigration, was
>working with ICE yesterday to allow Department of Social Services staff to
>gain access to detainees.
>
>Gov. Deval Patrick contacted Rep. Delahunt yesterday and also mobilized DSS
>staff to assist families.
>
>"The Department of Social Services needs to have staff on site at Fort
>Devens to provide support for the detainees and coordinate support for their
>children," Gov. Patrick wrote in a letter to Rep. Delahunt.
>
>In the meantime, DSS is working with local officials and community activists
>to help the families.
>
>The department has found 29 foster homes for children affected by
>yesterday's actions, has matched at least 35 children to families being held
>at Fort Devens and is checking with local schools to determine if students
>who are absent are affected by the ongoing events.
>Bay State congressional leaders cited Tuesday's raid as one reason to change
>U.S. immigration policy.
>
>"People see how disruptive this is," said U.S. Rep. Barney Frank. "To think
>you can do this 10,000 times is a mistake.
>
>U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who is co-sponsoring an immigration reform bill
>with Arizona Sen. John McCain, said the best way to end the exploitation of
>undocumented workers is to put them on a path to earn legal status.
>The Kennedy-McCain bill, which would allow immigrants to earn legal status
>by fulfilling requirements over a number of years, is scheduled to be
>introduced by mid-March.
>
>Elsa Maldonado, a New Bedford resident and U.S. citizen, weighed in on the
>immigration debate while standing yesterday outside the factory.
>"They should give them amnesty," Ms. Maldonado said. "These people are not
>bothering anybody. They are just working. There is no such thing as illegal
>humans."
________________________________________________________________________________________
Children stranded after immigration raid in New Bedford, MA
A.P., March 7, 2007
Dozens of young children were stranded at schools and with baby-sitters after their parents were rounded up by federal authorities who raided a leather goods maker suspected of hiring illegal immigrants, authorities said Wednesday.
About two-thirds of the 500 employees of Michael Bianco Inc., mostly women, were detained Tuesday by immigration officials for possible deportation as illegal aliens.
As a result, about 100 children were stuck with baby sitters, caretakers and others, said Corinn Williams, director of the Community Economic Development Center of Southeastern Massachusetts.
"We're continuing to get stories today about infants that were left behind," she said. "It's been a widespread humanitarian crisis here in New Bedford."
The state Department of Social Services was working Wednesday to make sure the children receive proper care. Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Julie Myers said eight pregnant women were released and women who were sole caregivers of children would also be released, but it takes time to verify people's accounts.
During the federal raid Tuesday, company owner Francesco Insolia, 50, and three top managers were arrested. Authorities allege Insolia oversaw "sweatshop" conditions so he could meet the demands of $91 million in U.S. military contracts.
U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan accused Insolia of exploiting the illegals to maximize his profits on the military contracts for production of backpacks and safety vests for soldiers. A fifth person was arrested on charges of helping illegals obtain fake identification.
Investigators described dingy conditions and said the illegal workers faced onerous fines, such as a $20 charge for talking while working and spending more than two minutes in the bathroom.
"They were given no options. It's either here, or the risk of no income at all," U.S. Attorney Michael Sullivan said, comparing the plant to sweatshops from the early 1900s. "Clearly, they were exploited because of the fact they were here illegally."
Insolia's lawyer, Inga Bernstein, said: "The whole story will come out, and at that point it will be a very different scenario."
Michael Bianco Inc., founded in 1985, specialized in manufacturing high-end leather goods for retailers including Coach Inc. and Timberland Co. before landing a $9.4 million military contract in 2003 to make survival vests.
From 2004 and 2006, it won $82 million in military contracts to make products including lightweight backpacks. An Army spokesman did not return a call seeking comment about the status of the contracts.
Bill to improve math, science teaching loses pay provisions
Friday, March 9, 2007
Bill to improve math, science teaching loses pay provisions
KEA opposed salary differential
By Tom Loftus
tloftus@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A bill that is a top priority for Senate Republicans -- aimed at improving math and science teaching -- was approved yesterday by a House committee but only after it removed provisions to boost pay for top teachers in those subjects.
The budget committee sent to the House floor a new version of Senate Bill 1. It retains many of the original provisions, including cash incentives to schools to begin advanced-placement courses.
But gone from the bill is language that would authorize pay increases of up to $10,000 a year for the best chemistry, physics and calculus teachers -- an incentive that would be based on scores achieved by their students on advanced-placement tests.
The committee took no action on a second Senate priority bill, which would have raised the salaries of chemistry, physics and calculus teachers who get top scores on teacher-certification tests.
That bill, SB 2, is stuck in the budget committee, which plans no more meetings this session.
Sen. Ken Winters, a Murray Republican and sponsor of the bills, said he hopes SB 2 and the deleted parts of SB 1 can be revived in a conference committee that will reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions.
"Until the conference activities are over, you never give up on anything," Winters said.
Rep. Frank Rasche, a Paducah Democrat who is chairman of the House Education Committee, said the provisions giving additional pay for science and math teachers "had to come out" or the bill couldn't have passed the House.
Those provisions were strongly opposed by the Kentucky Education Association, the state teachers' union.
KEA President Frances Steenbergen said the organization believes salaries should be based on levels of experience, education and professional training "but not on the subject" being taught.
Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, chairman of budget committee, said he supports differential pay for teachers of subjects such as math and science, where the demand is great but the supply short. However, he said House Democratic leaders would not let the bill move without the KEA's support.
Besides providing cash incentives to schools to start advanced-placement classes, the current version of SB 1 also would pay the fees charged students to take advanced-placement tests.
Reporter Tom Loftus can be reached at (502) 875-5136.
Print this article | Go back
Bill to improve math, science teaching loses pay provisions
KEA opposed salary differential
By Tom Loftus
tloftus@courier-journal.com
The Courier-Journal
FRANKFORT, Ky. -- A bill that is a top priority for Senate Republicans -- aimed at improving math and science teaching -- was approved yesterday by a House committee but only after it removed provisions to boost pay for top teachers in those subjects.
The budget committee sent to the House floor a new version of Senate Bill 1. It retains many of the original provisions, including cash incentives to schools to begin advanced-placement courses.
But gone from the bill is language that would authorize pay increases of up to $10,000 a year for the best chemistry, physics and calculus teachers -- an incentive that would be based on scores achieved by their students on advanced-placement tests.
The committee took no action on a second Senate priority bill, which would have raised the salaries of chemistry, physics and calculus teachers who get top scores on teacher-certification tests.
That bill, SB 2, is stuck in the budget committee, which plans no more meetings this session.
Sen. Ken Winters, a Murray Republican and sponsor of the bills, said he hopes SB 2 and the deleted parts of SB 1 can be revived in a conference committee that will reconcile differences between the House and Senate versions.
"Until the conference activities are over, you never give up on anything," Winters said.
Rep. Frank Rasche, a Paducah Democrat who is chairman of the House Education Committee, said the provisions giving additional pay for science and math teachers "had to come out" or the bill couldn't have passed the House.
Those provisions were strongly opposed by the Kentucky Education Association, the state teachers' union.
KEA President Frances Steenbergen said the organization believes salaries should be based on levels of experience, education and professional training "but not on the subject" being taught.
Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, chairman of budget committee, said he supports differential pay for teachers of subjects such as math and science, where the demand is great but the supply short. However, he said House Democratic leaders would not let the bill move without the KEA's support.
Besides providing cash incentives to schools to start advanced-placement classes, the current version of SB 1 also would pay the fees charged students to take advanced-placement tests.
Reporter Tom Loftus can be reached at (502) 875-5136.
Print this article | Go back
99 [HISD] teachers told to repay part of bonus
March 9, 2007, 3:20PM
99 teachers told to repay part of bonus
HISD blames a computer glitch for overpayments
By ERICKA MELLON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Ninety-nine HISD teachers who received performance bonuses are being told this week they have to pay back an average of $745 because the district accidentally overpaid them.
HISD officials said a computer programming error led them to overpay about $73,700. The mistake caused the 99 part-time teachers and other instructional personnel to be paid as though they were full-time employees.
The affected teachers should receive a form from Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra this week giving them the option of having all the money deducted from a single paycheck or spread out over 10 pay periods.
The amounts range from $62.50 to $2,790.
"Although this affects less than 1 percent of HISD's 12,500 teachers, the error should not have been made," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said in a written statement. "We regret it and apologize to those instructional staff members."
The head of the HISD's largest teachers union, however, is advising her members to keep the money.
"If it's the district's error, then the district should bear the loss," said Gayle Fallon, whose Houston Federation of Teachers represents about 6,500 employees.
"If you tell someone they deserve money and put it in their bank account, you've got a helluva nerve taking it back."
Fallon said she is encouraging teachers not to sign the form authorizing the district to deduct the money from their paycheck. Without the signed form, the district can't take back the money, Fallon said.
"And if they direct them to sign it, we'll see them in court," she added.
Asked to respond to Fallon's comments, Abbott said simply, "The money will need to be returned."
Principals at 52 schools are meeting with employees in person this week to explain and apologize.
Series of missteps for HISD
This is the third time Saavedra has been forced to admit an error since the district doled out $14 million in bonuses in January.
His first apology came after he referred to the teachers who received top bonuses as "the cream of the crop," drawing criticism and angry e-mail from offended employees who didn't get bonuses.
Later, the district realized it overlooked several hundred teachers in the initial payout, so it cut an additional $1 million in checks.
Abbott also said officials have corrected the programming error, and he added that HISD officials remain committed to the incentive pay plan, which seeks to hold individual teachers accountable for how much their students improve each year on standardized tests.
Steve Antley, a Marshall Middle School teacher who serves as president of the Congress of Houston Teachers, called the overpayment mistake "unbelievable."
"It's just another example of how poorly thought out and planned the whole program was, so it's not surprising these kinds of mistakes are being made," said Antley, who did not receive a bonus.
ericka.mellon@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4614930.html
99 teachers told to repay part of bonus
HISD blames a computer glitch for overpayments
By ERICKA MELLON
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
Ninety-nine HISD teachers who received performance bonuses are being told this week they have to pay back an average of $745 because the district accidentally overpaid them.
HISD officials said a computer programming error led them to overpay about $73,700. The mistake caused the 99 part-time teachers and other instructional personnel to be paid as though they were full-time employees.
The affected teachers should receive a form from Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra this week giving them the option of having all the money deducted from a single paycheck or spread out over 10 pay periods.
The amounts range from $62.50 to $2,790.
"Although this affects less than 1 percent of HISD's 12,500 teachers, the error should not have been made," HISD spokesman Terry Abbott said in a written statement. "We regret it and apologize to those instructional staff members."
The head of the HISD's largest teachers union, however, is advising her members to keep the money.
"If it's the district's error, then the district should bear the loss," said Gayle Fallon, whose Houston Federation of Teachers represents about 6,500 employees.
"If you tell someone they deserve money and put it in their bank account, you've got a helluva nerve taking it back."
Fallon said she is encouraging teachers not to sign the form authorizing the district to deduct the money from their paycheck. Without the signed form, the district can't take back the money, Fallon said.
"And if they direct them to sign it, we'll see them in court," she added.
Asked to respond to Fallon's comments, Abbott said simply, "The money will need to be returned."
Principals at 52 schools are meeting with employees in person this week to explain and apologize.
Series of missteps for HISD
This is the third time Saavedra has been forced to admit an error since the district doled out $14 million in bonuses in January.
His first apology came after he referred to the teachers who received top bonuses as "the cream of the crop," drawing criticism and angry e-mail from offended employees who didn't get bonuses.
Later, the district realized it overlooked several hundred teachers in the initial payout, so it cut an additional $1 million in checks.
Abbott also said officials have corrected the programming error, and he added that HISD officials remain committed to the incentive pay plan, which seeks to hold individual teachers accountable for how much their students improve each year on standardized tests.
Steve Antley, a Marshall Middle School teacher who serves as president of the Congress of Houston Teachers, called the overpayment mistake "unbelievable."
"It's just another example of how poorly thought out and planned the whole program was, so it's not surprising these kinds of mistakes are being made," said Antley, who did not receive a bonus.
ericka.mellon@chron.com
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/4614930.html
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
English-only rule leads to firing
Friday, March 2, 2007
English-only rule leads to firing
Hairstylist said she was fired after language dispute.
By AMY TAXIN
The Orange County Register
SANTA ANA – A bilingual Santa Ana hairstylist was fired after a dispute with her supervisor over rules requiring her to speak English at a retirement community salon.
Gloria Maldonado, 51, said she had worked at the salon at Town and Country Manor for four years, cutting hair for senior citizens who lived at the complex. She also styled hair for a handful of outside customers, including a friend who spoke little English.
Maldonado, who came to Santa Ana 35 years ago from Mexico, said she argued with the salon manager in February after she was asked not to speak Spanish in front of Town and Country residents.
"I said to her, if someone comes in speaking Spanish, do I have to refuse them service? I'm here to make a living like everyone else," Maldonado said. "Right now, I feel like this is discrimination."
Beauty salon manager Gwen Neveu, who leases space from Town and Country, said she fired Maldonado over what she called her "threatening" reaction to the English-only rule – not because of the rule itself.
But for Town and Country – a nonprofit run by the Christian and Missionary Alliance that offers independent and assisted living as well as nursing care – the issue of language hasn't been simple. In 2004, the Santa Ana center was cited by the California Department of Health Services after residents complained they didn't like staff speaking in foreign languages while providing nursing care.
The department required Town and Country staff to have training about when English should be spoken because "the facility must promote care for residents in a manner and in an environment that maintains or enhances each resident's dignity and in full recognition of his or her individuality," state papers show.
Town and Country's director, Dirk DeWolfe, said employees could speak to each other on breaks in any language, just not in front of the residents. He said the rule is laid out in the complex's employee handbook.
"All we do is try to abide by what the Department of Health Services tells us. We're stuck that way," he said.
DHS spokeswoman Norma Arceo said there is no law requiring nursing homes to operate in English but any service a resident receives – ranging from dialysis to a bath – should be provided in the resident's language.
"The bottom line is if the patient is in the same room, you want to be speaking English because we want the patient to understand," Arceo said.
She said DHS only oversees nursing care at Town and Country – not its assisted living facilities.
Federal civil rights experts said English can be required in the workplace for safety reasons or in the face of a "business necessity," citing examples ranging from a hospital emergency room to a factory that uses toxic chemicals. The state applies a similar rule, said Paul Ramsey, chief counsel for California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing.
"An employer may have a rule requiring only English," Ramsey said. "But business necessity is a pretty high standard in the state."
Anna Park, attorney for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Los Angeles, said companies need to be careful to apply the same rules to all languages. She also said they can't require English in every area of operations if safety is only a concern in a particular department.
"You can't have a blanket rule," Park said.
In Santa Ana, Maldonado rented a chair in one of several salons owned by Neveu that cater to residents in both the assisted living and nursing care facilities at Town and Country. Maldonado said that until last month she was never told English was required at the salon, which did not serve nursing care patients.
She said she never expected to find such a rule in Orange County, where 40 percent of residents speak a language other than English.
"I'm still in shock. I still don't believe it," she said.
Contact the writer: 714-704-3777 or ataxin@ocregister.com
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/local/article_1596271.php
Education policy leaders, teachers at odds on bonuses
Wed, Mar. 07, 2007
Education policy leaders, teachers at odds on bonuses
LEGISLATION IS INTENDED TO PRODUCE MORE SCIENCE AND MATH GRADUATES
By Raviya H. Ismail
HERALD-LEADER EDUCATION WRITER
FRANKFORT - Two bills that would give monetary rewards to physics, chemistry and math teachers have solid support from University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr. and Bob Sexton, executive director for the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. But there's strong opposition from the Kentucky Education Association, whose members say the proposal would give preferential treatment to select teachers.
The House Appropriations and Revenue Committee yesterday listened to testimony from both sides about the bills. The legislation would reward teachers whose students score high on Advanced Placement exams, provide incentives to poor students who score well on those exams, and give bonuses to teachers of those subjects. The Senate previously approved the bills, but the House has not acted on them.
Chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, said House Appropriations and Revenue Committee leaders would decide whether to vote on the bills.
The measures are in response to what many education advocates contend is a critical need to produce more science and math graduates to be competitive in the global economy.
"It's time to take some action," Todd testified. "We need to put the stake in the ground to say we are ready to take on this problem."
Todd is chairman of a task force aimed at finding strategies to improve the state's performance in these subjects. He said India and China each create 400,000 engineers a year, while the United States produces only 70,000 annually, many of them foreigners who return home.
Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Sen. Ken Winters, R-Murray, would create an incentive fund to help schools offer Advanced Placement courses in calculus, chemistry and physics.
The incentive fund would be used for two-year $10,000 grants to individual schools. Money the first year would go toward teacher training and planning. Money in the second year would be used to purchase textbooks and other materials for the courses.
The bill also provides a financial incentive for students who do well on Advanced Placement exams in the subjects. A student scoring well could receive up to $300 a course. The program also would offer teachers up to a total of $10,000 in incentive pay each year, based on how well their students perform in these math and science courses.
SB 2, sponsored by Senate Majority Floor Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, would offer a $6,000 stipend to any high school chemistry and physics teacher who majored in the subject in college -- or went through the state's certification program -- and achieved a high score on a subject test that all teachers must take. High school and middle school math teachers would receive $3,000 stipends under the same terms.
But KEA President Frances Steenbergen said: "There should not be a differentiation of pay for a few teachers in a few subject areas." She said the proposal is "demoralizing to the vast majority of teachers."
Brent McKim, an Advanced Placement physics teacher at duPont Manual High School in Jefferson County, said that, although he'd benefit from the legislation, he doesn't agree with bonus pay for advanced science and math teachers.
"There is a very important place for AP courses in the high school curriculum, but at the same time, they are not for everyone," McKim testified. "They are not a magic bullet to solve all the problems in math and science."
KEA representatives have three dozen suggestions on ways to address the math and science crisis. They include offering full tuition for teachers in kindergarten through eighth grade acquiring minor degrees in math or science, and paying student fees for Advanced Placement exams.
Although some representatives voiced their concerns on the bills, specifically that teachers hadn't been involved in crafting them, most favored moving the initiatives forward.
"If we don't do something about the crisis that faces us with engineering, in the next couple decades ... we'll become a second-rate nation," said Rep. Jon Draud, R-Edgewood.
"I don't believe in trying to fix things if they're not broken, but when things aren't working it seems to me that you have to try something differently."
Reach Raviya H. Ismail at (859) 231-3342; 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3342; or rismail@herald-leader.com.
© 2007 Lexington Herald-Leader and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/16849072.htm
Education policy leaders, teachers at odds on bonuses
LEGISLATION IS INTENDED TO PRODUCE MORE SCIENCE AND MATH GRADUATES
By Raviya H. Ismail
HERALD-LEADER EDUCATION WRITER
FRANKFORT - Two bills that would give monetary rewards to physics, chemistry and math teachers have solid support from University of Kentucky President Lee T. Todd Jr. and Bob Sexton, executive director for the Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence. But there's strong opposition from the Kentucky Education Association, whose members say the proposal would give preferential treatment to select teachers.
The House Appropriations and Revenue Committee yesterday listened to testimony from both sides about the bills. The legislation would reward teachers whose students score high on Advanced Placement exams, provide incentives to poor students who score well on those exams, and give bonuses to teachers of those subjects. The Senate previously approved the bills, but the House has not acted on them.
Chairman Harry Moberly, D-Richmond, said House Appropriations and Revenue Committee leaders would decide whether to vote on the bills.
The measures are in response to what many education advocates contend is a critical need to produce more science and math graduates to be competitive in the global economy.
"It's time to take some action," Todd testified. "We need to put the stake in the ground to say we are ready to take on this problem."
Todd is chairman of a task force aimed at finding strategies to improve the state's performance in these subjects. He said India and China each create 400,000 engineers a year, while the United States produces only 70,000 annually, many of them foreigners who return home.
Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Sen. Ken Winters, R-Murray, would create an incentive fund to help schools offer Advanced Placement courses in calculus, chemistry and physics.
The incentive fund would be used for two-year $10,000 grants to individual schools. Money the first year would go toward teacher training and planning. Money in the second year would be used to purchase textbooks and other materials for the courses.
The bill also provides a financial incentive for students who do well on Advanced Placement exams in the subjects. A student scoring well could receive up to $300 a course. The program also would offer teachers up to a total of $10,000 in incentive pay each year, based on how well their students perform in these math and science courses.
SB 2, sponsored by Senate Majority Floor Leader Dan Kelly, R-Springfield, would offer a $6,000 stipend to any high school chemistry and physics teacher who majored in the subject in college -- or went through the state's certification program -- and achieved a high score on a subject test that all teachers must take. High school and middle school math teachers would receive $3,000 stipends under the same terms.
But KEA President Frances Steenbergen said: "There should not be a differentiation of pay for a few teachers in a few subject areas." She said the proposal is "demoralizing to the vast majority of teachers."
Brent McKim, an Advanced Placement physics teacher at duPont Manual High School in Jefferson County, said that, although he'd benefit from the legislation, he doesn't agree with bonus pay for advanced science and math teachers.
"There is a very important place for AP courses in the high school curriculum, but at the same time, they are not for everyone," McKim testified. "They are not a magic bullet to solve all the problems in math and science."
KEA representatives have three dozen suggestions on ways to address the math and science crisis. They include offering full tuition for teachers in kindergarten through eighth grade acquiring minor degrees in math or science, and paying student fees for Advanced Placement exams.
Although some representatives voiced their concerns on the bills, specifically that teachers hadn't been involved in crafting them, most favored moving the initiatives forward.
"If we don't do something about the crisis that faces us with engineering, in the next couple decades ... we'll become a second-rate nation," said Rep. Jon Draud, R-Edgewood.
"I don't believe in trying to fix things if they're not broken, but when things aren't working it seems to me that you have to try something differently."
Reach Raviya H. Ismail at (859) 231-3342; 1-800-950-6397, Ext. 3342; or rismail@herald-leader.com.
© 2007 Lexington Herald-Leader and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/16849072.htm
ACLU Challenges Prison-Like Conditions at Hutto Detention Center
Check out this ACLU website. The children's drawings in the Hutto Detention Center are gripping.
-Angela
-Angela
CALIFORNIA: Proposal Revives Bilingual Education Debate
CALIFORNIA: Study says immigrants vie with earlier arrivals
Newcomers not taking jobs from U.S.-born workers
Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Immigrants do not compete with U.S.-born workers for jobs in California, and their presence actually has boosted the wages of all but the least-educated American-born workers, according to a study released Tuesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.
How immigrants affect American-born workers and the domestic economy has been a major element of the debate over immigration reform since Congress began tackling it in 2005.
Some past studies have found that less-educated U.S.-born workers compete with immigrants, and the new study found only an insignificant positive impact from immigration on the earnings of people who didn't finish high school.
But UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri reported Tuesday that immigration increased U.S.-born workers' wages an average of 4 percent between 1990 and 2004 in California, with the greatest benefit -- 6.7 percent -- going to those who attended college for a while.
The people losing out are earlier immigrants, according to Peri, who reviewed 40 years' worth of California wage and employment data. Their wages fell 17 percent because of increased immigration, legal and illegal, according to his research.
Two main factors are at work, Peri said. The state's economic pie has grown -- in some measure due to the immigrants' own role as consumers -- and native and foreign-born workers have generally filled complementary niches in the labor market rather than compete for the same jobs.
"Most of the immigrants -- because of skills that are different from U.S.-born workers -- take different jobs than American workers take," said Peri. "There's not one labor market for everybody, but different markets for different skills and tasks. The overall effect could be more productivity and higher wages."
Peri's findings don't conflict with the stagnation of the lowest-income Americans' wages, said Pia Orrenius, a research economist at the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. He's just saying immigrants are not responsible.
"Since the late 1970s, we've seen a large, sustained decline in the real wages of blue-collar men," said Orrenius. "Immigration turns out not to be the main driver. ... The main reason is a shift away from demand for low-skilled workers, relative to high-skilled workers."
With federal immigration reform possibly including a guest worker program, it made sense to focus on California, Peri said, because the state has so many immigrants -- one-third of the workforce -- that their positive or negative effects are more pronounced in the state.
American-born workers with some college education reaped the greatest benefit because they don't compete directly with the majority of immigrant workers, who have much less education, or with immigrant workers who are highly educated, he said.
If a computer engineer immigrates to California and starts a high-tech company here, for example, that company will need accountants, attorneys and other workers familiar with U.S. laws and regulations and able to communicate with American suppliers, said Peri. And those people are most likely to be U.S.-born.
"Complementarity" also seems to play out in the low-skilled agricultural sector, where immigrants with little education and English proficiency tend to go into tasks that emphasize manual skills, while native workers, who possess greater English and communication abilities, move into managerial roles, he said.
Orrenius said the demand for low-skilled workers is increasingly being filled by immigrants -- legal and illegal -- because the supply of U.S.-born workers without a high school education is falling. In California, 8 percent of workers lacked a high school degree in 2004, down from 9.2 percent in 1990, according to the U.S. Census.
She said Peri's assessment of the complementarity between immigrants and natives -- and his allowance for economic growth with the arrival of immigrants -- distinguishes his report from the analysis of Harvard economist George Borjas, who has done the most significant research showing negative effects of immigrants on U.S.-born workers.
Borjas was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
Ira Mehlman, California media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group that favors restricting immigration, sees the shift less favorably.
"Employers get the most benefit" from hiring cheaper immigrant workers, said Mehlman. "Most of the rest of the population doesn't really benefit. They may see (lower prices) in certain goods and services, but they end up subsidizing these workers. We're paying for their education and health care."
In addition, the impact of immigrants on wages in California may not be typical, he said. U.S.-born workers who held low-wage jobs have left the state in part because their wages are stagnating, he said.
Peri said he found no correlation between native workers leaving California and the arrival of immigrants, and that a similar national study he conducted last year produced similar results.
Eliseo Medina, vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents primarily low-skilled workers, both native and foreign-born, said the degree to which workers are organized is a better predictor than immigrant status of their wages.
"Quite honestly, the economy needs more workers," said Medina, who favors allowing low-skilled immigrant workers to come to the United States legally. "What it doesn't need is more workers without the power to defend themselves."
Peri's finding that foreign-born workers' wages dropped 17 percent as a result of direct competition with newer immigrants suggests there may be more than enough low-skilled immigrant workers competing for jobs, said Frank D. Bean, a UC Irvine sociologist.
"The fact that there are negative effects on immigrant workers implies that there's a little bit of crowding for these crummy jobs," said Bean. "The question is, how big should a guest worker program be and even if you have one, does that stop unauthorized immigration?"
Peri's study, titled "How Immigrants Affect California Employment and Wages," analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data on wages, employment, education level and nativity of workers from 1960 to 2004. He broke down the California workforce by level of education and age, which roughly corresponds to level of experience, and compared native and foreign-born workers in each category.
E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/28/BAGJ9OCI0F1.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Newcomers not taking jobs from U.S.-born workers
Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Immigrants do not compete with U.S.-born workers for jobs in California, and their presence actually has boosted the wages of all but the least-educated American-born workers, according to a study released Tuesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.
How immigrants affect American-born workers and the domestic economy has been a major element of the debate over immigration reform since Congress began tackling it in 2005.
Some past studies have found that less-educated U.S.-born workers compete with immigrants, and the new study found only an insignificant positive impact from immigration on the earnings of people who didn't finish high school.
But UC Davis economist Giovanni Peri reported Tuesday that immigration increased U.S.-born workers' wages an average of 4 percent between 1990 and 2004 in California, with the greatest benefit -- 6.7 percent -- going to those who attended college for a while.
The people losing out are earlier immigrants, according to Peri, who reviewed 40 years' worth of California wage and employment data. Their wages fell 17 percent because of increased immigration, legal and illegal, according to his research.
Two main factors are at work, Peri said. The state's economic pie has grown -- in some measure due to the immigrants' own role as consumers -- and native and foreign-born workers have generally filled complementary niches in the labor market rather than compete for the same jobs.
"Most of the immigrants -- because of skills that are different from U.S.-born workers -- take different jobs than American workers take," said Peri. "There's not one labor market for everybody, but different markets for different skills and tasks. The overall effect could be more productivity and higher wages."
Peri's findings don't conflict with the stagnation of the lowest-income Americans' wages, said Pia Orrenius, a research economist at the Dallas branch of the Federal Reserve Bank. He's just saying immigrants are not responsible.
"Since the late 1970s, we've seen a large, sustained decline in the real wages of blue-collar men," said Orrenius. "Immigration turns out not to be the main driver. ... The main reason is a shift away from demand for low-skilled workers, relative to high-skilled workers."
With federal immigration reform possibly including a guest worker program, it made sense to focus on California, Peri said, because the state has so many immigrants -- one-third of the workforce -- that their positive or negative effects are more pronounced in the state.
American-born workers with some college education reaped the greatest benefit because they don't compete directly with the majority of immigrant workers, who have much less education, or with immigrant workers who are highly educated, he said.
If a computer engineer immigrates to California and starts a high-tech company here, for example, that company will need accountants, attorneys and other workers familiar with U.S. laws and regulations and able to communicate with American suppliers, said Peri. And those people are most likely to be U.S.-born.
"Complementarity" also seems to play out in the low-skilled agricultural sector, where immigrants with little education and English proficiency tend to go into tasks that emphasize manual skills, while native workers, who possess greater English and communication abilities, move into managerial roles, he said.
Orrenius said the demand for low-skilled workers is increasingly being filled by immigrants -- legal and illegal -- because the supply of U.S.-born workers without a high school education is falling. In California, 8 percent of workers lacked a high school degree in 2004, down from 9.2 percent in 1990, according to the U.S. Census.
She said Peri's assessment of the complementarity between immigrants and natives -- and his allowance for economic growth with the arrival of immigrants -- distinguishes his report from the analysis of Harvard economist George Borjas, who has done the most significant research showing negative effects of immigrants on U.S.-born workers.
Borjas was unavailable for comment Tuesday.
Ira Mehlman, California media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group that favors restricting immigration, sees the shift less favorably.
"Employers get the most benefit" from hiring cheaper immigrant workers, said Mehlman. "Most of the rest of the population doesn't really benefit. They may see (lower prices) in certain goods and services, but they end up subsidizing these workers. We're paying for their education and health care."
In addition, the impact of immigrants on wages in California may not be typical, he said. U.S.-born workers who held low-wage jobs have left the state in part because their wages are stagnating, he said.
Peri said he found no correlation between native workers leaving California and the arrival of immigrants, and that a similar national study he conducted last year produced similar results.
Eliseo Medina, vice president of the Service Employees International Union, which represents primarily low-skilled workers, both native and foreign-born, said the degree to which workers are organized is a better predictor than immigrant status of their wages.
"Quite honestly, the economy needs more workers," said Medina, who favors allowing low-skilled immigrant workers to come to the United States legally. "What it doesn't need is more workers without the power to defend themselves."
Peri's finding that foreign-born workers' wages dropped 17 percent as a result of direct competition with newer immigrants suggests there may be more than enough low-skilled immigrant workers competing for jobs, said Frank D. Bean, a UC Irvine sociologist.
"The fact that there are negative effects on immigrant workers implies that there's a little bit of crowding for these crummy jobs," said Bean. "The question is, how big should a guest worker program be and even if you have one, does that stop unauthorized immigration?"
Peri's study, titled "How Immigrants Affect California Employment and Wages," analyzed U.S. Census Bureau data on wages, employment, education level and nativity of workers from 1960 to 2004. He broke down the California workforce by level of education and age, which roughly corresponds to level of experience, and compared native and foreign-born workers in each category.
E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/02/28/BAGJ9OCI0F1.DTL
This article appeared on page B - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle
© 2007 Hearst Communications Inc.
Don't immigrants deserve homes, too?
This is a really great piece. -Angela
Don't immigrants deserve homes, too?
By Jorge A. Aguilar
03/03/07 04:21:18
My wife and I recently moved into a new home. The experience of building a home is not for the faint of heart -- nor for a compulsive or impatient personality type. The process -- from beginning to end -- lasted 21/2 years.
Although we followed the construction plans pretty closely, the house seemed to get bigger and bigger as time passed: More windows were added; more tile was laid than we had anticipated; more cement was poured; more grass and bigger and more mature trees were planted.
The cost of materials and labor rose, as did interest rates on our loans. In the end, we spent more than we had planned.
But on the day our home passed its final inspection and the contractor handed us our keys, none of this mattered. My wife and I were ecstatic because we had achieved our dream.
Throughout construction, I asked our contractor for information about his subcontractors. I wanted to know their identities, the length of time that he had worked with them and their qualifications and capabilities. Then I made it a point to get to know each of them as they labored on our future home.
After seeing an early pattern of subcontractors with immigrant backgrounds, I jokingly asked our contractor whether he planned to hire any subcontractors or subcontractor employees who were not immigrants for our home.
Immigrant labor top to bottom
From beginning to end, the only non-immigrants to work on our home were a couple of 20-somethings who laid the tile. Every other subcontractor and subcontractor employees -- from those who laid the foundation, to the framers, plumbers, roofers, electricians, cabinet makers, painters and landscapers, were individuals with immigrant backgrounds.
I had never thought about The American Dream in quite the way that I did the day we first entered our finished home. Not when my wife and I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, or when she received a master's degree, or when I received a juris doctor, or when we had our daughter.
And then I thought about all of the individuals who built our home. That evening, I thought about the cruel irony of my emotions earlier that day: We experienced The "American Dream," thanks to immigrants who themselves were working toward the exact same dream. And then I thought about other homeowners who experienced the same "dream," thanks to the same subcontractors and subcontractor employees.
Yet as difficult as it was to accept, I knew that some of those homeowners resent and even deny the reality of the contributions that immigrants make to this country once their homes pass their final inspection and they receive their keys.
As the new Congress prepares to convene under an entirely different leadership, I have heard increasing talk about the real possibility of an immigration reform package being passed.
I have even heard analysts say that this is an area where President Bush and Democratic leaders actually have a good chance of reaching a bipartisan solution.
Even Governor Schwarzenegger discussed the need to focus on immigration reform during his recent visit to Mexico. Our governor is quoted as saying that "the planned $1.2 billion, 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border is an incomplete way of solving the problem."
I am no expert in immigration reform, nor are most politicians. However, I am a humanist and so I try my best to treat others as humanely as possible. But I am not so naïve that I would claim that the immigration debate would be solved if politicians were more humane in their approach, because I am a realist as well. Today's politics are driven more by financial and other lobbying interests than by the human element.
Where's their opportunity?
My point is that there is a human element to this debate that needs to be taken into greater consideration. As a San Joaquin Valley native, I see the labor needs that immigrants fill. In all my years living in this region, I had never seen a sign reading "Se buscan piscadores de uva" (Grape pickers wanted) until last summer. While I have many fond memories of picking grapes as a young man myself, none of them are fond enough to motivate me to return to the same rows of grapes that I grew up picking.
Just ask my dad, who still is a farm worker and reminds me who really performs hard labor when I complain about stress from my job in which I get to wear a coat and tie every day.
Most importantly, I see the dedication of the workers who are building the homes of my future neighbors by laying the cement leading to their front door, landscaping their new yards, and cleaning them prior to -- and after -- final inspection. I am certain that many of these immigrants hope for the day that they, too, can build their own homes, lay cement leading to their own front doors, landscape their own new yards, and turn the keys to their own new homes.
Do they not deserve the opportunity to experience the same dream that they bring to life for so many of us day after day?
Jorge A. Aguilar is a special assistant to the chancellor and director of the Center for Educational Partnerships at the University of California, Merced.
Don't immigrants deserve homes, too?
By Jorge A. Aguilar
03/03/07 04:21:18
My wife and I recently moved into a new home. The experience of building a home is not for the faint of heart -- nor for a compulsive or impatient personality type. The process -- from beginning to end -- lasted 21/2 years.
Although we followed the construction plans pretty closely, the house seemed to get bigger and bigger as time passed: More windows were added; more tile was laid than we had anticipated; more cement was poured; more grass and bigger and more mature trees were planted.
The cost of materials and labor rose, as did interest rates on our loans. In the end, we spent more than we had planned.
But on the day our home passed its final inspection and the contractor handed us our keys, none of this mattered. My wife and I were ecstatic because we had achieved our dream.
Throughout construction, I asked our contractor for information about his subcontractors. I wanted to know their identities, the length of time that he had worked with them and their qualifications and capabilities. Then I made it a point to get to know each of them as they labored on our future home.
After seeing an early pattern of subcontractors with immigrant backgrounds, I jokingly asked our contractor whether he planned to hire any subcontractors or subcontractor employees who were not immigrants for our home.
Immigrant labor top to bottom
From beginning to end, the only non-immigrants to work on our home were a couple of 20-somethings who laid the tile. Every other subcontractor and subcontractor employees -- from those who laid the foundation, to the framers, plumbers, roofers, electricians, cabinet makers, painters and landscapers, were individuals with immigrant backgrounds.
I had never thought about The American Dream in quite the way that I did the day we first entered our finished home. Not when my wife and I graduated from the University of California, Berkeley, or when she received a master's degree, or when I received a juris doctor, or when we had our daughter.
And then I thought about all of the individuals who built our home. That evening, I thought about the cruel irony of my emotions earlier that day: We experienced The "American Dream," thanks to immigrants who themselves were working toward the exact same dream. And then I thought about other homeowners who experienced the same "dream," thanks to the same subcontractors and subcontractor employees.
Yet as difficult as it was to accept, I knew that some of those homeowners resent and even deny the reality of the contributions that immigrants make to this country once their homes pass their final inspection and they receive their keys.
As the new Congress prepares to convene under an entirely different leadership, I have heard increasing talk about the real possibility of an immigration reform package being passed.
I have even heard analysts say that this is an area where President Bush and Democratic leaders actually have a good chance of reaching a bipartisan solution.
Even Governor Schwarzenegger discussed the need to focus on immigration reform during his recent visit to Mexico. Our governor is quoted as saying that "the planned $1.2 billion, 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexico border is an incomplete way of solving the problem."
I am no expert in immigration reform, nor are most politicians. However, I am a humanist and so I try my best to treat others as humanely as possible. But I am not so naïve that I would claim that the immigration debate would be solved if politicians were more humane in their approach, because I am a realist as well. Today's politics are driven more by financial and other lobbying interests than by the human element.
Where's their opportunity?
My point is that there is a human element to this debate that needs to be taken into greater consideration. As a San Joaquin Valley native, I see the labor needs that immigrants fill. In all my years living in this region, I had never seen a sign reading "Se buscan piscadores de uva" (Grape pickers wanted) until last summer. While I have many fond memories of picking grapes as a young man myself, none of them are fond enough to motivate me to return to the same rows of grapes that I grew up picking.
Just ask my dad, who still is a farm worker and reminds me who really performs hard labor when I complain about stress from my job in which I get to wear a coat and tie every day.
Most importantly, I see the dedication of the workers who are building the homes of my future neighbors by laying the cement leading to their front door, landscaping their new yards, and cleaning them prior to -- and after -- final inspection. I am certain that many of these immigrants hope for the day that they, too, can build their own homes, lay cement leading to their own front doors, landscape their own new yards, and turn the keys to their own new homes.
Do they not deserve the opportunity to experience the same dream that they bring to life for so many of us day after day?
Jorge A. Aguilar is a special assistant to the chancellor and director of the Center for Educational Partnerships at the University of California, Merced.
Critics assail private prisons: Companies cut dangerous corners for profit, some say
Rocky Mountain News
Critics assail private prisons
Companies cut dangerous corners for profit, some say
By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
March 7, 2007
Critics say Colorado's private prisons are driven by shareholder profits and that, ultimately, society pays when businesses "cut corners" on staffing costs and inmate rehabilitation.
The result is incidents such as a 2004 riot at a CCA prison in Crowley County, witnesses told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on private prisons Tuesday.
State Department of Corrections officials had to come to the rescue of 33 private prison officers who lost control of 1,112 inmates.
The state fined CCA $126,000 in June for short-staffing at Crowley and another facility after the state auditor blasted CCA for having a staff-to-inmate ratio that was one-seventh of a state prison at the time of the Crowley riot.
"That's a direct result of you get what you pay for," testified Ryan Sherman, an official for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which is crusading nationally against private prisons. He cited a U.S. Department of Justice report saying that private prisons have a 50 percent higher violence rate than their public counterparts.
Officials for CCA, the nation's biggest private prison operator, didn't make excuses for the Crowley riot.
"Frankly, we hadn't done enough homework," said CCA Vice President Tony Grande, acknowledging that the firm hadn't assessed the risk of transferring about 200 Washington state inmates to the Colorado prison population.
But officials said that CCA strives to learn from mistakes and improve its performance.
CCA's Josh Brown estimated that the firm has saved Colorado $492 million of prison construction during the past decade by providing nearly 4,000 in-state and 480 out-of-state private prison beds. He also cited 900 workers in the state and a $40 million annual payroll that boosts the economy in rural areas where prisons often locate.
But critics said that private prisons don't serve the public interest by constantly squeezing profits. They cited CCA's shipping Colorado prisoners hundreds of miles to Oklahoma. Critics say the prisoners can't receive family support or maintain community ties critical to successfully re-entering society.
"It has proven to be dangerous, and it is immoral to introduce a for-profit motive into the incarceration of human beings," said Christie Donner, of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.
Rep. Rosemary Marshall, D-Denver, pointed out the disparity between starting pay for CCA guards, $24,000, and state prison guards, who earn $31,000.
By the numbers
Corrections Corporation of America is the biggest private prison provider in the U.S. and Colorado.
$82 million in annual state payments were made to CCA for providing Colorado prisoners with 3,850 private prison beds in-state and 480 beds in Oklahoma
$51.91 is the daily rate per prison bed
70,000 is CCA's total inmate population in the U.S.
gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486
Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5399656,00.html
Critics assail private prisons
Companies cut dangerous corners for profit, some say
By Alan Gathright, Rocky Mountain News
March 7, 2007
Critics say Colorado's private prisons are driven by shareholder profits and that, ultimately, society pays when businesses "cut corners" on staffing costs and inmate rehabilitation.
The result is incidents such as a 2004 riot at a CCA prison in Crowley County, witnesses told a House Judiciary Committee hearing on private prisons Tuesday.
State Department of Corrections officials had to come to the rescue of 33 private prison officers who lost control of 1,112 inmates.
The state fined CCA $126,000 in June for short-staffing at Crowley and another facility after the state auditor blasted CCA for having a staff-to-inmate ratio that was one-seventh of a state prison at the time of the Crowley riot.
"That's a direct result of you get what you pay for," testified Ryan Sherman, an official for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, which is crusading nationally against private prisons. He cited a U.S. Department of Justice report saying that private prisons have a 50 percent higher violence rate than their public counterparts.
Officials for CCA, the nation's biggest private prison operator, didn't make excuses for the Crowley riot.
"Frankly, we hadn't done enough homework," said CCA Vice President Tony Grande, acknowledging that the firm hadn't assessed the risk of transferring about 200 Washington state inmates to the Colorado prison population.
But officials said that CCA strives to learn from mistakes and improve its performance.
CCA's Josh Brown estimated that the firm has saved Colorado $492 million of prison construction during the past decade by providing nearly 4,000 in-state and 480 out-of-state private prison beds. He also cited 900 workers in the state and a $40 million annual payroll that boosts the economy in rural areas where prisons often locate.
But critics said that private prisons don't serve the public interest by constantly squeezing profits. They cited CCA's shipping Colorado prisoners hundreds of miles to Oklahoma. Critics say the prisoners can't receive family support or maintain community ties critical to successfully re-entering society.
"It has proven to be dangerous, and it is immoral to introduce a for-profit motive into the incarceration of human beings," said Christie Donner, of the Colorado Criminal Justice Reform Coalition.
Rep. Rosemary Marshall, D-Denver, pointed out the disparity between starting pay for CCA guards, $24,000, and state prison guards, who earn $31,000.
By the numbers
Corrections Corporation of America is the biggest private prison provider in the U.S. and Colorado.
$82 million in annual state payments were made to CCA for providing Colorado prisoners with 3,850 private prison beds in-state and 480 beds in Oklahoma
$51.91 is the daily rate per prison bed
70,000 is CCA's total inmate population in the U.S.
gathrighta@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5486
Copyright 2007, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5399656,00.html
Colorado to use inmates to fill migrant shortage
Colorado to use inmates to fill migrant shortage
Tough laws passed last year against illegal immigration have created a need for farmworkers.
By Nicholas Riccardi
Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2007
DENVER — Ever since passing what its Legislature promoted as the nation's toughest laws against illegal immigration last summer, Colorado has struggled with a labor shortage as migrants fled the state. This week, officials announced a novel solution: Use convicts as farmworkers.
The Department of Corrections hopes to launch a pilot program this month — thought to be the first of its kind — that would contract with more than a dozen farms to provide inmates who will pick melons, onions and peppers.
Crops were left to spoil in the fields after the passage of legislation that required state identification to get government services and allowed police to check suspects' immigration status.
"The reason this [program] started is to make sure the agricultural industry wouldn't go out of business," state Rep. Dorothy Butcher said. Her district includes Pueblo, near the farmland where the inmates will work.
Prisoners who are a low security risk may choose to work in the fields, earning 60 cents a day. They also are eligible for small bonuses.
The inmates will be watched by prison guards, who will be paid by the farms. The cost is subject to negotiation, but farmers say they expect to pay more for the inmate labor and its associated costs than for their traditional workers.
Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate said they were stunned by the proposal.
"If they can't get slaves from Mexico, they want them from the jails," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors restrictions on immigration.
Ricardo Martinez of the Denver immigrant rights group Padres Unidos asked: "Are we going to pull in inmates to work in the service industry too? You won't have enough inmates — unless you start importing them from Texas."
Farmers said they weren't happy with the solution, but their livelihoods are on the verge of collapse.
"This prison labor is not a cure for the immigration problem; it's just a Band-Aid," farmer Joe Pisciotta said.
He said he needed to be sure he would have enough workers for the harvest this fall before he planted watermelons, onions and pumpkins on his 700-acre farm in Avondale. But he's not thrilled with the idea of criminals working his fields.
"I've got young kids," he said. "It's something I've got to think about."
Pisciotta said he hoped the program highlighted what he viewed as the absurdity of Colorado's position — dependent on immigrant labor but trying to chase migrants away. He said the people leaving were not just those who entered the country illegally.
"Some of them have said, 'We think our paperwork is in order, but how about if it's not and we get caught on a glitch,' " he said.
Ever since the Democratic-controlled Legislature took a tough turn on immigration, the new requirements have worried those in the country legally and illegally.
Immigrant advocates allege that some sheriffs have authorized deputies to pull over Latino drivers on supposed speeding violations and ask them whether they are in the country legally.
And more stringent requirements put into effect last year made it harder to get a driver's license. Numerous U.S. citizens, including the daughter of a state legislator, were refused licenses because they lacked proper proof of citizenship. A judge has since ruled that the requirements must be revised.
Social service agencies say they have discovered few illegal immigrants on public assistance since the laws were passed.
Immigrant and business groups agree that the heated rhetoric has led to an exodus of Latinos — though no one is sure how many. Businesses including carwashes and construction firms have complained of a worker shortage.
"It's like, 'Don't go visit that house, there's a guy with a shotgun at the door,' " said state Rep. Rafael Gallegos, who represents a heavily Latino agricultural district in south-central Colorado. He voted against most of the legislation.
Farmers on Monday met with state officials at the Capitol here to discuss using inmate labor. The Department of Corrections expects to begin sending about 100 prisoners to work on farms near Pueblo this month.
Some of the state's 22,000 prisoners have agricultural experience. Convicts can participate in programs on prison grounds to break wild horses and grow crops. About 700 inmates work in other jobs outside prison, such as on fire crews.
Ari Zavaras, the executive director of the Department of Corrections, said he knew of no other prison system in the nation using convicts to fill agricultural labor shortages.
In California, where growers also have complained about a lack of workers, inmates have not labored in private fields since the 1940s. Prisoners then were used as farmhands while laborers were fighting in World War II, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.
"The idea [of using prisoners on farms] has been floated before, but these are not unskilled jobs. They're jobs that require a lot of training and supervision," said David Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation. "It doesn't seem like a very practical alternative."
Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Colorado prison experiment was "a sign that there are solutions other than importing foreign labor."
He said "ultimately they're going to have to improve the wages and working conditions" to attract legal workers, as well as to mechanize parts of their farming operations.
Colorado's experience shows that hard-line measures have an effect on illegal immigrants, Krikorian added, noting that arrests had dropped along the U.S.-Mexico border since security was increased last year.
"We're seeing enforcement work, not just in Colorado," he said, "but all over the country."
*
nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
Tough laws passed last year against illegal immigration have created a need for farmworkers.
By Nicholas Riccardi
Times Staff Writer
March 1, 2007
DENVER — Ever since passing what its Legislature promoted as the nation's toughest laws against illegal immigration last summer, Colorado has struggled with a labor shortage as migrants fled the state. This week, officials announced a novel solution: Use convicts as farmworkers.
The Department of Corrections hopes to launch a pilot program this month — thought to be the first of its kind — that would contract with more than a dozen farms to provide inmates who will pick melons, onions and peppers.
Crops were left to spoil in the fields after the passage of legislation that required state identification to get government services and allowed police to check suspects' immigration status.
"The reason this [program] started is to make sure the agricultural industry wouldn't go out of business," state Rep. Dorothy Butcher said. Her district includes Pueblo, near the farmland where the inmates will work.
Prisoners who are a low security risk may choose to work in the fields, earning 60 cents a day. They also are eligible for small bonuses.
The inmates will be watched by prison guards, who will be paid by the farms. The cost is subject to negotiation, but farmers say they expect to pay more for the inmate labor and its associated costs than for their traditional workers.
Advocates on both sides of the immigration debate said they were stunned by the proposal.
"If they can't get slaves from Mexico, they want them from the jails," said Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, which favors restrictions on immigration.
Ricardo Martinez of the Denver immigrant rights group Padres Unidos asked: "Are we going to pull in inmates to work in the service industry too? You won't have enough inmates — unless you start importing them from Texas."
Farmers said they weren't happy with the solution, but their livelihoods are on the verge of collapse.
"This prison labor is not a cure for the immigration problem; it's just a Band-Aid," farmer Joe Pisciotta said.
He said he needed to be sure he would have enough workers for the harvest this fall before he planted watermelons, onions and pumpkins on his 700-acre farm in Avondale. But he's not thrilled with the idea of criminals working his fields.
"I've got young kids," he said. "It's something I've got to think about."
Pisciotta said he hoped the program highlighted what he viewed as the absurdity of Colorado's position — dependent on immigrant labor but trying to chase migrants away. He said the people leaving were not just those who entered the country illegally.
"Some of them have said, 'We think our paperwork is in order, but how about if it's not and we get caught on a glitch,' " he said.
Ever since the Democratic-controlled Legislature took a tough turn on immigration, the new requirements have worried those in the country legally and illegally.
Immigrant advocates allege that some sheriffs have authorized deputies to pull over Latino drivers on supposed speeding violations and ask them whether they are in the country legally.
And more stringent requirements put into effect last year made it harder to get a driver's license. Numerous U.S. citizens, including the daughter of a state legislator, were refused licenses because they lacked proper proof of citizenship. A judge has since ruled that the requirements must be revised.
Social service agencies say they have discovered few illegal immigrants on public assistance since the laws were passed.
Immigrant and business groups agree that the heated rhetoric has led to an exodus of Latinos — though no one is sure how many. Businesses including carwashes and construction firms have complained of a worker shortage.
"It's like, 'Don't go visit that house, there's a guy with a shotgun at the door,' " said state Rep. Rafael Gallegos, who represents a heavily Latino agricultural district in south-central Colorado. He voted against most of the legislation.
Farmers on Monday met with state officials at the Capitol here to discuss using inmate labor. The Department of Corrections expects to begin sending about 100 prisoners to work on farms near Pueblo this month.
Some of the state's 22,000 prisoners have agricultural experience. Convicts can participate in programs on prison grounds to break wild horses and grow crops. About 700 inmates work in other jobs outside prison, such as on fire crews.
Ari Zavaras, the executive director of the Department of Corrections, said he knew of no other prison system in the nation using convicts to fill agricultural labor shortages.
In California, where growers also have complained about a lack of workers, inmates have not labored in private fields since the 1940s. Prisoners then were used as farmhands while laborers were fighting in World War II, said Terry Thornton, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections.
"The idea [of using prisoners on farms] has been floated before, but these are not unskilled jobs. They're jobs that require a lot of training and supervision," said David Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation. "It doesn't seem like a very practical alternative."
Krikorian, of the Center for Immigration Studies, said the Colorado prison experiment was "a sign that there are solutions other than importing foreign labor."
He said "ultimately they're going to have to improve the wages and working conditions" to attract legal workers, as well as to mechanize parts of their farming operations.
Colorado's experience shows that hard-line measures have an effect on illegal immigrants, Krikorian added, noting that arrests had dropped along the U.S.-Mexico border since security was increased last year.
"We're seeing enforcement work, not just in Colorado," he said, "but all over the country."
*
nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com
Copyright 2007 Los Angeles Times
Four-Part Series on Immigration in the DENVER POST, MARCH 5-7, 2007
Here is a four-part story on immigration that has appeared in the Denver Post over the last several days: Fortress America Part 1; Building a Border: Part 2; Criminal crossing: Part 3; and Moving targets: Part 4. Very interesting and informative, especially the real profit in all of this. Note how the Corrections Corporation stock was way up yesterday. You may have seen as well (previous post) that Colorado is going to use inmates to fill migrant shortages as reported in this LA Times piece.
-Angela
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Austin delving deeper into performance pay for teachers
Austin delving deeper into performance pay for teachers
Houston educators urge Austin to tread with care; Denver's program a national model.
Click-2-Listen
By Raven L. Hill
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 03, 2007
As Austin school district officials craft a new compensation plan for teachers and officials, they are keeping a watchful eye on what worked in other school systems.
And what did not.
Starting in the fall, trustees plan to set aside $4.3 million annually to pay for performance-based bonuses as a way to recruit, retain and reward quality educators. Austin officials want to offer bonuses districtwide in the 2008-09 school year.
Austin is joining districts across the country that are exploring ways to better pay teachers and principals — and finding that more money doesn't always equal a better system.
Most efforts have historically failed for three reasons, experts say: They focused on financial incentives alone, lacked a systemic approach and were punitive in design.
The Austin school district has put discussions of strategic compensation in the broader context of the district's mission to raise student achievement, from providing better opportunities for professional development to more effective supervision and support.
"The efforts that have shown some of the most promise were those that realized you had to make many changes," said William Slotnik, founder and executive director of the Boston-based Community Training and Assistance Center, which is helping Austin with its plan. "You want to have a school system where all the pieces fit together."
In education, raises are often based on seniority or advanced degrees. An Austin teacher with a graduate degree is paid about $800 more on average. Salaries rise $200 with each additional year of experience. Though the district offers stipends in high-demand areas such as bilingual education and special education, it does not provide bonuses for reaching target education goals.
Denver's nationally recognized ProComp plan includes bonuses for teachers and principals who've completed continuing education courses, received satisfactory performance evaluations, met student growth objectives and work in "hard to staff" schools or specialized areas.
Austin started looking at performance pay about three years ago when it established a task force composed of educators, experts and parents. Now, the district sees the initiative as a key part of its efforts to better serve students. Ed Fuller, a University of Texas researcher who served as a facilitator, said the committee's subsequent reports and recommendations helped shore up "a foundation of understanding" about the district's perceived strengths and weaknesses.
"You have to look at the system holistically to make sure this particular policy effort fits in with the other work of the school district," Fuller said.
Austin is currently interviewing about 5,600 teachers and 400 campus administrators to see what they think of the idea.
The compensation initiative is being guided by a task force and steering committee of teachers, principals, and community and business representatives. The plan is to start paying performance bonuses at pilot schools in 2007-08 and expand to all schools the following year.
Jim Harrington, a former elementary school teacher and task force member who retired after 17 years in Austin schools, said he's encouraged that teachers will be better served in the future.
"The traditional pay system worked real well in the old traditional school system," Harrington said. "It's given me hope that we're moving toward more student achievement and teachers being adequately compensated."
Austin's measured approach is markedly different from that taken by Houston school district officials, whose $14 million performance pay plan tied teacher bonuses to student progress on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the national Stanford 10 exam and the Spanish-equivalent Aprenda.
When the first round of bonus checks went out earlier this year, many of Houston's more than 15,000 teachers were furious, especially after the bonuses were made public.
They didn't understand how a school's Teacher of the Year wouldn't receive a bonus check or why teachers in subject areas such as reading, math or science wouldn't get the largest checks.
"We had teachers screaming at each other when the bonuses came out," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. "We had one who walked off the job. What I would suggest to the Austin teachers and (Superintendent) Pat Forgione: Don't copy the Houston plan or your teachers will hate you."
Austin has laid the right groundwork, said Louis Malfaro, president of Education Austin, which represents more than 4,000 teachers and staff.
"In Houston, this was done to the teachers, not done with them, and done over their objections," Malfaro said. "Here in Austin, we have an opportunity to test some things, both to understand what teachers' goals and aspirations are, but also their fears and misgivings. When you're talking about people's pay, it's a politically charged area."
Austin officials plan to seek additional money for the bonuses from state and federal sources. Blackshear and Oak Springs elementaries and 20 other Austin campuses received state funds for incentive plans. Blackshear and Oak Springs devised plans that rewarded teachers based on passing rates, leadership and professionalism among other areas.
rhill@statesman.com; 445-3620
The Denver plan
•Teachers get bonuses of $342 to $3,070 depending on nine variables that include earning graduate degrees and professional development credits, satisfactory performance evaluations and student performance on the state achievement test.
•The $25 million plan was approved by voters in November 2005. Current teachers had seven years to decide whether to participate. Those hired after January 2006 were automatically enrolled.
•About 1,700 of more than 4,000 staff members had joined the plan by November.
The Houston plan
•Teachers can earn up to $7,000 in bonus pay based on student performance on standardized tests.
•The plan's goal was to focus on growth in student learning and make incentives more 'financially meaningful' to teachers.
•Started in January, the plan was roundly criticized by the Houston Federation of Teachers for being divisive and confusing.
Sources: Denver and Houston school districts, media reports
Find this article at: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/03/3performancepay.html
Houston educators urge Austin to tread with care; Denver's program a national model.
Click-2-Listen
By Raven L. Hill
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, March 03, 2007
As Austin school district officials craft a new compensation plan for teachers and officials, they are keeping a watchful eye on what worked in other school systems.
And what did not.
Starting in the fall, trustees plan to set aside $4.3 million annually to pay for performance-based bonuses as a way to recruit, retain and reward quality educators. Austin officials want to offer bonuses districtwide in the 2008-09 school year.
Austin is joining districts across the country that are exploring ways to better pay teachers and principals — and finding that more money doesn't always equal a better system.
Most efforts have historically failed for three reasons, experts say: They focused on financial incentives alone, lacked a systemic approach and were punitive in design.
The Austin school district has put discussions of strategic compensation in the broader context of the district's mission to raise student achievement, from providing better opportunities for professional development to more effective supervision and support.
"The efforts that have shown some of the most promise were those that realized you had to make many changes," said William Slotnik, founder and executive director of the Boston-based Community Training and Assistance Center, which is helping Austin with its plan. "You want to have a school system where all the pieces fit together."
In education, raises are often based on seniority or advanced degrees. An Austin teacher with a graduate degree is paid about $800 more on average. Salaries rise $200 with each additional year of experience. Though the district offers stipends in high-demand areas such as bilingual education and special education, it does not provide bonuses for reaching target education goals.
Denver's nationally recognized ProComp plan includes bonuses for teachers and principals who've completed continuing education courses, received satisfactory performance evaluations, met student growth objectives and work in "hard to staff" schools or specialized areas.
Austin started looking at performance pay about three years ago when it established a task force composed of educators, experts and parents. Now, the district sees the initiative as a key part of its efforts to better serve students. Ed Fuller, a University of Texas researcher who served as a facilitator, said the committee's subsequent reports and recommendations helped shore up "a foundation of understanding" about the district's perceived strengths and weaknesses.
"You have to look at the system holistically to make sure this particular policy effort fits in with the other work of the school district," Fuller said.
Austin is currently interviewing about 5,600 teachers and 400 campus administrators to see what they think of the idea.
The compensation initiative is being guided by a task force and steering committee of teachers, principals, and community and business representatives. The plan is to start paying performance bonuses at pilot schools in 2007-08 and expand to all schools the following year.
Jim Harrington, a former elementary school teacher and task force member who retired after 17 years in Austin schools, said he's encouraged that teachers will be better served in the future.
"The traditional pay system worked real well in the old traditional school system," Harrington said. "It's given me hope that we're moving toward more student achievement and teachers being adequately compensated."
Austin's measured approach is markedly different from that taken by Houston school district officials, whose $14 million performance pay plan tied teacher bonuses to student progress on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the national Stanford 10 exam and the Spanish-equivalent Aprenda.
When the first round of bonus checks went out earlier this year, many of Houston's more than 15,000 teachers were furious, especially after the bonuses were made public.
They didn't understand how a school's Teacher of the Year wouldn't receive a bonus check or why teachers in subject areas such as reading, math or science wouldn't get the largest checks.
"We had teachers screaming at each other when the bonuses came out," said Gayle Fallon, president of the Houston Federation of Teachers. "We had one who walked off the job. What I would suggest to the Austin teachers and (Superintendent) Pat Forgione: Don't copy the Houston plan or your teachers will hate you."
Austin has laid the right groundwork, said Louis Malfaro, president of Education Austin, which represents more than 4,000 teachers and staff.
"In Houston, this was done to the teachers, not done with them, and done over their objections," Malfaro said. "Here in Austin, we have an opportunity to test some things, both to understand what teachers' goals and aspirations are, but also their fears and misgivings. When you're talking about people's pay, it's a politically charged area."
Austin officials plan to seek additional money for the bonuses from state and federal sources. Blackshear and Oak Springs elementaries and 20 other Austin campuses received state funds for incentive plans. Blackshear and Oak Springs devised plans that rewarded teachers based on passing rates, leadership and professionalism among other areas.
rhill@statesman.com; 445-3620
The Denver plan
•Teachers get bonuses of $342 to $3,070 depending on nine variables that include earning graduate degrees and professional development credits, satisfactory performance evaluations and student performance on the state achievement test.
•The $25 million plan was approved by voters in November 2005. Current teachers had seven years to decide whether to participate. Those hired after January 2006 were automatically enrolled.
•About 1,700 of more than 4,000 staff members had joined the plan by November.
The Houston plan
•Teachers can earn up to $7,000 in bonus pay based on student performance on standardized tests.
•The plan's goal was to focus on growth in student learning and make incentives more 'financially meaningful' to teachers.
•Started in January, the plan was roundly criticized by the Houston Federation of Teachers for being divisive and confusing.
Sources: Denver and Houston school districts, media reports
Find this article at: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/03/03/3performancepay.html
Friday, March 02, 2007
Nebraska Swims Hard Against Testing’s Tides
Fourth grader Makenzie Pederson works on a mathematics test at Hayward Elementary School in Nebraska City, Neb., where teachers regularly meet in teams to review data from student assessments.—James Colburn
February 21, 2007
Nebraska Swims Hard Against Testing’s Tides
Despite resistance, the Cornhusker State counts on its local assessments to meet federal mandates for school accountability.
By Rhea R. Borja
Elkhorn, Neb.
As the sky outside darkened in the face of a winter snowstorm, 3rd graders at Westridge Elementary School bent their heads over a paper-and-pencil test on electricity and magnetism. Then they walked into the hallway to take the test’s last part: connecting wires on an electromagnetic circuit board.
If students connected the wires correctly, a small motor on the board would turn on and a buzzer would sound. Their teacher watched from a few feet away as students, one by one, confidently took their places before the circuit board, their hands busily rearranging the wires. Every few minutes, the afternoon quiet was broken by a low but distinct buzz.
That kind of home-grown test of student performance—developed by educators here within the 4,200-student Elkhorn school district—is par for the course for Nebraska public schools. Not only do such assessments tell teachers what their students know, but they’re also integral to a learning-measurement system unique to the Cornhusker State.
Instead of relying on statewide standardized tests to comply with the accountability requirements of the federal No Child Left Behind Act—as is the case in the other 49 states—districts in Nebraska use their own academic standards and assessment systems. That’s about 264 systems, give or take a few.
“We’re a local-control state. It’s about local leadership,” said Doug Christensen, Nebraska’s plainspoken commissioner of education. “We’ve tried to preserve the integrity of what we have in this age of NCLB.”
The state’s localized assessment system is not universally admired. The state has struggled to get its system accepted by the U.S. Department of Education, for starters.
And late last month, the education committee chairman in Nebraska’s unicameral legislature introduced a bill that would replace the assessment system with statewide tests, mirroring what other states have done. A public hearing on the bill is scheduled for March 5.
Yet as more states experience battle fatigue amid struggles over accountability, some say Nebraska’s system—although challenging for educators to develop and implement—holds lessons for those looking for new options to measure K-12 performance.
The Elkhorn district was on the itinerary, for example, of a group of educators and leaders from education nonprofit groups from California, Hawaii, Minnesota, and Vermont who visited several Nebraska districts last month to pick up ideas for changing their own schools’ assessment systems. The Jan. 10-12 “study tour” was sponsored by the Forum for Education and Democracy, an Athens, Ohio-based nonprofit organization.
Another sign of such interest: Testing experts and some state education leaders met this month in New Orleans at a conference of the Washington-based Council of Chief State School Officers to discuss how federal policy could make it easier for states to create their own localized assessment systems. The Forum for Education and Democracy, which is opposed to relying on one set of tests for making such high-stakes decisions as students’ grade promotion and graduation or schools’ performance status under NCLB, was part of that Feb. 3 meeting.
“Any state can do this,” said George Wood, the director of the forum and the principal of Federal Hocking High School, in Stewart, Ohio. “It’s just a matter of whether they have the courage.”
Not that building a system of local assessments was easy. The learning curve was steep: Local educators practically had to become de facto psychometricians—experts in creating assessments and analyzing the resulting data.
“What we embarked upon was a massive mind-set change,” said Pat Roschewski, the director of assessment for the Nebraska education department.
Nebraska lawmakers set the wheels in motion in 2000, when they passed legislation requiring school districts to adopt academic standards in reading, writing, mathematics, science, and social studies. The standards had to be as hard as or harder than those the state had already adopted as a model.
Districts then had to create student assessments based on the local standards and report the results to the state. An exception exists for one subject: There is a statewide test for grades 4, 8, and 11 in writing, which state educators consider a cornerstone of learning.
At first, many teachers and administrators pushed back against the new system, called the School-based Teacher-led Assessment and Reporting System, or STARS. Some even wanted Nebraska to give a standardized test like those in other states, Ms. Roschewski recalled.
Teacher-developed assessments taken by students such as 4th grader Jacob Moyer are the linchpin of Nebraska's one-of-a-kind accountability system.
—James Colburn
“We spent more time trust-building than anything else to convince teachers that this is important,” she said. “It was messy. Chaotic.”
Teachers felt overwhelmed, agreed Cherie Larson, the director of instructional services for the 1,800-student Plattsmouth community school system. But gradually, with lots of summer, in-school, and weekend training, teachers got on board. “Creating your own assessments is a big responsibility,” Ms. Larson said. “But you can do it, and do it well.”
Seven years later, state education leaders say, teachers have been trained to analyze assessment data. Now they can do a more effective job at adjusting instruction to challenge students and collaborating to fine-tune their district assessments and standards.
“It’s not a test piled on top of your curriculum,” said Renee Jacobson, Plattsmouth’s superintendent of schools. “[The system] is woven into your curriculum. It’s part of your culture.”
One major challenge, though, has been finding ways to give local educators the time and tools they need to build reliable assessments. Nebraska’s 18 educational service units, or regional education agencies, provide the bulk of the training. ESU 4, for example, based in Auburn, some 68 miles southeast of Lincoln, trains 100 to 140 teachers at a time, said Mitzi Hoback, a co-director of the agency. Teachers gather in small groups for the weeklong summer sessions.
“What does a good multiple-choice question look like? If you write an open-ended question, what does the rubric look like to [ensure] consistency in scoring?” asked Ms. Hoback, describing the training.
Teachers are assigned different academic standards, and they collaborate to craft assessments measuring students’ mastery of them. Then they pilot the assessments in their classrooms, and meet again during the school year to talk about which ones worked and why.
At Papillion-La Vista South High School, for example, biology instructor Philip McBride pairs up students and gives each team note cards lettered A to D for pop quizzes that are part of the assessment system of the 9,000-student Papillion-La Vista district, outside Omaha. The teacher then asks questions on key biology concepts, and team members figure out the answers together and hold up the right card. After that, Mr. McBride calls on a team that answered correctly to explain its answer.
Federal Officials Lay Out Assessment To-Do List
After initially rejecting Nebraska’s assessment system as out of compliance with the No Child Left Behind Act, the U.S. Department of Education is now requiring the state to take certain steps by this school year to pass muster with the federal law. To win full approval, the department says the state must:
• Conduct peer reviews of each district’s standards and assessment system and determine which districts have not met NCLB requirements, in such areas as academic content and achievement standards, technical quality, and assessment and curricula alignment;
• Describe the range of sanctions that the state will impose on districts that fail to meet standards for NCLB compliance; and
• Give evidence of peer review and approval that the assessments for English-language learners meet NCLB requirements
SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education
“It helps when you hear [the answer] from your peers instead of your teacher,” said 15-year-old Miles Kellett, one of Mr. McBride’s students.
Sometimes, assessments that work in theory fall apart in reality. In the Elkhorn district just northwest of Omaha, for example, 4th grade teachers Julie Sorensen and Troy Sidders taught their students the basic physics of sailing and then had them build a sail using six straws and a piece of paper to test their understanding of such concepts as velocity and lift. If built correctly, the sails would move forward at least one meter when students blew on them.
The problem, the teachers said, was that some students watched one classmate who quickly understood how to build an efficient sail. Then they just copied him.
“It would have been great if each kid was in a room with a closed door,” said Mr. Sidders. Now he and Ms. Sorensen are reconsidering their use of the performance test and are devising other tests.
That kind of teacher teamwork and time can be hard to come by in an already crammed school day. Still, neither teachers nor districts are entirely on their own.
The state gives districts $3.5 million a year in STARS grants for staff development in assessment.
Nebraska's Top Six 'Quality Criteria' for Assessment
1: The assessments reflect the state or local standards.
2: Students have an opportunity to learn the content.
3: The assessments are free from bias or offensive language or situations.
4: The level is appropriate for students.
5: There is consistency in scoring.
6: Mastery levels are appropriate.
SOURCE: Nebraska Department of Education
In Plattsmouth, for example, the district has shaved five minutes off the end of the school day so that teachers have at least 30 minutes to meet at the end of every sixth day. Educators in the 1,360-student Nebraska City district, 48 miles east of Lincoln, meet in teams to review assessments, curriculum, and data throughout the year.
The state also sets guidelines for local assessment systems through criteria developed by the Buros Center for Testing, an independent test-evaluation, -research, and -consulting group at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Districts must annually report to the state assessment data in reading and mathematics. Over the past six years, Nebraska’s annual report card shows gradual improvement in district-reported test data in reading, writing, and mathematics. Districts will begin reporting science data to the state in 2008, and social studies results in 2009. In addition, districts administer commercial nationally normed tests, such as the Stanford-10 achievement test and CTB/McGraw-Hill’s Terra Nova tests, as well as the federally sponsored National Assessment of Educational Progress.
Mr. Christensen, the Nebraska schools chief, said that while many states’ school systems are like pyramids, with teachers at the bottom and a few state administrators at the top, Nebraska’s is a series of concentric circles, with teachers in the center as “instructional leaders.”
“Our system is classroom-centered,” he said. “It’s got to come from the classroom up, not the capital down.” That way, he added with a laugh, “when you have a leadership role at the local level, you don’t have to have as much leadership at the state level.”
Coverage of new schooling arrangements and classroom improvement efforts is supported by a grant from the Annenberg Foundation.
Vol. 26, Issue 24, Pages 32-34
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