Thu, Feb. 10, 2005
By Amie Streater
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
FORT WORTH - Westpark Elementary School Principal Lynn Allen is on administrative leave while Fort Worth school officials investigate a teacher's report that Allen asked the teacher to have a parent withdraw a child from school just before the TAKS is to be administered.
Westpark administrators expect the student, a fifth-grader with severe test anxiety, to fail the reading portion of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills this month, according to statements given to Fort Worth school district investigators.
On Jan. 26, Allen and Assistant Principal Karen Brown were discussing how to help the student when they called in the child's teacher, Jennifer McMillan, according to statements.
According to McMillan, the conversation crossed the line when Allen told her to ask the student's parents to withdraw the child from school before the TAKS test. Fifth-graders must pass the reading and math portions of TAKS before advancing to the sixth grade.
"She asked me to do this not as a school official, but as if the child were mine, that this is what I would do. I sat there stunned. This is not what I would do if this were my child," McMillan wrote in a statement given to school district investigators.
"This is not morally or ethically right for a teacher or administrator to do. I will not do this."
Bobby Whiteside of the district's Office of Special Investigations said he believes that the administrators were trying to do the right thing for the student.
"Evidence available at this time leads me to believe that Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Allen were simply interested in the child's well-being and were not attempting to alter the TAKS scores at the school," he said.
After meeting with Allen and Brown, records show, McMillan reported the conversation to a co-worker and to Larry Shaw, executive director of the United Educators Association.
Shaw, in turn, alerted school district investigators.
There is no indication from school district records that the child's parents were ever in-formed of the plan.
McMillan declined to comment to the Star-Telegram Wednesday.
Allen was placed on paid administrative leave Friday pending the outcome of the investigation. She also declined to comment Wednesday.
It is not clear whether laws or rules were broken.
Whiteside said the matter has been referred to the Texas Education Agency as a possible violation of its testing rules.
"The investigation is proceeding to determine if the alleged action is actually a law violation, an ethics violation, a testing violation, or since the child was never withdrawn, can the FWISD determine its own disciplinary action without TEA," Whiteside wrote in a report.
'A hard place'
Shaw said McMillan "thinks very highly" of the principal.
"I think Jennifer is a really good person, a good teacher, who was put in a hard place," Shaw said. "She is upset by what she thought she had to do."
Whiteside's report cites a Jan. 19 memo from TEA, which states that educators who violate "test security or confidential integrity" or fail to report violations can lose their teaching certificates.
Allen told investigators that the student had failed the reading portion of the TAKS in the third grade. When Allen took the student out of class for a second attempt at the test, Allen said, the child cried all the way down the hall and while taking the test.
Records show that despite tutoring and extra help, the student has given no indication of having less anxiety this year.
"It hurts me to see a student placed under so much pressure by one test that they become almost physically ill," Allen told investigators Feb. 3.
Allen said the idea to remove the child initially came from Brown, who according to Allen said, "We could tell the mom to withdraw the child and home-school [the student] during the week of the test and then re-enroll" the child.
Allen told investigators that she told Brown that could not be done.
Brown, however, had a different recollection.
In a separate interview, Brown told investigators: "I never said or implied to the teacher or anyone that home-schooling this child was the solution ... to get out of this testing situation. At that point, I remember Mrs. Allen saying something to the effect that this is what she would do if that was her child. However, I do not recall anyone telling Mrs. McMillan to call the parent and ask her to home-school her child."
Brown is on maternity leave and could not be reached for comment.
Declined polygraph
On Feb. 4, Allen met again with Whiteside and initially offered to take a voluntary polygraph test, records show. But when Whiteside "advised her to consider the evidence, Ms. Allen declined the polygraph test."
A fourth person, school diagnostician Jo Stephens, was present during the discussions, records show, because she was waiting for another meeting to start.
Stephens' account of the discussions matches the teacher's.
"Mrs. Brown recommended to Mrs. Allen that the classroom teacher should suggest to the parent to check the student out of school the day before the TAKS. After the completion of the TAKS, the parent could re-enroll the student back into the school. Mrs. Allen agreed with the plan," Stephens wrote in a statement given to investigators.
Stephens wrote that she heard Allen ask McMillan to contact the parent about the withdrawal.
Superintendent Joe Ross declined to comment on the specifics of the investigation. But, he said, test time is tough on everyone in the school system.
"This is a high-stakes, high-pressure accountability system in Texas. It does put pressure on students, teachers and administrators," Ross said. "But we have it, and we have to live with it."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Amie Streater, (817) 390-7541 astreater@star-telegram.com
------------------------------------------------------------------------
© 2005 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.dfw.com
Thursday, February 10, 2005
Schools: Financing Proposal Comes Up Short
Lawyer for group says House plan 'about $1,000 a kid light'
07:48 AM CST on Thursday, February 10, 2005
By TERRENCE STUTZ and ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Lawyers for hundreds of school districts that successfully sued the state over education funding warned a House committee Wednesday that its preliminary reform plan falls more than $4 billion short of a court order to boost school funding.
Houston lawyer David Thompson and San Antonio lawyer David Hinojosa of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund both told the House Public Education Committee that its proposal to increase overall funding for schools by $1.5 billion next year will not provide much relief for districts. The plan would guarantee every district at least 3 percent more in revenue.
"The one concern that overrides all other concerns is the amount of money in this bill," said Mr. Thompson, who was once the state's chief education lawyer. "You're probably about $1,000 a kid light."
The committee proposal includes minimum guarantees of $4,550 per elementary and middle school student and $5,550 per high school student.
Mr. Hinojosa said the funding figures, particularly for younger children, are "nowhere near adequate to educate children" based on the federal and state requirements that school districts face.
The MALDEF lawyer also objected to provisions in the plan – drafted by House Public Education Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington – that would limit the amount of "Robin Hood" sharing of local property taxes from some of the state's wealthiest districts. Those districts would have to surrender no more than 35 percent of property tax revenues.
Citing estimates that about 10 percent of districts would get more money than the rest, Mr. Hinojosa said it would result in 430,000 students "getting substantially more money for their education" than other students in Texas.
"There is no reason why certain students deserve more money than other students who attend public schools," he argued.
In earlier remarks, Mr. Grusendorf touted his plan as significantly improving funding equity among school districts while curtailing "Robin Hood" sharing of property taxes from $1.2 billion to $145 million a year.
The Legislature is under pressure this year to fix the troubled school finance system after a state judge ruled it was unconstitutional and did not provide enough money for districts to properly educate their students. The judge set a deadline of Oct. 1 to overhaul the $30 billion-a-year system; although the state has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
Lawmakers are trying to comply while also giving taxpayers relief on property taxes. Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday renewed his push to reduce the maximum increase allowed in property tax appraisals to 3 percent a year, down from the current 10 percent.
Mr. Perry said his proposal has solid support in the House, which he predicted "will be for the taxpayers in the final analysis."
However, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, expressed less confidence that enough votes could be gained to pass a constitutional amendment lowering the cap to 3 percent. Amendments require a two-thirds vote in both houses and approval by a majority of voters.
"I wouldn't say anything's for sure right now," Mr. Keffer said.
Cities and counties oppose lowering the cap. They argue that budget cuts in areas such as social services have left them with more responsibilities and no way to pay.
Mr. Perry has touted other taxpayer protections, and if they win support from lawmakers, he said, he might accept a cap that is greater than 3 percent. Mr. Keffer said one such idea might be to make it easier for residents to force a recall election of officials who repeatedly increase property taxes.
E-mail tstutz@dallasnews.com and rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/021005dntextaxes.51159.html
07:48 AM CST on Thursday, February 10, 2005
By TERRENCE STUTZ and ROBERT T. GARRETT / The Dallas Morning News
AUSTIN – Lawyers for hundreds of school districts that successfully sued the state over education funding warned a House committee Wednesday that its preliminary reform plan falls more than $4 billion short of a court order to boost school funding.
Houston lawyer David Thompson and San Antonio lawyer David Hinojosa of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund both told the House Public Education Committee that its proposal to increase overall funding for schools by $1.5 billion next year will not provide much relief for districts. The plan would guarantee every district at least 3 percent more in revenue.
"The one concern that overrides all other concerns is the amount of money in this bill," said Mr. Thompson, who was once the state's chief education lawyer. "You're probably about $1,000 a kid light."
The committee proposal includes minimum guarantees of $4,550 per elementary and middle school student and $5,550 per high school student.
Mr. Hinojosa said the funding figures, particularly for younger children, are "nowhere near adequate to educate children" based on the federal and state requirements that school districts face.
The MALDEF lawyer also objected to provisions in the plan – drafted by House Public Education Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, R-Arlington – that would limit the amount of "Robin Hood" sharing of local property taxes from some of the state's wealthiest districts. Those districts would have to surrender no more than 35 percent of property tax revenues.
Citing estimates that about 10 percent of districts would get more money than the rest, Mr. Hinojosa said it would result in 430,000 students "getting substantially more money for their education" than other students in Texas.
"There is no reason why certain students deserve more money than other students who attend public schools," he argued.
In earlier remarks, Mr. Grusendorf touted his plan as significantly improving funding equity among school districts while curtailing "Robin Hood" sharing of property taxes from $1.2 billion to $145 million a year.
The Legislature is under pressure this year to fix the troubled school finance system after a state judge ruled it was unconstitutional and did not provide enough money for districts to properly educate their students. The judge set a deadline of Oct. 1 to overhaul the $30 billion-a-year system; although the state has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court.
Lawmakers are trying to comply while also giving taxpayers relief on property taxes. Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday renewed his push to reduce the maximum increase allowed in property tax appraisals to 3 percent a year, down from the current 10 percent.
Mr. Perry said his proposal has solid support in the House, which he predicted "will be for the taxpayers in the final analysis."
However, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jim Keffer, R-Eastland, expressed less confidence that enough votes could be gained to pass a constitutional amendment lowering the cap to 3 percent. Amendments require a two-thirds vote in both houses and approval by a majority of voters.
"I wouldn't say anything's for sure right now," Mr. Keffer said.
Cities and counties oppose lowering the cap. They argue that budget cuts in areas such as social services have left them with more responsibilities and no way to pay.
Mr. Perry has touted other taxpayer protections, and if they win support from lawmakers, he said, he might accept a cap that is greater than 3 percent. Mr. Keffer said one such idea might be to make it easier for residents to force a recall election of officials who repeatedly increase property taxes.
E-mail tstutz@dallasnews.com and rtgarrett@dallasnews.com
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/021005dntextaxes.51159.html
Some Secondary School Tests Could Go Online, Others Could Go Away
79TH LEGISLATURE
Online testing touted as more efficient way to gauge learning
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, February 10, 2005
In the eyes of state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, taking a test with a pencil and paper is so 20th century.
The Arlington Republican and chairman of the House Public Education Committee filed a package of education reforms last week that called for major changes in the state testing program. The most ambitious changes include proposals to administer the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills on computers instead of paper as soon as 2006 and to replace the TAKS in high school with a series of end-of-course tests.
"Online interactive testing will test for the entire curriculum, measure for broader skill levels and give you better feedback," Grusendorf said.
Under the format, all students would start with a basic set of questions. If they get the questions correct, the computer would feed them more difficult ones. Incorrect answers trigger easier questions.
The test not only scores the student at the end, but quickly points out where students need more work and where they excelled. House aides say the online test would be more difficult than TAKS for some students because the computer would feed advanced questions to those who show they're on grade level.
Across the Capitol, Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said she supports online TAKS testing as a goal and wants educators to help lawmakers determine its timetable.
Butsaid she's not ready to retire the three-year-old TAKS in high school and replace it with end-of-course tests, which the state largely abandoned when the TAKS came along.
"It's too quick, I think, to turn it back around again," Shapiro said. "I think we're sending mixed messages. If we can find statistics . . . anything that shows that one is better than the other, then I would be happy to look at it."
Shapiro said she has not seen that data yet.
In addition, the Legislative Budget Board cautioned this week that Grusendorf's proposed testing changes carry a heavy price tag, though it did not specify how much. Virginia — with about one-fourth as many students as Texas — has spent $55 million to $60 million per year since 2000 to give its schools the hardware and network upgrades necessary to give state tests online.
Texas' TAKS budget is about $45 million, which pays for developing, administering and scoring the test and releasing the test scores and questions.
The full reform bill that Grusendorf laid out calls for about $1.5 billion more in education spending per year.The Texas school system now costs more than $33 billion a year.
The new money, however, will go quickly: Grusendorf wants about $270 million to fund teacher incentive pay, for example. And with Texasleaders trying not to raise taxes while providing more money for priorities such as bilingual education and teacher pay raises, the cost alone of the test changes could slow them considerably.
A trial run in Texas
The state launched the TAKS in 2003 to determine more thoroughly how well students learn the contents of the state's curriculum. Students take the test in grades three through 11. But Grusendorf said he still hears that teachers tailor their lessons to prepare students for the test and that the TAKS covers too little of the state curriculum.
"There's no way any particular individual teacher can know which questions that particular student is going to get," Grusendorf said of the online tests. "So instead of measuring for a narrow part of the curriculum, you measure for the entire curriculum."
About 22,000 eighth-graders took the TAKS online during a practice run last spring. The students scored slightly lower than they did on paper, but it's unclear whether testing online is more difficult or whether the students weren't giving the test their best effort because they knew the scores did not count, said Lisa Chandler, director of student assessment at the education agency.
Districts told the state agency that students liked the online tests and adapted easily, while teachers liked the speedy feedback and the absence of heavy test booklets. Educators voiced concerns about the limited availability of computers and test security.
Grusendorf said he wants the state to begin switching to the online TAKS in the spring of 2006 but that some schools still will need to give the test on paper for a few years. The bill does not say how the state would provide money for the computers needed to administer the tests.
The end-of-course exams that Grusendorf wants high schools to give would also be administered online.
High schoolers must pass the 11th-grade test to graduate. Grusendorf said an end-of-course test would better measure what students learned recently. "You're not testing two or three years after the kid had the course," he said. "You're individualizing the test for the course they attended."
The end-of-course tests could act as final exams in a class. The bill, which calls for the use of end-of-course tests by the 2008-09 school year, gives the state education commissioner room to specify which end-of-course tests are required for graduation.
Setting an example
In Virginia, only high schools test online, with middle schools starting this year, said Lan Neugent, the state's assistant superintendent for technology and human resources.
The Virginia online tests are basically electronic replicas of the paper versions, which Neugent said allow teachers to give students faster, more precise feedback.
"Teachers are not nearly as tech-savvy as kids are, and there was a great reluctance in the beginning to adapt to something that they didn't think was going to work properly," he said. "But once they got on board and realized this stuff is not that hard, then they realized the things that they could do with it."
Teachers could be slow to get on board in Texas as well, if early reaction is any guide.
"Teachers would prefer that the Legislature study the impact of the current testing system on student learning and the time that teachers have to take to give the tests before making substantive changes to the testing system this session," said Brock Gregg, director of governmental relations for the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/02/10taks.html
Online testing touted as more efficient way to gauge learning
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, February 10, 2005
In the eyes of state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, taking a test with a pencil and paper is so 20th century.
The Arlington Republican and chairman of the House Public Education Committee filed a package of education reforms last week that called for major changes in the state testing program. The most ambitious changes include proposals to administer the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills on computers instead of paper as soon as 2006 and to replace the TAKS in high school with a series of end-of-course tests.
"Online interactive testing will test for the entire curriculum, measure for broader skill levels and give you better feedback," Grusendorf said.
Under the format, all students would start with a basic set of questions. If they get the questions correct, the computer would feed them more difficult ones. Incorrect answers trigger easier questions.
The test not only scores the student at the end, but quickly points out where students need more work and where they excelled. House aides say the online test would be more difficult than TAKS for some students because the computer would feed advanced questions to those who show they're on grade level.
Across the Capitol, Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said she supports online TAKS testing as a goal and wants educators to help lawmakers determine its timetable.
Butsaid she's not ready to retire the three-year-old TAKS in high school and replace it with end-of-course tests, which the state largely abandoned when the TAKS came along.
"It's too quick, I think, to turn it back around again," Shapiro said. "I think we're sending mixed messages. If we can find statistics . . . anything that shows that one is better than the other, then I would be happy to look at it."
Shapiro said she has not seen that data yet.
In addition, the Legislative Budget Board cautioned this week that Grusendorf's proposed testing changes carry a heavy price tag, though it did not specify how much. Virginia — with about one-fourth as many students as Texas — has spent $55 million to $60 million per year since 2000 to give its schools the hardware and network upgrades necessary to give state tests online.
Texas' TAKS budget is about $45 million, which pays for developing, administering and scoring the test and releasing the test scores and questions.
The full reform bill that Grusendorf laid out calls for about $1.5 billion more in education spending per year.The Texas school system now costs more than $33 billion a year.
The new money, however, will go quickly: Grusendorf wants about $270 million to fund teacher incentive pay, for example. And with Texasleaders trying not to raise taxes while providing more money for priorities such as bilingual education and teacher pay raises, the cost alone of the test changes could slow them considerably.
A trial run in Texas
The state launched the TAKS in 2003 to determine more thoroughly how well students learn the contents of the state's curriculum. Students take the test in grades three through 11. But Grusendorf said he still hears that teachers tailor their lessons to prepare students for the test and that the TAKS covers too little of the state curriculum.
"There's no way any particular individual teacher can know which questions that particular student is going to get," Grusendorf said of the online tests. "So instead of measuring for a narrow part of the curriculum, you measure for the entire curriculum."
About 22,000 eighth-graders took the TAKS online during a practice run last spring. The students scored slightly lower than they did on paper, but it's unclear whether testing online is more difficult or whether the students weren't giving the test their best effort because they knew the scores did not count, said Lisa Chandler, director of student assessment at the education agency.
Districts told the state agency that students liked the online tests and adapted easily, while teachers liked the speedy feedback and the absence of heavy test booklets. Educators voiced concerns about the limited availability of computers and test security.
Grusendorf said he wants the state to begin switching to the online TAKS in the spring of 2006 but that some schools still will need to give the test on paper for a few years. The bill does not say how the state would provide money for the computers needed to administer the tests.
The end-of-course exams that Grusendorf wants high schools to give would also be administered online.
High schoolers must pass the 11th-grade test to graduate. Grusendorf said an end-of-course test would better measure what students learned recently. "You're not testing two or three years after the kid had the course," he said. "You're individualizing the test for the course they attended."
The end-of-course tests could act as final exams in a class. The bill, which calls for the use of end-of-course tests by the 2008-09 school year, gives the state education commissioner room to specify which end-of-course tests are required for graduation.
Setting an example
In Virginia, only high schools test online, with middle schools starting this year, said Lan Neugent, the state's assistant superintendent for technology and human resources.
The Virginia online tests are basically electronic replicas of the paper versions, which Neugent said allow teachers to give students faster, more precise feedback.
"Teachers are not nearly as tech-savvy as kids are, and there was a great reluctance in the beginning to adapt to something that they didn't think was going to work properly," he said. "But once they got on board and realized this stuff is not that hard, then they realized the things that they could do with it."
Teachers could be slow to get on board in Texas as well, if early reaction is any guide.
"Teachers would prefer that the Legislature study the impact of the current testing system on student learning and the time that teachers have to take to give the tests before making substantive changes to the testing system this session," said Brock Gregg, director of governmental relations for the Association of Texas Professional Educators.
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/02/10taks.html
NCLB FAILS TO MEET NEEDS OF LANGUAGE MINORITY STUDENTS, STUDY SAYS
Contact: Wayne E. Wright (210) 458-2024 (email) Wayne.Wright@UTSA.edu or
Alex Molnar (480) 965-1886 (email) epsl@asu.edu
Tempe, Ariz. (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)- By way of devaluing bilingual
education through high-stakes testing and English-only programs, the No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 fails to address the needs of language
minority students, according to a policy brief released by the Language
Policy Research Unit of Arizona State University's Education Policy Studies
Laboratory.
The brief, "Evolution of Federal Policy and Implications of No Child Left
Behind For Language Minority Students," illustrates how the federal
government had progressively taken steps toward meeting the needs of English
language learners and, in doing so, gave worth to bilingual skills.
In 2001, however, the passing of NCLB into law marked a dramatic shift in
that path. The word, "bilingual," was absent from the act and English
language learners were re-categorized as "limited English proficient," or
LEP.
Dr. Wayne E. Wright, assistant professor at the University of Texas at San
Antonio and author of the brief, finds that the government's change in
education policy and its use of high-stakes testing brings on the following
issues:
* Schools are expected to make adequate yearly progress in their test scores
with regard to all subgroups, including students labeled LEP. When testing
the LEP students, NCLB allows for exceptions and accommodations, but the
number of students whose scores can be excluded is minimal, and acceptable
accommodations are neither defined nor spelled out.
* The goals for LEP programs are simply to mainstream the students as soon
as possible and to teach them the content of the state standardized exam.
The pressure of raising scores discourages instruction focusing on the true
needs of LEP students.
* The majority of LEP students are being forced to take standardized tests
in a language in which they are not yet proficient.
* Funding for LEP students nearly doubled, however, these federal funds are
now spread more thinly, resulting in less dollars per eligible LEP student.
* NCLB no longer makes a distinction between bilingual programs or special
alternative instructional programs. The federal law now only requires that
LEP students be placed in "language instruction education programs." The
use of teaching the student's native language is "optional."
* While LEP students must be tested, states are finding creative ways to
exclude their scores, thus helping many schools avoid being held accountable
for a LEP subgroup. This may create an illusion of success while the real
needs of LEP students are being ignored.
* Bilingual education programs are still allowed under NCLB, but only if
state education leaders deem them as "scientifically based" and are willing
to fund them. Anti-bilingual education measures in some states make it
extremely difficult for schools in those states to offer quality bilingual
education programs.
Wright concludes: "Many schools are adopting scripted one-size-fits-all
curricular programs (often with federal support) which take up large amounts
of instructional time. The irony here is that while teachers are giving up
what they recognize as good instruction for LEP students in the name of
preparing them for high-stakes tests, many of these students' test scores
will end up being excluded anyway from school AYP designations, using the
minimum group size rule and negotiated exclusions with the U.S. Department
of Education...
"This is a recipe for leaving LEP students behind."
Find this document on the web at:
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0501-101-LPRU.pdf
Alex Molnar (480) 965-1886 (email) epsl@asu.edu
Tempe, Ariz. (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)- By way of devaluing bilingual
education through high-stakes testing and English-only programs, the No
Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 fails to address the needs of language
minority students, according to a policy brief released by the Language
Policy Research Unit of Arizona State University's Education Policy Studies
Laboratory.
The brief, "Evolution of Federal Policy and Implications of No Child Left
Behind For Language Minority Students," illustrates how the federal
government had progressively taken steps toward meeting the needs of English
language learners and, in doing so, gave worth to bilingual skills.
In 2001, however, the passing of NCLB into law marked a dramatic shift in
that path. The word, "bilingual," was absent from the act and English
language learners were re-categorized as "limited English proficient," or
LEP.
Dr. Wayne E. Wright, assistant professor at the University of Texas at San
Antonio and author of the brief, finds that the government's change in
education policy and its use of high-stakes testing brings on the following
issues:
* Schools are expected to make adequate yearly progress in their test scores
with regard to all subgroups, including students labeled LEP. When testing
the LEP students, NCLB allows for exceptions and accommodations, but the
number of students whose scores can be excluded is minimal, and acceptable
accommodations are neither defined nor spelled out.
* The goals for LEP programs are simply to mainstream the students as soon
as possible and to teach them the content of the state standardized exam.
The pressure of raising scores discourages instruction focusing on the true
needs of LEP students.
* The majority of LEP students are being forced to take standardized tests
in a language in which they are not yet proficient.
* Funding for LEP students nearly doubled, however, these federal funds are
now spread more thinly, resulting in less dollars per eligible LEP student.
* NCLB no longer makes a distinction between bilingual programs or special
alternative instructional programs. The federal law now only requires that
LEP students be placed in "language instruction education programs." The
use of teaching the student's native language is "optional."
* While LEP students must be tested, states are finding creative ways to
exclude their scores, thus helping many schools avoid being held accountable
for a LEP subgroup. This may create an illusion of success while the real
needs of LEP students are being ignored.
* Bilingual education programs are still allowed under NCLB, but only if
state education leaders deem them as "scientifically based" and are willing
to fund them. Anti-bilingual education measures in some states make it
extremely difficult for schools in those states to offer quality bilingual
education programs.
Wright concludes: "Many schools are adopting scripted one-size-fits-all
curricular programs (often with federal support) which take up large amounts
of instructional time. The irony here is that while teachers are giving up
what they recognize as good instruction for LEP students in the name of
preparing them for high-stakes tests, many of these students' test scores
will end up being excluded anyway from school AYP designations, using the
minimum group size rule and negotiated exclusions with the U.S. Department
of Education...
"This is a recipe for leaving LEP students behind."
Find this document on the web at:
http://www.asu.edu/educ/epsl/EPRU/documents/EPSL-0501-101-LPRU.pdf
the test cheating police...
Tue, Feb. 08, 2005
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER EXCLUSIVE
N.C. Hires Company to Inspect School Test Data
By PETER SMOLOWITZ
Staff Writer
With high-stakes standardized tests now determining school rankings, teacher bonuses and federal aid, pressure is mounting for schools to perform. Which helps explain why a growing number of schools nationwide have been caught cheating. On Monday, North Carolina signed a $60,000 contract for a 2-year-old company called Caveon to analyze test data and search for red flags. North Carolina and South Carolina are among just three states to hire the Utah-based firm, believed to be the first of its kind. Delaware has also hired the company, and a co-founder said they're negotiating with about a dozen other states. Most Carolinas education leaders do not suspect rampant cheating, though allegations have arisen about teachers having access to questions in advance. In Indiana, a teacher was suspended after being accused of pointing out wrong answers while third-grade students were taking a test. Some argue the hiring alone will scare cheaters, the same way burglars avoid homes with yard signs warning of alarm systems. "There are people who put those signs in their yards who don't even have those systems, because they know it is a deterrent," said N.C. testing director Lou Fabrizio, who said the timing coincides with a review of the state's tests. "We're just trying to be as proactive and as comprehensive as we can." Caveon uses a process called data forensics to look for unusual patterns: Kids answering hard questions correctly and missing easy ones. An abnormally high pass rate in one class. Tests with several wrong answers erased and replaced with the right ones. "One of the things I'm looking for is evidence of coaching or proxy test-taking," said Caveon chief scientist Dennis Maynes. "In an educational setting, the greatest concern is (that) the administration and teachers are actually doing the cheating, not the students." How widespread is cheating? There's no way to know how common cheating is, but Caveon and other analysts estimate it could occur with as many as 10 percent of school tests nationwide.An Arizona State University professor said he conducted an anonymous survey in the late 1980s that showed 10 percent of Arizona teachers admitted cheating to help boost students' scores. And those tests didn't count nearly as much as today's, said Tom Haladyna. "It's amazing," said Haladyna, an education psychology professor who studies test score accuracy. "And these are only things we know about. It's like an iceberg." Within the past year, cheating allegations nationwide have prompted officials in Texas, Indiana, Mississippi and Arizona to launch investigations, suspend staff or throw out scores. And recently questions have been raised in the Carolinas. In February 2003, the Guilford County School District disciplined several employees suspected of sharing state standardized test questions with high school students in advance. Prosecutors in Beaufort County, S.C., are investigating claims that in 2003, middle school administrators showed state tests to teachers in advance, fueling fears the instructors could have coached kids on actual questions. The Carolinas have stringent safeguards that Haladyna said were tougher than those of several states. Rules require or recommend that two adults be present during all tests. Officials make unannounced visits to testing sites. And teachers not only get trained in the state's code of ethics, some schools require teachers, proctors, principals and test coordinators to sign forms agreeing to comply or swearing that they have. But the states still wanted Caveon to analyze answers and check for weaknesses in their test-security system. "In order for the test scores to be valid and reflect what the students know and are able to do, then test security must be maintained," said S.C. testing director Teri Siskind. "It's an equity, fairness and validity issue, in addition to an ethical issue." Maintaining integrity Caveon comes from the Latin word "caveo," meaning "safeguard." The company was founded in 2003 by a dozen people who had helped write and design tests, but worried about security as the Internet made it easier for people to publish answers in advance. Those fears could cloud the reputation of companies and workers. "Everybody loses," said co-founder Jerry Christensen. "There is this weakness there, and nobody else has really looked at it." Caveon has worked with about 25 companies that offer entrance exams or certification tests, Christensen said. Caveon workers have helped businesses make it tougher for people to steal questions, and they have caught people selling questions on the Web. In June, they started working with schools. It's unlikely they'll find much wrongdoing in the Carolinas, said Colby Cochran, Rowan-Salisbury's testing director, who helped revise the testing code of ethics. But they will be checking things local districts don't typically examine, and that will help make the scores "beyond reproach." "This is the era of accountability," Cochran said. "Somebody else needs to look at you from time to time to see if you are really doing what you say you are doing."
Peter Smolowitz: (704) 358-5249; psmolowitz@charlotteobserver.com
© 2005 Charlotte Observer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.charlotte.com
CHARLOTTE OBSERVER EXCLUSIVE
N.C. Hires Company to Inspect School Test Data
By PETER SMOLOWITZ
Staff Writer
With high-stakes standardized tests now determining school rankings, teacher bonuses and federal aid, pressure is mounting for schools to perform. Which helps explain why a growing number of schools nationwide have been caught cheating. On Monday, North Carolina signed a $60,000 contract for a 2-year-old company called Caveon to analyze test data and search for red flags. North Carolina and South Carolina are among just three states to hire the Utah-based firm, believed to be the first of its kind. Delaware has also hired the company, and a co-founder said they're negotiating with about a dozen other states. Most Carolinas education leaders do not suspect rampant cheating, though allegations have arisen about teachers having access to questions in advance. In Indiana, a teacher was suspended after being accused of pointing out wrong answers while third-grade students were taking a test. Some argue the hiring alone will scare cheaters, the same way burglars avoid homes with yard signs warning of alarm systems. "There are people who put those signs in their yards who don't even have those systems, because they know it is a deterrent," said N.C. testing director Lou Fabrizio, who said the timing coincides with a review of the state's tests. "We're just trying to be as proactive and as comprehensive as we can." Caveon uses a process called data forensics to look for unusual patterns: Kids answering hard questions correctly and missing easy ones. An abnormally high pass rate in one class. Tests with several wrong answers erased and replaced with the right ones. "One of the things I'm looking for is evidence of coaching or proxy test-taking," said Caveon chief scientist Dennis Maynes. "In an educational setting, the greatest concern is (that) the administration and teachers are actually doing the cheating, not the students." How widespread is cheating? There's no way to know how common cheating is, but Caveon and other analysts estimate it could occur with as many as 10 percent of school tests nationwide.An Arizona State University professor said he conducted an anonymous survey in the late 1980s that showed 10 percent of Arizona teachers admitted cheating to help boost students' scores. And those tests didn't count nearly as much as today's, said Tom Haladyna. "It's amazing," said Haladyna, an education psychology professor who studies test score accuracy. "And these are only things we know about. It's like an iceberg." Within the past year, cheating allegations nationwide have prompted officials in Texas, Indiana, Mississippi and Arizona to launch investigations, suspend staff or throw out scores. And recently questions have been raised in the Carolinas. In February 2003, the Guilford County School District disciplined several employees suspected of sharing state standardized test questions with high school students in advance. Prosecutors in Beaufort County, S.C., are investigating claims that in 2003, middle school administrators showed state tests to teachers in advance, fueling fears the instructors could have coached kids on actual questions. The Carolinas have stringent safeguards that Haladyna said were tougher than those of several states. Rules require or recommend that two adults be present during all tests. Officials make unannounced visits to testing sites. And teachers not only get trained in the state's code of ethics, some schools require teachers, proctors, principals and test coordinators to sign forms agreeing to comply or swearing that they have. But the states still wanted Caveon to analyze answers and check for weaknesses in their test-security system. "In order for the test scores to be valid and reflect what the students know and are able to do, then test security must be maintained," said S.C. testing director Teri Siskind. "It's an equity, fairness and validity issue, in addition to an ethical issue." Maintaining integrity Caveon comes from the Latin word "caveo," meaning "safeguard." The company was founded in 2003 by a dozen people who had helped write and design tests, but worried about security as the Internet made it easier for people to publish answers in advance. Those fears could cloud the reputation of companies and workers. "Everybody loses," said co-founder Jerry Christensen. "There is this weakness there, and nobody else has really looked at it." Caveon has worked with about 25 companies that offer entrance exams or certification tests, Christensen said. Caveon workers have helped businesses make it tougher for people to steal questions, and they have caught people selling questions on the Web. In June, they started working with schools. It's unlikely they'll find much wrongdoing in the Carolinas, said Colby Cochran, Rowan-Salisbury's testing director, who helped revise the testing code of ethics. But they will be checking things local districts don't typically examine, and that will help make the scores "beyond reproach." "This is the era of accountability," Cochran said. "Somebody else needs to look at you from time to time to see if you are really doing what you say you are doing."
Peter Smolowitz: (704) 358-5249; psmolowitz@charlotteobserver.com
© 2005 Charlotte Observer and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.charlotte.com
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
Regular, latest clips on NCLB from the Civil Society Institute
http://www.nclbgrassroots.org/index.php is the link to Civil Society Institute's page of newsclips on NLCB. They really are keeping up with a regular flow of significant clips (since there is a flood, they must select). The clips are reachable by topic areas and chronologically.
Blueprint Calls for Bigger, More Powerful Government
Some Conservatives Express Concern at Agenda
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A01
President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.
In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.
Bush is calling for new federal accountability and testing requirements for all public high schools, after imposing similar mandates on grades three through eight during his first term. To limit lawsuits against businesses and professionals, he is proposing to put a federal cap on damage awards for medical malpractice, to force class-action cases into federal courts and to help create a national settlement of outstanding asbestos-related cases.
On social policy, the president is pushing a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage in the states and continuing to define and expand the federal government's role in encouraging religious groups to help administer social programs such as community drug-rehabilitation efforts.
"We have moved from devolution, which was just pushing back as much power as possible to the states, back to where government is limited but active," said John Bridgeland, director of Bush's domestic policy council in the first term. Bridgeland and current White House officials see Bush's governing philosophy as a smart way to modernize the government, empower individuals and broaden the appeal of the GOP.
Bush maintains a stated desire to streamline the government. On Monday, he sent Congress a budget that would eliminate or consolidate 150 programs. But a growing number of conservatives are uneasy with what they deride as "big-government conservatism."
"He keeps expanding the federal involvement into state and local affairs," said Chris Edwards, a tax and budget expert at the Cato Institute, a think tank that often supports the president's agenda. "My hope would be that there would be an electoral rebuke of big [-government] Republicans like there was when the tectonic plates shifted in 1994."
Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said: "The Republican majority, left to its own devices from 1995 to 2000, was a party committed to limited government and restoring the balances of federalism with the states. Clearly, President Bush has had a different vision, and that vision has resulted in education and welfare policies that have increased the size and scope of government."
Pence, an influential leader of House conservatives, said 50 Republicans gathered in Baltimore this past week and discussed, among other things, an overwhelming desire to protest the expansion of government by opposing Bush's education plan for high school students. While only 33 House Republicans opposed the No Child Left Behind law in the first term, Pence predicted that a significantly larger number will vote against expanding the program to cover high schools. Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation, a pro-Bush think tank, agreed. "It's a non-starter" in the minds of a large number of Republicans, he said.
In many ways, Bush is simply accelerating the trend toward a bigger, more activist government that was started early in his presidency. Bush not only greatly expanded the federal education system with the No Child Left Behind law, but he also signed the largest expansion of Medicare benefits when he added prescription drug coverage to the program in 2003. The Medicare plan alone is now estimated to cost at least $720 billion over the next decade. Reacting to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, provided the federal government broad surveillance powers through the USA Patriot Act, and requested a significantly larger national defense budget.
All of this is a far cry from Republican dogma circa 1995 -- the year of the Republican Revolution. Back then, GOP leaders from Sen. Robert J. Dole (Kan.) to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) talked of eliminating entire Cabinet departments, including Education, shrinking government, and returning power to the states and the people.
"If I have one goal for the 104th Congress, it is this: that we will dust off the 10th Amendment and restore it to its rightful place in the Constitution," then-Senate Majority Leader Dole said in his first speech of January 1995. "We will continue in our drive to return power to our states and our people." Republicans talked of devolution, ending "unfunded mandates" and killing government programs with the same zeal they reserve today for fighting terrorists and restructuring Social Security.
In some areas, Bush has moved to reduce the size of government. The president signed three tax cuts into law in the first term, shrinking government receipts; held non-defense discretionary spending to a nominal increase in last year's budget; and is calling for similar austerity in this year's budget.
Even so, spending has exploded under Bush -- as have budget deficits. The government spent $2.3 trillion and ran a $412 billion deficit in 2004, compared with the $1.8 trillion it spent and the $86 billion surplus it ran in the final full year of the Clinton administration.
Despite the deep cuts in domestic programs in Bush's budget, his second-term agenda is focused more on rethinking than shrinking the federal government's role. Even the president's plan to create individual Social Security accounts, billed as providing Americans more control over their retirements, would require a bigger bureaucracy to administer.
Pence said the only reason Republicans have not paid a political price for overseeing a huge growth in government has been the failure of Democrats to field a deficit hawk as a presidential candidate and to capitalize on the public appetite for smaller government. "I think to the extent Republicans depart from the historic commitment, we do so at our peril."
Yet most of Pence's colleagues have not fought Bush's expansion of the federal government. They recently rejected budget rules that could help slow spending and voted in large numbers for the entire Bush agenda over the past four years. A large majority supports Bush's plans to grow the federal role over lawsuits, marriages and other social policies.
Bush, never seen as a big fan of shrinking government, has chosen to redefine the Republican Party as more activist, "compassionate" and committed to providing individuals a lift through government policies, aides say. In doing so, he often pushes policies that require conservatives to sacrifice one principle to accomplish another.
Consider education and lawsuits. To win tough testing standards and impose accountability, two goals of many conservatives, Bush pushed through a huge increase in education spending and expanded the federal government's power to police schools, two ideas that would have been viewed by Republicans as heresy a decade ago.
As for lawsuits, Bush and most Republicans support a federal cap on punitive damages in medical liability cases -- which would usurp the power of states -- to create a freer, less costly and more predictable marketplace for doctors and consumers. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who was first elected to the House in 1994, calls this anathema to the GOP's states'-rights philosophy.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9307-2005Feb8.html
By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 9, 2005; Page A01
President Bush's second-term agenda would expand not only the size of the federal government but also its influence over the lives of millions of Americans by imposing new national restrictions on high schools, court cases and marriages.
In a clear break from Republican campaigns of the 1990s to downsize government and devolve power to the states, Bush is fostering what amounts to an era of new federalism in which the national government shapes, not shrinks, programs and institutions to comport with various conservative ideals, according to Republicans inside and outside the White House.
Bush is calling for new federal accountability and testing requirements for all public high schools, after imposing similar mandates on grades three through eight during his first term. To limit lawsuits against businesses and professionals, he is proposing to put a federal cap on damage awards for medical malpractice, to force class-action cases into federal courts and to help create a national settlement of outstanding asbestos-related cases.
On social policy, the president is pushing a constitutional amendment to outlaw same-sex marriage in the states and continuing to define and expand the federal government's role in encouraging religious groups to help administer social programs such as community drug-rehabilitation efforts.
"We have moved from devolution, which was just pushing back as much power as possible to the states, back to where government is limited but active," said John Bridgeland, director of Bush's domestic policy council in the first term. Bridgeland and current White House officials see Bush's governing philosophy as a smart way to modernize the government, empower individuals and broaden the appeal of the GOP.
Bush maintains a stated desire to streamline the government. On Monday, he sent Congress a budget that would eliminate or consolidate 150 programs. But a growing number of conservatives are uneasy with what they deride as "big-government conservatism."
"He keeps expanding the federal involvement into state and local affairs," said Chris Edwards, a tax and budget expert at the Cato Institute, a think tank that often supports the president's agenda. "My hope would be that there would be an electoral rebuke of big [-government] Republicans like there was when the tectonic plates shifted in 1994."
Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), said: "The Republican majority, left to its own devices from 1995 to 2000, was a party committed to limited government and restoring the balances of federalism with the states. Clearly, President Bush has had a different vision, and that vision has resulted in education and welfare policies that have increased the size and scope of government."
Pence, an influential leader of House conservatives, said 50 Republicans gathered in Baltimore this past week and discussed, among other things, an overwhelming desire to protest the expansion of government by opposing Bush's education plan for high school students. While only 33 House Republicans opposed the No Child Left Behind law in the first term, Pence predicted that a significantly larger number will vote against expanding the program to cover high schools. Michael Franc of the Heritage Foundation, a pro-Bush think tank, agreed. "It's a non-starter" in the minds of a large number of Republicans, he said.
In many ways, Bush is simply accelerating the trend toward a bigger, more activist government that was started early in his presidency. Bush not only greatly expanded the federal education system with the No Child Left Behind law, but he also signed the largest expansion of Medicare benefits when he added prescription drug coverage to the program in 2003. The Medicare plan alone is now estimated to cost at least $720 billion over the next decade. Reacting to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush created the Department of Homeland Security, provided the federal government broad surveillance powers through the USA Patriot Act, and requested a significantly larger national defense budget.
All of this is a far cry from Republican dogma circa 1995 -- the year of the Republican Revolution. Back then, GOP leaders from Sen. Robert J. Dole (Kan.) to House Speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.) talked of eliminating entire Cabinet departments, including Education, shrinking government, and returning power to the states and the people.
"If I have one goal for the 104th Congress, it is this: that we will dust off the 10th Amendment and restore it to its rightful place in the Constitution," then-Senate Majority Leader Dole said in his first speech of January 1995. "We will continue in our drive to return power to our states and our people." Republicans talked of devolution, ending "unfunded mandates" and killing government programs with the same zeal they reserve today for fighting terrorists and restructuring Social Security.
In some areas, Bush has moved to reduce the size of government. The president signed three tax cuts into law in the first term, shrinking government receipts; held non-defense discretionary spending to a nominal increase in last year's budget; and is calling for similar austerity in this year's budget.
Even so, spending has exploded under Bush -- as have budget deficits. The government spent $2.3 trillion and ran a $412 billion deficit in 2004, compared with the $1.8 trillion it spent and the $86 billion surplus it ran in the final full year of the Clinton administration.
Despite the deep cuts in domestic programs in Bush's budget, his second-term agenda is focused more on rethinking than shrinking the federal government's role. Even the president's plan to create individual Social Security accounts, billed as providing Americans more control over their retirements, would require a bigger bureaucracy to administer.
Pence said the only reason Republicans have not paid a political price for overseeing a huge growth in government has been the failure of Democrats to field a deficit hawk as a presidential candidate and to capitalize on the public appetite for smaller government. "I think to the extent Republicans depart from the historic commitment, we do so at our peril."
Yet most of Pence's colleagues have not fought Bush's expansion of the federal government. They recently rejected budget rules that could help slow spending and voted in large numbers for the entire Bush agenda over the past four years. A large majority supports Bush's plans to grow the federal role over lawsuits, marriages and other social policies.
Bush, never seen as a big fan of shrinking government, has chosen to redefine the Republican Party as more activist, "compassionate" and committed to providing individuals a lift through government policies, aides say. In doing so, he often pushes policies that require conservatives to sacrifice one principle to accomplish another.
Consider education and lawsuits. To win tough testing standards and impose accountability, two goals of many conservatives, Bush pushed through a huge increase in education spending and expanded the federal government's power to police schools, two ideas that would have been viewed by Republicans as heresy a decade ago.
As for lawsuits, Bush and most Republicans support a federal cap on punitive damages in medical liability cases -- which would usurp the power of states -- to create a freer, less costly and more predictable marketplace for doctors and consumers. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who was first elected to the House in 1994, calls this anathema to the GOP's states'-rights philosophy.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A9307-2005Feb8.html
Native Ambition
EDWEEK.ORG
February 9, 2005
By Sean Cavanagh
The Santa Fe Indian School is one U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs school where students are taught to go to college and return to their pueblos with newfound knowledge.
The letter sat for days in a stack of tabletop mail, a plain envelope with an Albuquerque return address, as easy to ignore as a credit card offer or cut-rate vacation deal. He figures it was almost a week before anybody noticed it.
“Congratulations,” Russell Sandoval remembers reading, after peeling it open. “You have been admitted to the University of New Mexico as a beginning freshman for the fall 2005 semester.” The institution even sweetened the deal with a scholarship that could save him thousands of dollars in tuition.
His mother hugged him. His father, who was working in the front yard, smiled and congratulated him. Amid all that elation, the son, who was at home on the San Felipe Pueblo for the Christmas holiday, reminded his parents that this was only a first step.
“One down,” Sandoval said. “Let’s see how many more I get in to.”
Like many of his senior classmates here at Santa Fe Indian School, Sandoval harbors an ambition that no single bit of recognition, however appealing, can fully satisfy. His view is long-term. Next fall, he envisions himself on a college campus, in New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado, away from home, but not too far away. He hopes to be working toward a degree in the computer field, and meeting students from places he’s never seen.
And after graduation, he sees himself returning to San Felipe, or a nearby pueblo, using his college skills to help improve the community. It is a longing shared by many of the seniors at Santa Fe Indian School, which, in recent years, has defied long-standing trends among Native American students by sending an unusually strong percentage of its graduates to college, including some of the country’s most prestigious institutions.
While reliable estimates of American Indian students’ college participation are scarce (in part because their numbers are so low), the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in Santa Fe has taken steps to make postsecondary education the norm, rather than the exception, even while serving many disadvantaged youths. Overall, the academic proficiency of the 700-student school’s students also ranks well above the recorded averages of other BIA facilities, which serve some of the nation’s most disadvantaged students.
In large measure, the Santa Fe school is accomplishing what many schools serving academically at risk children long to do: encourage their students early on to consider college and then give them the support to get there.
For many of the school’s students, who arrive from Indian communities across New Mexico, and occasionally outside the state, the first leg of that journey is often the toughest. It begins in 7th grade, when they move into dormitories on the campus, a tan chessboard of adobe-style buildings along a churning roadway south of the city’s chic downtown plaza. The new arrivals follow a program that blends New Mexico’s state curriculum with lessons about native culture and with potent doses of career and college counseling.
And over time, many of those students develop a conviction, pressed upon them by their parents and elders, that college is not only a ticket to the world outside the pueblo, but also a promise to return.
“Your heart is there,” says Sandoval, 17. “You grew up in there, in that atmosphere. You know that you have to have a responsibility to go out and get an education, and then come back and help your people.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the day they made the half-hour drive north to the Santa Fe Indian School six years ago, Russell Sandoval and his parents, Michael and Sandra, carried a mental picture with them. A school for Native Americans. Operated by New Mexico’s Pueblo tribes. A place where Indian youths lived and studied together, like a family.
But after his parents dropped him off, the boy found little that was familiar to him. At a student orientation, his classmates described themselves as Navajo, Apache, even Plains Indians. “I thought this was a Pueblo school,” Sandoval recalls thinking upon meeting students from other tribes. Even among the other Pueblos he met, he heard Indian languages that were completely different from the Keresan dialect he knew from San Felipe, a community of 3,200 people that straddles the Rio Grande River.
Sandoval was right about the school’s Pueblo status, though it would take years for it to secure that standing. Santa Fe Indian School opened in 1890, with nine Pueblo students and a mission that paralleled those of the other federal schools serving American Indians at the time: to educate and “civilize” Indian youths, by removing them from their family culture and making them conform with white society. That pattern of forced assimilation, which was occurring around the country, persisted for decades. It swept up many of the families and staff members who are connected with Santa Fe Indian School today, including Gil Peña, the school’s dean of students.
At a school assembly, Superintendent Joseph Abeyta exhorts students to embrace academics and native tradition.
—Sevans
Peña, a 58-year-old with orderly gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses, acts as both the school’s czar of student discipline and an adviser to longtime Superintendent Joseph Abeyta. A former Pueblo governor with a nutcracker-strength handshake and a tone that shifts smoothly between lighthearted and serious, he seems well suited for the sometimes difficult meetings with parents and students that accompany his job. A school should nurture students as it educates them, he says. Santa Fe Indian School’s parents and tribal communities help accomplish that goal.
His own experience was much different. Peña’s first school was a BIA facility on his native Nambñ Pueblo, about 15 miles north of Santa Fe. He arrived there not knowing a word of English, and when he tried speaking to his classmates in his Pueblo language of Tewa, his teacher, an Anglo woman from Texas, cracked him on the head or the hand with a ruler. He remembers running off into the nearby hills, and school officials catching him and bringing him back.
“It was a scary time for me,” Peña says. “You leave your culture, your tradition, your language, when you walk in that door.”
Each fall, Peña is charged with delivering a pointed message to incoming 7th graders at Santa Fe Indian School: Some of you won’t last here. Some will leave for disciplinary reasons; others won’t cut it academically.
In discipline, student life, and academics, the school today encourages tribal influence, and in some cases relies on it. On this December morning, Peña is preparing to meet with the parents of a Navajo girl who’s been misbehaving. When he sees the incident report, he recognizes the family name right away.
In similar cases, Peña will ask to meet with both the parents and the family’s tribal governor, in the home community. He will present the situation to the native leader and ask for help. That approach pays off, Peña believes. Students come away with a strong message from their families and tribal leaders: Disrespect the school, and you disrespect us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Members of the Pueblo community have a strong incentive to immerse themselves in the Sante Fe Indian School: They operate it, under an arrangement with the BIA, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In the 1950s, the original campus was closed, a move that outraged many parents. According to author Sally Hyer’s history of the school, One House, One Voice, One Heart, the BIA later told students that their best option would be to attend Albuquerque Indian School, 60 miles to the south, an aging, decrepit facility in the memories of many Santa Fe staff members.
In 1977, frustrated leaders on the All-Indian Pueblo Council, a coalition of native governments, voted to take over administration of the Albuquerque school, and later relocated it to the Santa Fe campus. Today, the school is operated by the 19 Pueblo tribes of New Mexico—separate, federally recognized sovereign nations—and it receives federal funding from the BIA. About 60 percent of roughly 180 BIA schools today operate under similar grants or contracts.
While Santa Fe Indian School offers only one Advanced Placement subject, English, it allows students to enroll jointly in local community colleges. The school’s classes are also modified to include “community based” education—student-led projects on relevant issues affecting Indian tribes. Each year, Pueblo leaders advise school staff members on those topics, which have recently included air and water quality and animal migration. The goal for students is not only to gain knowledge about social issues, says Glenda Moffitt, the school’s director of planning and evaluation, but also an understanding of what it takes to run tribal governments.
Santa Fe Indian School has established policies aimed at promoting student discipline—and independence. Students follow a tight routine: a 6 a.m. wakeup call, breakfast at 7, classes till about 3 p.m., followed by after-school activities, such as sports.
Senior Daryl Montoya pauses on the stairs as he exits the second floor of a boys' dormitory at Santa Fe Indian School. The school, in the midst of a federally financed $38million renovation project, is built in an adobe architectural style in the tradition of the Southwest.
—Sevans
Dorm life brings its own responsibilities. Sandoval’s uncluttered room, on one of the residential hall’s upper stories, is about three quick strides wide, with identical beds and bookshelves occupying both sides. A chrome-tinted stereo sits on a central desk, above a pair of gym shoes belonging to his roommate, fellow senior (and state cross-country champion) Jerome Tafoya. A short hallway leads to a bathroom, almost as big as the bedroom itself.
School officials believe the residential component can prepare students for college dorm life. Sandoval plays a role in that training: The tall, lanky teenager with dark, short-cropped hair is a dorm proctor, responsible for overseeing cleaning duties and dorm checks.
For Sandoval, the possibilities after high school became clearer his sophomore year, when he took a required seven-week career unit led by school counselor Pat Schubauer. He began researching colleges, some of which he applied to this year, such as the University of New Mexico. His top choice, Arizona State University, was also on that list.
Each year, Schubauer reviews college applications with students, advises them on the accompanying essays and recommendations, and tries to encourage them to think about the postsecondary setting that will best suit them.
She often introduces the concept of going to college with a question: Think about the job you want someday—what training will you need to get there?
The counselor agrees with other faculty members that her students’ desire to improve their pueblos—through better social services, new businesses, and other means—often outweighs financial and career motivations. The pressure to help the pueblos “is not like something that’s put on them from the outside,” she says. “It’s something that’s lived in their community.”
It seems to be paying off. The school estimates that at least 90 percent of seniors, on average, go on to two- or four-year colleges, including technical schools, a rate that eclipses the adult percentage of Native Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not that the school doesn’t face hurdles. While its students far exceed the test-proficiency levels of the overall BIA population, Santa Fe Indian School was placed on “alert” status under the federal No Child Left Behind Act this academic year, joining about two-thirds of all BIA schools that didn’t make adequate yearly progress, bureau records show. That designation was triggered by special education students not making AYP, according to BIA data.
Some critics say the school’s location, in a tourist mecca famed for its resorts and art galleries, gives it unparalleled advantages. Other BIA facilities, in far more remote, impoverished areas, face a much harder task in recruiting staff members, they say. Still others suspect that Santa Fe Indian School, in requiring prospective students to complete an application process, ends up serving more academically gifted students than other BIA facilities.
Moffitt calls that criticism baseless. She maintains that the application is meant to provide basic information, not to screen students. The average 7th grader, Moffitt points out, arrives with academic achievement at a 3rd or 4th grade level, and more than 100 of the school’s 700 charges qualify as special education students. The school meets those needs through extensive after-school tutoring and remediation, she says.
Despite its ability to help students reach college, only 40 percent are graduating in a two- or four-year period, Moffitt estimates. Some who drop out return later, says Moffitt, who believes about 60 percent eventually secure a college degree. (That number surpasses some college-persistence estimates for Indian students nationwide.)
Byron Abeyta, an 8th grader, and his mother, Shereen Martinez, return to his dorm room on a Sunday evening.
—Sevans
Keith Candelaria is a 1999 graduate who went on to Dartmouth College. After receiving a degree in environmental earth science from the Ivy League institution, he returned to New Mexico to work as a water-protection specialist. Today, the 23-year-old educates Indian communities about water contamination—an issue he worried about as a boy, on the Jñmez Pueblo.
“Growing up, it’s instilled in you,” he says. “You see what the reservation lacks.”
Yet those bonds are also part of what makes college so difficult for Indian students, adds Candelaria, who remembers some native undergraduates quitting college for that reason.
Russell Sandoval expects to grapple with those transitions, too. He knows he will miss the customs like his pueblo’s corn dances, a centuries-old tribal ceremony. His expectations come across in an essay on his application to the University of New Mexico. The paper is historical, touching on the Catholic Church’s influence on pueblo society. It is biographical, detailing his record as a National Honor Society member and senior class president. And it speaks to why he’s applying to college in the first place, drawing upon a conversation he had with his grandmother.
“She is the link to the past, and to the future, for she is wise,” Sandoval writes. “It pains her to see that most teenagers aren’t too eager to move on to a higher education. She always tells me constantly to make something out of the opportunity I have been given. … [I] want to be that person that brings change and a sense of direction to the community.”
PHOTO: Jenae Sanchez and Russell Sandoval work on a project during evening study period.
PHOTO: Counselor Pat Schubauer helps a student prepare college applications.
PHOTO: A student sweeps up outside a dorm, performing a typical task assigned to youths at the school.
PHOTO: During limited free time, senior James Garcia lines up a shot in the recreation center.
—Sevans
Vol. 24, Issue 22, Pages 26-30
My Account
Log Out
Advertisement
“Bill Allows Construction Bonds for Indian Schools,” September 29, 2004.
“Indian Schools Struggling With Federal Mandates,” July 28, 2004.
“‘No Child’ Law Poses Challenges To Indians,” May 5, 2004.
“Judge Says Montana Falls Short On Indian Education,” April 28, 2004.
“Hitting the Jackpot,” April 7, 2004.
“Mich. Tribe at Center Of Charter School Debate,” August 6, 2003.
“Wash. Program Strives To Sustain Tribal Languages,” February 5, 2003.
“Tribal Colleges' K-12 Links Called Key to Reservations,” May 30, 2001.
See other stories on education issues in New Mexico. See data on New Mexico's public school system.
Visit the Santa Fe Indian School to learn more about the school's academic programs and its student life.
The New Mexico Tribal Coalition maintains a teachers corner.
The Office of Indian Education Programs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs posts information and resources on American Indian education.
The National Congress of American Indians—the oldest and largest tribal government organization in the United States—provides resources on issues affecting American Indian culture.
The American Indian Education Foundation, an advocate for American Indian education, coordinates programs to support American Indian students in K-12 education.
February 9, 2005
By Sean Cavanagh
The Santa Fe Indian School is one U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs school where students are taught to go to college and return to their pueblos with newfound knowledge.
The letter sat for days in a stack of tabletop mail, a plain envelope with an Albuquerque return address, as easy to ignore as a credit card offer or cut-rate vacation deal. He figures it was almost a week before anybody noticed it.
“Congratulations,” Russell Sandoval remembers reading, after peeling it open. “You have been admitted to the University of New Mexico as a beginning freshman for the fall 2005 semester.” The institution even sweetened the deal with a scholarship that could save him thousands of dollars in tuition.
His mother hugged him. His father, who was working in the front yard, smiled and congratulated him. Amid all that elation, the son, who was at home on the San Felipe Pueblo for the Christmas holiday, reminded his parents that this was only a first step.
“One down,” Sandoval said. “Let’s see how many more I get in to.”
Like many of his senior classmates here at Santa Fe Indian School, Sandoval harbors an ambition that no single bit of recognition, however appealing, can fully satisfy. His view is long-term. Next fall, he envisions himself on a college campus, in New Mexico, Arizona, or Colorado, away from home, but not too far away. He hopes to be working toward a degree in the computer field, and meeting students from places he’s never seen.
And after graduation, he sees himself returning to San Felipe, or a nearby pueblo, using his college skills to help improve the community. It is a longing shared by many of the seniors at Santa Fe Indian School, which, in recent years, has defied long-standing trends among Native American students by sending an unusually strong percentage of its graduates to college, including some of the country’s most prestigious institutions.
While reliable estimates of American Indian students’ college participation are scarce (in part because their numbers are so low), the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs boarding school in Santa Fe has taken steps to make postsecondary education the norm, rather than the exception, even while serving many disadvantaged youths. Overall, the academic proficiency of the 700-student school’s students also ranks well above the recorded averages of other BIA facilities, which serve some of the nation’s most disadvantaged students.
In large measure, the Santa Fe school is accomplishing what many schools serving academically at risk children long to do: encourage their students early on to consider college and then give them the support to get there.
For many of the school’s students, who arrive from Indian communities across New Mexico, and occasionally outside the state, the first leg of that journey is often the toughest. It begins in 7th grade, when they move into dormitories on the campus, a tan chessboard of adobe-style buildings along a churning roadway south of the city’s chic downtown plaza. The new arrivals follow a program that blends New Mexico’s state curriculum with lessons about native culture and with potent doses of career and college counseling.
And over time, many of those students develop a conviction, pressed upon them by their parents and elders, that college is not only a ticket to the world outside the pueblo, but also a promise to return.
“Your heart is there,” says Sandoval, 17. “You grew up in there, in that atmosphere. You know that you have to have a responsibility to go out and get an education, and then come back and help your people.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
On the day they made the half-hour drive north to the Santa Fe Indian School six years ago, Russell Sandoval and his parents, Michael and Sandra, carried a mental picture with them. A school for Native Americans. Operated by New Mexico’s Pueblo tribes. A place where Indian youths lived and studied together, like a family.
But after his parents dropped him off, the boy found little that was familiar to him. At a student orientation, his classmates described themselves as Navajo, Apache, even Plains Indians. “I thought this was a Pueblo school,” Sandoval recalls thinking upon meeting students from other tribes. Even among the other Pueblos he met, he heard Indian languages that were completely different from the Keresan dialect he knew from San Felipe, a community of 3,200 people that straddles the Rio Grande River.
Sandoval was right about the school’s Pueblo status, though it would take years for it to secure that standing. Santa Fe Indian School opened in 1890, with nine Pueblo students and a mission that paralleled those of the other federal schools serving American Indians at the time: to educate and “civilize” Indian youths, by removing them from their family culture and making them conform with white society. That pattern of forced assimilation, which was occurring around the country, persisted for decades. It swept up many of the families and staff members who are connected with Santa Fe Indian School today, including Gil Peña, the school’s dean of students.
At a school assembly, Superintendent Joseph Abeyta exhorts students to embrace academics and native tradition.
—Sevans
Peña, a 58-year-old with orderly gray hair and wire-rimmed glasses, acts as both the school’s czar of student discipline and an adviser to longtime Superintendent Joseph Abeyta. A former Pueblo governor with a nutcracker-strength handshake and a tone that shifts smoothly between lighthearted and serious, he seems well suited for the sometimes difficult meetings with parents and students that accompany his job. A school should nurture students as it educates them, he says. Santa Fe Indian School’s parents and tribal communities help accomplish that goal.
His own experience was much different. Peña’s first school was a BIA facility on his native Nambñ Pueblo, about 15 miles north of Santa Fe. He arrived there not knowing a word of English, and when he tried speaking to his classmates in his Pueblo language of Tewa, his teacher, an Anglo woman from Texas, cracked him on the head or the hand with a ruler. He remembers running off into the nearby hills, and school officials catching him and bringing him back.
“It was a scary time for me,” Peña says. “You leave your culture, your tradition, your language, when you walk in that door.”
Each fall, Peña is charged with delivering a pointed message to incoming 7th graders at Santa Fe Indian School: Some of you won’t last here. Some will leave for disciplinary reasons; others won’t cut it academically.
In discipline, student life, and academics, the school today encourages tribal influence, and in some cases relies on it. On this December morning, Peña is preparing to meet with the parents of a Navajo girl who’s been misbehaving. When he sees the incident report, he recognizes the family name right away.
In similar cases, Peña will ask to meet with both the parents and the family’s tribal governor, in the home community. He will present the situation to the native leader and ask for help. That approach pays off, Peña believes. Students come away with a strong message from their families and tribal leaders: Disrespect the school, and you disrespect us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Members of the Pueblo community have a strong incentive to immerse themselves in the Sante Fe Indian School: They operate it, under an arrangement with the BIA, an arm of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In the 1950s, the original campus was closed, a move that outraged many parents. According to author Sally Hyer’s history of the school, One House, One Voice, One Heart, the BIA later told students that their best option would be to attend Albuquerque Indian School, 60 miles to the south, an aging, decrepit facility in the memories of many Santa Fe staff members.
In 1977, frustrated leaders on the All-Indian Pueblo Council, a coalition of native governments, voted to take over administration of the Albuquerque school, and later relocated it to the Santa Fe campus. Today, the school is operated by the 19 Pueblo tribes of New Mexico—separate, federally recognized sovereign nations—and it receives federal funding from the BIA. About 60 percent of roughly 180 BIA schools today operate under similar grants or contracts.
While Santa Fe Indian School offers only one Advanced Placement subject, English, it allows students to enroll jointly in local community colleges. The school’s classes are also modified to include “community based” education—student-led projects on relevant issues affecting Indian tribes. Each year, Pueblo leaders advise school staff members on those topics, which have recently included air and water quality and animal migration. The goal for students is not only to gain knowledge about social issues, says Glenda Moffitt, the school’s director of planning and evaluation, but also an understanding of what it takes to run tribal governments.
Santa Fe Indian School has established policies aimed at promoting student discipline—and independence. Students follow a tight routine: a 6 a.m. wakeup call, breakfast at 7, classes till about 3 p.m., followed by after-school activities, such as sports.
Senior Daryl Montoya pauses on the stairs as he exits the second floor of a boys' dormitory at Santa Fe Indian School. The school, in the midst of a federally financed $38million renovation project, is built in an adobe architectural style in the tradition of the Southwest.
—Sevans
Dorm life brings its own responsibilities. Sandoval’s uncluttered room, on one of the residential hall’s upper stories, is about three quick strides wide, with identical beds and bookshelves occupying both sides. A chrome-tinted stereo sits on a central desk, above a pair of gym shoes belonging to his roommate, fellow senior (and state cross-country champion) Jerome Tafoya. A short hallway leads to a bathroom, almost as big as the bedroom itself.
School officials believe the residential component can prepare students for college dorm life. Sandoval plays a role in that training: The tall, lanky teenager with dark, short-cropped hair is a dorm proctor, responsible for overseeing cleaning duties and dorm checks.
For Sandoval, the possibilities after high school became clearer his sophomore year, when he took a required seven-week career unit led by school counselor Pat Schubauer. He began researching colleges, some of which he applied to this year, such as the University of New Mexico. His top choice, Arizona State University, was also on that list.
Each year, Schubauer reviews college applications with students, advises them on the accompanying essays and recommendations, and tries to encourage them to think about the postsecondary setting that will best suit them.
She often introduces the concept of going to college with a question: Think about the job you want someday—what training will you need to get there?
The counselor agrees with other faculty members that her students’ desire to improve their pueblos—through better social services, new businesses, and other means—often outweighs financial and career motivations. The pressure to help the pueblos “is not like something that’s put on them from the outside,” she says. “It’s something that’s lived in their community.”
It seems to be paying off. The school estimates that at least 90 percent of seniors, on average, go on to two- or four-year colleges, including technical schools, a rate that eclipses the adult percentage of Native Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Not that the school doesn’t face hurdles. While its students far exceed the test-proficiency levels of the overall BIA population, Santa Fe Indian School was placed on “alert” status under the federal No Child Left Behind Act this academic year, joining about two-thirds of all BIA schools that didn’t make adequate yearly progress, bureau records show. That designation was triggered by special education students not making AYP, according to BIA data.
Some critics say the school’s location, in a tourist mecca famed for its resorts and art galleries, gives it unparalleled advantages. Other BIA facilities, in far more remote, impoverished areas, face a much harder task in recruiting staff members, they say. Still others suspect that Santa Fe Indian School, in requiring prospective students to complete an application process, ends up serving more academically gifted students than other BIA facilities.
Moffitt calls that criticism baseless. She maintains that the application is meant to provide basic information, not to screen students. The average 7th grader, Moffitt points out, arrives with academic achievement at a 3rd or 4th grade level, and more than 100 of the school’s 700 charges qualify as special education students. The school meets those needs through extensive after-school tutoring and remediation, she says.
Despite its ability to help students reach college, only 40 percent are graduating in a two- or four-year period, Moffitt estimates. Some who drop out return later, says Moffitt, who believes about 60 percent eventually secure a college degree. (That number surpasses some college-persistence estimates for Indian students nationwide.)
Byron Abeyta, an 8th grader, and his mother, Shereen Martinez, return to his dorm room on a Sunday evening.
—Sevans
Keith Candelaria is a 1999 graduate who went on to Dartmouth College. After receiving a degree in environmental earth science from the Ivy League institution, he returned to New Mexico to work as a water-protection specialist. Today, the 23-year-old educates Indian communities about water contamination—an issue he worried about as a boy, on the Jñmez Pueblo.
“Growing up, it’s instilled in you,” he says. “You see what the reservation lacks.”
Yet those bonds are also part of what makes college so difficult for Indian students, adds Candelaria, who remembers some native undergraduates quitting college for that reason.
Russell Sandoval expects to grapple with those transitions, too. He knows he will miss the customs like his pueblo’s corn dances, a centuries-old tribal ceremony. His expectations come across in an essay on his application to the University of New Mexico. The paper is historical, touching on the Catholic Church’s influence on pueblo society. It is biographical, detailing his record as a National Honor Society member and senior class president. And it speaks to why he’s applying to college in the first place, drawing upon a conversation he had with his grandmother.
“She is the link to the past, and to the future, for she is wise,” Sandoval writes. “It pains her to see that most teenagers aren’t too eager to move on to a higher education. She always tells me constantly to make something out of the opportunity I have been given. … [I] want to be that person that brings change and a sense of direction to the community.”
PHOTO: Jenae Sanchez and Russell Sandoval work on a project during evening study period.
PHOTO: Counselor Pat Schubauer helps a student prepare college applications.
PHOTO: A student sweeps up outside a dorm, performing a typical task assigned to youths at the school.
PHOTO: During limited free time, senior James Garcia lines up a shot in the recreation center.
—Sevans
Vol. 24, Issue 22, Pages 26-30
My Account
Log Out
Advertisement
“Bill Allows Construction Bonds for Indian Schools,” September 29, 2004.
“Indian Schools Struggling With Federal Mandates,” July 28, 2004.
“‘No Child’ Law Poses Challenges To Indians,” May 5, 2004.
“Judge Says Montana Falls Short On Indian Education,” April 28, 2004.
“Hitting the Jackpot,” April 7, 2004.
“Mich. Tribe at Center Of Charter School Debate,” August 6, 2003.
“Wash. Program Strives To Sustain Tribal Languages,” February 5, 2003.
“Tribal Colleges' K-12 Links Called Key to Reservations,” May 30, 2001.
See other stories on education issues in New Mexico. See data on New Mexico's public school system.
Visit the Santa Fe Indian School to learn more about the school's academic programs and its student life.
The New Mexico Tribal Coalition maintains a teachers corner.
The Office of Indian Education Programs at the Bureau of Indian Affairs posts information and resources on American Indian education.
The National Congress of American Indians—the oldest and largest tribal government organization in the United States—provides resources on issues affecting American Indian culture.
The American Indian Education Foundation, an advocate for American Indian education, coordinates programs to support American Indian students in K-12 education.
More Governors Want to Rate Early-Childhood Programs
EDWEEK.ORG
February 9, 2005
By Linda Jacobson
Hoping that child-care centers and preschools in their states will respond to higher expectations, more governors are proposing rating systems both to encourage providers to improve their services and to give parents the information they need to choose a high-quality environment.
Govs. James E. Doyle of Wisconsin, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and Tom Vilsack of Iowa have all made rating systems—similar to the methods used to evaluate hotels or restaurants—part of their legislative agendas this year. The three are Democrats.
“Right now, we pay the worst child-care facility and the best child-care facility the same amount, and that’s wrong,” Gov. Doyle said during his State of the State Address last month. “My plan will reward quality, encourage improvement, and give parents the information they need to choose the right child-care center.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Napolitano is recommending a rating system as part of a package of improvements designed to better prepare Arizona’s children for school and to help parents make decisions about care.
“Parents need to be able to go to work knowing their children are safe and nurtured,” Gov. Napolitano said during her speech to the legislature in January.
Rating systems—which measure such indicators as staff-child ratio and the educational level of the teachers at a center—are useful as consumer guides.
Equally important, experts say, is that such ratings can be used to reward programs for improving quality. Under the systems proposed in Arizona, Iowa, and Wisconsin, centers with higher ratings would receive more state child-care money to serve children from low-income families than would centers with lower ratings. In addition, highly rated centers or preschools would be more likely to be chosen to take part in the states’ preschool programs.
Representatives of child-care centers and preschool providers, however, say that any financial incentives tied to ratings need to be based on what it truly costs to provide high-quality care—and that technical assistance must be part of the system to help programs improve.
Star System
According to the National Child Care Information Center, a federally financed clearinghouse and technical-assistance center based in Vienna, Va., 16 states have some form of quality-rating system, with some of them still implementing the programs on a pilot basis.
For example, in Colorado, programs serving children from birth through kindergarten can volunteer to have their programs evaluated on a five-level scale by Qualistar, a Denver-based nonprofit organization that rates programs and helps refer parents to centers that meet their needs.
Under that state’s program, which started in 2002, centers earning no stars are considered substandard, in large part because health and safety guidelines are often neglected and the centers require no teacher training.
In a two-star center in Colorado, toys are available, children are read to regularly, and their basic needs are met, but efforts to reduce staff turnover, adopt daily routines, and improve staff development are still considered by evaluators to be in need of improvement.
In a four-star program, teachers have training in early-childhood development and provide a curriculum that addresses the social, emotional, physical, and academic needs of young children. In addition, activities for fun are provided every day and frequent communication with parents is part of the school’s culture.
The RAND Corp., a research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif., is evaluating Colorado’s rating system to determine whether the program is raising quality and whether the changes are improving outcomes for children.
‘Quality Matters’
Experts say rating systems, to some degree, are state versions of the accreditation offered by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
In fact, most states that rate centers use the NAEYC’s detailed criteria for accreditation to design their tiered ratings, said Mark Ginsberg, the executive director of the Washington-based professional association.
“I think [rating systems and accreditation] are not only compatible, but complementary,” Mr Ginsberg said, pointing out that in many cases, the NAEYC standards for accredited programs mirror the highest rating a state will give a center.
He also credited state rating systems for contributing to an increase in both the number of applications for NAEYC accreditation and the number of centers earning the credential.
But Lynn White, the policy director for the National Child Care Association, based in Conyers, Ga., said requiring national accreditation in order to receive a top state rating poses problems for centers, because it can take a year to complete the accreditation process.
Only one state—North Carolina—has taken the ratings concept a bit further by implementing a rated licensing system, meaning that the various levels of quality are actually written into the state’s licensing regulations, and each child-care program receives a rating, depending on its level of quality.
Sue Russell, the president of Child Care Services Association, a research and advocacy organization in Chapel Hill, N.C., said the system has made more providers aware of the components of quality and given them an incentive to make improvements.
The association has tracked North Carolina’s center ratings, which have been based on a five-star system since the program began in 2000.
The group has data showing a steady decline in the proportion of centers in the state with just one star—from almost 40 percent the first year to less than 10 percent in 2004. At the top of the scale, the percentage of centers with four-star licenses has quintupled, from about 6 percent to 30 percent over those years.
“I think we have really seen a tremendous growth in high-quality programs—those with four and five stars,” Ms. Russell said. “We have seen gains in education of the workforce and a drop in [staff] turnover as well.
“Quality matters to parents, children, and teachers who work every day in those settings.”
Vol. 24, Issue 22, Page 17
February 9, 2005
By Linda Jacobson
Hoping that child-care centers and preschools in their states will respond to higher expectations, more governors are proposing rating systems both to encourage providers to improve their services and to give parents the information they need to choose a high-quality environment.
Govs. James E. Doyle of Wisconsin, Janet Napolitano of Arizona, and Tom Vilsack of Iowa have all made rating systems—similar to the methods used to evaluate hotels or restaurants—part of their legislative agendas this year. The three are Democrats.
“Right now, we pay the worst child-care facility and the best child-care facility the same amount, and that’s wrong,” Gov. Doyle said during his State of the State Address last month. “My plan will reward quality, encourage improvement, and give parents the information they need to choose the right child-care center.”
Meanwhile, Gov. Napolitano is recommending a rating system as part of a package of improvements designed to better prepare Arizona’s children for school and to help parents make decisions about care.
“Parents need to be able to go to work knowing their children are safe and nurtured,” Gov. Napolitano said during her speech to the legislature in January.
Rating systems—which measure such indicators as staff-child ratio and the educational level of the teachers at a center—are useful as consumer guides.
Equally important, experts say, is that such ratings can be used to reward programs for improving quality. Under the systems proposed in Arizona, Iowa, and Wisconsin, centers with higher ratings would receive more state child-care money to serve children from low-income families than would centers with lower ratings. In addition, highly rated centers or preschools would be more likely to be chosen to take part in the states’ preschool programs.
Representatives of child-care centers and preschool providers, however, say that any financial incentives tied to ratings need to be based on what it truly costs to provide high-quality care—and that technical assistance must be part of the system to help programs improve.
Star System
According to the National Child Care Information Center, a federally financed clearinghouse and technical-assistance center based in Vienna, Va., 16 states have some form of quality-rating system, with some of them still implementing the programs on a pilot basis.
For example, in Colorado, programs serving children from birth through kindergarten can volunteer to have their programs evaluated on a five-level scale by Qualistar, a Denver-based nonprofit organization that rates programs and helps refer parents to centers that meet their needs.
Under that state’s program, which started in 2002, centers earning no stars are considered substandard, in large part because health and safety guidelines are often neglected and the centers require no teacher training.
In a two-star center in Colorado, toys are available, children are read to regularly, and their basic needs are met, but efforts to reduce staff turnover, adopt daily routines, and improve staff development are still considered by evaluators to be in need of improvement.
In a four-star program, teachers have training in early-childhood development and provide a curriculum that addresses the social, emotional, physical, and academic needs of young children. In addition, activities for fun are provided every day and frequent communication with parents is part of the school’s culture.
The RAND Corp., a research organization based in Santa Monica, Calif., is evaluating Colorado’s rating system to determine whether the program is raising quality and whether the changes are improving outcomes for children.
‘Quality Matters’
Experts say rating systems, to some degree, are state versions of the accreditation offered by the National Association for the Education of Young Children.
In fact, most states that rate centers use the NAEYC’s detailed criteria for accreditation to design their tiered ratings, said Mark Ginsberg, the executive director of the Washington-based professional association.
“I think [rating systems and accreditation] are not only compatible, but complementary,” Mr Ginsberg said, pointing out that in many cases, the NAEYC standards for accredited programs mirror the highest rating a state will give a center.
He also credited state rating systems for contributing to an increase in both the number of applications for NAEYC accreditation and the number of centers earning the credential.
But Lynn White, the policy director for the National Child Care Association, based in Conyers, Ga., said requiring national accreditation in order to receive a top state rating poses problems for centers, because it can take a year to complete the accreditation process.
Only one state—North Carolina—has taken the ratings concept a bit further by implementing a rated licensing system, meaning that the various levels of quality are actually written into the state’s licensing regulations, and each child-care program receives a rating, depending on its level of quality.
Sue Russell, the president of Child Care Services Association, a research and advocacy organization in Chapel Hill, N.C., said the system has made more providers aware of the components of quality and given them an incentive to make improvements.
The association has tracked North Carolina’s center ratings, which have been based on a five-star system since the program began in 2000.
The group has data showing a steady decline in the proportion of centers in the state with just one star—from almost 40 percent the first year to less than 10 percent in 2004. At the top of the scale, the percentage of centers with four-star licenses has quintupled, from about 6 percent to 30 percent over those years.
“I think we have really seen a tremendous growth in high-quality programs—those with four and five stars,” Ms. Russell said. “We have seen gains in education of the workforce and a drop in [staff] turnover as well.
“Quality matters to parents, children, and teachers who work every day in those settings.”
Vol. 24, Issue 22, Page 17
Bush’s High School Agenda Faces Obstacles
EDWEEK.ORG
Published: February 9, 2005
Many Lawmakers May Resist Proposal for Increased Testing
By Erik W. Robelen
Washington
A cornerstone of President Bush’s second-term agenda for education—imposing greater accountability in high schools through more testing—appears likely to face serious political and practical challenges that some observers argue could imperil the plan.
Mr. Bush first announced the plan for extra testing during his 2004 campaign. Since his re-election, he has made clear that this and other aspects of his high school agenda remain a high priority.
See Also
See the accompanying item, “Table: President’s High School Agenda.”
And yet, early signals suggest the president may have a tough time marshaling the kind of broad, bipartisan support he achieved early in his first term with the No Child Left Behind Act.
Some leading Democrats appear skeptical of Mr. Bush’s plans, citing their frustration with education funding levels they deem inadequate to meet the current demands of federal law.
“This proposal for high school, regardless of what merits it might or might not have, will encounter stiff resistance in Congress and in the country until President Bush fulfills the commitments that have already been made to our public schools,” Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement last month. “Adding new mandates while schools lack the resources to meet the current demands will not help schools.”
President Bush shakes hands with members of Congress after his Feb. 2 State of the Union Address, in which he cited his accountability plan for high schools.
—Luke Frazza/AP/Pool
The resistance may not be solely partisan. Some conservative Republicans who were not big fans of the No Child Left Behind law to begin with may balk at more federal mandates. Even key GOP leaders in Congress on education, while not saying they’re opposed to the high school agenda, haven’t exactly warmly embraced the idea.
Beyond the political issues lie other potential barriers.
For one, since most high schools don’t receive federal aid under Title I—the flagship program for disadvantaged students under the No Child Left Behind Act—more testing would not necessarily lead to the kind of accountability the president wants.
Currently, schools that don’t receive Title I aid are not subject to the law’s specific consequences for low-performing schools, such as allowing students to transfer to a higher-performing public school or get free tutoring.
The Department of Education declined to comment for this story.
A ‘Plausible’ Goal?
President Bush made improving high schools a key idea in his re-election bid. He often touted the No Child Left Behind Act—a signature achievement of his first four years that overhauled the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—and vowed to bring a greater emphasis to high schools in his second term.
Last month, he reiterated that plan and offered more details, proposing to target $1.5 billion to his new high school initiative. Some $250 million of that would be reserved for helping states expand high school testing, and $1.2 billion would help states hold high schools accountable and intervene with students not learning at grade level. ("Bush Promotes Plan for High School Tests," Jan. 19, 2005.)
The White House hinted that it would divert funds from existing Department of Education programs to pay for at least part—and possibly all—of the high school plans. Further details were expected this week when Mr. Bush unveils his budget request for fiscal 2006, though there’s widespread speculation that much of the money would come from the agency’s politically popular vocational education programs.
“[W]e need to be sure that high school students are learning every year,” the president said at J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Va., on Jan. 12. “Listen, I’ve heard every excuse in the book not to test. My answer is, how do you know if a child is learning if you don’t test.”
The No Child Left Behind law requires all public schools to test students annually in grades 3-8 in reading and mathematics, and once in high school. The new plan would call for testing in both subjects in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades. Administration aides have said the tests would be phased in, and likely wouldn’t begin until the 2009-10 school year.
The vast majority of states do not now administer statewide English and math tests each year in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, according to data gathered by the Education Week Research Center.
Thomas E. Mann, an expert on politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said he expects Mr. Bush’s testing plan to face an uphill struggle on Capitol Hill, with resistance not just from Democrats, who may see little to gain in cooperating, but also from some Republicans.
“I think in general, they are not going to be thrilled with this,” he said of GOP lawmakers.
At the same time, Mr. Mann said no one should write off the president’s initiative.
“Among his very ambitious items, this is one of the more plausible and doable, certainly compared to Social Security reform, tax reform, reducing the deficit in half, establishing democracy in the Middle East,” he said.
“There’s going to be more pressure for changes in No Child Left Behind, as opposed to extending it to more grades,” predicted Joel Packer, a senior lobbyist with the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union and a group that frequently criticizes the federal law.
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 100 conservative House members, said at a January press briefing that he wanted to “reverse the expanding federal role in primary and secondary education, which conservatives believe is a state and local function,” according to the Associated Press.
Money alone could be a big obstacle for Mr. Bush. Last year, given tight fiscal constraints, Congress showed little appetite for some of the president’s initiatives. Lawmakers, for example, rejected his plan to provide enhanced Pell Grants for college to needy students who pursue a rigorous high school curriculum. Congress also chopped his $100 million request for the Striving Readers initiative—which seeks to help struggling middle and high school readers—to $25 million.
For fiscal 2006, President Bush has said he wants $200 million for Striving Readers and $250 million for the new high school testing, among other items.
But without a significant increase in overall Education Department funding—and one is not expected in his 2006 request—getting federal lawmakers to reserve $250 million for high school tests won’t be easy.
Still, some analysts suggest the administration may have one persuasive factor in its favor: the new secretary of education, Margaret Spellings. Formerly the president’s top domestic-policy aide, she’s considered to possess the political savvy and good relationships with lawmakers that could help the fate of the testing plans on Capitol Hill.
The Republican leaders of the House and Senate education committees seemed cautious when asked last month about the president’s new testing plans.
“This proposal will spark a healthy debate in the United States Congress,” Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement.
Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the new chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in an interview that he has many questions about the plan.
“How do we institute it, how do we do it?” he said. But he said he was open to the idea.
“It may have to be incremental; it may take a little while to get imposed,” Sen. Enzi said. “I could be supportive of two more years of testing. We need to make sure that it’s put in at the proper stage, though.”
‘Nourish Them Now’
Some education leaders question the value of still more testing, even while welcoming Mr. Bush’s attention to high schools.
“I have a whole plethora of statistics that already tell us that 9th and 10th graders have a number of problems,” said Gerald M. Tirozzi, the executive director of the Reston, Va.-based National Association of Secondary School Principals, who was an assistant secretary of education during the Clinton administration. “We need to nourish them now and address problems. Why spend all that new money on testing?”
Edgar B. Hatrick, the superintendent of the 45,000-student Loudoun County school district in Virginia, said he would like to see the president “work on refining No Child Left Behind and its testing requirements” before expanding the demands in high school. He also said the law needed to be better funded before Congress mandates more tests.
Peter McWalters, Rhode Island’s education commissioner, said he’s a strong supporter of testing tied to accountability, but he questioned the need for the extra high school assessments.
“I have what I need to know a school is not effective or needs intervention,” said Mr. McWalters, whose state currently has statewide high school assessments for reading and math only in 11th grade. “The issue of more testing is more useful testing at the student level.”
Mr. McWalters said that what’s needed are the kind of local tests that closely gauge the progress of individual students and provide speedy feedback for educators to intervene, something his state is now working on with some districts.
Another issue is whether more high school testing would be reliable for judging schools. Several experts said teenagers may not give such tests their all unless the tests are linked to graduation or college admissions.
“A lot of kids, they’re not going to take it seriously,” said William J. Erpenbach, an education consultant based in Madison, Wis. “Anything connected with state testing programs, they could care less.”
Furthermore, while President Bush sees the expanded testing as linked to accountability, under current law most high schools would not face the core consequences for low performance spelled out in the No Child Left Behind Act. That’s largely because most school districts, with limited Title I funds, usually first target the aid to elementary and middle schools. Indeed, several superintendents interviewed for this story said none of their high schools receives Title I aid.
At a December forum at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, a White House aide said Mr. Bush envisions the extra tests counting for accountability purposes under the law.
“We’ll have to work with Congress [on] … exactly how we might want to engage some of those consequences at the high school level to go beyond those schools that receive Title I dollars,” said David Dunn, who has since become Secretary Spellings’ chief of staff in the Education Department.
Vol. 24, Issue 22, Pages 22,24
My Account
Log Out
Advertisement
“Bush Plan Worries the Voc. Ed. Community,” January 26, 2005.
“Calls for Revamping High Schools Intensify,” January 26, 2005.
“Bush Promotes Plan for High School Tests,” January 19, 2005.
“Report: High Schools Must Demand More,” January 5, 2005.
“Governors Urge High School Reform as a Top Priority,” November 24, 2004.
“Bush’s School Agenda Will Get a 2nd Term,” November 10, 2004.
“Bush Test Proposal for High Schoolers Joins Wider Trend,” September 15, 2004.
“Bush to Seek Accountability in High School,” September 8, 2004.
For background, previous stories, and Web links, read High School Reform.
Read a fact sheet on President Bush's high school initiatives, from The White House.
View the Alliance for Excellent Education's response to President Bush's high school proposal. See also a statement from the National Association of Secondary School Principals on the subject.
© 2005 Editorial Projects in Education
Published: February 9, 2005
Many Lawmakers May Resist Proposal for Increased Testing
By Erik W. Robelen
Washington
A cornerstone of President Bush’s second-term agenda for education—imposing greater accountability in high schools through more testing—appears likely to face serious political and practical challenges that some observers argue could imperil the plan.
Mr. Bush first announced the plan for extra testing during his 2004 campaign. Since his re-election, he has made clear that this and other aspects of his high school agenda remain a high priority.
See Also
See the accompanying item, “Table: President’s High School Agenda.”
And yet, early signals suggest the president may have a tough time marshaling the kind of broad, bipartisan support he achieved early in his first term with the No Child Left Behind Act.
Some leading Democrats appear skeptical of Mr. Bush’s plans, citing their frustration with education funding levels they deem inadequate to meet the current demands of federal law.
“This proposal for high school, regardless of what merits it might or might not have, will encounter stiff resistance in Congress and in the country until President Bush fulfills the commitments that have already been made to our public schools,” Rep. George Miller of California, the top Democrat on the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement last month. “Adding new mandates while schools lack the resources to meet the current demands will not help schools.”
President Bush shakes hands with members of Congress after his Feb. 2 State of the Union Address, in which he cited his accountability plan for high schools.
—Luke Frazza/AP/Pool
The resistance may not be solely partisan. Some conservative Republicans who were not big fans of the No Child Left Behind law to begin with may balk at more federal mandates. Even key GOP leaders in Congress on education, while not saying they’re opposed to the high school agenda, haven’t exactly warmly embraced the idea.
Beyond the political issues lie other potential barriers.
For one, since most high schools don’t receive federal aid under Title I—the flagship program for disadvantaged students under the No Child Left Behind Act—more testing would not necessarily lead to the kind of accountability the president wants.
Currently, schools that don’t receive Title I aid are not subject to the law’s specific consequences for low-performing schools, such as allowing students to transfer to a higher-performing public school or get free tutoring.
The Department of Education declined to comment for this story.
A ‘Plausible’ Goal?
President Bush made improving high schools a key idea in his re-election bid. He often touted the No Child Left Behind Act—a signature achievement of his first four years that overhauled the Elementary and Secondary Education Act—and vowed to bring a greater emphasis to high schools in his second term.
Last month, he reiterated that plan and offered more details, proposing to target $1.5 billion to his new high school initiative. Some $250 million of that would be reserved for helping states expand high school testing, and $1.2 billion would help states hold high schools accountable and intervene with students not learning at grade level. ("Bush Promotes Plan for High School Tests," Jan. 19, 2005.)
The White House hinted that it would divert funds from existing Department of Education programs to pay for at least part—and possibly all—of the high school plans. Further details were expected this week when Mr. Bush unveils his budget request for fiscal 2006, though there’s widespread speculation that much of the money would come from the agency’s politically popular vocational education programs.
“[W]e need to be sure that high school students are learning every year,” the president said at J.E.B. Stuart High School in Falls Church, Va., on Jan. 12. “Listen, I’ve heard every excuse in the book not to test. My answer is, how do you know if a child is learning if you don’t test.”
The No Child Left Behind law requires all public schools to test students annually in grades 3-8 in reading and mathematics, and once in high school. The new plan would call for testing in both subjects in the 9th, 10th, and 11th grades. Administration aides have said the tests would be phased in, and likely wouldn’t begin until the 2009-10 school year.
The vast majority of states do not now administer statewide English and math tests each year in 9th, 10th, and 11th grades, according to data gathered by the Education Week Research Center.
Thomas E. Mann, an expert on politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said he expects Mr. Bush’s testing plan to face an uphill struggle on Capitol Hill, with resistance not just from Democrats, who may see little to gain in cooperating, but also from some Republicans.
“I think in general, they are not going to be thrilled with this,” he said of GOP lawmakers.
At the same time, Mr. Mann said no one should write off the president’s initiative.
“Among his very ambitious items, this is one of the more plausible and doable, certainly compared to Social Security reform, tax reform, reducing the deficit in half, establishing democracy in the Middle East,” he said.
“There’s going to be more pressure for changes in No Child Left Behind, as opposed to extending it to more grades,” predicted Joel Packer, a senior lobbyist with the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union and a group that frequently criticizes the federal law.
Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, the chairman of the Republican Study Committee, a group of more than 100 conservative House members, said at a January press briefing that he wanted to “reverse the expanding federal role in primary and secondary education, which conservatives believe is a state and local function,” according to the Associated Press.
Money alone could be a big obstacle for Mr. Bush. Last year, given tight fiscal constraints, Congress showed little appetite for some of the president’s initiatives. Lawmakers, for example, rejected his plan to provide enhanced Pell Grants for college to needy students who pursue a rigorous high school curriculum. Congress also chopped his $100 million request for the Striving Readers initiative—which seeks to help struggling middle and high school readers—to $25 million.
For fiscal 2006, President Bush has said he wants $200 million for Striving Readers and $250 million for the new high school testing, among other items.
But without a significant increase in overall Education Department funding—and one is not expected in his 2006 request—getting federal lawmakers to reserve $250 million for high school tests won’t be easy.
Still, some analysts suggest the administration may have one persuasive factor in its favor: the new secretary of education, Margaret Spellings. Formerly the president’s top domestic-policy aide, she’s considered to possess the political savvy and good relationships with lawmakers that could help the fate of the testing plans on Capitol Hill.
The Republican leaders of the House and Senate education committees seemed cautious when asked last month about the president’s new testing plans.
“This proposal will spark a healthy debate in the United States Congress,” Rep. John A. Boehner of Ohio, the chairman of the House Education and the Workforce Committee, said in a statement.
Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming, the new chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, said in an interview that he has many questions about the plan.
“How do we institute it, how do we do it?” he said. But he said he was open to the idea.
“It may have to be incremental; it may take a little while to get imposed,” Sen. Enzi said. “I could be supportive of two more years of testing. We need to make sure that it’s put in at the proper stage, though.”
‘Nourish Them Now’
Some education leaders question the value of still more testing, even while welcoming Mr. Bush’s attention to high schools.
“I have a whole plethora of statistics that already tell us that 9th and 10th graders have a number of problems,” said Gerald M. Tirozzi, the executive director of the Reston, Va.-based National Association of Secondary School Principals, who was an assistant secretary of education during the Clinton administration. “We need to nourish them now and address problems. Why spend all that new money on testing?”
Edgar B. Hatrick, the superintendent of the 45,000-student Loudoun County school district in Virginia, said he would like to see the president “work on refining No Child Left Behind and its testing requirements” before expanding the demands in high school. He also said the law needed to be better funded before Congress mandates more tests.
Peter McWalters, Rhode Island’s education commissioner, said he’s a strong supporter of testing tied to accountability, but he questioned the need for the extra high school assessments.
“I have what I need to know a school is not effective or needs intervention,” said Mr. McWalters, whose state currently has statewide high school assessments for reading and math only in 11th grade. “The issue of more testing is more useful testing at the student level.”
Mr. McWalters said that what’s needed are the kind of local tests that closely gauge the progress of individual students and provide speedy feedback for educators to intervene, something his state is now working on with some districts.
Another issue is whether more high school testing would be reliable for judging schools. Several experts said teenagers may not give such tests their all unless the tests are linked to graduation or college admissions.
“A lot of kids, they’re not going to take it seriously,” said William J. Erpenbach, an education consultant based in Madison, Wis. “Anything connected with state testing programs, they could care less.”
Furthermore, while President Bush sees the expanded testing as linked to accountability, under current law most high schools would not face the core consequences for low performance spelled out in the No Child Left Behind Act. That’s largely because most school districts, with limited Title I funds, usually first target the aid to elementary and middle schools. Indeed, several superintendents interviewed for this story said none of their high schools receives Title I aid.
At a December forum at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, a White House aide said Mr. Bush envisions the extra tests counting for accountability purposes under the law.
“We’ll have to work with Congress [on] … exactly how we might want to engage some of those consequences at the high school level to go beyond those schools that receive Title I dollars,” said David Dunn, who has since become Secretary Spellings’ chief of staff in the Education Department.
Vol. 24, Issue 22, Pages 22,24
My Account
Log Out
Advertisement
“Bush Plan Worries the Voc. Ed. Community,” January 26, 2005.
“Calls for Revamping High Schools Intensify,” January 26, 2005.
“Bush Promotes Plan for High School Tests,” January 19, 2005.
“Report: High Schools Must Demand More,” January 5, 2005.
“Governors Urge High School Reform as a Top Priority,” November 24, 2004.
“Bush’s School Agenda Will Get a 2nd Term,” November 10, 2004.
“Bush Test Proposal for High Schoolers Joins Wider Trend,” September 15, 2004.
“Bush to Seek Accountability in High School,” September 8, 2004.
For background, previous stories, and Web links, read High School Reform.
Read a fact sheet on President Bush's high school initiatives, from The White House.
View the Alliance for Excellent Education's response to President Bush's high school proposal. See also a statement from the National Association of Secondary School Principals on the subject.
© 2005 Editorial Projects in Education
Battle Lines Forming on College Admission Law
79th LEGISLATURE
Bills range from repeal to tweaking of top 10 percent rule.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth doesn't mince words regarding a law that entitles students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes in Texas to attend the public university of their choice:
"I'm for repeal."
The San Antonio Republican filed a bill last week that would do just that. Thirteen other like-minded senators have signed on. A competing bill filed by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, would preserve the automatic admission law but stiffen the high school curriculum requirements for students accepted under its provisions. West has lined up support from 12 other senators.
Neither side enjoys enough legislative firepower at this juncture to guarantee that its bill will pass. But the stage is set for a vigorous debate and perhaps for a compromise. Two years ago, West successfully filibustered Wentworth's effort to limit the number of students admitted under the top 10 percent law.
The law was enacted in 1997 after a court case involving the University of Texas resulted in a ban on affirmative action in admission to the state's public colleges and universities. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that race and ethnicity could be used as factors in admission.
In Wentworth's view, that ruling eliminated the need for the top 10 percent law. What's more, he argues, it is unfair to decide admission on one factor.
"What we need to do is unhandcuff admissions officers so they can consider the whole person," he said Tuesday.
Supporters of the top 10 percent law say it has helped diversify the state's two public flagship campuses, UT and Texas A&M University. They say it has broadened opportunities not only for blacks and Hispanics, but also for white students from rural areas. And they say there's nothing wrong with using more than one tool to achieve diversity.
"The top 10 percent law has worked well in Texas," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.
The law's practical application is limited mainly to UT and A&M. Most of the state's other public colleges and universities open their doors to virtually anyone who applies.
Top 10 percent students make up a growing portion of the student bodies at the two flagships.
Sixty-seven percent of the students from Texas who were admitted to UT in the fall of 2004 gained admission under the law, UT President Larry Faulkner said. Applications for fall 2005 admission are up about 9 percent, and so the proportion of top 10 percent students is also likely to rise, he said. Separately, UT uses race and ethnicity as factors in admissions.
Faulkner would like to see the automatic admission law modified so that his university would have to admit no more than 50 percent or 60 percent of its freshmen from Texas on the basis of class rank.
At A&M, 58 percent of Texas residents admitted in fall 2004 were top 10 percent graduates. The school is not using affirmative action, although administrators have been visiting urban schools and other under-represented areas in an effort to drum up applicants.
"We're going to live with the policy decision that the Legislature makes about top 10 percent," said Stanton Calvert, the A&M System's vice chancellor for governmental relations. "We believe we can make it work whatever decision they make."
A few other bills concerning automatic admission also have been filed. State Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, authored a measure mirroring Wentworth's proposal. Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, has crafted a middle-ground offering that would limit automatic admission to the top 5 percent, starting in the 2009-10 school year.
Other key elected officials are beginning to weigh in as well. Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that he is open to modifying the law but opposed to repealing it.
"It's the only way a student at Palmer High School can go to UT-Austin," he said, referring to a small-town school in his district.
House Speaker Tom Craddick indicated that he would support repeal or a cap of some sort when he addressed UT and A&M representatives at the traditional "orange and maroon" lobbying day last week, UT spokesman Don Hale said.
Both Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Gov. Rick Perry have said the automatic admission law is causing too many well-qualified students to enroll in out-of-state schools because they can't get into UT or A&M.
Such students often hail from competitive high schools, such as Westlake in the Eanes school district and Alamo Heights in San Antonio.
When Meagan Metcalf was attending high school in Plano, she knew several students whose families moved to less competitive school districts for the sole purpose of ensuring a high class rank and therefore automatic admission to the flagships.
"I also know lots of people who couldn't get into UT and A&M who were very good students, probably better than some of the students from Podunk who got in," said Metcalf, 21, a senior advertising major at UT.
But Michael Johnston, a 22-year-old senior hoping to attend medical school, said current law provides an important measure of certainty for budding scholars: "It allows those who struggled to be in the top 10 percent a way of getting into school."
Find this article at: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/02/9TOP10.html
Bills range from repeal to tweaking of top 10 percent rule.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
State Sen. Jeff Wentworth doesn't mince words regarding a law that entitles students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their high school classes in Texas to attend the public university of their choice:
"I'm for repeal."
The San Antonio Republican filed a bill last week that would do just that. Thirteen other like-minded senators have signed on. A competing bill filed by Sen. Royce West, D-Dallas, would preserve the automatic admission law but stiffen the high school curriculum requirements for students accepted under its provisions. West has lined up support from 12 other senators.
Neither side enjoys enough legislative firepower at this juncture to guarantee that its bill will pass. But the stage is set for a vigorous debate and perhaps for a compromise. Two years ago, West successfully filibustered Wentworth's effort to limit the number of students admitted under the top 10 percent law.
The law was enacted in 1997 after a court case involving the University of Texas resulted in a ban on affirmative action in admission to the state's public colleges and universities. In 2003, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a separate case that race and ethnicity could be used as factors in admission.
In Wentworth's view, that ruling eliminated the need for the top 10 percent law. What's more, he argues, it is unfair to decide admission on one factor.
"What we need to do is unhandcuff admissions officers so they can consider the whole person," he said Tuesday.
Supporters of the top 10 percent law say it has helped diversify the state's two public flagship campuses, UT and Texas A&M University. They say it has broadened opportunities not only for blacks and Hispanics, but also for white students from rural areas. And they say there's nothing wrong with using more than one tool to achieve diversity.
"The top 10 percent law has worked well in Texas," said state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso.
The law's practical application is limited mainly to UT and A&M. Most of the state's other public colleges and universities open their doors to virtually anyone who applies.
Top 10 percent students make up a growing portion of the student bodies at the two flagships.
Sixty-seven percent of the students from Texas who were admitted to UT in the fall of 2004 gained admission under the law, UT President Larry Faulkner said. Applications for fall 2005 admission are up about 9 percent, and so the proportion of top 10 percent students is also likely to rise, he said. Separately, UT uses race and ethnicity as factors in admissions.
Faulkner would like to see the automatic admission law modified so that his university would have to admit no more than 50 percent or 60 percent of its freshmen from Texas on the basis of class rank.
At A&M, 58 percent of Texas residents admitted in fall 2004 were top 10 percent graduates. The school is not using affirmative action, although administrators have been visiting urban schools and other under-represented areas in an effort to drum up applicants.
"We're going to live with the policy decision that the Legislature makes about top 10 percent," said Stanton Calvert, the A&M System's vice chancellor for governmental relations. "We believe we can make it work whatever decision they make."
A few other bills concerning automatic admission also have been filed. State Rep. Beverly Woolley, R-Houston, authored a measure mirroring Wentworth's proposal. Rep. Tony Goolsby, R-Dallas, has crafted a middle-ground offering that would limit automatic admission to the top 5 percent, starting in the 2009-10 school year.
Other key elected officials are beginning to weigh in as well. Rep. Jim Pitts, R-Waxahachie, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that he is open to modifying the law but opposed to repealing it.
"It's the only way a student at Palmer High School can go to UT-Austin," he said, referring to a small-town school in his district.
House Speaker Tom Craddick indicated that he would support repeal or a cap of some sort when he addressed UT and A&M representatives at the traditional "orange and maroon" lobbying day last week, UT spokesman Don Hale said.
Both Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Gov. Rick Perry have said the automatic admission law is causing too many well-qualified students to enroll in out-of-state schools because they can't get into UT or A&M.
Such students often hail from competitive high schools, such as Westlake in the Eanes school district and Alamo Heights in San Antonio.
When Meagan Metcalf was attending high school in Plano, she knew several students whose families moved to less competitive school districts for the sole purpose of ensuring a high class rank and therefore automatic admission to the flagships.
"I also know lots of people who couldn't get into UT and A&M who were very good students, probably better than some of the students from Podunk who got in," said Metcalf, 21, a senior advertising major at UT.
But Michael Johnston, a 22-year-old senior hoping to attend medical school, said current law provides an important measure of certainty for budding scholars: "It allows those who struggled to be in the top 10 percent a way of getting into school."
Find this article at: http://www.statesman.com/news/content/shared/tx/legislature/stories/02/9TOP10.html
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
School Finance Plan's Equity Hit
02/08/2005
Jenny LaCoste-Caputo
Express-News Staff Writer
The school finance plan House Republican leaders unveiled last week would result in a windfall for a handful of Texas school districts while the majority of districts would have to settle for a modest boost in spending that barely keeps up with inflation.
The House Public Education committee begins debate today on the plan, which local school leaders have criticized, claiming it would widen the spending gap between rich and poor students.
"The question I have is, how equitable is this?" said John Folks, superintendent for Northside School District. "They're still not putting enough money into the system. The more money you put in, the more equity we might achieve."
In Bexar County, property-rich Alamo Heights School District would get the biggest spending increase.
Per-pupil spending would jump more than 8 percent there, while Bexar County's poorer districts, among them Edgewood and San Antonio, would see a 3 percent bump, according to legislative calculations attached to the bill.
Highland Park, an affluent Dallas enclave, would get a 52 percent funding increase, to $8,948 per student from $5,883, according to the proposal's funding formula.
The 35 top-ranked districts — those slated to receive the biggest spending boosts — fall into the state's property-wealthy category.
They include Seminole, near Midland, which would get a 21 percent increase in per-student spending, and Carthage in East Texas and Calhoun County on the coast near Corpus Christi, which both would see more than a 13 percent bump.
"It is very evident that (the plan) is very rich on property tax relief," said Richard Middleton, superintendent for North East School District. "I think it's a retreat from equity."
The bill, introduced by House Education Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, would reduce local property taxes by as much as a third and increase state education spending by $1.5 billion.
It also would sharply scale back the state's school finance system — dubbed "Robin Hood" by critics — in which property-rich districts send money back to the state to help fund property-poor districts.
When Grusendorf, R-Arlington, unveiled the plan Thursday, he called it the state's most equitable ever because the state would pay a greater share of the funding so districts would rely less on local property taxes.
But while every school district would see an increase in funding, the biggest boosts would go to wealthy districts.
"I know everybody complains about Robin Hood, but if you don't have a Robin Hood situation you have a Prince John and Sheriff of Nottingham situation," said John Walch, assistant superintendent for Edgewood School District. "Money should be based on student needs, not on how nice their neighborhoods are."
The proposal calls for reducing local property taxes that fund schools from a current cap of $1.50 per $100 property valuation to $1 per $100 valuation. School districts could raise an additional 10 cents for local use at a rate of 2 cents per year.
The $1.5 billion in state funding would provide increases ranging from 3 percent to 8 percent for most districts.
Alamo Heights Superintendent Jerry Christian said he likes the lawmakers' approach conceptually, because as local property taxes rise, the district would see some of the benefit from those taxes.
The challenge, Christian said, is to reach a reasonable standard of education equity across rich and poor districts.
"We want to make sure it helps not just us, but everyone," Christian said. "I'm encouraged to see the legislators are being creative."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
jcaputo@express-news.net
Staff Writer Jeanne Russell contributed to this report.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA020805.01A.finance_plan.87542942.html
Jenny LaCoste-Caputo
Express-News Staff Writer
The school finance plan House Republican leaders unveiled last week would result in a windfall for a handful of Texas school districts while the majority of districts would have to settle for a modest boost in spending that barely keeps up with inflation.
The House Public Education committee begins debate today on the plan, which local school leaders have criticized, claiming it would widen the spending gap between rich and poor students.
"The question I have is, how equitable is this?" said John Folks, superintendent for Northside School District. "They're still not putting enough money into the system. The more money you put in, the more equity we might achieve."
In Bexar County, property-rich Alamo Heights School District would get the biggest spending increase.
Per-pupil spending would jump more than 8 percent there, while Bexar County's poorer districts, among them Edgewood and San Antonio, would see a 3 percent bump, according to legislative calculations attached to the bill.
Highland Park, an affluent Dallas enclave, would get a 52 percent funding increase, to $8,948 per student from $5,883, according to the proposal's funding formula.
The 35 top-ranked districts — those slated to receive the biggest spending boosts — fall into the state's property-wealthy category.
They include Seminole, near Midland, which would get a 21 percent increase in per-student spending, and Carthage in East Texas and Calhoun County on the coast near Corpus Christi, which both would see more than a 13 percent bump.
"It is very evident that (the plan) is very rich on property tax relief," said Richard Middleton, superintendent for North East School District. "I think it's a retreat from equity."
The bill, introduced by House Education Committee Chairman Kent Grusendorf, would reduce local property taxes by as much as a third and increase state education spending by $1.5 billion.
It also would sharply scale back the state's school finance system — dubbed "Robin Hood" by critics — in which property-rich districts send money back to the state to help fund property-poor districts.
When Grusendorf, R-Arlington, unveiled the plan Thursday, he called it the state's most equitable ever because the state would pay a greater share of the funding so districts would rely less on local property taxes.
But while every school district would see an increase in funding, the biggest boosts would go to wealthy districts.
"I know everybody complains about Robin Hood, but if you don't have a Robin Hood situation you have a Prince John and Sheriff of Nottingham situation," said John Walch, assistant superintendent for Edgewood School District. "Money should be based on student needs, not on how nice their neighborhoods are."
The proposal calls for reducing local property taxes that fund schools from a current cap of $1.50 per $100 property valuation to $1 per $100 valuation. School districts could raise an additional 10 cents for local use at a rate of 2 cents per year.
The $1.5 billion in state funding would provide increases ranging from 3 percent to 8 percent for most districts.
Alamo Heights Superintendent Jerry Christian said he likes the lawmakers' approach conceptually, because as local property taxes rise, the district would see some of the benefit from those taxes.
The challenge, Christian said, is to reach a reasonable standard of education equity across rich and poor districts.
"We want to make sure it helps not just us, but everyone," Christian said. "I'm encouraged to see the legislators are being creative."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
jcaputo@express-news.net
Staff Writer Jeanne Russell contributed to this report.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Online at: http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA020805.01A.finance_plan.87542942.html
Testing Instead of Learning
John Young, WACO TRIBUNE-HERALD
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Of all people, surely math teachers would be most pleased with Texas' "accountability" system. On some campuses with low math scores, it becomes an obsession, with class time doubled and all sorts of activities keeping math on the front burner. Not surprisingly, test scores rise.
So I was surprised to hear from a 30-year veteran high school math teacher who agreed with a column about the overemphasis on standardized testing. He said that in his school district, juniors and seniors who failed exit-level math exams were pulled from other classes to "practice" for this month's Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills — TAKS.
"They are to be excused from all work in their classes during this time," he wrote. Now that's an education. Put everything aside for a single academic skill that students might or might not use later in life.
Math? Well, of course these students will need to add, subtract, divide, do percentages. They'll use those skills for life. But the exit-level TAKS involves much more, and that bothers this teacher.
After the basic-skills Texas Assessment of Academic Skills — TAAS — ran its course, lawmakers "raised the bar." But to what end? The teacher was blunt. "The root of the entire fiasco is the notion that all students can take high-level math and science courses.
"Twenty years ago students who could not add or multiply were in basic math classes. Now we find these same students in advanced algebra.
"I often fantasize that I am speaking to the Texas Legislature," he wrote. " 'The Emperor has no clothes on,' I tell them. Let's admit the truth that not all young students have the same capacity to learn difficult subjects. If this were true, this country would have a surplus of brain surgeons and a paucity of burger flippers."
Being realistic doesn't mean forfeiting a child's education, he says. His concerns are really a critique of one-size-fits all education, of standardization. This math teacher's words are an advisory that the whole of education is being lost to "accountability" for some children who really need to be inspired in any way by a broad-based exposure to the world of ideas, concepts, life skills and potential careers, while learning reading and math.
On that note: If anyone should benefit from Texas-style "accountability," it is children who lack basic skills. Right? Isn't handling it any other way "the soft bigotry of low expectations," as President Bush says? Not necessarily, says University of Texas associate professor Angela Valenzuela, author of "Leaving Children Behind."
"The problem here is that the testing system doubles as both an assessment and monitoring system — monitoring the behavior of the adults.
"Particularly in poor and minority schools that are subject to the 'gaze' of central office, numbers-based accountability manages the behavior of the adults in the system by pressuring them to perform. The rhetoric gives the impression that all children are finally being taught. The reality is that this often translates into dumbed-down, routinized, test-driven, ratings-focused pedagogy."
This doesn't factor in the time spent on testing and practice tests.
State Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, has authored a bill to launch an interim committee to examine the usefulness and impact of all of this. Do these tests really predict success in later grades or college? How much instructional time is being lost? What is the impact of the extra paper work on our teachers?
Is this truly the best education we can provide our students? "Not" I thought recently when a another school day was lost for a state-required "field test" of TAKS. It had no bearing on students' grades. Yes, education stopped dead, not to educate our children but so our the accountability machine could recalibrate itself.
Contact Young at jyoung@wacotrib.com.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/02/8young_edit.html
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Of all people, surely math teachers would be most pleased with Texas' "accountability" system. On some campuses with low math scores, it becomes an obsession, with class time doubled and all sorts of activities keeping math on the front burner. Not surprisingly, test scores rise.
So I was surprised to hear from a 30-year veteran high school math teacher who agreed with a column about the overemphasis on standardized testing. He said that in his school district, juniors and seniors who failed exit-level math exams were pulled from other classes to "practice" for this month's Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills — TAKS.
"They are to be excused from all work in their classes during this time," he wrote. Now that's an education. Put everything aside for a single academic skill that students might or might not use later in life.
Math? Well, of course these students will need to add, subtract, divide, do percentages. They'll use those skills for life. But the exit-level TAKS involves much more, and that bothers this teacher.
After the basic-skills Texas Assessment of Academic Skills — TAAS — ran its course, lawmakers "raised the bar." But to what end? The teacher was blunt. "The root of the entire fiasco is the notion that all students can take high-level math and science courses.
"Twenty years ago students who could not add or multiply were in basic math classes. Now we find these same students in advanced algebra.
"I often fantasize that I am speaking to the Texas Legislature," he wrote. " 'The Emperor has no clothes on,' I tell them. Let's admit the truth that not all young students have the same capacity to learn difficult subjects. If this were true, this country would have a surplus of brain surgeons and a paucity of burger flippers."
Being realistic doesn't mean forfeiting a child's education, he says. His concerns are really a critique of one-size-fits all education, of standardization. This math teacher's words are an advisory that the whole of education is being lost to "accountability" for some children who really need to be inspired in any way by a broad-based exposure to the world of ideas, concepts, life skills and potential careers, while learning reading and math.
On that note: If anyone should benefit from Texas-style "accountability," it is children who lack basic skills. Right? Isn't handling it any other way "the soft bigotry of low expectations," as President Bush says? Not necessarily, says University of Texas associate professor Angela Valenzuela, author of "Leaving Children Behind."
"The problem here is that the testing system doubles as both an assessment and monitoring system — monitoring the behavior of the adults.
"Particularly in poor and minority schools that are subject to the 'gaze' of central office, numbers-based accountability manages the behavior of the adults in the system by pressuring them to perform. The rhetoric gives the impression that all children are finally being taught. The reality is that this often translates into dumbed-down, routinized, test-driven, ratings-focused pedagogy."
This doesn't factor in the time spent on testing and practice tests.
State Sen. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, has authored a bill to launch an interim committee to examine the usefulness and impact of all of this. Do these tests really predict success in later grades or college? How much instructional time is being lost? What is the impact of the extra paper work on our teachers?
Is this truly the best education we can provide our students? "Not" I thought recently when a another school day was lost for a state-required "field test" of TAKS. It had no bearing on students' grades. Yes, education stopped dead, not to educate our children but so our the accountability machine could recalibrate itself.
Contact Young at jyoung@wacotrib.com.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/02/8young_edit.html
Low Expectations For Higher Education
EDITORIAL BOARD, AUSTIN AM-STATESMAN
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Simply put, this state's leadership is happily willing to allow higher education to slip into second- or even third-rate status.
Letting the flagships — the University of Texas and Texas A&M &mdash thrive with their endowments and tuition deregulation, but starving every other institution of higher learning, seems to be state policy. The prevailing attitude is to keep taxes among the lowest in the country — and damn the consequences.
This strategy is so short-sighted it is breathtaking. The consequences are right around the corner.
Low taxes are supposed to attract successful businesses, but eventually business and state leaders will realize that Texas' low level of educational attainment means a shortage of qualified workers. The level of education is universally connected to successful employment and a higher standard of living.
But that lesson is not getting through at the Governor's Mansion or the Capitol. The focus on primary and secondary education, which is vitally necessary, and low taxes is leaving higher education to fail. As an article by American-Statesman staff writers Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Laura Heinauer pointed out Sunday, higher education is underfunded and falling behind.
Texas has a serious problem. The number of Texans who enroll in college and the percentage of them who graduate lag behind national averages. As Sunday's article noted, only 13 percent of entering high school freshmen ever earn an associate's or bachelor's degree. That compares to the national average of 18 percent.
Not yet five years into its "Closing the Gaps" plan to add half a million more students to the state's colleges by 2015, the numbers are already falling behind projections, even with the population booming. Most educators know the long-term effect of having an undereducated population is more unemployment and higher poverty rates.
The obvious answer is for the state's leaders to bolster higher education now, not let it founder with too few resources. That's the only practical way for Texas to avoid more serious problems tomorrow. It is axiomatic that it will cost more to fix this problem later.
A successful higher education program doesn't begin the freshman year of college, or even in high school. One of the serious problems with this state's low college graduation rate is the large number of students who drop out or fail because they come to college unprepared.
Students will only succeed in college if they have a proper education from the first grade through the 12th. That's the first order of business.
But it's just as foolish to give them second -or third-rate educations once they are in college.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/02/8highered_edit.html
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
Simply put, this state's leadership is happily willing to allow higher education to slip into second- or even third-rate status.
Letting the flagships — the University of Texas and Texas A&M &mdash thrive with their endowments and tuition deregulation, but starving every other institution of higher learning, seems to be state policy. The prevailing attitude is to keep taxes among the lowest in the country — and damn the consequences.
This strategy is so short-sighted it is breathtaking. The consequences are right around the corner.
Low taxes are supposed to attract successful businesses, but eventually business and state leaders will realize that Texas' low level of educational attainment means a shortage of qualified workers. The level of education is universally connected to successful employment and a higher standard of living.
But that lesson is not getting through at the Governor's Mansion or the Capitol. The focus on primary and secondary education, which is vitally necessary, and low taxes is leaving higher education to fail. As an article by American-Statesman staff writers Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Laura Heinauer pointed out Sunday, higher education is underfunded and falling behind.
Texas has a serious problem. The number of Texans who enroll in college and the percentage of them who graduate lag behind national averages. As Sunday's article noted, only 13 percent of entering high school freshmen ever earn an associate's or bachelor's degree. That compares to the national average of 18 percent.
Not yet five years into its "Closing the Gaps" plan to add half a million more students to the state's colleges by 2015, the numbers are already falling behind projections, even with the population booming. Most educators know the long-term effect of having an undereducated population is more unemployment and higher poverty rates.
The obvious answer is for the state's leaders to bolster higher education now, not let it founder with too few resources. That's the only practical way for Texas to avoid more serious problems tomorrow. It is axiomatic that it will cost more to fix this problem later.
A successful higher education program doesn't begin the freshman year of college, or even in high school. One of the serious problems with this state's low college graduation rate is the large number of students who drop out or fail because they come to college unprepared.
Students will only succeed in college if they have a proper education from the first grade through the 12th. That's the first order of business.
But it's just as foolish to give them second -or third-rate educations once they are in college.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/02/8highered_edit.html
Monday, February 07, 2005
Texas Lagging on College Goals
UT-San Antonio's growing enrollment, poor graduation rates illustrate a statewide challenge
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Laura Heinauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, February 6, 2005
SAN ANTONIO -- Laboratory space is in such short supply at the University of Texas at San Antonio that chemistry students often end up taking freshman labs two to three years after the lecture portion of the course.
Students at a recent lecture on molecular theory had to do without photocopied handouts on the topic because the department couldn't afford to produce them.
And come exam day, there will inevitably be students squatting in aisles since many desktops are broken.
This suburban campus on the edge of the Hill Country is a case study in what's wrong with public higher education in Texas: It's falling behind, underfunded and, in some cases, broken.
The state's college enrollment and graduation rates are well below the national average. For every 100 ninth-graders in Texas, 64 graduate from high school on time, and only 13 go on to earn an associate's degree within three years after high school or a bachelor's degree within six years. Nationwide, the number of ninth-graders eventually earning degrees is 18, about a third larger.
The quality of the state's higher education institutions is also a concern.
Just two public universities -- UT-Austin and Texas A&M University at College Station -- rank among the nation's leading research schools, which serve not only as centers of educational excellence but as engines of regional economic growth. California, by contrast, has six public universities in the top tier. UT-San Antonio, Texas Tech University, the University of Houston and other schools that aspire to that level aren't likely to get there for at least a couple of decades, if ever.
Community colleges, where more and more students enter higher education, are feeling the squeeze of declining state appropriations more acutely than their better-endowed four-year siblings. The five-campus North Harris Montgomery Community College District in East Texas, for example, can't afford to hire enough teachers to meet the demand for freshman English.
The shortcomings of higher education in Texas have not escaped official notice. But for the most part, the state has failed to act on those shortcomings.
In October 2000, the state's higher education agency adopted a plan to step up enrollment, graduation rates, quality and research. The plan, known as Closing the Gaps by 2015, is intended to bring Texas up to par with other states and to narrow the college-going differences between various groups within Texas. African Americans attend college at a slightly lower rate than whites, and Hispanic enrollment lags far behind. The goals were broadly endorsed by the state's political leadership.
But the plan was silent on the question of money, and the state's political leaders have largely failed to address that. It would cost billions of dollars to pay for the campus construction projects, additional faculty, student financial aid and other measures essential to achieving the plan's goals. Yet there has been no serious discussion about a bond issue or other methods of raising the money. California officials, in contrast, won voter approval last year for $2.3 billion in bonds for college construction projects.
Now, more than four years into the 15-year plan, it is clear that Texas is falling short of many of the goals.
Although the number of college students is increasing, it's not keeping pace with population growth. A particular concern is that Hispanics, whose population is growing the fastest, attend college at the lowest rate of any group. UT-San Antonio is an exception: Nearly half of its students are Hispanic.
If current trends continue, Texas will have 1.3 million people attending public or private colleges by 2015, and Hispanics will be sorely underrepresented. The state would need to have 1.6 million college students to achieve an enrollment rate similar to that of other large states, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Higher education not only exposes people to history, science, fine arts and the great books of civilization, but also puts bread on the table. A person with a college degree generally makes about twice as much money a year as someone with a high school education.
"Over a lifetime, a college graduate earns about $1 million more on average than someone with only a high school diploma," said Raymund Paredes, the state's commissioner of higher education.
State Demographer Steve Murdock sees a bleak future if current higher education trends go unchecked: declining household income, more poverty, more crime, higher incarceration rates, more people on food stamps. His projections show average household income declining by roughly $5,000 between 2000 and 2030, producing a ripple effect that would cost the state's economy many billions of dollars.
Yet the state's business community, with a few exceptions, has not sounded the alarm.
"If we have to look at new revenues, so be it. The fact is, higher education in general doesn't have a lot of advocates out there pounding on the table," said James Huffines, chairman of PlainsCapital Bank's Central and South Texas regions and chairman of the UT System Board of Regents. "We have to do a better job. But getting people to get out and advocate and stand up and take some hits and confront maybe some of their friends -- it's hard to do sometimes."
How the state addresses education will decide its future, said William Cunningham, a former UT System chancellor. "The political structure of Texas is going to have to decide if they want to support a first-class system of education," Cunningham said. "And if they do, they're going to have to be willing to provide the funds to make it happen."
But higher education institutions will be lucky to emerge from the current session of the Texas Legislature without seeing general appropriations reduced, as they were two years ago. Lawmakers are far more focused on public school finance, property taxes and child protection services.
Many college officials say even a hold-the-line budget would be tough to swallow. The officials are reluctant to raise tuition much in light of some fairly sizable increases imposed since 2003, when the Legislature cut general appropriations for higher education by $257 million and gave university governing boards tuition-setting authority that previously was reserved for lawmakers. Annual tuition and fees increased 37 percent from the 2003-04 school year to the current school year at UT-Austin, 23 percent at UT-San Antonio and 18 percent at Texas A&M University at College Station, according to the higher education coordinating board.
"Our problem is, every time the budget is kept flat, we're down 7 percent," said UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof, explaining the combined effect of enrollment growth and inflation. "If you're UT-San Antonio, now the second-largest institution in our system -- 26,000 students, growing 5 to 10 percent a year -- you're out of everything. You're out of professors; you're out of space. You name the category; they don't have enough of them to service the population that they have."
Springing from a leather chair in his fourth-floor office, UT-San Antonio President Ricardo Romo was happy to pull out the numbers.
The student body has grown by about half in the past 10 years. The school has one of the highest student-to-faculty ratios in the state, 24 to 1. A 1,000-bed housing complex filled up immediately when it opened in the fall, and 700 additional beds are planned. The university's master plan calls for the construction of one building a year to keep up with enrollment.
"Our classrooms are in use 50 hours a week," Romo said. "We're busting at the seams." UT-San Antonio has other problems as well. Many of its students are ill-prepared for college-level work, and only about 35 percent of freshmen who started in 1997 earned a degree here or at another state school within six years. Financial aid for students falls $50 million short of the need, causing some to spend too much time working and too little time studying, and others drop out altogether.
Despite these daunting challenges, Romo hopes to propel the school into the top tier of American research universities by the end of the decade by hiring hundreds of faculty members and dramatically expanding research. His goal, while laudable, is unrealistic in light of heavy teaching loads, modest fund raising and severe space shortages, according to a consultant's report commissioned by the UT System. What's more, the report says, such a torrid hiring pace would make it difficult to maintain quality.
Romo hired 75 faculty members last year but acknowledges that such a rate might not be sustainable. And he can't always hire the professors he needs. Not one of last year's crop, for example, was a biologist, even though many biology classes are packed with upwards of 200 students. There is simply no space for the research laboratories and offices that new biology professors would need. As Romo put it: "They won't come if you don't have labs."
The school is addressing that problem with an $84 million bioscience and engineering building that is expected to be completed late this summer or in early fall. But because administrators consider the need for faculty to be most urgent, the building won't do much to ease the shortage of chemistry and biology labs for students. Currently, some of the labs used for teaching run until 11:30 at night, and others are scheduled for Saturdays.
Bernard Powell, a chemistry professor, says these problems need to be addressed before worrying about top-tier status. "I'd like to be able to set up a class without worrying about copy costs," he said.
UT-San Antonio is also struggling to shed its commuter-school image. It's made some progress, thanks to the enrollment growth and the additional on-campus housing.
The growth here is in part a result of efforts to reduce the size of the student body at the sister campus in Austin. But a bigger factor is location. Students from South Texas like this campus because it's close to home.
Claudia Cortez, a 22-year-old junior from Brownsville, had planned to transfer to the Austin campus but decided to stay here to get her degree in communications and public relations.
In her time at UT-San Antonio, she says, the school's stature seems to have grown along with its population. She pointed to last year's appearance in the NCAA basketball tournament as a turning point in the school's history. "There was school spirit, pride," she said. "Suddenly, it started to feel like any other four-year university."
Admission standards at UT-San Antonio are similar to those at many of the state's public colleges and universities: Virtually everyone who applies is accepted. The open-door policy here reflects not only administrators' desire to meet the goals in the state's higher education plan, but also to comply with the Legislature's mandate at the school's founding in 1969 to "serve the needs of the multicultural population of San Antonio, the South Texas region and Texas."
But there's a price for open access: Students who haven't mastered the basics in high school often find themselves struggling.
More than a third of freshmen here do not return for their sophomore year; most having been dismissed for poor academic performance. Peer mentoring, supplemental instruction and academic advising are being expanded in an effort to improve retention rates.
"People seem to be just getting by," said Martha Chichil, a 24-year-old senior majoring in psychology. Chichil, who transferred to UT-San Antonio from California State University at Long Beach, says she is often surprised by the low level of college preparation some of her peers show.
"One girl was saying how in high school she didn't learn anything except how to take a test," Chichil said, relaying an online chat with classmates. "The people she was talking to were complaining about it, too. Only the scary thing was, they didn't spell 'too' correctly."
Paying for college is another strain. Students here get $129 million a year in grants and loans, but many still must work to make ends meet.
"I wouldn't be here without it," said William Taylor, a door-to-door salesman and Spanish major, referring to his $14,000 financial aid package. Some goes to the $5,300 annual tuition, but much of it goes to child support, rent and books.
With financial aid falling short of the need, a majority of students have jobs, and many work full time, said Rosalie Ambrosino, vice president for student affairs. And now that the state is looking to cut back on grants in favor of loans, the future is uncertain for many students here. That's especially true of Hispanic students, whose families are often uneasy about taking on debt.
"I'd like to see us expand the grant money because, realistically, if we do want to close the gap, we've got to meet them halfway," Romo said. "And, yes, we've got to go do the education part in which we go tell the parents, 'OK, but if he does get into need, let him borrow a little bit of money because he's going to get out and make a lot of money. And he can pay that back.' "
Selma Espericueta, a junior majoring in education, said it's important for students to keep the ultimate goal in mind: "to have a better life and job in the long run."
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
lheinauer@statesman.com; 445-3694
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/auto/epaper/editions/sunday/news_2450fc191764b033006f.html
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz and Laura Heinauer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, February 6, 2005
SAN ANTONIO -- Laboratory space is in such short supply at the University of Texas at San Antonio that chemistry students often end up taking freshman labs two to three years after the lecture portion of the course.
Students at a recent lecture on molecular theory had to do without photocopied handouts on the topic because the department couldn't afford to produce them.
And come exam day, there will inevitably be students squatting in aisles since many desktops are broken.
This suburban campus on the edge of the Hill Country is a case study in what's wrong with public higher education in Texas: It's falling behind, underfunded and, in some cases, broken.
The state's college enrollment and graduation rates are well below the national average. For every 100 ninth-graders in Texas, 64 graduate from high school on time, and only 13 go on to earn an associate's degree within three years after high school or a bachelor's degree within six years. Nationwide, the number of ninth-graders eventually earning degrees is 18, about a third larger.
The quality of the state's higher education institutions is also a concern.
Just two public universities -- UT-Austin and Texas A&M University at College Station -- rank among the nation's leading research schools, which serve not only as centers of educational excellence but as engines of regional economic growth. California, by contrast, has six public universities in the top tier. UT-San Antonio, Texas Tech University, the University of Houston and other schools that aspire to that level aren't likely to get there for at least a couple of decades, if ever.
Community colleges, where more and more students enter higher education, are feeling the squeeze of declining state appropriations more acutely than their better-endowed four-year siblings. The five-campus North Harris Montgomery Community College District in East Texas, for example, can't afford to hire enough teachers to meet the demand for freshman English.
The shortcomings of higher education in Texas have not escaped official notice. But for the most part, the state has failed to act on those shortcomings.
In October 2000, the state's higher education agency adopted a plan to step up enrollment, graduation rates, quality and research. The plan, known as Closing the Gaps by 2015, is intended to bring Texas up to par with other states and to narrow the college-going differences between various groups within Texas. African Americans attend college at a slightly lower rate than whites, and Hispanic enrollment lags far behind. The goals were broadly endorsed by the state's political leadership.
But the plan was silent on the question of money, and the state's political leaders have largely failed to address that. It would cost billions of dollars to pay for the campus construction projects, additional faculty, student financial aid and other measures essential to achieving the plan's goals. Yet there has been no serious discussion about a bond issue or other methods of raising the money. California officials, in contrast, won voter approval last year for $2.3 billion in bonds for college construction projects.
Now, more than four years into the 15-year plan, it is clear that Texas is falling short of many of the goals.
Although the number of college students is increasing, it's not keeping pace with population growth. A particular concern is that Hispanics, whose population is growing the fastest, attend college at the lowest rate of any group. UT-San Antonio is an exception: Nearly half of its students are Hispanic.
If current trends continue, Texas will have 1.3 million people attending public or private colleges by 2015, and Hispanics will be sorely underrepresented. The state would need to have 1.6 million college students to achieve an enrollment rate similar to that of other large states, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
Higher education not only exposes people to history, science, fine arts and the great books of civilization, but also puts bread on the table. A person with a college degree generally makes about twice as much money a year as someone with a high school education.
"Over a lifetime, a college graduate earns about $1 million more on average than someone with only a high school diploma," said Raymund Paredes, the state's commissioner of higher education.
State Demographer Steve Murdock sees a bleak future if current higher education trends go unchecked: declining household income, more poverty, more crime, higher incarceration rates, more people on food stamps. His projections show average household income declining by roughly $5,000 between 2000 and 2030, producing a ripple effect that would cost the state's economy many billions of dollars.
Yet the state's business community, with a few exceptions, has not sounded the alarm.
"If we have to look at new revenues, so be it. The fact is, higher education in general doesn't have a lot of advocates out there pounding on the table," said James Huffines, chairman of PlainsCapital Bank's Central and South Texas regions and chairman of the UT System Board of Regents. "We have to do a better job. But getting people to get out and advocate and stand up and take some hits and confront maybe some of their friends -- it's hard to do sometimes."
How the state addresses education will decide its future, said William Cunningham, a former UT System chancellor. "The political structure of Texas is going to have to decide if they want to support a first-class system of education," Cunningham said. "And if they do, they're going to have to be willing to provide the funds to make it happen."
But higher education institutions will be lucky to emerge from the current session of the Texas Legislature without seeing general appropriations reduced, as they were two years ago. Lawmakers are far more focused on public school finance, property taxes and child protection services.
Many college officials say even a hold-the-line budget would be tough to swallow. The officials are reluctant to raise tuition much in light of some fairly sizable increases imposed since 2003, when the Legislature cut general appropriations for higher education by $257 million and gave university governing boards tuition-setting authority that previously was reserved for lawmakers. Annual tuition and fees increased 37 percent from the 2003-04 school year to the current school year at UT-Austin, 23 percent at UT-San Antonio and 18 percent at Texas A&M University at College Station, according to the higher education coordinating board.
"Our problem is, every time the budget is kept flat, we're down 7 percent," said UT System Chancellor Mark Yudof, explaining the combined effect of enrollment growth and inflation. "If you're UT-San Antonio, now the second-largest institution in our system -- 26,000 students, growing 5 to 10 percent a year -- you're out of everything. You're out of professors; you're out of space. You name the category; they don't have enough of them to service the population that they have."
Springing from a leather chair in his fourth-floor office, UT-San Antonio President Ricardo Romo was happy to pull out the numbers.
The student body has grown by about half in the past 10 years. The school has one of the highest student-to-faculty ratios in the state, 24 to 1. A 1,000-bed housing complex filled up immediately when it opened in the fall, and 700 additional beds are planned. The university's master plan calls for the construction of one building a year to keep up with enrollment.
"Our classrooms are in use 50 hours a week," Romo said. "We're busting at the seams." UT-San Antonio has other problems as well. Many of its students are ill-prepared for college-level work, and only about 35 percent of freshmen who started in 1997 earned a degree here or at another state school within six years. Financial aid for students falls $50 million short of the need, causing some to spend too much time working and too little time studying, and others drop out altogether.
Despite these daunting challenges, Romo hopes to propel the school into the top tier of American research universities by the end of the decade by hiring hundreds of faculty members and dramatically expanding research. His goal, while laudable, is unrealistic in light of heavy teaching loads, modest fund raising and severe space shortages, according to a consultant's report commissioned by the UT System. What's more, the report says, such a torrid hiring pace would make it difficult to maintain quality.
Romo hired 75 faculty members last year but acknowledges that such a rate might not be sustainable. And he can't always hire the professors he needs. Not one of last year's crop, for example, was a biologist, even though many biology classes are packed with upwards of 200 students. There is simply no space for the research laboratories and offices that new biology professors would need. As Romo put it: "They won't come if you don't have labs."
The school is addressing that problem with an $84 million bioscience and engineering building that is expected to be completed late this summer or in early fall. But because administrators consider the need for faculty to be most urgent, the building won't do much to ease the shortage of chemistry and biology labs for students. Currently, some of the labs used for teaching run until 11:30 at night, and others are scheduled for Saturdays.
Bernard Powell, a chemistry professor, says these problems need to be addressed before worrying about top-tier status. "I'd like to be able to set up a class without worrying about copy costs," he said.
UT-San Antonio is also struggling to shed its commuter-school image. It's made some progress, thanks to the enrollment growth and the additional on-campus housing.
The growth here is in part a result of efforts to reduce the size of the student body at the sister campus in Austin. But a bigger factor is location. Students from South Texas like this campus because it's close to home.
Claudia Cortez, a 22-year-old junior from Brownsville, had planned to transfer to the Austin campus but decided to stay here to get her degree in communications and public relations.
In her time at UT-San Antonio, she says, the school's stature seems to have grown along with its population. She pointed to last year's appearance in the NCAA basketball tournament as a turning point in the school's history. "There was school spirit, pride," she said. "Suddenly, it started to feel like any other four-year university."
Admission standards at UT-San Antonio are similar to those at many of the state's public colleges and universities: Virtually everyone who applies is accepted. The open-door policy here reflects not only administrators' desire to meet the goals in the state's higher education plan, but also to comply with the Legislature's mandate at the school's founding in 1969 to "serve the needs of the multicultural population of San Antonio, the South Texas region and Texas."
But there's a price for open access: Students who haven't mastered the basics in high school often find themselves struggling.
More than a third of freshmen here do not return for their sophomore year; most having been dismissed for poor academic performance. Peer mentoring, supplemental instruction and academic advising are being expanded in an effort to improve retention rates.
"People seem to be just getting by," said Martha Chichil, a 24-year-old senior majoring in psychology. Chichil, who transferred to UT-San Antonio from California State University at Long Beach, says she is often surprised by the low level of college preparation some of her peers show.
"One girl was saying how in high school she didn't learn anything except how to take a test," Chichil said, relaying an online chat with classmates. "The people she was talking to were complaining about it, too. Only the scary thing was, they didn't spell 'too' correctly."
Paying for college is another strain. Students here get $129 million a year in grants and loans, but many still must work to make ends meet.
"I wouldn't be here without it," said William Taylor, a door-to-door salesman and Spanish major, referring to his $14,000 financial aid package. Some goes to the $5,300 annual tuition, but much of it goes to child support, rent and books.
With financial aid falling short of the need, a majority of students have jobs, and many work full time, said Rosalie Ambrosino, vice president for student affairs. And now that the state is looking to cut back on grants in favor of loans, the future is uncertain for many students here. That's especially true of Hispanic students, whose families are often uneasy about taking on debt.
"I'd like to see us expand the grant money because, realistically, if we do want to close the gap, we've got to meet them halfway," Romo said. "And, yes, we've got to go do the education part in which we go tell the parents, 'OK, but if he does get into need, let him borrow a little bit of money because he's going to get out and make a lot of money. And he can pay that back.' "
Selma Espericueta, a junior majoring in education, said it's important for students to keep the ultimate goal in mind: "to have a better life and job in the long run."
rhaurwitz@statesman.com; 445-3604
lheinauer@statesman.com; 445-3694
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