If account at Staten Island is accurate, it reads like Homeland Security taken to an extreme with youth, as well. -
Angela
January 18, 2006
On Education
Outcry, but Few Answers, After Principal Is Removed
By SAMUEL G. FREEDMAN
ONE day last May, the president of the College Board stood in the packed
auditorium at Curtis High School on Staten Island and handed over a check
for $25,000. Curtis had earned the money as one of just three high schools
nationally to receive the organization's Inspiration Award for motivating
students to attend college.
Operating at 160 percent of capacity, with a student body rapidly shifting
from white to minority and from middle class to working poor, Curtis sent
85 percent of its graduates on to higher education. Everybody in the crowd
that day understood exactly why the school's jazz band culminated the
ceremony by playing "Respect."
Aurelia L. Curtis was dancing with all the rest on the stage, and nothing
seemed more appropriate than the coincidence that her surname and the
school's were identical. She had been at Curtis for more than 20 years, the
last two as principal. An immigrant from Liberia, she formed part of the
same racial transformation on Staten Island that was being felt in her
school. More than a few of Curtis's alumni owed their college scholarships
to her personal involvement.
Last week the Curtis auditorium was filled again, ostensibly for the
monthly meeting of the PTA, but this time the mood was indignation rather
than celebration. Ms. Curtis had been removed from the school in
mid-December by the Department of Education, reassigned to the purgatory of
regional headquarters. The department is investigating the principal's
conduct in two episodes last fall, one involving a supposed threat by a
student to bomb the building and the other an attempt by the local police
to arrest three Curtis students inside the school.
In Ms. Curtis's absence that night, a chorus of students, teachers and
graduates demanded her return. The chairman of the local branch of the
N.A.A.C.P., the neighborhood's City Council member - and perhaps most
surprising - the president of the citywide teachers' union joined in the
outcry on the principal's behalf. Most of the members of the audience wore
lapel badges with a picture of the suspended principal and the slogan
"Curtis Needs Curtis." Others carried signs showing a broken heart.
All they got in return were the legalistic responses of the Department of
Education's designated flak-catchers - Margaret Schultz, a local
instructional superintendent; Nancy Ramos, a community superintendent; and
Robin Merrill, a lawyer. They would not explain the content of the
investigation against Ms. Curtis or the timetable for concluding it. "We
are bound by chancellor's regulations and New York State law," Ms. Ramos
offered in a typical comment.
That was pretty much when patience ran out for Maurice Royster, whose
daughter received a scholarship to the University of Delaware with Ms.
Curtis's help. "She was in this building for a reason," Mr. Royster said,
referring to the principal. "You knuckleheads up there don't know nothing.
I made myself get off the bus after work tonight and come here, and I don't
even like PTA meetings." A moment later he concluded, "Let the woman come
back."
The controversy began on Oct. 31 with a 16-year-old junior, according to
both school and law enforcement officials. The boy, an honors student
active in several school clubs, as well as a professed Marxist, was arguing
about capitalism after school with fellow members of the Curtis debate
team. In the course of the discussion, another student raised the question
of what kind of action was permissible to create political change. The
junior's lawyers, school administrators and the police differ on the exact
wording, but all concur that he said something along the lines of how he
could plant a bomb in Curtis the next morning as a protest against
capitalism.
Word of the remark went from the debate team's faculty adviser to a dean to
Ms. Curtis. On the morning of Nov. 1, she met with the student and his
mother and searched the boy's belongings, finding no bomb-making materials
of any kind. She then shared the information with the teachers and
administrators on a crisis-intervention team. They decided to suspend the
young man for four days and require him to receive a psychiatric evaluation
before being readmitted.
On Nov. 4, however, the police in the 120th Precinct station house, two
blocks from Curtis High, learned of the boy's statement. (Accounts differ
as to whether the police were informed by Ms. Curtis or by a regional
security officer in the Education Department, whom the principal had told.)
That afternoon, the police arrested the student on the charge of making a
terroristic threat, a felony written into law by the State Legislature six
days after the Sept. 11 attacks. Meanwhile, the Department of Education
ordered him suspended >from school until Feb. 1.
If there was any criticism at the high school of Ms. Curtis's handling of
the situation, it was at an extremely low volume. "I haven't heard anyone
say they felt their children were in jeopardy," Tom Hepworth, the high
school's parent coordinator, said in a recent interview. "When they found
out what happened, the sequence of events, they were satisfied that a
person they respect and trust made the best decision she could make."
For that matter, two of Ms. Curtis's own children are enrolled in the high
school. Would a mother possibly have put them at risk of a terrorist
bombing? Or would an experienced educator have known the difference between
an incipient mass murderer and a precocious teenager trying to sound
outrageous?
In late November and early December, Ms. Curtis went on a fellowship to
Japan to study comparative educational systems. During that period, an
investigator from the Department of Education came to Curtis High and told
administrators there he was looking into whether the principal had failed
to report a crime, a violation of chancellor's regulations.
ON Dec. 14, the afternoon after returning from Japan, Ms. Curtis was
watching a girls' basketball game when the police entered the school gym to
try to arrest three male students, claiming they had just robbed a student
from a nearby high school. By the accounts of several witnesses, Ms. Curtis
told the police the boys had been with her in the gym all afternoon and so
could not have committed the crime. At the least, she told the police, she
did not want them questioned until their parents could be called to the
school.
The next morning, the Department of Education reassigned Aurelia Curtis to
regional headquarters. The last her colleagues at school saw of her, she
was cleaning out her office.
In the weeks since, the Staten Island district attorney decided not to
prosecute the three Curtis students the principal had defended. A grand
jury has yet to hear the case against the young man in the bomb threat
episode. Yet Ms. Curtis appears no closer to having her case resolved.
Stephen Morello, the communications director for the Education Department,
said, "Until we have an opportunity to examine all of the issues raised
about the principal's handling of particular situations, we have reassigned
her."
Jacqueline Lopardo, a Curtis graduate who went on to Vanderbilt University
and a career in law, had a retort of sorts when she addressed the Education
Department representatives at the PTA meeting last week. "You talk about
how you need to protect Curtis High School," she said. "We stand
unprotected now."
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
This and other outrageous but true stories can be found at
www.realcostofprisons.org/blog
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
If the economy's so hot, why aren't we happier?
This is a really interesting piece about how an indicator, GDP, with its own unique, WWII roots has gotten distorted. It's a misleading indicator because it fails to account for non-market exchanges outside of the formal economy. It also assumes a tight correlation between the number of transactions/exchanges and well being. Bad things that happen to us, like Hurricane Katrina, and this is "good" for GDP. Pain and suffering are unfortunate by-products. Depleting the environment follows the same pattern of being "good" because it contributes to GDP.
Indicators that are omitted from GDP are quality-of-life indicators like literacy, employment, leisure, health, etc. Professor Senchak describes important revisions to this thinking below.
Angela
COMMENTARY
Senchack: If the economy's so hot, why aren't we happier?
A.J. Senchack, SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Monday, January 16, 2006
The stock market is at its highest point in 4 1/2 years, and the most recent figures for the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) showed a robust growth of 4.1 percent. Add a sharp drop in inflation, increasingly tight labor markets and record consumer spending, and everyone should be feeling great this new year.
So why do Americans continue to express less-than-sunny sentiments while living in one of the richest, most prosperous countries in the world? Perhaps it's because wage increases continue to lag inflation. Perhaps. But a more likely candidate is that economic statistics, such as GDP, don't truly measure how well off we are.
GDP has its roots in the 1930s. During World War II, it was redesigned to track wartime production. Today, it measures total annual consumption (and production) within our borders, and it is the world's foremost indicator of economic progress.
However, GDP was never intended to be a direct measure of economic health or well-being. Our policy-makers, economists and the media bestowed that role on it.
Their logic seems reasonable. The more a nation produces and consumes, the wealthier it is. This also means the higher its standard of living becomes. Hence, its citizens should be better off or happier. But there is a disconnect here. Being wealthier simply does not translate into being happier. Many a study shows the United States to be no happier than it was 50 years ago. We are no happier than when we were poorer.
So why doesn't GDP tell us how well-off we are? First, it is misleading because only exchanges with a price tag get tabulated — that is, only products and services that are bought and sold with money. Many crucial economic functions outside the money economy contribute to well-being, such as house work, child care and voluntary church or civic services. These are ignored, however, because they are given no dollar value.
GDP also assumes every transaction can only add to well-being. This means negative events that reduce well-being, such as last year's Gulf Coast hurricanes, actually increase GDP. The huge medical expenses and rebuilding costs are treated as income. The pain and suffering are ignored. Other transactions, like crime and divorce, have a similar impact on GDP. No distinction is made between activities that generate well-being and those that diminish it. When both wealth and "illth" are created, only wealth creation gets counted.
Another critical omission from GDP is social or quality-of-life indicators such as family, literacy, employment, leisure time and sense of community. All of these affect well-being and overall satisfaction, but they aren't captured in the statistics.
Finally, the depletion of our natural resources adds to income and, thus, GDP, even if they are nonrenewable. The degradation of our natural environment also does not receive any accounting in our economic statistics.
Fortunately, steps are being taken to right this situation. International institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank have devised more inclusive indices that account for such factors as human and environmental capital, education and life expectancy. Perhaps the measure that comes closest to measuring national well-being is the "Genuine Progress Indicator" created by Redefining Progress, an organization working to shift the economy and public policy toward sustainability. Its indicator starts with GDP and then adjusts for income distribution and leisure time, adds household and volunteer work and subtracts the costs of crime, family breakdown and pollution.
But more needs to be done. People's well-being should take precedent, regardless of how difficult that may be to measure in practice. We need to end our society's fixation on GDP and begin incorporating measures of national well-being into, for example, a Gross National Well-being index. Let's start accounting for what makes life worthwhile, and not just on what economists and politicians can conveniently count.
Senchack holds the Lucy King Brown Chair in International Business at Southwestern University in Georgetown. He is coordinating the Brown Symposium XXVII, titled "GNP or Gross National Well-being?" Feb. 9-10 at Southwestern. (www.southwestern.edu/brownxxviii).
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/01/16economy_edit.html
Indicators that are omitted from GDP are quality-of-life indicators like literacy, employment, leisure, health, etc. Professor Senchak describes important revisions to this thinking below.
Angela
COMMENTARY
Senchack: If the economy's so hot, why aren't we happier?
A.J. Senchack, SOUTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY
Monday, January 16, 2006
The stock market is at its highest point in 4 1/2 years, and the most recent figures for the nation's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) showed a robust growth of 4.1 percent. Add a sharp drop in inflation, increasingly tight labor markets and record consumer spending, and everyone should be feeling great this new year.
So why do Americans continue to express less-than-sunny sentiments while living in one of the richest, most prosperous countries in the world? Perhaps it's because wage increases continue to lag inflation. Perhaps. But a more likely candidate is that economic statistics, such as GDP, don't truly measure how well off we are.
GDP has its roots in the 1930s. During World War II, it was redesigned to track wartime production. Today, it measures total annual consumption (and production) within our borders, and it is the world's foremost indicator of economic progress.
However, GDP was never intended to be a direct measure of economic health or well-being. Our policy-makers, economists and the media bestowed that role on it.
Their logic seems reasonable. The more a nation produces and consumes, the wealthier it is. This also means the higher its standard of living becomes. Hence, its citizens should be better off or happier. But there is a disconnect here. Being wealthier simply does not translate into being happier. Many a study shows the United States to be no happier than it was 50 years ago. We are no happier than when we were poorer.
So why doesn't GDP tell us how well-off we are? First, it is misleading because only exchanges with a price tag get tabulated — that is, only products and services that are bought and sold with money. Many crucial economic functions outside the money economy contribute to well-being, such as house work, child care and voluntary church or civic services. These are ignored, however, because they are given no dollar value.
GDP also assumes every transaction can only add to well-being. This means negative events that reduce well-being, such as last year's Gulf Coast hurricanes, actually increase GDP. The huge medical expenses and rebuilding costs are treated as income. The pain and suffering are ignored. Other transactions, like crime and divorce, have a similar impact on GDP. No distinction is made between activities that generate well-being and those that diminish it. When both wealth and "illth" are created, only wealth creation gets counted.
Another critical omission from GDP is social or quality-of-life indicators such as family, literacy, employment, leisure time and sense of community. All of these affect well-being and overall satisfaction, but they aren't captured in the statistics.
Finally, the depletion of our natural resources adds to income and, thus, GDP, even if they are nonrenewable. The degradation of our natural environment also does not receive any accounting in our economic statistics.
Fortunately, steps are being taken to right this situation. International institutions such as the United Nations and World Bank have devised more inclusive indices that account for such factors as human and environmental capital, education and life expectancy. Perhaps the measure that comes closest to measuring national well-being is the "Genuine Progress Indicator" created by Redefining Progress, an organization working to shift the economy and public policy toward sustainability. Its indicator starts with GDP and then adjusts for income distribution and leisure time, adds household and volunteer work and subtracts the costs of crime, family breakdown and pollution.
But more needs to be done. People's well-being should take precedent, regardless of how difficult that may be to measure in practice. We need to end our society's fixation on GDP and begin incorporating measures of national well-being into, for example, a Gross National Well-being index. Let's start accounting for what makes life worthwhile, and not just on what economists and politicians can conveniently count.
Senchack holds the Lucy King Brown Chair in International Business at Southwestern University in Georgetown. He is coordinating the Brown Symposium XXVII, titled "GNP or Gross National Well-being?" Feb. 9-10 at Southwestern. (www.southwestern.edu/brownxxviii).
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/01/16economy_edit.html
Bush school reform called 'clueless'
A number of us went to this this week. No praise of NCLB was generated in three hours of presentations by community leaders, teachers, parents and students. Responses ranged from 'I didn’t know NCLB was this bad' to 'it needs to be fixed' to 'this law is an attempt to dismantle public education.' I'm ot exaggerating any of this. The tenor in fact was quite emotional and in many instances, damning. I comment PEN for sponsoring this and also for doing so in other cities. Consider responding the Parent Education Network’s (PEN) online survey at Give KidsGoodSchools.org. -Angela
Bush school reform called 'clueless'
Web Posted: 01/13/2006 12:00 AM CST
Jenny Lacoste-Caputo
Express-News Staff Writer
AUSTIN — Just three days after President Bush visited a Maryland elementary school touting the fourth anniversary of his landmark education reform law, No Child Left Behind, more than 200 concerned parents, students and educators from around Texas gathered to discuss an overhaul of the accountability effort, which is up for reauthorization in 2007.
The testimony, both oral and written, and the results of an online survey, will be documented in a report that will go to members of Congress and the president.
Several students from around the state voiced frustration at the one-size-fits-all approach of a standardized test.
"The notion that one test can work for thousands and thousands of students in Texas tells me how clueless some adults are about the needs of students," said Andy Peterson, a 12th-grade student from Austin.
Peterson said a learning disability makes standardized tests difficult for him. Math problems and reading assignments that give him no trouble in class can become enigmas on the state's mandated exam.
"I can't remember a time when I wasn't the last person in the testing room, pulling my hair out while trying to finish the test," he said. "The problem with these tests is they don't accurately reflect student achievement for everyone."
William Luton, a senior at Spring Woods High School in Houston, said the emphasis on testing has a direct effect on what happens in the classroom.
His school did away with block scheduling — a method that allows students more time for each class — because it didn't work with the testing schedule.
No Child Left Behind requires states to test students in reading and math annually. Schools must show what the law calls "adequate yearly progress" each year, not just in a school's overall population but also in subgroups based on race and income level. The goal: to ensure that every child receives a quality education.
Schools that don't meet the criteria are subject to sanctions. The law also requires that every child must pass the test by the year 2014 for a school to meet adequate yearly progress.
But critics of the law said Thursday that the focus on testing is squeezing the joy out of learning, putting undue pressure on children, turning schools into test-prep centers.
Luis Figueroa, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund in San Antonio, said the promises of No Child Left Behind are good ones, but the law isn't having its intended effect.
The quality of education a child receives "still very much depends on what side of the tracks you live on," said Figueroa, who advocates for increased funding for the act.
The Public Education Network, a national organization of local education funds that works to build support for quality education in low-income communities, is organizing the hearings.
"Our emphasis is on hearing from students, parents and community leaders," said Ron Cowell, president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center in Pennsylvania and moderator for the hearing. "These are the voices that often get overlooked or often aren't heard at all when policy leaders sit down to write the laws of the nation."
The network is also hosting an online survey at GiveKidsGoodSchools.org. The results of the survey will be compiled with testimony given in Austin; New York; Chicago; Orlando, Fla.; San Francisco; and five other cities.
Bush school reform called 'clueless'
Web Posted: 01/13/2006 12:00 AM CST
Jenny Lacoste-Caputo
Express-News Staff Writer
AUSTIN — Just three days after President Bush visited a Maryland elementary school touting the fourth anniversary of his landmark education reform law, No Child Left Behind, more than 200 concerned parents, students and educators from around Texas gathered to discuss an overhaul of the accountability effort, which is up for reauthorization in 2007.
The testimony, both oral and written, and the results of an online survey, will be documented in a report that will go to members of Congress and the president.
Several students from around the state voiced frustration at the one-size-fits-all approach of a standardized test.
"The notion that one test can work for thousands and thousands of students in Texas tells me how clueless some adults are about the needs of students," said Andy Peterson, a 12th-grade student from Austin.
Peterson said a learning disability makes standardized tests difficult for him. Math problems and reading assignments that give him no trouble in class can become enigmas on the state's mandated exam.
"I can't remember a time when I wasn't the last person in the testing room, pulling my hair out while trying to finish the test," he said. "The problem with these tests is they don't accurately reflect student achievement for everyone."
William Luton, a senior at Spring Woods High School in Houston, said the emphasis on testing has a direct effect on what happens in the classroom.
His school did away with block scheduling — a method that allows students more time for each class — because it didn't work with the testing schedule.
No Child Left Behind requires states to test students in reading and math annually. Schools must show what the law calls "adequate yearly progress" each year, not just in a school's overall population but also in subgroups based on race and income level. The goal: to ensure that every child receives a quality education.
Schools that don't meet the criteria are subject to sanctions. The law also requires that every child must pass the test by the year 2014 for a school to meet adequate yearly progress.
But critics of the law said Thursday that the focus on testing is squeezing the joy out of learning, putting undue pressure on children, turning schools into test-prep centers.
Luis Figueroa, an attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund in San Antonio, said the promises of No Child Left Behind are good ones, but the law isn't having its intended effect.
The quality of education a child receives "still very much depends on what side of the tracks you live on," said Figueroa, who advocates for increased funding for the act.
The Public Education Network, a national organization of local education funds that works to build support for quality education in low-income communities, is organizing the hearings.
"Our emphasis is on hearing from students, parents and community leaders," said Ron Cowell, president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center in Pennsylvania and moderator for the hearing. "These are the voices that often get overlooked or often aren't heard at all when policy leaders sit down to write the laws of the nation."
The network is also hosting an online survey at GiveKidsGoodSchools.org. The results of the survey will be compiled with testimony given in Austin; New York; Chicago; Orlando, Fla.; San Francisco; and five other cities.
Creating a Right-Wing Nation, State by State
Check out this eye-opening story posted on Alternet.org -Angela
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on November 16, 2005, Printed on January 16, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/28259/
We've heard much talk of the states serving as "progressive laboratories" in recent years. But conservatives have been working to shape state laws for the past 30 years. The center of gravity for that effort is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation's largest network of state legislators.
Founded in 1973, ALEC was the brainchild of paleocon Paul Weyrich, a leading "Movement conservative" and the head of the Free Congress Foundation (in 1973 Weyrich also co-founded the Heritage Foundation). It is the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money. ALEC is a public-policy mill that churns out "model legislation" for the states that are unfailingly pro-business. The organization fights against civil rights laws, as well as consumer, labor and environmental initiatives.
According to the National Resources Defense Council, corporations "funnel cash through ALEC to curry favor with state lawmakers through junkets and other largesse in the hopes of enacting special interest legislation -- all the while keeping safely outside the public eye."
Corporations that support ALEC "pay to play." In addition to dues of up to $50,000 dollars per year, they also pay as much as $5,000 dollars to sit on the "task force" committees that draft ALEC's legislative templates. You pay, and you get to write state laws to your exquisite advantage.
ALEC's record of achievement makes it one of the most successful parts of the conservative movement, but many progressives aren't aware of it. They should be; ALEC claims as members 34 state Speakers of The House, 25 Senate Presidents, 31 Senate Leaders and 33 House Leaders.
Given that ALEC claims to have successfully passed 200 bills into law in 2003, keeping tabs on the organization is a good way to get a handle on where the right will train its sights next.
Two staffers for People For the American Way (PFAW) went to ALEC's August meeting to get that scoop. Earlier this month I attended a conference of labor and community activists in Washington, D.C. to hear a summary of what PFAW's staffers picked up at the summit. This report draws heavily on their work, for which I'm grateful (disclosure: during the past year I've received modest support from PFAW for some of my own activism, and I'm an honorary Fellow with its Young People For program).
On The Horizon
For the most part, there were few surprises at ALEC's August summit in Plano, Texas. The usual suspects pushed policies we have come to expect from the conservative movement. These, according to a profile by PFAW, include "rolling back civil rights, challenging government restrictions on corporate pollution," as well as "limiting government regulations of commerce [and] privatizing public services."
George W. Bush was the keynote speaker, discussing how successful his tax cuts have been (if you care to, you can read his speech here). Grover Norquist, Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich rounded out the right's star power. (According to one of PFAW's observers, Norquist told a room full of legislators that "those on the left aren't stupid, they're evil.")
The main messages were that public pensions and Social Security should be privatized and Bush's tax cuts should become permanent (clearly a federal issue, but they pushed it nonetheless). Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings defended No child Left behind, which she argued wasn't "just good policy, it's good politics."
School vouchers -- a long-standing objective of ALEC -- were high on the agenda. There were two pieces of model legislation that advance vouchers. Related are the "Virtual Public Schools Act" and "The Family Tax Credit Program Act." Both are alternatives to public education that, unlike vouchers programs, divert public education funds to home-schooled children as well as those enrolled in private schools. Apparently it is, among other things, a sop to Christian conservatives.
Much was made of the need for "tort reform." There was talk of "judicial hellholes," where pesky consumer groups and environmentalists were "regulating" through litigation - ALEC's members call it a "tax on the consumer" -- and of limiting damage awards and "reforming" class-action suits.
Most of ALEC's model legislation sounds eminently reasonable at first glance. One initiative, the "Jury Patriotism Act" -- already passed in 13 states -- makes it more difficult for people to skip jury duty, but would also increase the amount paid to jurors, especially low-income jurors serving on long cases. That sounds like a good idea until you come to the fine print: the increased jury pay wouldn't come from general revenues, but from significantly increased fees required to bring suit, closing the courthouse doors to a growing number of people.
Another go-to issue for ALEC's members is the environment. In 2002, the organization issued a widely read report, "Global Warming and the Kyoto Protocol: Paper Tiger, Economic Dragon" [PDF], written by the CATO institute's "climate skeptic" Patrick Michaels. Exxon - the leading funder of efforts to "debunk" climatology - donated almost one million dollars to ALEC since 1998, according to ExxonWatch. Dupont, Dow and Edison electric are among the other firms that have paid millions to write ALEC's model legislation.
Some of ALEC's environmental initiatives include "environmental audit immunity" (wonky PDF), a legal regime whereby polluters could self-regulate and any environmental violations could not be punished as long as they inform the EPA of the damage done.
Another is attacking state and regional limits on greenhouse gas emissions. ALEC has fought what have been called "sons of Kyoto" state laws tooth and nail, calling global warming "the new mantra for environmentalists and non-governmental organizations in their quest to redistribute international and domestic wealth."
Perhaps the most troubling of ALEC's environmental aims is criminalizing activism. Its model "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act" does just that. As Karen Charman wrote on TomPaine:
The Texas [version of the] bill defines an "animal rights or terrorist organization" as "two or more persons organized for the purpose of supporting any politically motivated activity intended to obstruct or deter any person from participating in an activity involving animals or ... natural resources." The bill adds that "'Political motivation' means an intent to influence a government entity or the public to take a specific political action." Language in the New York bill is similarly broad.
The Center for Constitutional Rights' Michael Ratner told Charman, "The definitional sections of this legislation are so broad that they sweep within them basically every environmental and animal-rights organization in the country."
Activism clearly frightens the big-business right. Aside from the over-the-top hostility towards environmental activists, there was much talk of campaigns such as the current effort - of which AlterNet has played a part -- to raise awareness of Wal-Mart's labor and environmental practices, and the harm the firm inflicts on Main Street America.
A panel on socially responsible investing likened the practice to a new form of Marxism. According to PFAW's observers, the moderator argued that "progressives control campuses, control foundations, control the media -- corporations are the last bastion of conservatism and if they take them over, it's game over."
A PLAN for Push-Back
The good news is that ALEC is not unopposed by groups on the left. Established organizations like USPIRG and the Center for Policy Alternatives offer progressive model legislation to state lawmakers, and community and labor activists have worked to shine a hard light on ALEC and its proposals.
But as is often the case, many of these efforts are single-issue, as opposed to ALEC's broad ideological umbrella of positions, and too often they act state-by-state instead of working as well-coordinated nationwide networks.
That's beginning to change. ALICE (the American Legislative Issue Campaign Exchange) is trying to create a similarly broad network at the local level. A collaboration of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the Economic Analysis and Research Network and several other progressive groups, ALICE is a clearinghouse of information and legislation that's trying to back up tens of thousands of progressives in local government.
Another organization that's promising -perhaps the most ambitious of its kind -- is the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN). Launched with much fanfare in August and co-chaired by the Center for American Progress' David Sirota and former Montana legislator Steve Doherty, PLAN most resembles the structure of ALEC. It not only provides model legislation across state and issue lines, it also helps push those bills by joining grass-roots activists and state lawmakers with the "strategic advocacy tools" they need to advance "progressive economic and social policies."
Stay tuned.
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/28259/
By Joshua Holland, AlterNet
Posted on November 16, 2005, Printed on January 16, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/28259/
We've heard much talk of the states serving as "progressive laboratories" in recent years. But conservatives have been working to shape state laws for the past 30 years. The center of gravity for that effort is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the nation's largest network of state legislators.
Founded in 1973, ALEC was the brainchild of paleocon Paul Weyrich, a leading "Movement conservative" and the head of the Free Congress Foundation (in 1973 Weyrich also co-founded the Heritage Foundation). It is the connective tissue that links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax activists and corporate money. ALEC is a public-policy mill that churns out "model legislation" for the states that are unfailingly pro-business. The organization fights against civil rights laws, as well as consumer, labor and environmental initiatives.
According to the National Resources Defense Council, corporations "funnel cash through ALEC to curry favor with state lawmakers through junkets and other largesse in the hopes of enacting special interest legislation -- all the while keeping safely outside the public eye."
Corporations that support ALEC "pay to play." In addition to dues of up to $50,000 dollars per year, they also pay as much as $5,000 dollars to sit on the "task force" committees that draft ALEC's legislative templates. You pay, and you get to write state laws to your exquisite advantage.
ALEC's record of achievement makes it one of the most successful parts of the conservative movement, but many progressives aren't aware of it. They should be; ALEC claims as members 34 state Speakers of The House, 25 Senate Presidents, 31 Senate Leaders and 33 House Leaders.
Given that ALEC claims to have successfully passed 200 bills into law in 2003, keeping tabs on the organization is a good way to get a handle on where the right will train its sights next.
Two staffers for People For the American Way (PFAW) went to ALEC's August meeting to get that scoop. Earlier this month I attended a conference of labor and community activists in Washington, D.C. to hear a summary of what PFAW's staffers picked up at the summit. This report draws heavily on their work, for which I'm grateful (disclosure: during the past year I've received modest support from PFAW for some of my own activism, and I'm an honorary Fellow with its Young People For program).
On The Horizon
For the most part, there were few surprises at ALEC's August summit in Plano, Texas. The usual suspects pushed policies we have come to expect from the conservative movement. These, according to a profile by PFAW, include "rolling back civil rights, challenging government restrictions on corporate pollution," as well as "limiting government regulations of commerce [and] privatizing public services."
George W. Bush was the keynote speaker, discussing how successful his tax cuts have been (if you care to, you can read his speech here). Grover Norquist, Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich rounded out the right's star power. (According to one of PFAW's observers, Norquist told a room full of legislators that "those on the left aren't stupid, they're evil.")
The main messages were that public pensions and Social Security should be privatized and Bush's tax cuts should become permanent (clearly a federal issue, but they pushed it nonetheless). Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings defended No child Left behind, which she argued wasn't "just good policy, it's good politics."
School vouchers -- a long-standing objective of ALEC -- were high on the agenda. There were two pieces of model legislation that advance vouchers. Related are the "Virtual Public Schools Act" and "The Family Tax Credit Program Act." Both are alternatives to public education that, unlike vouchers programs, divert public education funds to home-schooled children as well as those enrolled in private schools. Apparently it is, among other things, a sop to Christian conservatives.
Much was made of the need for "tort reform." There was talk of "judicial hellholes," where pesky consumer groups and environmentalists were "regulating" through litigation - ALEC's members call it a "tax on the consumer" -- and of limiting damage awards and "reforming" class-action suits.
Most of ALEC's model legislation sounds eminently reasonable at first glance. One initiative, the "Jury Patriotism Act" -- already passed in 13 states -- makes it more difficult for people to skip jury duty, but would also increase the amount paid to jurors, especially low-income jurors serving on long cases. That sounds like a good idea until you come to the fine print: the increased jury pay wouldn't come from general revenues, but from significantly increased fees required to bring suit, closing the courthouse doors to a growing number of people.
Another go-to issue for ALEC's members is the environment. In 2002, the organization issued a widely read report, "Global Warming and the Kyoto Protocol: Paper Tiger, Economic Dragon" [PDF], written by the CATO institute's "climate skeptic" Patrick Michaels. Exxon - the leading funder of efforts to "debunk" climatology - donated almost one million dollars to ALEC since 1998, according to ExxonWatch. Dupont, Dow and Edison electric are among the other firms that have paid millions to write ALEC's model legislation.
Some of ALEC's environmental initiatives include "environmental audit immunity" (wonky PDF), a legal regime whereby polluters could self-regulate and any environmental violations could not be punished as long as they inform the EPA of the damage done.
Another is attacking state and regional limits on greenhouse gas emissions. ALEC has fought what have been called "sons of Kyoto" state laws tooth and nail, calling global warming "the new mantra for environmentalists and non-governmental organizations in their quest to redistribute international and domestic wealth."
Perhaps the most troubling of ALEC's environmental aims is criminalizing activism. Its model "Animal and Ecological Terrorism Act" does just that. As Karen Charman wrote on TomPaine:
The Texas [version of the] bill defines an "animal rights or terrorist organization" as "two or more persons organized for the purpose of supporting any politically motivated activity intended to obstruct or deter any person from participating in an activity involving animals or ... natural resources." The bill adds that "'Political motivation' means an intent to influence a government entity or the public to take a specific political action." Language in the New York bill is similarly broad.
The Center for Constitutional Rights' Michael Ratner told Charman, "The definitional sections of this legislation are so broad that they sweep within them basically every environmental and animal-rights organization in the country."
Activism clearly frightens the big-business right. Aside from the over-the-top hostility towards environmental activists, there was much talk of campaigns such as the current effort - of which AlterNet has played a part -- to raise awareness of Wal-Mart's labor and environmental practices, and the harm the firm inflicts on Main Street America.
A panel on socially responsible investing likened the practice to a new form of Marxism. According to PFAW's observers, the moderator argued that "progressives control campuses, control foundations, control the media -- corporations are the last bastion of conservatism and if they take them over, it's game over."
A PLAN for Push-Back
The good news is that ALEC is not unopposed by groups on the left. Established organizations like USPIRG and the Center for Policy Alternatives offer progressive model legislation to state lawmakers, and community and labor activists have worked to shine a hard light on ALEC and its proposals.
But as is often the case, many of these efforts are single-issue, as opposed to ALEC's broad ideological umbrella of positions, and too often they act state-by-state instead of working as well-coordinated nationwide networks.
That's beginning to change. ALICE (the American Legislative Issue Campaign Exchange) is trying to create a similarly broad network at the local level. A collaboration of the Center on Wisconsin Strategy, the Economic Analysis and Research Network and several other progressive groups, ALICE is a clearinghouse of information and legislation that's trying to back up tens of thousands of progressives in local government.
Another organization that's promising -perhaps the most ambitious of its kind -- is the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN). Launched with much fanfare in August and co-chaired by the Center for American Progress' David Sirota and former Montana legislator Steve Doherty, PLAN most resembles the structure of ALEC. It not only provides model legislation across state and issue lines, it also helps push those bills by joining grass-roots activists and state lawmakers with the "strategic advocacy tools" they need to advance "progressive economic and social policies."
Stay tuned.
Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.
© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/28259/
Houston Ties Teachers' Pay to Test Scores
I quote here Gayle Fallon, president of [Houston] United Federation of Teachers, "No one has been able to show us one ounce of research that paying teachers for test scores improves performance..." Another comment made below with which I agree is that teaching to the test and narrowing the curriculum will occur. This also creates a disincentive to teach those "hardest to teach" children since the "easier" kids will be preferred. The research base is indeed lacking for this as well. -Angela
January 13, 2006
Houston Ties Teachers' Pay to Test Scores
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
HOUSTON, Jan. 12 - Over the objections of the teachers' union, the
Board of Education here on Thursday unanimously approved the nation's
largest merit pay program, which calls for rewarding teachers based on how
well their students perform on standardized tests.
The $14.5 million program, which immediately replaces a model with lower incentives, would distribute up to $3,000
annually per teacher and up to $25,000 for senior administrators.
Abelardo Saavedra, the Houston superintendent of schools, praised the vote, saying that it "will ensure that the academic
growth of each child is important and will be compensated." Houston business leaders also supported the change.
But Gayle Fallon, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents about 40 percent of the district's 12,300
teachers, condemned the program as misguided. In its place, Ms. Fallon called for
across-the-board raises to lift Houston from what shesaid was the low-paying end of area school districts.
"No one has been able to show us one ounce of research that paying teachers for test scores improves performance," she
said.
The 9-to-0 vote at the board meeting of the Houston Independent School District, the largest in the state, with 210,000
children, opened a new front in the national dispute over teacher merit pay and excited
particular emotion in a city bruised by a cheating scandal that called some schools' test results into question.
Critics were quick to compare Houston's plan with one adopted in November in Denver after much study and consultation
with the teachers' union there. Other programs have been tried, with varying
success, in New York and Kentucky, educators said.
Houston has had a teacher pay-performance program in place since 2000, but officials said the latest version was an effort to
tie the rewards more closely to student gains attributable not only to
schools but to individual teachers.
The pay incentives are to be based on three components, or "strands."
One will reward teachers based on how much their school's test scores have improved compared with the scores of 40 other
schools with similar demographics around the state. Another will comparestudent progress on the Stanford 10 Achievement test and its Spanish-language equivalent to that of students in similar classrooms in the Houston district. The
third measure will be student progress on the statewide Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, as compared with that in similar Houston classrooms.
About half the district's teachers will be eligible for stipends in all three categories, for a total of $3,000. The system's 305 principals with the best-achieving teachers could earn as much as $6,000 in merit pay, and the 19 executive principals and five regional superintendents will be eligible for up to $25,000.
But some teachers who addressed the board on Thursday complained that the plan bypassed arts teachers and others whose
subjects were not covered by the tests.
Andrew Gass, a lawyer, said the plan "fails to reward teachers of special ed students or pre-K or kindergarten teachers"
and "forces teachers to teach to the test rather than focus on real academic achievement in the classroom."
Ms. Fallon of the teachers' union said the board would do better to raise the starting salary of teachers, at $36,050 the
lowest of 10 major districts in the area. Mr. Saavedra, the superintendent, acknowledged that "the salary schedule needs attention" but said the position of Houston's teachers improved markedly with seniority.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York, contrasted the Houston plan unfavorably with the one in Denver. That plan offers the system's 4,300 teachers a choice of enrolling in a merit pay program or accepting standard raises, although new hires must enter the merit pay plan. So far, 735 teachers have chosen the merit option, said a Denver school spokesman, Mark Stevens.
Rigorous statewide testing to gauge student achievement has been an article of faith in Texas for years. But in 1999 the
Texas Education Agency began investigating Houston and other districts because of suspicious results on the statewide test. Last year, the Houston school board said it had found evidence of cheating at four schools and testing
irregularities at seven more. A half-dozen teachers were fired, and several principals were demoted or reprimanded.
* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
January 13, 2006
Houston Ties Teachers' Pay to Test Scores
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL
HOUSTON, Jan. 12 - Over the objections of the teachers' union, the
Board of Education here on Thursday unanimously approved the nation's
largest merit pay program, which calls for rewarding teachers based on how
well their students perform on standardized tests.
The $14.5 million program, which immediately replaces a model with lower incentives, would distribute up to $3,000
annually per teacher and up to $25,000 for senior administrators.
Abelardo Saavedra, the Houston superintendent of schools, praised the vote, saying that it "will ensure that the academic
growth of each child is important and will be compensated." Houston business leaders also supported the change.
But Gayle Fallon, president of the United Federation of Teachers, which represents about 40 percent of the district's 12,300
teachers, condemned the program as misguided. In its place, Ms. Fallon called for
across-the-board raises to lift Houston from what shesaid was the low-paying end of area school districts.
"No one has been able to show us one ounce of research that paying teachers for test scores improves performance," she
said.
The 9-to-0 vote at the board meeting of the Houston Independent School District, the largest in the state, with 210,000
children, opened a new front in the national dispute over teacher merit pay and excited
particular emotion in a city bruised by a cheating scandal that called some schools' test results into question.
Critics were quick to compare Houston's plan with one adopted in November in Denver after much study and consultation
with the teachers' union there. Other programs have been tried, with varying
success, in New York and Kentucky, educators said.
Houston has had a teacher pay-performance program in place since 2000, but officials said the latest version was an effort to
tie the rewards more closely to student gains attributable not only to
schools but to individual teachers.
The pay incentives are to be based on three components, or "strands."
One will reward teachers based on how much their school's test scores have improved compared with the scores of 40 other
schools with similar demographics around the state. Another will comparestudent progress on the Stanford 10 Achievement test and its Spanish-language equivalent to that of students in similar classrooms in the Houston district. The
third measure will be student progress on the statewide Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills test, as compared with that in similar Houston classrooms.
About half the district's teachers will be eligible for stipends in all three categories, for a total of $3,000. The system's 305 principals with the best-achieving teachers could earn as much as $6,000 in merit pay, and the 19 executive principals and five regional superintendents will be eligible for up to $25,000.
But some teachers who addressed the board on Thursday complained that the plan bypassed arts teachers and others whose
subjects were not covered by the tests.
Andrew Gass, a lawyer, said the plan "fails to reward teachers of special ed students or pre-K or kindergarten teachers"
and "forces teachers to teach to the test rather than focus on real academic achievement in the classroom."
Ms. Fallon of the teachers' union said the board would do better to raise the starting salary of teachers, at $36,050 the
lowest of 10 major districts in the area. Mr. Saavedra, the superintendent, acknowledged that "the salary schedule needs attention" but said the position of Houston's teachers improved markedly with seniority.
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers in New York, contrasted the Houston plan unfavorably with the one in Denver. That plan offers the system's 4,300 teachers a choice of enrolling in a merit pay program or accepting standard raises, although new hires must enter the merit pay plan. So far, 735 teachers have chosen the merit option, said a Denver school spokesman, Mark Stevens.
Rigorous statewide testing to gauge student achievement has been an article of faith in Texas for years. But in 1999 the
Texas Education Agency began investigating Houston and other districts because of suspicious results on the statewide test. Last year, the Houston school board said it had found evidence of cheating at four schools and testing
irregularities at seven more. A half-dozen teachers were fired, and several principals were demoted or reprimanded.
* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Study concludes Florida's schools largest in nation
This is an interesting report in light of the recent supreme court ruling on school vouchers in Florida. -Angela
Thu, Jan. 05, 2006
Study concludes Florida's schools largest in nation
Public schools in Florida are the largest in the country, which some experts say creates a poor learning environment and instigates higher dropout rates.
BY MATTHEW I. PINZUR AND HANNAH SAMPSON
mpinzur@MiamiHerald.com
The classrooms of Michael Krop Senior High are filled with thousands of senior Ryan Sprechman's classmates. Through four years at the Northeast Miami-Dade school, he has met only a handful of them.
''Every time I'm in the hall, I recognize maybe three people out of the hundred I see,'' he said.
His experience is typical across the state. A national study released Wednesday found that Florida has the largest schools in the country. Krop is 263,000 square feet, twice as large as the baseball field at Dolphins Stadium.
Many senior highs house more than 3,000 students -- a few have more than 4,000.
''Large schools tend to be anonymous places, places where teachers and students are little known to each other,'' said Thomas Toch, author of High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education. ``The anonymity often breeds apathy or alienation; many kids fall through the cracks.''
The annual Quality Counts study, compiled by Education Week magazine, largely confirmed the conventional wisdom about Florida's schools -- the state's accountability and testing program is among the nation's most stringent, and education dollars are shared fairly equitably between poor and rich areas, but per-pupil spending remains low and the high school graduation rate remains dismal.
BURIED ISSUE
But buried in the report's data was the news that Florida students, more than any others in the country, attend large schools.
A growing movement of local and national educators believe such huge schools have more absenteeism, lower graduation rates and more frequent vandalism. In smaller schools, faculty are more likely to know students by name and intervene when they miss class or flunk a test.
''Many kids come to school already disconnected, apathetic or alienated, and the only way you can overcome that is to give these kids a sense of being connected, a sense of being cared about,'' Toch said. ``It sounds a little touchy-feely, and it is, but it's important.''
A state school-reform task force is planning to recommend smaller middle and senior highs, and at least one member of the Miami-Dade School Board has threatened to vote against construction of large new campuses.
''Is this what we want to be responsible for when we open these schools?'' said board member Evelyn Greer, speaking at a committee meeting late last year.
The principal of one of Broward's smallest public schools said low enrollment enhances the sense of community and slows teacher turnover.
''We know every child in our school, at least someone does,'' said Lincoln Pasteur,principal at Collins Elementary in Dania Beach. ``The children that go to school here, many of their parents have gone to school here.''
But Collins is only small by Florida standards; with 362 students, it does not meet the Education Week study's 350-student cutoff for a small school. Between Miami-Dade and Broward, only a handful of the nearly 400 elementaries qualify, and almost all those are charter schools.
Scarce land, skyrocketing construction costs and relatively meager school-construction funding have left South Florida districts with little alternative.
Florida Education Commissioner John Winn has proposed $1.9 billion for school construction this year, but actual funding from the Legislature has historically been far lower.
According to the Education Week report, Florida committed just over $190 million for school construction in fiscal 2006 -- about as much as Alaska, Hawaii and Kentucky, and dramatically less than California's $6.2 billion, New York's $1.5 billion or even Ohio's $655 million.
''That's just a sad statement of Florida's investment in the infrastructure of public education,'' said Miami-Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew.
BOUTIQUE SCHOOL
Crew has proposed a handful of boutique middle and senior highs -- similar to the wildly successful 500-student Design and Architecture Senior High -- but said the district cannot abandon the huge buildings at schools such as Felix Varela and G. Holmes Braddock, a pair of Southwest Dade schools that hold a combined 8,500 students.
''The starting point for this is not size,'' Crew said. ``The real issue is relationships, the issue of what environment is most conducive and allows for a strong, engaged relationship between students and teachers.
To that end, both Miami-Dade and Broward are embracing one of education's vogue reforms: small learning environments.
A large school would hold numerous quasi-independent programs, each with its own students, teachers and staff. Some could even have their own wing of the building, only interacting with other programs for clubs, sports and shared facilities like the gym and cafeteria.
''If we had the resources, I think anybody would like to have smaller schools than we have,'' said Broward Superintendent Frank Till. ``But since we can't, the idea is to have a small-school atmosphere in our larger schools.''
Coral Reef Senior High has used that model successfully for years, and many other senior highs are now phasing it in.
''I think the students are going to start feeling more of a belongingness,'' said Manuel Garcia, principal at Braddock, which has nearly 4,500 students.
COMMUNITY IMPACT
If his school were replaced with a half-dozen small boutiques, Garcia said it would rob the community of a unifying force; families from Sweetwater to Lakes of the Meadow have been Braddock Bulldogs.
There are more tangible advantages, as well. With such a student body to draw from, clubs and teams are stacked with talented teens. Even esoteric clubs, such as Braddock's Anatomy Club, can find enough members to stay active.
Moreover, the evidence linking school size to academics is young and untested. The movement is well-funded -- much of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's $1 billion in education grants has gone into small-school experiments -- but even its advocates are hesitant to pronounce the case closed.
''There are signs of promise in this approach, but certainly the jury is still out,'' said Christopher Swanson, project director of the Education Week study.
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
Thu, Jan. 05, 2006
Study concludes Florida's schools largest in nation
Public schools in Florida are the largest in the country, which some experts say creates a poor learning environment and instigates higher dropout rates.
BY MATTHEW I. PINZUR AND HANNAH SAMPSON
mpinzur@MiamiHerald.com
The classrooms of Michael Krop Senior High are filled with thousands of senior Ryan Sprechman's classmates. Through four years at the Northeast Miami-Dade school, he has met only a handful of them.
''Every time I'm in the hall, I recognize maybe three people out of the hundred I see,'' he said.
His experience is typical across the state. A national study released Wednesday found that Florida has the largest schools in the country. Krop is 263,000 square feet, twice as large as the baseball field at Dolphins Stadium.
Many senior highs house more than 3,000 students -- a few have more than 4,000.
''Large schools tend to be anonymous places, places where teachers and students are little known to each other,'' said Thomas Toch, author of High Schools on a Human Scale: How Small Schools Can Transform American Education. ``The anonymity often breeds apathy or alienation; many kids fall through the cracks.''
The annual Quality Counts study, compiled by Education Week magazine, largely confirmed the conventional wisdom about Florida's schools -- the state's accountability and testing program is among the nation's most stringent, and education dollars are shared fairly equitably between poor and rich areas, but per-pupil spending remains low and the high school graduation rate remains dismal.
BURIED ISSUE
But buried in the report's data was the news that Florida students, more than any others in the country, attend large schools.
A growing movement of local and national educators believe such huge schools have more absenteeism, lower graduation rates and more frequent vandalism. In smaller schools, faculty are more likely to know students by name and intervene when they miss class or flunk a test.
''Many kids come to school already disconnected, apathetic or alienated, and the only way you can overcome that is to give these kids a sense of being connected, a sense of being cared about,'' Toch said. ``It sounds a little touchy-feely, and it is, but it's important.''
A state school-reform task force is planning to recommend smaller middle and senior highs, and at least one member of the Miami-Dade School Board has threatened to vote against construction of large new campuses.
''Is this what we want to be responsible for when we open these schools?'' said board member Evelyn Greer, speaking at a committee meeting late last year.
The principal of one of Broward's smallest public schools said low enrollment enhances the sense of community and slows teacher turnover.
''We know every child in our school, at least someone does,'' said Lincoln Pasteur,principal at Collins Elementary in Dania Beach. ``The children that go to school here, many of their parents have gone to school here.''
But Collins is only small by Florida standards; with 362 students, it does not meet the Education Week study's 350-student cutoff for a small school. Between Miami-Dade and Broward, only a handful of the nearly 400 elementaries qualify, and almost all those are charter schools.
Scarce land, skyrocketing construction costs and relatively meager school-construction funding have left South Florida districts with little alternative.
Florida Education Commissioner John Winn has proposed $1.9 billion for school construction this year, but actual funding from the Legislature has historically been far lower.
According to the Education Week report, Florida committed just over $190 million for school construction in fiscal 2006 -- about as much as Alaska, Hawaii and Kentucky, and dramatically less than California's $6.2 billion, New York's $1.5 billion or even Ohio's $655 million.
''That's just a sad statement of Florida's investment in the infrastructure of public education,'' said Miami-Dade Superintendent Rudy Crew.
BOUTIQUE SCHOOL
Crew has proposed a handful of boutique middle and senior highs -- similar to the wildly successful 500-student Design and Architecture Senior High -- but said the district cannot abandon the huge buildings at schools such as Felix Varela and G. Holmes Braddock, a pair of Southwest Dade schools that hold a combined 8,500 students.
''The starting point for this is not size,'' Crew said. ``The real issue is relationships, the issue of what environment is most conducive and allows for a strong, engaged relationship between students and teachers.
To that end, both Miami-Dade and Broward are embracing one of education's vogue reforms: small learning environments.
A large school would hold numerous quasi-independent programs, each with its own students, teachers and staff. Some could even have their own wing of the building, only interacting with other programs for clubs, sports and shared facilities like the gym and cafeteria.
''If we had the resources, I think anybody would like to have smaller schools than we have,'' said Broward Superintendent Frank Till. ``But since we can't, the idea is to have a small-school atmosphere in our larger schools.''
Coral Reef Senior High has used that model successfully for years, and many other senior highs are now phasing it in.
''I think the students are going to start feeling more of a belongingness,'' said Manuel Garcia, principal at Braddock, which has nearly 4,500 students.
COMMUNITY IMPACT
If his school were replaced with a half-dozen small boutiques, Garcia said it would rob the community of a unifying force; families from Sweetwater to Lakes of the Meadow have been Braddock Bulldogs.
There are more tangible advantages, as well. With such a student body to draw from, clubs and teams are stacked with talented teens. Even esoteric clubs, such as Braddock's Anatomy Club, can find enough members to stay active.
Moreover, the evidence linking school size to academics is young and untested. The movement is well-funded -- much of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's $1 billion in education grants has gone into small-school experiments -- but even its advocates are hesitant to pronounce the case closed.
''There are signs of promise in this approach, but certainly the jury is still out,'' said Christopher Swanson, project director of the Education Week study.
© 2006 MiamiHerald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miami.com
Florida Strikes Down Nation's First Statewide Voucher Program
A victory for public schooling and the separation of church and state, and I should add, democracy (at least to the degree that the potential for democracy is exercised in our system of public schooling) in Florida. -Angela
January 5, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:39 p.m. ET
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court struck down a statewide voucher system Thursday that allowed children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense -- a program Gov. Jeb Bush considered one of his proudest achievements.
It was the nation's first statewide voucher program.
In a 5-2 ruling, the high court said the program undermines the public schools and violates the Florida Constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public education.
Voucher opponents had also argued that the program violated the separation of church and state in giving tax dollars to parochial schools -- an argument a lower court agreed with. But the state Supreme Court did not address that issue.
About 700 children are attending private or parochial schools through the program. But the ruling will not become effective until the end of the school year.
''I think it is a sad day for accountability in our state,'' Bush said. He said the voucher program had a positive effect because it ''put pressure on school districts to focus on the underperforming schools.''
The voucher setup was a part of an education program on the governor's part that also includes testing at virtually every level and a school grading system that offers performance-based rewards and punishments.
Bush said he will look for ways to continue the voucher programs, such as finding private money, changing state law or amending the Florida Constitution.
''I don't think any option should be taken off the table,'' the governor said. ''School choice is as American as apple pie in my opinion. ... The world is made richer and fuller and more vibrant when you have choices.''
Under the 1999 law, students at public schools that earn a failing grade from the state in two out of four years were eligible for vouchers to attend private schools.
Chief Justice Barbara Pariente said the program ''diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools,'' which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children.
The ruling was a victory for public schools across the state and nation, said Ron Meyer, lead attorney for a coalition that challenged the voucher program.
''Students using vouchers will now be welcomed back into Florida public schools,'' Meyer said in a statement. ''It decides with finality that the voucher program is unconstitutional.''
Anticipating the possibility of an adverse ruling, the governor has been working on a backup plan to keep voucher students in private schools by providing tax credits to corporations that give students scholarships.
Clark Neily, an attorney who argued the case for voucher advocates, called the decision ''a setback for those parents and children trapped in failing schools.''
The U.S. Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support the state. Voucher opponents included the state teachers union, the Florida PTA, the NAACP and the League of Women Voters.
The ruling did not directly affect nearly 30,000 students in two other voucher programs for disabled and poor children, but it could be cited as a precedent.
^------
On the Net:
http://www.floridasupremecourt.org
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press
January 5, 2006
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:39 p.m. ET
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) -- The Florida Supreme Court struck down a statewide voucher system Thursday that allowed children to attend private schools at taxpayer expense -- a program Gov. Jeb Bush considered one of his proudest achievements.
It was the nation's first statewide voucher program.
In a 5-2 ruling, the high court said the program undermines the public schools and violates the Florida Constitution's requirement of a uniform system of free public education.
Voucher opponents had also argued that the program violated the separation of church and state in giving tax dollars to parochial schools -- an argument a lower court agreed with. But the state Supreme Court did not address that issue.
About 700 children are attending private or parochial schools through the program. But the ruling will not become effective until the end of the school year.
''I think it is a sad day for accountability in our state,'' Bush said. He said the voucher program had a positive effect because it ''put pressure on school districts to focus on the underperforming schools.''
The voucher setup was a part of an education program on the governor's part that also includes testing at virtually every level and a school grading system that offers performance-based rewards and punishments.
Bush said he will look for ways to continue the voucher programs, such as finding private money, changing state law or amending the Florida Constitution.
''I don't think any option should be taken off the table,'' the governor said. ''School choice is as American as apple pie in my opinion. ... The world is made richer and fuller and more vibrant when you have choices.''
Under the 1999 law, students at public schools that earn a failing grade from the state in two out of four years were eligible for vouchers to attend private schools.
Chief Justice Barbara Pariente said the program ''diverts public dollars into separate private systems parallel to and in competition with the free public schools,'' which are the sole means set out in the state constitution for educating Florida children.
The ruling was a victory for public schools across the state and nation, said Ron Meyer, lead attorney for a coalition that challenged the voucher program.
''Students using vouchers will now be welcomed back into Florida public schools,'' Meyer said in a statement. ''It decides with finality that the voucher program is unconstitutional.''
Anticipating the possibility of an adverse ruling, the governor has been working on a backup plan to keep voucher students in private schools by providing tax credits to corporations that give students scholarships.
Clark Neily, an attorney who argued the case for voucher advocates, called the decision ''a setback for those parents and children trapped in failing schools.''
The U.S. Justice Department filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support the state. Voucher opponents included the state teachers union, the Florida PTA, the NAACP and the League of Women Voters.
The ruling did not directly affect nearly 30,000 students in two other voucher programs for disabled and poor children, but it could be cited as a precedent.
^------
On the Net:
http://www.floridasupremecourt.org
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
The Texas Successful Schools Study: Quality Education for Limited English Proficient Students
It's time to resurrect the issue of bilingual education especially since Texas will be considering it anew vis-a-vis various funding proposals that are to be examined this legislative session. I also want to make resources available to any who are interested on bilingual education.
One of these is a study conducted by Oscar M. Cárdenas, Senior Director, Principal Investigator as well as Stan Seidner, Program Director, Program Evaluation Unit at the Texas Education in 1998-99. The study is titled The Texas Successful Schools Study: Quality Education for Limited English Proficient Students. Folks should know from the weight of evidence that well-implemented, designed, funded, and staffed bilingual education programs (including dual language programs) yield solid, positive results in terms of both student achievement and biliteracy (literacy in two languages).
The EDWeek piece below by Zehr discusses research on bilingual education conducted by Professors Slavin and Alan Cheung in which they find the following: The use of native-language instruction in reading has an edge over using only English. Nearly two years have passed and it's curious that the DOE has not yet allowed this study to be released. Once can only surmise that it's findings on the positive effects of bilingual education programs go against the grain of federal education policy that seeks to standardize all youth on a single metric in order to ostensibly facilitate comparability of students' academic worth via high-stakes testing. Quien sabe.... Anyway, hope folks find all of this useful. I'll post a permanent link to the Cardenas and Seidner et al. study on the side bar of my blog shortly.
Also, Happy New Year everybody! -Angela
EDUCATION WEEK
February 4, 2004
Study Gives Advantage To Bilingual Education Over Focus on English
By Mary Ann Zehr
Education Week
Robert E. Slavin, a Johns Hopkins University researcher and the chairman of the Success for All Foundation, said he intends to change how he advises schools to teach reading to English-language learners as a result of the review.
Bilingual education has a particularly positive effect, say Mr. Slavin and Alan Cheung, a research scientist at the Baltimore-based Success for All Foundation, when students are taught to read both in their native languages and in English at the same period in their lives, though at different times in a single day. Their study calls that approach a "paired-bilingual program." It differs from many bilingual education programs that postpone teaching children to read in English until they've learned to read in their native languages.
In the past, the Success for All Foundation, which provides reading programs in both English and Spanish, has remained neutral on whether schools should teach students to read in English or Spanish, Mr. Slavin said. But now, he said, he will give educators using the Success for All program a copy of the new study and recommend they include some native-language instruction with English-language learners if they have the option.
Mr. Slavin and Mr. Cheung are among a number of researchers who have compared the effectiveness of bilingual education and English-only instruction.
Differing View
Most researchers shared the conclusion of Mr. Slavin and Mr. Cheung: The use of native-language instruction in reading has an edge over using only English.
In a 1996 review of studies comparing both approaches, however, Christine H. Rossell, a political science professor at Boston University, and Keith Baker, an education consultant who is now retired, concluded that English-only methods are better.
Mr. Slavin last week faulted the methodology of the Rossell- Baker study, as well as some other researchers' work, citing the use of low standards in selecting studies and the application of inconsistent standards.
Ms. Rossell stands by her findings. She contends that Mr. Slavin erroneously excluded some worthy studies. Still, she acknowledged last week that if she were to redo that review, she would omit two or three of the studies that she had selected. For example, she would eliminate studies of programs that lasted for less than a year.
At the same time, Ms. Rossell noted that Mr. Slavin's work didn't duplicate the review that she conducted with Mr. Baker because Mr. Slavin had selected only 17 studies as meeting his criteria, while they had chosen 72.
Mr. Slavin said that the studies the Slavin-Cheung analysis examined were much more conclusive collectively than he had expected them to be, however, given the continual debate over the subject. "The high-quality evidence was pretty consistent either in saying that bilingual education methods were more effective or there was no difference," he said.
Literacy Panel
Mr. Slavin's research was part of a more comprehensive review of studies commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education and two other federal agencies at a cost of $1 million. Mr. Slavin was a member of the group formed nearly two years ago for, the National Literacy Panel on the Development of Literacy Among Language Minority Children and Youth.
He resigned as a panelist last summer because the Education Department wouldn't permit him to publish his research before the panel's conclusions would be released, he said. "From the perspective of academic freedom, I didn't like the idea of something I did being held up for no particular reason," he said last week.
An Aug. 1, 2003, letter from the department to SRI International, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based contractor working on the project, said that data from the research were not to be made public until they were reviewed by the department "to ensure we are issuing a top-quality product based on principles of rigorous scientific research."
Diane August, the executive director of the panel and a senior research scientist at the Washington-based Center for Applied Linguistics, said the panel was redoing the part of the review that had been assigned to Mr. Slavin.
Ms. August expects the department to release the panel's report by the end of the summer.
On the Web
The Center for Applied Linguistics publishes research digests highlighting "topics of current interest in foreign language education, ESL, bilingual education, and linguistics." See, for example, "English Language Learners and High-Stakes Tests: An Overview of the Issues."
"The Role of Theory and Policy in the Educational Treatment of Language Minority Students: Competitive Structures in California," August 2003 , from the Education Policy Analysis Archives, examines theoretical and policy-based positions that compete to shape the education of language-minority students.
"A National Study of School Effectiveness for Language-Minority Students’ Long-Term Academic Achievement: Final Report," 2002, from the Center for Research on Education, Diversity, and Excellence, is a five-year study analyzing a variety of education services for language-minority students.
© 2003 Editorial Projects in Education Vol. 23, number 21, page 10
In Middle Class, Signs of Anxiety on School Efforts
I learned recently that NYC has a school board (board of regents) that’s appointed by the legislature rather than elected by the citizens and that the Chancellor runs the whole operation like a business which means minimal parental voice and input. As stated below, there exists an “absence of a powerful mechanism for parental influence.” We might consider a parallel here to federal education policy where parents have to go to the President in order to convey their grievances with it. On the issue of governance by parents and local communities alone, top-down federal policies, despite the smoke and mirrors regarding the raising of standards, are inefficient blunt instruments This business model forces parents into being consumers of education rather than as agents for the kind of society that we want our children to grow up in. How can this be good for democracy? -Angela
In Middle Class, Signs of Anxiety on School Efforts
by SUSAN SAULNY
The Bloomberg administration's efforts to invest immense attention and resources on low-income students in low-performing schools are causing growing anxiety among parents from middle-class strongholds who worry that the emphasis is coming at their children's expense.
Some of the very changes that Chancellor Joel I. Klein has made his hallmark - uniform programs in reading and math for most schools; drilling that helped produce citywide gains last spring on standardized tests; changes in rules for admission to programs for the gifted and talented, designed to make them more equitable - have caused unease among that important constituency.
In interviews and at public meetings, dozens of parents from the middle class and upper middle class have complained of an increasing focus on standardized test preparation and remedial work, of a decreasing focus on science education and the arts, of large class sizes and of the absence of a powerful mechanism for parental influence.
Take Heidi Vayer, a former public school teacher and guidance counselor. She decided to remove her two daughters this year from public school in District 2 on the East Side of Manhattan and enrolled them instead in an independent school, Friends Seminary.
"I didn't see things getting better," Ms. Vayer said. "The school increased class sizes, and I felt no attention was being paid to middle-class students who were there."
Her most particular concern was test preparation. "I felt, how could I be doing this to my own children?" she said. "I could understand if test prep was part of the curriculum, but test prep was all of the curriculum."
After particularly impressive results were recorded this year by fifth graders, principals and officials of the Department of Education said the improved test scores reflected real achievement, not high-pressure test preparation, and stemmed from a variety of initiatives, such as expanded availability of pre-kindergarten schooling and increased spending.
Many parents say, however, that there are extremely limited public school options in the middle school years, and some chafe at how the new rules for gifted programs in the elementary schools and for certain select schools have made competition for admission stiffer.
"My concern is that the mayor is driving families out," said Rose Ann Watson Ansty, whose son attends Public School 9 on the Upper West Side. "It's very frustrating."
Whether parents are doing more than complaining is hard to determine.
City officials say that judging by the number of children eligible for free lunch, the class divide in the system remains stable: About 80 percent of the children are poor, with no increase in middle class flight.
Yet Emily Glickman, a consultant who advises parents in the city on winning admission for their children to private schools, said, "The last two years the interest in private schools has exploded, as I see it with people coming to me."
Driving the anxiety is simple arithmetic. Even in some high-income ZIP codes, parents perceive neighborhood schools as academically substandard. That creates an extraordinary amount of competition for the select schools and the programs for the gifted and talented.
Some of that competition is taking place now, with the latest round of applications for magnet and gifted programs just submitted and the kindergarten application process under way. The city has 239 programs for the gifted and talented, and 69 schools offer opportunities for accelerated study or enrichment activities outside the standard curriculum.
"The Department of Education has one problem: There aren't enough good schools," said Tim Johnson, the chairman of the chancellor's Parent Advisory Council and a parent leader in District 2, which covers much of Manhattan. "That's why parents are so possessive of the 'X' number of good schools. Everyone wants to protect a good school."
Issues of race and class are never far from the surface in this debate: The school system is overwhelmingly minority and poor, and many of the parents who have fared best at getting their children seats in choice programs are white.
Some say that middle class parents should not feel so aggrieved. "Nobody gets shortchanged the way the poor do," said Joseph Viteritti, a professor of public policy at Hunter College. "I'm sympathetic to the need to accommodate the middle class community and the dilemma it presents, but the bottom line is that the people who get shortchanged the most are the people who have no options."
Even critics of the school system acknowledged that the city faced a difficult balancing act.
"I don't agree with a lot of what the chancellor has done, and I think in some ways he's made things worse," said Mindy Gerbush, who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and serves on the District 13 Community Education Council, an elected, unpaid panel of parents. "But in some ways it's like being in the role of Solomon: What do you do with the child?"
She continued, "What do you do for the middle class while providing for the tremendous needs of the non-middle class - after they've been forgotten for years?"
Michele Cahill, senior counselor for education policy for Chancellor Klein, said that the schools could straddle the class divide and that the department remained committed to the "twin and intertwined goals of equity and excellence."
"I think the chancellor has listened to the concerns of what I would call middle class parents and parents of students who are achieving," she said, "and he has responded."
Ms. Cahill said that the city had not only changed the rules for gifted programs, it had also expanded the programs, making good on an election-year promise by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to make such slots more widely available. She also cited the creation of additional specialized high schools, and she spoke of the introduction of better options for teachers to accommodate advanced children with suitable learning materials.
"Our responsibility is to create a system that offers the most opportunity for every student at every level, and the priority has to be to address both," Ms. Cahill said. "We have to do two things at once."
Not everyone said the Bloomberg-Klein Education Department has been doing that.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the teachers' union, faulted the administration for using a "Robin Hood" approach. "You have to simultaneously work to help your struggling students in particular schools and keep your middle class - you have to do both these things at the same time," she said.
"When you do one at the expense of the other, you get the rebellion and revolt you see in District 3," she said, referring to the Upper West Side, where some parents have complained that their children were suddenly being shut out of admission to top public school programs.
Part of the sense of grievance in the middle class comes from how much energy those parents typically pour into searching for schools and then, once their children are accepted, into working to support the schools. They organize libraries. They donate toilet paper and crayons and cash. And when there's not enough, they raise funds for more.
Jennifer Freeman, for example, is not an employee of Public School 166 in Manhattan, but that would not be clear from her schedule. Early in the day and often late at night, she writes grant applications for theater props or for extra science lessons, and she meets with teachers to offer help with field trips and art projects.
"It's a lot of work," said Ms. Freeman, a freelance science writer who has one son enrolled at P.S. 166, on West 89th Street, and another at Hunter College Elementary School, on East 94th Street. "I'm sure the money that I've lost by remaining freelance and doing that is probably equal to a private school education."
But Ms. Freeman said she felt she had been able to have an effect on P.S. 166 and was content with her sons' education.
Ms. Gerbush of Brooklyn, who evaluates bonds on Wall Street and owns a restaurant, said that she could have afforded the annual $20,000-plus tuition bill at many private schools, but that she had wanted her son to experience more of the "real world." That experience still came at a cost - not in tuition, but in her own time.
Even though her son has graduated from the Institute for Collaborative Education, a progressive middle and high school in the East Village that was given a waiver from the chancellor's uniform curriculum, Ms. Gerbush continues her involvement with the schools.
"I think he is a lot better for having had the experience, but I worked very hard to get the options that would work for him," she said. "A lot of people don't have the kind of time or knowledge to work the system."
The surge in discontent can be traced back about three years, when Mr. Klein exempted 200 top schools from the uniform curriculum - many with largely white enrollments in relatively well-heeled neighborhoods. Some parents argued that the mayor was creating a caste system by allowing successful schools to do what they wanted, while others were forced into regimentation.
Others parents, who said their schools should have made the list, expressed resentment that their children would have to use the same curriculum as those in low-performing schools.
Aware of middle-class concerns, Mayor Bloomberg announced last February a significant expansion of programs for the gifted, bringing them to more corners of the city.
But on the Upper West Side in particular, two recent decisions handed down from Mr. Klein revived the outcry: the use of standardized citywide criteria for admissions to programs for the gifted, and the implementation of a lottery to distribute coveted seats at underused but highly regarded schools.
In both cases, individual schools had established their own rules for admission, and many parents within the schools were generally pleased with the results, because, for instance, the schools often gave preference to siblings, allowing families to stick with one school, and there was a preference in admission to gifted programs for families who lived near the schools.
But even those who supported modifications to the admissions process were left feeling angry, saying they had been largely ignored in the decision-making.
"I volunteer and I go to all the Community Education Council meetings that I can, and it's very frustrating that you find out they're going to do these things at the meetings and they're telling you instead of asking, 'Do you think this is a good idea?' " Ms. Ansty said.
Ms. Ansty said that she was considering applying to parochial schools for her two daughters, who are not of age to attend school yet, and taking her son out of P.S. 9.
That sort of disillusionment, if it translates into an exodus, would be difficult for the city. "It's the middle class that makes the New York City school system better than Philadelphia or Chicago," said Eva S. Moskowitz, a District 2 parent who is chairwoman of the City Council's Education Committee and will be executive director of a new charter school in Harlem. "If we become a school system of the exclusively poor, we are going to be in big trouble."
There are moral reasons to address the educational inequity that exists for the poorest students, but there are also moral and pragmatic reasons to focus on those who are better off financially, Ms. Moskowitz said. The Bloomberg administration, she said, has not confronted the "problem of the top quartile with the zeal that it should."
And some, like Ms. Vayer, are opting out. "This was not an easy decision," she said. "We really tried to make a go of it."
© 2005 New York Times. All rights reserved.
In Middle Class, Signs of Anxiety on School Efforts
by SUSAN SAULNY
The Bloomberg administration's efforts to invest immense attention and resources on low-income students in low-performing schools are causing growing anxiety among parents from middle-class strongholds who worry that the emphasis is coming at their children's expense.
Some of the very changes that Chancellor Joel I. Klein has made his hallmark - uniform programs in reading and math for most schools; drilling that helped produce citywide gains last spring on standardized tests; changes in rules for admission to programs for the gifted and talented, designed to make them more equitable - have caused unease among that important constituency.
In interviews and at public meetings, dozens of parents from the middle class and upper middle class have complained of an increasing focus on standardized test preparation and remedial work, of a decreasing focus on science education and the arts, of large class sizes and of the absence of a powerful mechanism for parental influence.
Take Heidi Vayer, a former public school teacher and guidance counselor. She decided to remove her two daughters this year from public school in District 2 on the East Side of Manhattan and enrolled them instead in an independent school, Friends Seminary.
"I didn't see things getting better," Ms. Vayer said. "The school increased class sizes, and I felt no attention was being paid to middle-class students who were there."
Her most particular concern was test preparation. "I felt, how could I be doing this to my own children?" she said. "I could understand if test prep was part of the curriculum, but test prep was all of the curriculum."
After particularly impressive results were recorded this year by fifth graders, principals and officials of the Department of Education said the improved test scores reflected real achievement, not high-pressure test preparation, and stemmed from a variety of initiatives, such as expanded availability of pre-kindergarten schooling and increased spending.
Many parents say, however, that there are extremely limited public school options in the middle school years, and some chafe at how the new rules for gifted programs in the elementary schools and for certain select schools have made competition for admission stiffer.
"My concern is that the mayor is driving families out," said Rose Ann Watson Ansty, whose son attends Public School 9 on the Upper West Side. "It's very frustrating."
Whether parents are doing more than complaining is hard to determine.
City officials say that judging by the number of children eligible for free lunch, the class divide in the system remains stable: About 80 percent of the children are poor, with no increase in middle class flight.
Yet Emily Glickman, a consultant who advises parents in the city on winning admission for their children to private schools, said, "The last two years the interest in private schools has exploded, as I see it with people coming to me."
Driving the anxiety is simple arithmetic. Even in some high-income ZIP codes, parents perceive neighborhood schools as academically substandard. That creates an extraordinary amount of competition for the select schools and the programs for the gifted and talented.
Some of that competition is taking place now, with the latest round of applications for magnet and gifted programs just submitted and the kindergarten application process under way. The city has 239 programs for the gifted and talented, and 69 schools offer opportunities for accelerated study or enrichment activities outside the standard curriculum.
"The Department of Education has one problem: There aren't enough good schools," said Tim Johnson, the chairman of the chancellor's Parent Advisory Council and a parent leader in District 2, which covers much of Manhattan. "That's why parents are so possessive of the 'X' number of good schools. Everyone wants to protect a good school."
Issues of race and class are never far from the surface in this debate: The school system is overwhelmingly minority and poor, and many of the parents who have fared best at getting their children seats in choice programs are white.
Some say that middle class parents should not feel so aggrieved. "Nobody gets shortchanged the way the poor do," said Joseph Viteritti, a professor of public policy at Hunter College. "I'm sympathetic to the need to accommodate the middle class community and the dilemma it presents, but the bottom line is that the people who get shortchanged the most are the people who have no options."
Even critics of the school system acknowledged that the city faced a difficult balancing act.
"I don't agree with a lot of what the chancellor has done, and I think in some ways he's made things worse," said Mindy Gerbush, who lives in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and serves on the District 13 Community Education Council, an elected, unpaid panel of parents. "But in some ways it's like being in the role of Solomon: What do you do with the child?"
She continued, "What do you do for the middle class while providing for the tremendous needs of the non-middle class - after they've been forgotten for years?"
Michele Cahill, senior counselor for education policy for Chancellor Klein, said that the schools could straddle the class divide and that the department remained committed to the "twin and intertwined goals of equity and excellence."
"I think the chancellor has listened to the concerns of what I would call middle class parents and parents of students who are achieving," she said, "and he has responded."
Ms. Cahill said that the city had not only changed the rules for gifted programs, it had also expanded the programs, making good on an election-year promise by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to make such slots more widely available. She also cited the creation of additional specialized high schools, and she spoke of the introduction of better options for teachers to accommodate advanced children with suitable learning materials.
"Our responsibility is to create a system that offers the most opportunity for every student at every level, and the priority has to be to address both," Ms. Cahill said. "We have to do two things at once."
Not everyone said the Bloomberg-Klein Education Department has been doing that.
Randi Weingarten, the president of the teachers' union, faulted the administration for using a "Robin Hood" approach. "You have to simultaneously work to help your struggling students in particular schools and keep your middle class - you have to do both these things at the same time," she said.
"When you do one at the expense of the other, you get the rebellion and revolt you see in District 3," she said, referring to the Upper West Side, where some parents have complained that their children were suddenly being shut out of admission to top public school programs.
Part of the sense of grievance in the middle class comes from how much energy those parents typically pour into searching for schools and then, once their children are accepted, into working to support the schools. They organize libraries. They donate toilet paper and crayons and cash. And when there's not enough, they raise funds for more.
Jennifer Freeman, for example, is not an employee of Public School 166 in Manhattan, but that would not be clear from her schedule. Early in the day and often late at night, she writes grant applications for theater props or for extra science lessons, and she meets with teachers to offer help with field trips and art projects.
"It's a lot of work," said Ms. Freeman, a freelance science writer who has one son enrolled at P.S. 166, on West 89th Street, and another at Hunter College Elementary School, on East 94th Street. "I'm sure the money that I've lost by remaining freelance and doing that is probably equal to a private school education."
But Ms. Freeman said she felt she had been able to have an effect on P.S. 166 and was content with her sons' education.
Ms. Gerbush of Brooklyn, who evaluates bonds on Wall Street and owns a restaurant, said that she could have afforded the annual $20,000-plus tuition bill at many private schools, but that she had wanted her son to experience more of the "real world." That experience still came at a cost - not in tuition, but in her own time.
Even though her son has graduated from the Institute for Collaborative Education, a progressive middle and high school in the East Village that was given a waiver from the chancellor's uniform curriculum, Ms. Gerbush continues her involvement with the schools.
"I think he is a lot better for having had the experience, but I worked very hard to get the options that would work for him," she said. "A lot of people don't have the kind of time or knowledge to work the system."
The surge in discontent can be traced back about three years, when Mr. Klein exempted 200 top schools from the uniform curriculum - many with largely white enrollments in relatively well-heeled neighborhoods. Some parents argued that the mayor was creating a caste system by allowing successful schools to do what they wanted, while others were forced into regimentation.
Others parents, who said their schools should have made the list, expressed resentment that their children would have to use the same curriculum as those in low-performing schools.
Aware of middle-class concerns, Mayor Bloomberg announced last February a significant expansion of programs for the gifted, bringing them to more corners of the city.
But on the Upper West Side in particular, two recent decisions handed down from Mr. Klein revived the outcry: the use of standardized citywide criteria for admissions to programs for the gifted, and the implementation of a lottery to distribute coveted seats at underused but highly regarded schools.
In both cases, individual schools had established their own rules for admission, and many parents within the schools were generally pleased with the results, because, for instance, the schools often gave preference to siblings, allowing families to stick with one school, and there was a preference in admission to gifted programs for families who lived near the schools.
But even those who supported modifications to the admissions process were left feeling angry, saying they had been largely ignored in the decision-making.
"I volunteer and I go to all the Community Education Council meetings that I can, and it's very frustrating that you find out they're going to do these things at the meetings and they're telling you instead of asking, 'Do you think this is a good idea?' " Ms. Ansty said.
Ms. Ansty said that she was considering applying to parochial schools for her two daughters, who are not of age to attend school yet, and taking her son out of P.S. 9.
That sort of disillusionment, if it translates into an exodus, would be difficult for the city. "It's the middle class that makes the New York City school system better than Philadelphia or Chicago," said Eva S. Moskowitz, a District 2 parent who is chairwoman of the City Council's Education Committee and will be executive director of a new charter school in Harlem. "If we become a school system of the exclusively poor, we are going to be in big trouble."
There are moral reasons to address the educational inequity that exists for the poorest students, but there are also moral and pragmatic reasons to focus on those who are better off financially, Ms. Moskowitz said. The Bloomberg administration, she said, has not confronted the "problem of the top quartile with the zeal that it should."
And some, like Ms. Vayer, are opting out. "This was not an easy decision," she said. "We really tried to make a go of it."
© 2005 New York Times. All rights reserved.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Achievement Gap: Addressing classism will improve school performance
This is a thoughtful piece. I agree that more holistic approach that addresses environmental circumstances that children find themselves in is what would improve the achievement gap. -Angela
Wed, Dec. 28, 2005
ACHIEVEMENT GAP
Addressing classism will improve school performance
By Lewis Diuguid The Kansas City Star
Richard Rothstein offers the best thoughts I’ve heard on narrowing the black/white achievement gap.
Lawmakers just have to listen. “I don’t have a strategy to get politicians to do something different except to keep on emphasizing what the social and economic realities are,” Rothstein told me.
Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a visiting professor at Teachers College at Columbia University. His thoughts are in a past issue of Educational Leadership magazine.
The education system is less to blame for the achievement gap than society’s ills. Yet, the No Child Left Behind law would have people think the schools are totally at fault. America’s sicknesses include racism and classism.
Rothstein describes how upper-middle class parents with jobs in which they collaborate with others are more likely to show their young children how to figure out answers for themselves. The children of people with professional careers are generally more inquisitive and take a more active approach to learning than children of working-class parents.
Parents whose jobs require “creativity and decision-making were less likely to punish their children for actions in which the children’s intentions were desirable, even if matters did not work out as intended. Parents who were closely supervised at work were more likely to base punishment on their children’s actions, regardless of the children’s intentions.”
Rothstein added that parents in professional jobs generally spoke more than 2,000 words per hour to their children compared with 1,300 for working-class parents and 600 for welfare mothers. “Toddlers of professionals received an average of six encouragements per reprimand,” he said.
“Working-class children got two. For welfare children the ration was reversed: They received an average of one encouragement for every two scoldings,” he noted. “It seems reasonable to expect that when these children eventually go to school, their teachers will not be able to fully offset such differences in early interactions.”
The underfunded No Child Left Behind law doesn’t address that.
“You can’t fix it with school reform,” Rothstein told me. “The biggest improvements will come when you address social and economic inequality.”
Narrowing the achievement gap isn’t an impossible dream. “If you want to improve the achievement of low-income children, one thing you can do is improve their health,” Rothstein said. New money for area schools from the Bill & Melinda Gates and other foundations should focus on this.
He wrote that vision and dental problems impede learning. Poor kids have twice the average rate of severe vision impairment.
“The disproportionate assignment of low-income black students to special education may partly reflect a failure to correct their vision,” he wrote.
“Untreated cavities are nearly three times as prevalent among poor children as among middle-class children,” Rothstein notes. “Students with toothaches, even minor ones, will tend to pay less attention in class and be more distracted during tests than will students with healthy teeth.”
Low-income children are five times as likely as middle-income kids to have high lead levels in their blood, “diminishing their cognitive ability,” Rothstein wrote. “Asthma is the single largest cause of chronic absenteeism,” he said.
Students can’t benefit from good instruction if they are at home sick, he said. “Middle-class children typically get treatment for asthma symptoms; low-income children often do not.”
Lawmakers can address the achievement gap with affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families. “Urban rents have risen faster than working-class incomes have, forcing many families to move frequently because they fall behind in rent payments,” Rothstein wrote.
“In some schools in minority neighborhoods, mobility rates are above 100 percent: For every seat in the school, two children were enrolled at some time during the school year,” he wrote.
Rothstein told me that teaching becomes almost impossible if the children have no stability because “the families are always moving.”
Rothstein advocates state and federal social and economic policies to improve health care, provide stable housing, boost incomes for working parents, end discrimination and lift the fates of low-income children so they, too, can achieve academically.
The political will, however, needs to equal the massive effort required for change to occur.
Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of The Star’s Editorial Board. To reach him, call (816) 234-4723 or send e-mail to Ldiuguid@kcstar.com.
© 2005 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
Wed, Dec. 28, 2005
ACHIEVEMENT GAP
Addressing classism will improve school performance
By Lewis Diuguid The Kansas City Star
Richard Rothstein offers the best thoughts I’ve heard on narrowing the black/white achievement gap.
Lawmakers just have to listen. “I don’t have a strategy to get politicians to do something different except to keep on emphasizing what the social and economic realities are,” Rothstein told me.
Rothstein is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute and a visiting professor at Teachers College at Columbia University. His thoughts are in a past issue of Educational Leadership magazine.
The education system is less to blame for the achievement gap than society’s ills. Yet, the No Child Left Behind law would have people think the schools are totally at fault. America’s sicknesses include racism and classism.
Rothstein describes how upper-middle class parents with jobs in which they collaborate with others are more likely to show their young children how to figure out answers for themselves. The children of people with professional careers are generally more inquisitive and take a more active approach to learning than children of working-class parents.
Parents whose jobs require “creativity and decision-making were less likely to punish their children for actions in which the children’s intentions were desirable, even if matters did not work out as intended. Parents who were closely supervised at work were more likely to base punishment on their children’s actions, regardless of the children’s intentions.”
Rothstein added that parents in professional jobs generally spoke more than 2,000 words per hour to their children compared with 1,300 for working-class parents and 600 for welfare mothers. “Toddlers of professionals received an average of six encouragements per reprimand,” he said.
“Working-class children got two. For welfare children the ration was reversed: They received an average of one encouragement for every two scoldings,” he noted. “It seems reasonable to expect that when these children eventually go to school, their teachers will not be able to fully offset such differences in early interactions.”
The underfunded No Child Left Behind law doesn’t address that.
“You can’t fix it with school reform,” Rothstein told me. “The biggest improvements will come when you address social and economic inequality.”
Narrowing the achievement gap isn’t an impossible dream. “If you want to improve the achievement of low-income children, one thing you can do is improve their health,” Rothstein said. New money for area schools from the Bill & Melinda Gates and other foundations should focus on this.
He wrote that vision and dental problems impede learning. Poor kids have twice the average rate of severe vision impairment.
“The disproportionate assignment of low-income black students to special education may partly reflect a failure to correct their vision,” he wrote.
“Untreated cavities are nearly three times as prevalent among poor children as among middle-class children,” Rothstein notes. “Students with toothaches, even minor ones, will tend to pay less attention in class and be more distracted during tests than will students with healthy teeth.”
Low-income children are five times as likely as middle-income kids to have high lead levels in their blood, “diminishing their cognitive ability,” Rothstein wrote. “Asthma is the single largest cause of chronic absenteeism,” he said.
Students can’t benefit from good instruction if they are at home sick, he said. “Middle-class children typically get treatment for asthma symptoms; low-income children often do not.”
Lawmakers can address the achievement gap with affordable housing for low- and moderate-income families. “Urban rents have risen faster than working-class incomes have, forcing many families to move frequently because they fall behind in rent payments,” Rothstein wrote.
“In some schools in minority neighborhoods, mobility rates are above 100 percent: For every seat in the school, two children were enrolled at some time during the school year,” he wrote.
Rothstein told me that teaching becomes almost impossible if the children have no stability because “the families are always moving.”
Rothstein advocates state and federal social and economic policies to improve health care, provide stable housing, boost incomes for working parents, end discrimination and lift the fates of low-income children so they, too, can achieve academically.
The political will, however, needs to equal the massive effort required for change to occur.
Lewis W. Diuguid is a member of The Star’s Editorial Board. To reach him, call (816) 234-4723 or send e-mail to Ldiuguid@kcstar.com.
© 2005 Kansas City Star and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
Saturday, December 31, 2005
Border fence divides lawmakers
by Todd J. Gillman:
Saturday, December 31, 2005
WASHINGTON – Good fences make good neighbors. But do they make for good policy along the Mexican border?
Just before going home on recess, the House approved 700 miles of fencing despite objections from every Texas lawmaker whose district touches the border.
Advocates say the fence will keep out drug smugglers, terrorists and illegal immigrants. Critics say it's a waste of money that will simply push the problems to weak points along the 2,000-mile southern border. And Mexican officials are irate.
The debate moves to the Senate, where Texas' senators, both Republicans, are split.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is open to the idea.
"We already have fences in high-volume areas. I think that should be one of the tools. I don't think you need a 2,000-mile fence," she said, "but I think fences in the high-volume areas, where you have drug trafficking and crime and illegal aliens coming across that are not even from Mexico, that's part of securing our country and having integrity at our borders."
Sen. John Cornyn sees even the 700-mile fence as impractical and a waste of money.
"I would call the idea of a fence or a wall at the border a 19th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. ... Can't people just go around it?" he said.
Both senators want more border guards. Mr. Cornyn says an extra 10,000 guards, along with electronic surveillance and barriers erected at strategic spots, would create a far more cost-effective "virtual fence." He also wants a guest worker program to ease pressure on enforcement.
Fences now cover 80 miles of the southern border.
Border Barrier
Under the proposal, new fence segments would be along the border at:
Tecate, Calif. (22 miles, approximately 10 miles east and west of the current port of entry
Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz. (361 miles)
Columbus, N.M., to El Paso (88 miles)
Del Rio, Texas, to Eagle Pass (51 miles)
Laredo to Brownsville (176 miles)
The House plan would add 361 miles in the desert from Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz., where 400 immigrants die of dehydration in an average year. Laredo would be flanked by 15 miles of fencing, and there would be a 176-mile barrier from there to Brownsville. Del Rio, Texas, to Eagle Pass would be blocked, as would 88 miles west from El Paso.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who proposed the fence, said it would cut down human trafficking and drug crime, especially around Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, where drug lords have murdered police with impunity.
"If we can dry up that massive land smuggling with backpacks full of cocaine coming across that smugglers' jump-off point ... we will have done great things for the people of America and the good citizens of Nuevo Laredo," he said.
He called the $2.2 billion price tag a bargain compared with the cost of enforcement and prison space.
The House voted 260 to 159 to authorize the fence, as an amendment to a broader immigration bill. All but four Texas Republicans – Reps. Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Henry Bonilla of San Antonio, Michael Conaway of Midland and Ron Paul of Surfside – voted for it, along with one Democrat, Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco.
All five supported the final bill.
Mr. Conaway argued that electronic sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and selective fencing would be more cost-effective, and complained that forcing a fence on border-area landowners would be an "egregious" affront to their rights.
Ms. Granger said local residents and sheriffs hadn't been asked for their input, and the proposal wasn't adequately planned.
The idea of a fence has kicked around for years. Conservative pundit and immigration-control advocate Pat Buchanan made it a cornerstone of his 1996 presidential campaign. At the time, cost estimates for fencing the entire southern border ran from $167 million for chain-link to $45 billion for a 25-foot-high structure akin to the Great Wall.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, likened the idea to the Berlin Wall, as did Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi.
"The answer's not a wall or kicking everybody out or shutting down commerce," said Ortiz spokeswoman Cathy Travis, "it's about funding [border enforcement] and being honest about why people come here."
Todd J. Gillman covers Congress and the Texas delegation.
E-mail tgillman@dallasnews.com
Saturday, December 31, 2005
WASHINGTON – Good fences make good neighbors. But do they make for good policy along the Mexican border?
Just before going home on recess, the House approved 700 miles of fencing despite objections from every Texas lawmaker whose district touches the border.
Advocates say the fence will keep out drug smugglers, terrorists and illegal immigrants. Critics say it's a waste of money that will simply push the problems to weak points along the 2,000-mile southern border. And Mexican officials are irate.
The debate moves to the Senate, where Texas' senators, both Republicans, are split.
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison is open to the idea.
"We already have fences in high-volume areas. I think that should be one of the tools. I don't think you need a 2,000-mile fence," she said, "but I think fences in the high-volume areas, where you have drug trafficking and crime and illegal aliens coming across that are not even from Mexico, that's part of securing our country and having integrity at our borders."
Sen. John Cornyn sees even the 700-mile fence as impractical and a waste of money.
"I would call the idea of a fence or a wall at the border a 19th-century solution to a 21st-century problem. ... Can't people just go around it?" he said.
Both senators want more border guards. Mr. Cornyn says an extra 10,000 guards, along with electronic surveillance and barriers erected at strategic spots, would create a far more cost-effective "virtual fence." He also wants a guest worker program to ease pressure on enforcement.
Fences now cover 80 miles of the southern border.
Border Barrier
Under the proposal, new fence segments would be along the border at:
Tecate, Calif. (22 miles, approximately 10 miles east and west of the current port of entry
Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz. (361 miles)
Columbus, N.M., to El Paso (88 miles)
Del Rio, Texas, to Eagle Pass (51 miles)
Laredo to Brownsville (176 miles)
The House plan would add 361 miles in the desert from Calexico, Calif., to Douglas, Ariz., where 400 immigrants die of dehydration in an average year. Laredo would be flanked by 15 miles of fencing, and there would be a 176-mile barrier from there to Brownsville. Del Rio, Texas, to Eagle Pass would be blocked, as would 88 miles west from El Paso.
Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., who proposed the fence, said it would cut down human trafficking and drug crime, especially around Laredo and Nuevo Laredo, where drug lords have murdered police with impunity.
"If we can dry up that massive land smuggling with backpacks full of cocaine coming across that smugglers' jump-off point ... we will have done great things for the people of America and the good citizens of Nuevo Laredo," he said.
He called the $2.2 billion price tag a bargain compared with the cost of enforcement and prison space.
The House voted 260 to 159 to authorize the fence, as an amendment to a broader immigration bill. All but four Texas Republicans – Reps. Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Henry Bonilla of San Antonio, Michael Conaway of Midland and Ron Paul of Surfside – voted for it, along with one Democrat, Rep. Chet Edwards of Waco.
All five supported the final bill.
Mr. Conaway argued that electronic sensors, unmanned aerial vehicles and selective fencing would be more cost-effective, and complained that forcing a fence on border-area landowners would be an "egregious" affront to their rights.
Ms. Granger said local residents and sheriffs hadn't been asked for their input, and the proposal wasn't adequately planned.
The idea of a fence has kicked around for years. Conservative pundit and immigration-control advocate Pat Buchanan made it a cornerstone of his 1996 presidential campaign. At the time, cost estimates for fencing the entire southern border ran from $167 million for chain-link to $45 billion for a 25-foot-high structure akin to the Great Wall.
Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, likened the idea to the Berlin Wall, as did Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi.
"The answer's not a wall or kicking everybody out or shutting down commerce," said Ortiz spokeswoman Cathy Travis, "it's about funding [border enforcement] and being honest about why people come here."
Todd J. Gillman covers Congress and the Texas delegation.
E-mail tgillman@dallasnews.com
Friday, December 23, 2005
Commentary by Ed Leahy, Coordinator, Nebraska Appleseed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Program
Here is a potent expression of hope and critique of the direction that our country has gone by way of Dr. Ted Hamann at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln who is connected to Great Plains immigrant rights activism. This is very appropriate as our leaders try to distract us at this very moment with the crazy issue over whether Christmas is at risk. Thanks, Ted. -Angela
Dear Friends,
At this time of the year, humanity has always reached deep within itself to reflect on the changes that surround us, to evaluate the growing light of the day, to give thanks, and to worship. In the modern world, we reflect this in the celebrations of Hannukah, Kwanza, Christmas, and Ramadan. Unfortunately, we have also witnessed the effect of religious extremism and a fear of what we do not understand that has resulted in the redefinition of these religious beliefs and of this holiday season. Moreover, these illogical fears have caused some to also redefine America in the same extremist vein.
Because of this debate, the public mind has made many false connections: Muslim = terrorist, immigrant = illegal, security = limited liberty, and happy holidays = a morally bankrupt, secular plan of attack to destroy the constitution and insult superior people. To further add to our dismay, we have seen our Congress, especially the House of Representatives, reflect these false comparisons and retreat behind the equally false notion that party unity = justice.
A quick review of Congress' recent actions (such as the budget reduction bill that further burdens the working poor and widens the gap between the "haves" and the "haven't got a prayers;" the discussion about trading liberty for security in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act; the insertion of unrelated amendments of issues long-defeated [such as oil drilling in ANWR and the CLEAR Act] but resurrected and enshrined in "must-pass" legislation) found their culmination, at least for those concerned with comprehensive immigration reform, in the passage of HR 4437, Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act by Rep. Sensenbrenner.
All three Nebraska representatives (Terry, Fortenberry, and Osborne) voted for this shameful legislation. ¡Ay que lastima!
Friends, do not be dismayed. Congress is on recess; it is not over. People of good conscience and goodwill must respond to these unprecedented challenges on human dignity in the coming session, which begins January 9. We will make our voice heard, and we invite you to join in this historic debate on Thursday, February 2, 2006 from 6:30-8:30 at the Skutt Student Center Ballroom at Creighton University. The attached flyers are for your use in inviting others to form a strong movement that will carry the short-term debate about fair and comprehensive immigration reform to its just end.
In all the years that I have had the distinct honor of working with and serving the newest Americans in our society, I have never been more filled with hope for a significant step towards a solution than I am now. However, I have also never experienced such revulsion at the inhumanity and indignant reactions of those who seek to define America in their own privileged and disconnected image.
So, the lines are drawn. Santa Claus might not be watching Congress to see if they have been bad or good, but we will be. Will you?
Please join us on February 2!
Happy Holidays,
Ed
Edward W. Leahy
Coordinator
Nebraska Appleseed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Program
3605 Q St.
Omaha, NE 68107
402-546-1013 (office)
402-689-4249 (Cell)
402-734-8887 (fax)
Dear Friends,
At this time of the year, humanity has always reached deep within itself to reflect on the changes that surround us, to evaluate the growing light of the day, to give thanks, and to worship. In the modern world, we reflect this in the celebrations of Hannukah, Kwanza, Christmas, and Ramadan. Unfortunately, we have also witnessed the effect of religious extremism and a fear of what we do not understand that has resulted in the redefinition of these religious beliefs and of this holiday season. Moreover, these illogical fears have caused some to also redefine America in the same extremist vein.
Because of this debate, the public mind has made many false connections: Muslim = terrorist, immigrant = illegal, security = limited liberty, and happy holidays = a morally bankrupt, secular plan of attack to destroy the constitution and insult superior people. To further add to our dismay, we have seen our Congress, especially the House of Representatives, reflect these false comparisons and retreat behind the equally false notion that party unity = justice.
A quick review of Congress' recent actions (such as the budget reduction bill that further burdens the working poor and widens the gap between the "haves" and the "haven't got a prayers;" the discussion about trading liberty for security in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act; the insertion of unrelated amendments of issues long-defeated [such as oil drilling in ANWR and the CLEAR Act] but resurrected and enshrined in "must-pass" legislation) found their culmination, at least for those concerned with comprehensive immigration reform, in the passage of HR 4437, Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act by Rep. Sensenbrenner.
All three Nebraska representatives (Terry, Fortenberry, and Osborne) voted for this shameful legislation. ¡Ay que lastima!
Friends, do not be dismayed. Congress is on recess; it is not over. People of good conscience and goodwill must respond to these unprecedented challenges on human dignity in the coming session, which begins January 9. We will make our voice heard, and we invite you to join in this historic debate on Thursday, February 2, 2006 from 6:30-8:30 at the Skutt Student Center Ballroom at Creighton University. The attached flyers are for your use in inviting others to form a strong movement that will carry the short-term debate about fair and comprehensive immigration reform to its just end.
In all the years that I have had the distinct honor of working with and serving the newest Americans in our society, I have never been more filled with hope for a significant step towards a solution than I am now. However, I have also never experienced such revulsion at the inhumanity and indignant reactions of those who seek to define America in their own privileged and disconnected image.
So, the lines are drawn. Santa Claus might not be watching Congress to see if they have been bad or good, but we will be. Will you?
Please join us on February 2!
Happy Holidays,
Ed
Edward W. Leahy
Coordinator
Nebraska Appleseed Comprehensive Immigration Reform Program
3605 Q St.
Omaha, NE 68107
402-546-1013 (office)
402-689-4249 (Cell)
402-734-8887 (fax)
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Judge Says Arizona Must Spend More on English-Learners or Face Hefty Fines
In the latest decision, the court added that English-language learners do not have to pass the state’s high school exam to receive a diploma until the state proves it has fixed the funding problem." Attorneys for the state argued that having the students not take the exam will limit the students' motivation to achieve and also will limit teachers' interests in serving them since they would not be a focal group for testing purposes. However, and I think appropriately, this court establishes school funding as a first order of business. This should provide ideas for other states with large populations of English language learners. -Angela
EDUCATION WEEK
December 19, 2005
Web Only
By Mary Ann Zehr
A federal judge has set a January deadline for Arizona to find a way to adequately pay for programs for English-language learners or face fines of up to $2 million a day.
In the Dec. 15 ruling, U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins gave the state until Jan. 24, or just 15 days following the start of its 2006 legislative session, to resolve the issue of paying for English-language learners or be fined $500,000 per day for 30 days. The fines would increase up to $2 million per day if the state continued to miss the court’s deadlines.
The ruling is the latest in the Flores v. Arizona school-finance lawsuit, which was filed in 1992. Six years ago, the U.S. District Court of Arizona ruled that the state did not sufficiently fund the education of English-language learners.
In the latest decision, the court added that English-language learners do not have to pass the state’s high school exam to receive a diploma until the state proves it has fixed the funding problem.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said he will ask Arizona’s attorney general to file an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Horne contended that the federal court has unfairly failed to take into consideration the amount of funding that the state receives from the federal government for English-language learners in determining that funding overall in Arizona for such students is inadequate. At the least, he said, the court should take federal funds into account and tell Arizona the amount that it needs to make up to provide a sound education for the state’s students with limited English skills.
Mr. Horne also disputed the court’s decision to exempt Arizona’s 160,000 English-language learners from the state’s high school exit exam until the funding matter is resolved.
The high school exit exam is part of Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS. “Until this ruling, these students were heavily motivated to become proficient in English. This ruling undercuts their motivation to acquire the skills they need to succeed in today’s economy,” Mr. Horne said in an interview.
He also noted in a written statement that by exempting students from the high school exit exam, there is a risk that teachers will divert their resources and efforts from assisting ELL students and concentrate on non-ELL students.
‘Pretty Effective Sanctions’
Timothy M. Hogan, the public-interest lawyer who filed the Flores v. Arizona lawsuit, said he is pleased with the court’s decision. “We got some pretty effective sanctions in place,” he said. “If they have a 100-day session and don’t do anything, the total would be $72.5 million.”
When asked if he thought the temporary lifting of the high-school-exit-exam requirement for English-language learners could divert teachers’ attention away from such students, Mr. Hogan said, “You have to have faith in the teachers, which I do.” He added that he doesn’t have faith in the legislature because it has missed previous deadlines set by the federal court to fix the problem.
Judge Collins ruled on Jan. 25 of this year that the legislature had until the end of April or the end of the 2005 legislative session—whichever was later—to find a solution. The legislature passed a bill at the end of its regular session to address the issue, but Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed it, saying the measure didn’t authorize enough aid for English-language learners.
Mr. Hogan, the executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, said he also opposed that bill “because it wasn’t related to any known cost of providing ELL programs.”
The day before the federal court issued its Dec. 15 ruling, Mr. Horne issued a press release noting that he has asked Arizona’s congressional delegation to request $750 million in federal aid to help pay Arizona for what it costs to educate undocumented children.
“I would urge the Arizona delegation to push for an allocation of federal dollars to defray the costs to state taxpayers, who are currently bearing the burden of paying for the education of children who are not here legally,” Mr. Horne said in the Dec. 14 statement. Mr. Horne cited figures from the Pew Hispanic Center that Arizona has 125,000 undocumented children in its schools.
Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior research associate for the Pew Hispanic Center, said last week that while he had once stated that Arizona had 125,000 children of undocumented immigrants, a majority of those children were born in the United States and are thus American citizens. He estimates that Arizona actually has about 60,000 children who are living in the country illegally.
Mr. Horne said that “if the federal government had properly guarded the border, the children would never have been in school.” He said it’s unfair for Arizona taxpayers to have to bear so much of the burden of educating students who are living in the country illegally or those whose parents crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
EDUCATION WEEK
December 19, 2005
Web Only
By Mary Ann Zehr
A federal judge has set a January deadline for Arizona to find a way to adequately pay for programs for English-language learners or face fines of up to $2 million a day.
In the Dec. 15 ruling, U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins gave the state until Jan. 24, or just 15 days following the start of its 2006 legislative session, to resolve the issue of paying for English-language learners or be fined $500,000 per day for 30 days. The fines would increase up to $2 million per day if the state continued to miss the court’s deadlines.
The ruling is the latest in the Flores v. Arizona school-finance lawsuit, which was filed in 1992. Six years ago, the U.S. District Court of Arizona ruled that the state did not sufficiently fund the education of English-language learners.
In the latest decision, the court added that English-language learners do not have to pass the state’s high school exam to receive a diploma until the state proves it has fixed the funding problem.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said he will ask Arizona’s attorney general to file an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
Mr. Horne contended that the federal court has unfairly failed to take into consideration the amount of funding that the state receives from the federal government for English-language learners in determining that funding overall in Arizona for such students is inadequate. At the least, he said, the court should take federal funds into account and tell Arizona the amount that it needs to make up to provide a sound education for the state’s students with limited English skills.
Mr. Horne also disputed the court’s decision to exempt Arizona’s 160,000 English-language learners from the state’s high school exit exam until the funding matter is resolved.
The high school exit exam is part of Arizona’s Instrument to Measure Standards, or AIMS. “Until this ruling, these students were heavily motivated to become proficient in English. This ruling undercuts their motivation to acquire the skills they need to succeed in today’s economy,” Mr. Horne said in an interview.
He also noted in a written statement that by exempting students from the high school exit exam, there is a risk that teachers will divert their resources and efforts from assisting ELL students and concentrate on non-ELL students.
‘Pretty Effective Sanctions’
Timothy M. Hogan, the public-interest lawyer who filed the Flores v. Arizona lawsuit, said he is pleased with the court’s decision. “We got some pretty effective sanctions in place,” he said. “If they have a 100-day session and don’t do anything, the total would be $72.5 million.”
When asked if he thought the temporary lifting of the high-school-exit-exam requirement for English-language learners could divert teachers’ attention away from such students, Mr. Hogan said, “You have to have faith in the teachers, which I do.” He added that he doesn’t have faith in the legislature because it has missed previous deadlines set by the federal court to fix the problem.
Judge Collins ruled on Jan. 25 of this year that the legislature had until the end of April or the end of the 2005 legislative session—whichever was later—to find a solution. The legislature passed a bill at the end of its regular session to address the issue, but Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, vetoed it, saying the measure didn’t authorize enough aid for English-language learners.
Mr. Hogan, the executive director of the Arizona Center for Law in the Public Interest, said he also opposed that bill “because it wasn’t related to any known cost of providing ELL programs.”
The day before the federal court issued its Dec. 15 ruling, Mr. Horne issued a press release noting that he has asked Arizona’s congressional delegation to request $750 million in federal aid to help pay Arizona for what it costs to educate undocumented children.
“I would urge the Arizona delegation to push for an allocation of federal dollars to defray the costs to state taxpayers, who are currently bearing the burden of paying for the education of children who are not here legally,” Mr. Horne said in the Dec. 14 statement. Mr. Horne cited figures from the Pew Hispanic Center that Arizona has 125,000 undocumented children in its schools.
Jeffrey S. Passel, a senior research associate for the Pew Hispanic Center, said last week that while he had once stated that Arizona had 125,000 children of undocumented immigrants, a majority of those children were born in the United States and are thus American citizens. He estimates that Arizona actually has about 60,000 children who are living in the country illegally.
Mr. Horne said that “if the federal government had properly guarded the border, the children would never have been in school.” He said it’s unfair for Arizona taxpayers to have to bear so much of the burden of educating students who are living in the country illegally or those whose parents crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally.
Federal Judge Rules Against 'Intelligent Design'
I haven't posted too much on this, but this is really big news. The plaintiff's attorneys used the Establishment Clause to argue their case that the teaching of intelligent design amounts to establishing religion in public schools. Moreover, the judge offered the following: "Repeatedly in this trial, plaintiff's scientific experts testified that theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator." Plus, the judge added that the Dover, Pa. school board was dishonest: "It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the real purpose behind the policy," Jones wrote." This is one of those cases where the end justifies the means.
-Angela
-Angela
State gets more hurricane relief
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Texas senators said Tuesday the state will get another $11.2 million in emergency money to pay for hurricane costs, but money for schools with children who fled Hurricane Katrina remained knotted up in a Senate standoff over oil drilling in an Alaska refuge.
The money for transportation and housing costs comes from $62 billion Congress made available for recovery after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast. Texas has received more than $250 million, said Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Senate Democrats and some GOP moderates were threatening to filibuster the defense spending bill, which contains money for Texas and other states that took in students who fled Katrina. The House on Monday approved $645 million to cover those costs, but it attached to the bill a measure allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The ANWR provision triggered a political standoff in the Senate, where opposition to drilling is strong. Opponents argue the defense bill is not the place for the measure, which previously passed in the Senate as part of a deficit reduction bill.
Under the ANWR measure, money from oil lease payments and royalties would go into a Gulf Coast Recovery Fund for hurricane-ravaged states. Texas would get 10 percent of that money, said Courtney Boone, spokeswoman for Rep. Ted Stevens, R-Ala., the ANWR sponsor.
Democrats and some moderate Republicans were working Wednesday to get the ANWR measure knocked off the bill, which could mean a vote as early as Wednesday, before the holiday recess.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on the Senate floor that loading the defense bill with the ANWR measure "is an outrage."
"It's high noon. It's a showdown," he said. "If you load up the bill that has to pass with these outrageous and controversial provisions ... (you) are defying the members to stand up and say no."
Cornyn acknowledged, "This is, by any definition, an ugly process.
"I'm going to vote for it because it's a must-pass piece of legislation, but I would much rather we handle it in a more orderly fashion."
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, has pressed for passage of the defense measure, saying those who are stalling a vote were thwarting the will of the Senate. She said the Pentagon bill is a pro
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Texas senators said Tuesday the state will get another $11.2 million in emergency money to pay for hurricane costs, but money for schools with children who fled Hurricane Katrina remained knotted up in a Senate standoff over oil drilling in an Alaska refuge.
The money for transportation and housing costs comes from $62 billion Congress made available for recovery after hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit the Gulf Coast. Texas has received more than $250 million, said Republican Sen. John Cornyn.
Senate Democrats and some GOP moderates were threatening to filibuster the defense spending bill, which contains money for Texas and other states that took in students who fled Katrina. The House on Monday approved $645 million to cover those costs, but it attached to the bill a measure allowing drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The ANWR provision triggered a political standoff in the Senate, where opposition to drilling is strong. Opponents argue the defense bill is not the place for the measure, which previously passed in the Senate as part of a deficit reduction bill.
Under the ANWR measure, money from oil lease payments and royalties would go into a Gulf Coast Recovery Fund for hurricane-ravaged states. Texas would get 10 percent of that money, said Courtney Boone, spokeswoman for Rep. Ted Stevens, R-Ala., the ANWR sponsor.
Democrats and some moderate Republicans were working Wednesday to get the ANWR measure knocked off the bill, which could mean a vote as early as Wednesday, before the holiday recess.
Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said on the Senate floor that loading the defense bill with the ANWR measure "is an outrage."
"It's high noon. It's a showdown," he said. "If you load up the bill that has to pass with these outrageous and controversial provisions ... (you) are defying the members to stand up and say no."
Cornyn acknowledged, "This is, by any definition, an ugly process.
"I'm going to vote for it because it's a must-pass piece of legislation, but I would much rather we handle it in a more orderly fashion."
Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, has pressed for passage of the defense measure, saying those who are stalling a vote were thwarting the will of the Senate. She said the Pentagon bill is a pro
Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin
Interesting study. Note this comment herein: "Several sociologists and others said they feared that such revelations might wrongly overshadow the prevailing finding of genetics over the past 10 years: that the number of DNA differences between races is tiny compared with the range of genetic diversity found within any single racial group." This is consistent with observations of differences between men and women, namely, that there are more differences within a gender than between them. One wonders why such studies continue? -Angela
By Rick Weiss
Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny
genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance
of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a
finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring
mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources
of strife.
The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred
by chance in a single individual after the first human
exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That
person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved
northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to
the lightest of the world's races.
Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned
against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race
gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and
political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part
of what race is -- and is not.
In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just
how small a biological difference is reflected by skin
color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just
one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the
human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human
being.
"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said
Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics
at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work.
"Almost all the differences used to differentiate
populations from around the world really are skin deep."
The work raises a raft of new questions -- not least of
which is why white skin caught on so thoroughly in northern
climes once it arose. Some scientists suggest that lighter
skin offered a strong survival advantage for people who
migrated out of Africa by boosting their levels of
bone-strengthening vitamin D; others have posited that its
novelty and showiness simply made it more attractive to
those seeking mates.
The work also reveals for the first time that Asians owe
their relatively light skin to different mutations. That
means that light skin arose independently at least twice in
human evolution, in each case affecting populations with the
facial and other traits that today are commonly regarded as
the hallmarks of Caucasian and Asian races.
Several sociologists and others said they feared that such
revelations might wrongly overshadow the prevailing finding
of genetics over the past 10 years: that the number of DNA
differences between races is tiny compared with the range of
genetic diversity found within any single racial group.
Even study leader Keith Cheng said he was at first
uncomfortable talking about the new work, fearing that the
finding of such a clear genetic difference between people of
African and European ancestries might reawaken discredited
assertions of other purported inborn differences between
races -- the most long-standing and inflammatory of those
being intelligence.
"I think human beings are extremely insecure and look to
visual cues of sameness to feel better, and people will do
bad things to people who look different," Cheng said.
The discovery, described in today's issue of the journal
Science, was an unexpected outgrowth of studies Cheng and
his colleagues were conducting on inch-long zebra fish,
which are popular research tools for geneticists and
developmental biologists. Having identified a gene that,
when mutated, interferes with its ability to make its
characteristic black stripes, the team scanned human DNA
databases to see if a similar gene resides in people.
To their surprise, they found virtually identical
pigment-building genes in humans, chickens, dogs, cows and
many others species, an indication of its biological value.
They got a bigger surprise when they looked in a new
database comparing the genomes of four of the world's major
racial groups. That showed that whites with northern and
western European ancestry have a mutated version of the gene.
Skin color is a reflection of the amount and distribution of
the pigment melanin, which in humans protects against
damaging ultraviolet rays but in other species is also used
for camouflage or other purposes. The mutation that deprives
zebra fish of their stripes blocks the creation of a protein
whose job is to move charged atoms across cell membranes,
an
obscure process that is crucial to the accumulation of
melanin inside cells.
Humans of European descent, Cheng's team found, bear a
slightly different mutation that hobbles the same protein
with similar effect. The defect does not affect melanin
deposition in other parts of the body, including the hair
and eyes, whose tints are under the control of other genes.
A few genes have previously been associated with human
pigment disorders -- most notably those that, when mutated,
lead to albinism, an extreme form of pigment loss. But the
newly found glitch is the first found to play a role in the
formation of "normal" white skin. The Penn State team
calculates that the gene, known as slc24a5, is responsible
for about one-third of the pigment loss that made black skin
white. A few other as-yet-unidentified mutated genes
apparently account for the rest.
Although precise dating is impossible, several scientists
speculated on the basis of its spread and variation that the
mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. That
would be consistent with research showing that a wave of
ancestral humans migrated northward and eastward out of
Africa about 50,000 years ago.
Unlike most mutations, this one quickly overwhelmed its
ancestral version, at least in Europe, suggesting it had a
real benefit. Many scientists suspect that benefit has to do
with vitamin D, made in the body with the help of sunlight
and critical to proper bone development.
Sun intensity is great enough in equatorial regions that the
vitamin can still be made in dark-skinned people despite the
ultraviolet shielding effects of melanin. In the north,
where sunlight is less intense and cold weather demands that
more clothing be worn, melanin's ultraviolet shielding
became a liability, the thinking goes.
Today that solar requirement is largely irrelevant because
many foods are supplemented with vitamin D.
Some scientists said they suspect that white skin's rapid
rise to genetic dominance may also be the product of "sexual
selection," a phenomenon of evolutionary biology in which
almost any new and showy trait in a healthy individual can
become highly prized by those seeking mates, perhaps because
it provides evidence of genetic innovativeness.
Cheng and co-worker Victor A. Canfield said their discovery
could have practical spinoffs. A gene so crucial to the
buildup of melanin in the skin might be a good target for
new drugs against melanoma, for example, a cancer of melanin
cells in which slc24a5 works overtime.
But they and others agreed that, for better or worse, the
finding's most immediate impact may be an escalating debate
about the meaning of race.
Recent revelations that all people are more than 99.9
percent genetically identical has proved that race has
almost no biological validity. Yet geneticists' claims that
race is a phony construct have not rung true to many
nonscientists -- and understandably so, said Vivian Ota Wang
of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda.
"You may tell people that race isn't real and doesn't
matter, but they can't catch a cab," Ota Wang said. "So
unless we take that into account it makes us sound crazy."
By Rick Weiss
Scientists said yesterday that they have discovered a tiny
genetic mutation that largely explains the first appearance
of white skin in humans tens of thousands of years ago, a
finding that helps solve one of biology's most enduring
mysteries and illuminates one of humanity's greatest sources
of strife.
The work suggests that the skin-whitening mutation occurred
by chance in a single individual after the first human
exodus from Africa, when all people were brown-skinned. That
person's offspring apparently thrived as humans moved
northward into what is now Europe, helping to give rise to
the lightest of the world's races.
Leaders of the study, at Penn State University, warned
against interpreting the finding as a discovery of "the race
gene." Race is a vaguely defined biological, social and
political concept, they noted, and skin color is only part
of what race is -- and is not.
In fact, several scientists said, the new work shows just
how small a biological difference is reflected by skin
color. The newly found mutation involves a change of just
one letter of DNA code out of the 3.1 billion letters in the
human genome -- the complete instructions for making a human
being.
"It's a major finding in a very sensitive area," said
Stephen Oppenheimer, an expert in anthropological genetics
at Oxford University, who was not involved in the work.
"Almost all the differences used to differentiate
populations from around the world really are skin deep."
The work raises a raft of new questions -- not least of
which is why white skin caught on so thoroughly in northern
climes once it arose. Some scientists suggest that lighter
skin offered a strong survival advantage for people who
migrated out of Africa by boosting their levels of
bone-strengthening vitamin D; others have posited that its
novelty and showiness simply made it more attractive to
those seeking mates.
The work also reveals for the first time that Asians owe
their relatively light skin to different mutations. That
means that light skin arose independently at least twice in
human evolution, in each case affecting populations with the
facial and other traits that today are commonly regarded as
the hallmarks of Caucasian and Asian races.
Several sociologists and others said they feared that such
revelations might wrongly overshadow the prevailing finding
of genetics over the past 10 years: that the number of DNA
differences between races is tiny compared with the range of
genetic diversity found within any single racial group.
Even study leader Keith Cheng said he was at first
uncomfortable talking about the new work, fearing that the
finding of such a clear genetic difference between people of
African and European ancestries might reawaken discredited
assertions of other purported inborn differences between
races -- the most long-standing and inflammatory of those
being intelligence.
"I think human beings are extremely insecure and look to
visual cues of sameness to feel better, and people will do
bad things to people who look different," Cheng said.
The discovery, described in today's issue of the journal
Science, was an unexpected outgrowth of studies Cheng and
his colleagues were conducting on inch-long zebra fish,
which are popular research tools for geneticists and
developmental biologists. Having identified a gene that,
when mutated, interferes with its ability to make its
characteristic black stripes, the team scanned human DNA
databases to see if a similar gene resides in people.
To their surprise, they found virtually identical
pigment-building genes in humans, chickens, dogs, cows and
many others species, an indication of its biological value.
They got a bigger surprise when they looked in a new
database comparing the genomes of four of the world's major
racial groups. That showed that whites with northern and
western European ancestry have a mutated version of the gene.
Skin color is a reflection of the amount and distribution of
the pigment melanin, which in humans protects against
damaging ultraviolet rays but in other species is also used
for camouflage or other purposes. The mutation that deprives
zebra fish of their stripes blocks the creation of a protein
whose job is to move charged atoms across cell membranes,
an
obscure process that is crucial to the accumulation of
melanin inside cells.
Humans of European descent, Cheng's team found, bear a
slightly different mutation that hobbles the same protein
with similar effect. The defect does not affect melanin
deposition in other parts of the body, including the hair
and eyes, whose tints are under the control of other genes.
A few genes have previously been associated with human
pigment disorders -- most notably those that, when mutated,
lead to albinism, an extreme form of pigment loss. But the
newly found glitch is the first found to play a role in the
formation of "normal" white skin. The Penn State team
calculates that the gene, known as slc24a5, is responsible
for about one-third of the pigment loss that made black skin
white. A few other as-yet-unidentified mutated genes
apparently account for the rest.
Although precise dating is impossible, several scientists
speculated on the basis of its spread and variation that the
mutation arose between 20,000 and 50,000 years ago. That
would be consistent with research showing that a wave of
ancestral humans migrated northward and eastward out of
Africa about 50,000 years ago.
Unlike most mutations, this one quickly overwhelmed its
ancestral version, at least in Europe, suggesting it had a
real benefit. Many scientists suspect that benefit has to do
with vitamin D, made in the body with the help of sunlight
and critical to proper bone development.
Sun intensity is great enough in equatorial regions that the
vitamin can still be made in dark-skinned people despite the
ultraviolet shielding effects of melanin. In the north,
where sunlight is less intense and cold weather demands that
more clothing be worn, melanin's ultraviolet shielding
became a liability, the thinking goes.
Today that solar requirement is largely irrelevant because
many foods are supplemented with vitamin D.
Some scientists said they suspect that white skin's rapid
rise to genetic dominance may also be the product of "sexual
selection," a phenomenon of evolutionary biology in which
almost any new and showy trait in a healthy individual can
become highly prized by those seeking mates, perhaps because
it provides evidence of genetic innovativeness.
Cheng and co-worker Victor A. Canfield said their discovery
could have practical spinoffs. A gene so crucial to the
buildup of melanin in the skin might be a good target for
new drugs against melanoma, for example, a cancer of melanin
cells in which slc24a5 works overtime.
But they and others agreed that, for better or worse, the
finding's most immediate impact may be an escalating debate
about the meaning of race.
Recent revelations that all people are more than 99.9
percent genetically identical has proved that race has
almost no biological validity. Yet geneticists' claims that
race is a phony construct have not rung true to many
nonscientists -- and understandably so, said Vivian Ota Wang
of the National Human Genome Research Institute in Bethesda.
"You may tell people that race isn't real and doesn't
matter, but they can't catch a cab," Ota Wang said. "So
unless we take that into account it makes us sound crazy."
Monday, December 19, 2005
Recent article by Milton Friedman
Wanted to share this piece with blog readership The Father of Modern School Reform (December 2005) It's an interview with Milton Friedman who came up with the idea for vouchers. What should be known is that no one thought much about what he wrote in the early days until white Southerners wanted to avoid desegregation efforts. When his ideas provided the way to maintain Jim Crow, they became popular. This should similarly warn us today that a marketized schooling system will result in a re-stratification of educational quality and opportunity--away from the direction that we want to go in.
Hope all are well as we head toward the X-mas holidays. -Angela
Hope all are well as we head toward the X-mas holidays. -Angela
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Failing to fix school funding in time won't affect every district
Guerra maintains that contrary to myth, if lawmakers don't meet the deadline for financing our public schools in the Spring special session, it is likely that some schools would stay open. In Sunday's Express-News, he promises to provide details on why a select group of school districts won't be affected in the event of lawmakers' inaction. Stay tuned.
-Angela
by Carlos Guerra
San Antonio Express-News
CORPUS CHRISTI — When the Texas Tax Reform Commission convened its third hearing here Tuesday, there were about as many people in the audience as there were commissioners on the dais.
"We'll have about 15 of these around the state," Chairman John Sharp said before the hearing started. "We would have had a lot more, but June 1st is coming around pretty fast. We'll have to have our recommendations finished by the end of March and the special (legislative) session in April or May to meet the deadline."
Talk of the urgency created by the June 1 deadline peppered numerous discussions, and most believe that if the Legislature doesn't have a fix by then, all Texas schools will be shuttered.
But exactly what will happen if the Legislature can't agree on a plan by the deadline and whether all school districts will be affected equally is misunderstood.
In 2001, when discontent over Texas' school funding system started boiling over, the issues were increasing the money spent on public schools, reducing school districts' property tax rates and eliminating the funding system's share-the-wealth provision that forces rich districts to share like good Texans. But legislators could not reach any accords during the five sessions they tussled over the school funding system.
Finally, state District Judge John Dietz ruled that schools were not funded enough to pass constitutional muster and that the funding system's reliance on property taxes — which are capped at $1.50 per $100 valuation for maintenance and operations — had created an unconstitutional state property tax. And he left the Robin Hood provision intact.
Dietz ordered the whole mechanism fixed by Oct. 1, 2005. But when the state appealed his ruling, the countdown was suspended until the appeal was decided.
Months later, the Texas Supreme Court upheld Dietz's ruling that Texas had, in effect, created an unconstitutional state property tax that denied districts meaningful discretion in spending. But the justices overturned his finding that school funding was not sufficient to fulfill the constitutional mandate — albeit with a warning that it was close to becoming constitutionally unacceptable in that respect, too. And the high court extended the deadline to June 1.
Gov. Rick Perry responded by naming a blue-ribbon panel of Texas business people to the commission and charged them with devising a plan to "buy down" property taxes and replacing the lost revenue with other tax money, dollar for dollar. But as Sharp explained Tuesday, "He took a state income tax off the charge."
Tuesday, discussion about improving public schools was only tangential because the focus was on things like fixing the state's franchise tax so it won't be a voluntary tax, raising sales tax rates and adopting new "broad-based" business taxes. There was also an impassioned plea from South Padre Island businessman Doyle Wells for putting "destination casino resorts" on a statewide ballot.
But interestingly, while most believe that the court's deadline will pressure lawmakers to agree on a fix, every tax change that has been suggested has been rejected at least once by legislators.
Even more interesting is that, contrary to myth, if lawmakers don't meet the deadline, it is likely that some schools would stay open.
Tune in Sunday for details on why a select group of school districts won't be affected in the slightest by lawmakers' inaction.
To contact Carlos Guerra,
call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail cguerra@express-news.net
-Angela
by Carlos Guerra
San Antonio Express-News
CORPUS CHRISTI — When the Texas Tax Reform Commission convened its third hearing here Tuesday, there were about as many people in the audience as there were commissioners on the dais.
"We'll have about 15 of these around the state," Chairman John Sharp said before the hearing started. "We would have had a lot more, but June 1st is coming around pretty fast. We'll have to have our recommendations finished by the end of March and the special (legislative) session in April or May to meet the deadline."
Talk of the urgency created by the June 1 deadline peppered numerous discussions, and most believe that if the Legislature doesn't have a fix by then, all Texas schools will be shuttered.
But exactly what will happen if the Legislature can't agree on a plan by the deadline and whether all school districts will be affected equally is misunderstood.
In 2001, when discontent over Texas' school funding system started boiling over, the issues were increasing the money spent on public schools, reducing school districts' property tax rates and eliminating the funding system's share-the-wealth provision that forces rich districts to share like good Texans. But legislators could not reach any accords during the five sessions they tussled over the school funding system.
Finally, state District Judge John Dietz ruled that schools were not funded enough to pass constitutional muster and that the funding system's reliance on property taxes — which are capped at $1.50 per $100 valuation for maintenance and operations — had created an unconstitutional state property tax. And he left the Robin Hood provision intact.
Dietz ordered the whole mechanism fixed by Oct. 1, 2005. But when the state appealed his ruling, the countdown was suspended until the appeal was decided.
Months later, the Texas Supreme Court upheld Dietz's ruling that Texas had, in effect, created an unconstitutional state property tax that denied districts meaningful discretion in spending. But the justices overturned his finding that school funding was not sufficient to fulfill the constitutional mandate — albeit with a warning that it was close to becoming constitutionally unacceptable in that respect, too. And the high court extended the deadline to June 1.
Gov. Rick Perry responded by naming a blue-ribbon panel of Texas business people to the commission and charged them with devising a plan to "buy down" property taxes and replacing the lost revenue with other tax money, dollar for dollar. But as Sharp explained Tuesday, "He took a state income tax off the charge."
Tuesday, discussion about improving public schools was only tangential because the focus was on things like fixing the state's franchise tax so it won't be a voluntary tax, raising sales tax rates and adopting new "broad-based" business taxes. There was also an impassioned plea from South Padre Island businessman Doyle Wells for putting "destination casino resorts" on a statewide ballot.
But interestingly, while most believe that the court's deadline will pressure lawmakers to agree on a fix, every tax change that has been suggested has been rejected at least once by legislators.
Even more interesting is that, contrary to myth, if lawmakers don't meet the deadline, it is likely that some schools would stay open.
Tune in Sunday for details on why a select group of school districts won't be affected in the slightest by lawmakers' inaction.
To contact Carlos Guerra,
call (210) 250-3545 or e-mail cguerra@express-news.net
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