For a copy of "Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas," go to the Texas Association of School Administrators Web site: http://www.tasanet.org/files/visioning/visioningfinal.pdf
By LINDA STEWART BALL | The Associated Press
Jan. 26, 2009
DALLAS — Skip the piecemeal education reform. A group of Texas school superintendents are calling for a complete transformation of public schools to better prepare students for the future in ways that aren't boring.
They've laid out the framework in a 48-page report called Creating a New Vision for Public Education in Texas.
Nearly two years in the making, the document spells out school leaders' thoughts on six key issues, including the use of digital technology, abuse of standardized testing and designing accountability systems that inspire excellence instead of punish perceived shortcomings.
The 35 superintendents from Dallas, Cypress-Fairbanks, Fort Worth, San Antonio and numerous rural and suburban school districts are responsible for educating about a quarter of the state's 4.7 million schoolchildren.
"We came together to say 'Stop this train that's going in the wrong direction,' " said Coppell school Superintendent Jeff Turner.
Keith Sockwell, chief executive officer of Cambridge Strategic Services, an education consulting firm, conceived of the initiative after visiting with frustrated Texas school superintendents.
"When we look at our public schools today, I'd say they're doing a dadgum good job of preparing our kids for the 20th and 19th Century," Sockwell said. "It's almost like we need to blow it up and start over."
The superintendents say part of the problem is that state and federal politicians, business leaders and their policy advisers have set education's current course.
The school administrators want to return control to principals, teachers, parents, school board members and others at the local level — or at least create a better balance.
"It's going to have to be a joint collaborative effort with parents, educators and legislators," said Plano school Superintendent Doug Otto. "None of us can do it alone. Certainly, the business community has to be part of it, too.
"I'm optimistic," Otto added. "People are ready for a change, to see if we can't devise a much better system for our kids."
To do that, he and others said there needs to be a grassroots discussion about what needs to change and how. The report opens the door for such a dialogue.
Much of the research behind it came from national experts who met with the superintendents and challenged their thinking.
"They really stretched us," Dallas superintendent Michael Hinojosa said of the process. "To get 35 superintendents with a bunch of egos to agree on where we ought to go, was really inspiring. I think this is long overdue."
Although completed last summer, the document has been quietly making its way onto some school board agendas and has become the focus of town hall meetings.
"We're asking for comment," said Stephen Waddell, Birdville school district superintendent. "We want people to read it and respond."
Some 3,500 school administrators from across the state_ including about 800 superintendents — are expected to weigh in on the report this week during a three-day Texas Association of School Administrators conference that began Monday in Austin.
"It's a work in progress," said Johnny Veselka, executive director of the Texas Association of School Administrators. "It's not a document that will reach its full fruition during this legislative session. But it gives us a lens through which we can look at legislative proposals."
Otto said a major overhaul in education — using the report as a roadmap — probably couldn't happen before the 2011 legislative session. However, there's plenty that school districts can start addressing now.
"I think the hardest thing to do is change what goes on in the classroom," Otto said. "School can be a very boring place for a student sitting at a desk all day."
He said students come to traditional school settings with a mastery of iPods, Wii game systems, cell phones and other devices that must be "powered down" in class. The challenge is finding a way to use gaming techniques and other technology to enhance the curriculum and create a more relevant and engaging learning environment, he said, citing one of the report's guiding principles.
Otto said "parents and educators are tired of high-stakes testing that limits what is taught and emphasizes sanctions rather than rewards.
Dawson Orr, Highland Park's superintendent agreed.
"By no means are we suggesting that we don't need assessments or all testing is bad," Orr said. "What we're saying is it's become disproportionate."
The superintendents say there are other ways to measure the quality of schools.
Sockwell, who has recently shared the report with educators in Georgia and Virginia, said if Texas is able to make such changes, other states will follow.
Cara Mendelsohn, president of the Plano school district's Council of PTAs, said she plans to present the report to her council in March.
She particularly appreciates the superintendent's quest to move from a "one size fits all education" model to a more personalized approach, recognizing the many ways students learn.
"I think it's what we need," Mendelsohn said. "When we start teaching things in a relevant way, kids will succeed."
Dr. Jon H. Fleming, chairman of the board of The Texas Education Reform Foundation, said the document is important.
"Do I agree with everything in there?" he asked. "No."
But it sparks a conversation that needs to be had, he said.
Thursday, February 05, 2009
State could get $10 billion stimulus school aidState could get $10 billion stimulus school aid
Nanette Asimov, SF Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
An economic stimulus package working its way through Congress could provide $10 billion in federal relief over the next two years for California's public schools, raising optimism among educators that it might ease cutbacks caused by the state's budget crisis.
The money is part of an $825 billion stimulus package the House of Representatives is expected to vote on today. It contains about $140 billion for schools nationwide.
The package would provide millions of dollars to most school districts in the Bay Area and across the state for construction, special education and help for low-income students.
"This does not solve the fiscal crisis, but it does throw us a lifeline," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Tuesday.
Although no package has been approved, California educators are salivating over what could be the largest infusion of one-time federal cash for schools in the state's history.
To put it in context, in 2007, the federal government spent $54 billion on education nationwide, an amount dwarfed by the $140 billion in the stimulus bill. California's share would be about $10 billion - more than $1 billion of it for the huge Los Angeles Unified School District.
The Senate is expected to take up its version of a stimulus package next week, and a compromise is likely to be approved by both houses in mid-February.
"We've never seen numbers this big from the feds - ever," said Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators.
Wells is among several California educators - school board members, principals, parents and teachers - who have lobbied Washington since before President Obama took office.
"We wanted to make sure they were aware of just how deep the proposed cuts are in California," Wells said.
Keeping the money local
And they asked for language in the bill that would ensure schools could keep the new federal money rather than allow the state to siphon the money away by reducing its school funding by the same amount.
It's a danger that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesman, H.D. Palmer, acknowledges could happen - at least to some extent - unless the federal money were specifically earmarked for certain purposes.
California is facing a $42 billion budget gap over the next 18 months, and state lawmakers have yet to agree on how to close it. With the state on the brink of running out of cash, California hopes to borrow money to keep short-term cash flowing, Palmer said.
But if money came in from the stimulus package "with no strings attached," he said, "our priority would be to use the money to reduce or eliminate that borrowing."
Under the House plan, the education stimulus money is largely earmarked. That might protect much of the cash from California lawmakers who want to use it to pay down debt, but it also restricts local educators from using it as they see fit - say, to retain teachers.
"Even this amount of money is not a silver bullet for all of our funding problems," said Mike Myslinski, spokesman for the California Teachers Association.
San Francisco is a case in point. The district would directly receive nearly $42 million over the next two years under the stimulus plan being voted on in the House. But the money is earmarked for special education, school construction and schools with low-income children.
"We're still going to have to put out layoff notices," said Superintendent Carlos Garcia, noting that the state's legal deadline for mailing out such notices each year is March 15. The notices can be rescinded later if the fiscal picture improves. But Garcia said that as of now, with no state budget and no certainty in how any incoming money might be spent, the notices are going out.
Schwarzenegger proposes to help close the budget gap by withholding about $5.2 billion from schools over two years. An additional $7 billion also could be lost to schools through an accounting procedure that the governor hopes to impose.
This is forcing schools to prepare for extensive teacher layoffs, ballooning class sizes and even the chance of a shorter school year
But the proposed $10 billion in federal funds is earmarked for specific purposes and is unlikely to prevent all the dire steps being planned.
San Francisco again provides an example. The district has to spend $31 million from its general fund to pay for special education costs that the federal government requires but does not fund. Under the stimulus package, the district would receive an additional $6.5 million specifically for special education.
"Obviously, this will help us," Garcia said. "But we have to look at this as one-time money."
Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, who sits on the Assembly Education Committee, agreed.
"While we aren't out of the woods yet, the federal stimulus package is a promising leap in the right direction," Torlakson said. "It provides hope that our schools will be spared the worst of budget cuts that threaten the future of our children and our economy."
'Astonishing' figures
The figures in the stimulus package for schools "are astonishing," said Mike Kirst, former state Board of Education president and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.
"(Former President George W.) Bush spent a little money for a brand-new program with enormous impact on public schools," he said, referring to the $1.2 billion spent each year on No Child Left Behind.
"By contrast, Obama is spending enormously more money on education than Bush - it intensifies the federal role but does not change the substance of what schools are doing. It's the reverse of Bush."
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
An economic stimulus package working its way through Congress could provide $10 billion in federal relief over the next two years for California's public schools, raising optimism among educators that it might ease cutbacks caused by the state's budget crisis.
The money is part of an $825 billion stimulus package the House of Representatives is expected to vote on today. It contains about $140 billion for schools nationwide.
The package would provide millions of dollars to most school districts in the Bay Area and across the state for construction, special education and help for low-income students.
"This does not solve the fiscal crisis, but it does throw us a lifeline," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said Tuesday.
Although no package has been approved, California educators are salivating over what could be the largest infusion of one-time federal cash for schools in the state's history.
To put it in context, in 2007, the federal government spent $54 billion on education nationwide, an amount dwarfed by the $140 billion in the stimulus bill. California's share would be about $10 billion - more than $1 billion of it for the huge Los Angeles Unified School District.
The Senate is expected to take up its version of a stimulus package next week, and a compromise is likely to be approved by both houses in mid-February.
"We've never seen numbers this big from the feds - ever," said Bob Wells, executive director of the Association of California School Administrators.
Wells is among several California educators - school board members, principals, parents and teachers - who have lobbied Washington since before President Obama took office.
"We wanted to make sure they were aware of just how deep the proposed cuts are in California," Wells said.
Keeping the money local
And they asked for language in the bill that would ensure schools could keep the new federal money rather than allow the state to siphon the money away by reducing its school funding by the same amount.
It's a danger that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesman, H.D. Palmer, acknowledges could happen - at least to some extent - unless the federal money were specifically earmarked for certain purposes.
California is facing a $42 billion budget gap over the next 18 months, and state lawmakers have yet to agree on how to close it. With the state on the brink of running out of cash, California hopes to borrow money to keep short-term cash flowing, Palmer said.
But if money came in from the stimulus package "with no strings attached," he said, "our priority would be to use the money to reduce or eliminate that borrowing."
Under the House plan, the education stimulus money is largely earmarked. That might protect much of the cash from California lawmakers who want to use it to pay down debt, but it also restricts local educators from using it as they see fit - say, to retain teachers.
"Even this amount of money is not a silver bullet for all of our funding problems," said Mike Myslinski, spokesman for the California Teachers Association.
San Francisco is a case in point. The district would directly receive nearly $42 million over the next two years under the stimulus plan being voted on in the House. But the money is earmarked for special education, school construction and schools with low-income children.
"We're still going to have to put out layoff notices," said Superintendent Carlos Garcia, noting that the state's legal deadline for mailing out such notices each year is March 15. The notices can be rescinded later if the fiscal picture improves. But Garcia said that as of now, with no state budget and no certainty in how any incoming money might be spent, the notices are going out.
Schwarzenegger proposes to help close the budget gap by withholding about $5.2 billion from schools over two years. An additional $7 billion also could be lost to schools through an accounting procedure that the governor hopes to impose.
This is forcing schools to prepare for extensive teacher layoffs, ballooning class sizes and even the chance of a shorter school year
But the proposed $10 billion in federal funds is earmarked for specific purposes and is unlikely to prevent all the dire steps being planned.
San Francisco again provides an example. The district has to spend $31 million from its general fund to pay for special education costs that the federal government requires but does not fund. Under the stimulus package, the district would receive an additional $6.5 million specifically for special education.
"Obviously, this will help us," Garcia said. "But we have to look at this as one-time money."
Assemblyman Tom Torlakson, D-Antioch, who sits on the Assembly Education Committee, agreed.
"While we aren't out of the woods yet, the federal stimulus package is a promising leap in the right direction," Torlakson said. "It provides hope that our schools will be spared the worst of budget cuts that threaten the future of our children and our economy."
'Astonishing' figures
The figures in the stimulus package for schools "are astonishing," said Mike Kirst, former state Board of Education president and professor emeritus of education at Stanford University.
"(Former President George W.) Bush spent a little money for a brand-new program with enormous impact on public schools," he said, referring to the $1.2 billion spent each year on No Child Left Behind.
"By contrast, Obama is spending enormously more money on education than Bush - it intensifies the federal role but does not change the substance of what schools are doing. It's the reverse of Bush."
Stimulus Plan Would Provide Flood of Aid to Education
By SAM DILLON
Published: January 27, 2009
WASHINGTON — The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation’s school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget.
The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II.
Critics and supporters alike said that by its sheer scope, the measure could profoundly change the federal government’s role in education, which has traditionally been the responsibility of state and local government.
Responding in part to a plea from Democratic governors earlier this month, Congress allocated $79 billion to help states facing large fiscal shortfalls maintain government services, and especially to avoid cuts to education programs, from pre-kindergarten through higher education.
Obama administration officials, teachers unions and associations representing school boards, colleges and other institutions in American education said the aid would bring crucial financial relief to the nation’s 15,000 school districts and to thousands of campuses otherwise threatened with severe cutbacks.
“This is going to avert literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday.
Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House education committee, said, “We cannot let education collapse; we have to provide this level of support to schools.”
But Republicans strongly criticized some of the proposals as wasteful spending and an ill-considered expansion of the federal government’s role, traditionally centered on aid to needy students, into new realms like local school construction.
And they were joined by some education experts from across the political spectrum in wondering how school districts could spend so many new billions so fast, whether such an outpouring of dollars would lead to higher student achievement, and what might happen in two years when the stimulus money ends.
Analysts were also turning up surprises in the fine print.
One provision, which was sought by the student lending industry and went unmentioned in early Congressional summaries of the stimulus package, would temporarily increase subsidies to banks in the guaranteed student loan program by tying them to a new index, partly because recent federal intervention in the credit markets has invalidated the previous index. A spokesman for Sallie Mae, one of the largest student lenders, said the change was needed to keep student loan markets fluid. Critics said it represented a potential new windfall for lenders.
“This just continues the well-established tradition of welfare for the student loan industry,” said Barmak Nassirian, an expert in student lending.
The formulas by which the stimulus money for public schools would be allocated to states and local districts are complex, but take into consideration numbers of school-age children in poor families. The level received per student would vary considerably by state, according to an analysis by the New America Foundation, a research group that monitors education spending. New York would be among the biggest beneficiaries, at $760 per student, while New Jersey and Connecticut would fall near the bottom, with $427 and $409 per student, respectively. The District of Columbia would get the most per student, $1,289, according to the foundation’s analysis.
The foundation contends, however, that the formula does not effectively allocate the most money to states with the greatest need.
In recent years the federal government has contributed 9 percent of the nation’s total spending on public schools, with states and local districts financing the rest. Washington has contributed 19 percent of spending on higher education. The stimulus package would raise those federal proportions significantly.
The Department of Education’s discretionary budget for the 2008 fiscal year was about $60 billion. The stimulus bill would raise that to about $135 billion this year, and to about $146 billion in 2010. Other federal agencies would administer about $20 billion in additional education-related spending.
“This really marks a new era in federal education spending,” said Edward Kealy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition of 90 education groups.
The bill would increase 2009 fiscal year spending on Title I, a program of specialized classroom efforts to help educate poor children, to $20 billion from about $14.5 billion, and raise spending on education for disabled children to $17 billion from $11 billion.
Those increases respond to longtime demands by teachers unions, school boards and others that Washington fully finance the mandates laid out for states and districts in the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, and in the main federal law regulating special education.
“We’ve been arguing that the federal government hasn’t been living up to its commitments, but these increases go a substantial way toward meeting them,” said Joel Packer, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union.
Frederick Hess, an education policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, criticized the bill as failing to include mechanisms to encourage districts to bring school budgets in line with property tax revenues, which have plunged with the bursting of the real estate bubble.
“It’s like an alcoholic at the end of the night when the bars close, and the solution is to open the bar for another hour,” Mr. Hess said.
The bill would, for the first time, involve the federal government in a significant fashion in the building and renovation of schools, which has been the responsibility of states and districts. It includes $20 billion for school renovation and modernization, with $14 billion for elementary and secondary schools and $6 billion for higher education. It also includes tax provisions under which the federal government would pay the interest on construction bonds issued by school districts.
Mr. Duncan said the bill’s school renovation provisions would create a “huge number of construction jobs,” because so many school buildings need repairs.
But Representative Howard P. McKeon, Republican of California and the ranking minority member of the House education committee, said, “By putting the federal government in the business of building schools, Democrats may be irrevocably changing the federal government’s role in education in this country.”
In higher education, the bill would increase spending on Pell Grants, the most important federal student aid program, to $27 billion from about $19 billion this year.
“It’s a very good idea to increase Pell Grants in the stimulus,” said Terry Hartle, a senior vice president for public affairs at the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities.
But Mr. Hartle said that even he was having difficulty tracking all the new spending.
“A lot of things will go through, and only later will we know exactly what happened,” he said.
Published: January 27, 2009
WASHINGTON — The economic stimulus plan that Congress has scheduled for a vote on Wednesday would shower the nation’s school districts, child care centers and university campuses with $150 billion in new federal spending, a vast two-year investment that would more than double the Department of Education’s current budget.
The proposed emergency expenditures on nearly every realm of education, including school renovation, special education, Head Start and grants to needy college students, would amount to the largest increase in federal aid since Washington began to spend significantly on education after World War II.
Critics and supporters alike said that by its sheer scope, the measure could profoundly change the federal government’s role in education, which has traditionally been the responsibility of state and local government.
Responding in part to a plea from Democratic governors earlier this month, Congress allocated $79 billion to help states facing large fiscal shortfalls maintain government services, and especially to avoid cuts to education programs, from pre-kindergarten through higher education.
Obama administration officials, teachers unions and associations representing school boards, colleges and other institutions in American education said the aid would bring crucial financial relief to the nation’s 15,000 school districts and to thousands of campuses otherwise threatened with severe cutbacks.
“This is going to avert literally hundreds of thousands of teacher layoffs,” Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Tuesday.
Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House education committee, said, “We cannot let education collapse; we have to provide this level of support to schools.”
But Republicans strongly criticized some of the proposals as wasteful spending and an ill-considered expansion of the federal government’s role, traditionally centered on aid to needy students, into new realms like local school construction.
And they were joined by some education experts from across the political spectrum in wondering how school districts could spend so many new billions so fast, whether such an outpouring of dollars would lead to higher student achievement, and what might happen in two years when the stimulus money ends.
Analysts were also turning up surprises in the fine print.
One provision, which was sought by the student lending industry and went unmentioned in early Congressional summaries of the stimulus package, would temporarily increase subsidies to banks in the guaranteed student loan program by tying them to a new index, partly because recent federal intervention in the credit markets has invalidated the previous index. A spokesman for Sallie Mae, one of the largest student lenders, said the change was needed to keep student loan markets fluid. Critics said it represented a potential new windfall for lenders.
“This just continues the well-established tradition of welfare for the student loan industry,” said Barmak Nassirian, an expert in student lending.
The formulas by which the stimulus money for public schools would be allocated to states and local districts are complex, but take into consideration numbers of school-age children in poor families. The level received per student would vary considerably by state, according to an analysis by the New America Foundation, a research group that monitors education spending. New York would be among the biggest beneficiaries, at $760 per student, while New Jersey and Connecticut would fall near the bottom, with $427 and $409 per student, respectively. The District of Columbia would get the most per student, $1,289, according to the foundation’s analysis.
The foundation contends, however, that the formula does not effectively allocate the most money to states with the greatest need.
In recent years the federal government has contributed 9 percent of the nation’s total spending on public schools, with states and local districts financing the rest. Washington has contributed 19 percent of spending on higher education. The stimulus package would raise those federal proportions significantly.
The Department of Education’s discretionary budget for the 2008 fiscal year was about $60 billion. The stimulus bill would raise that to about $135 billion this year, and to about $146 billion in 2010. Other federal agencies would administer about $20 billion in additional education-related spending.
“This really marks a new era in federal education spending,” said Edward Kealy, executive director of the Committee for Education Funding, a coalition of 90 education groups.
The bill would increase 2009 fiscal year spending on Title I, a program of specialized classroom efforts to help educate poor children, to $20 billion from about $14.5 billion, and raise spending on education for disabled children to $17 billion from $11 billion.
Those increases respond to longtime demands by teachers unions, school boards and others that Washington fully finance the mandates laid out for states and districts in the Bush-era No Child Left Behind law, and in the main federal law regulating special education.
“We’ve been arguing that the federal government hasn’t been living up to its commitments, but these increases go a substantial way toward meeting them,” said Joel Packer, a lobbyist for the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers union.
Frederick Hess, an education policy analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, criticized the bill as failing to include mechanisms to encourage districts to bring school budgets in line with property tax revenues, which have plunged with the bursting of the real estate bubble.
“It’s like an alcoholic at the end of the night when the bars close, and the solution is to open the bar for another hour,” Mr. Hess said.
The bill would, for the first time, involve the federal government in a significant fashion in the building and renovation of schools, which has been the responsibility of states and districts. It includes $20 billion for school renovation and modernization, with $14 billion for elementary and secondary schools and $6 billion for higher education. It also includes tax provisions under which the federal government would pay the interest on construction bonds issued by school districts.
Mr. Duncan said the bill’s school renovation provisions would create a “huge number of construction jobs,” because so many school buildings need repairs.
But Representative Howard P. McKeon, Republican of California and the ranking minority member of the House education committee, said, “By putting the federal government in the business of building schools, Democrats may be irrevocably changing the federal government’s role in education in this country.”
In higher education, the bill would increase spending on Pell Grants, the most important federal student aid program, to $27 billion from about $19 billion this year.
“It’s a very good idea to increase Pell Grants in the stimulus,” said Terry Hartle, a senior vice president for public affairs at the American Council on Education, which represents colleges and universities.
But Mr. Hartle said that even he was having difficulty tracking all the new spending.
“A lot of things will go through, and only later will we know exactly what happened,” he said.
Getting Accountability Right
Also check out this policy brief co-authored by Rothstein entitled "Education Accountability Policy in the New Administration"
-Patricia
Commentary
By Richard Rothstein | Ed Week
January 28, 2009
The federal No Child Left Behind Act has succeeded in highlighting the poor math and reading skills of disadvantaged children. But on balance, the law has done more harm than good because it has terribly distorted the school curriculum. Modest modifications cannot correct this distortion. Designing a better accountability policy will take time. We cannot and should not abandon school accountability, but it's time to go back to the drawing board to get accountability right.
The first step is to understand today's curricular distortion. It has arisen because No Child Left Behind holds schools accountable for only some of their many goals. When we demand adequate math and reading scores alone, educators rationally respond by transferring resources to math and reading instruction (and drill) from social studies, history, science, the arts and music, character development, citizenship education, emotional and physical health, and physical fitness.
This shift has been most severe for the disadvantaged children the law was designed to help, because they are most at risk of failing to meet the math and reading targets. But they are also most at risk of losing curricular opportunities in other domains. In these other areas, NCLB has widened the "achievement gap."
President Barack Obama has vowed to correct this distortion. He has noted that NCLB "has become so reliant on a standardized-test model that ... subjects like history and social studies have gotten pushed aside. Arts and music time is no longer there. So the child is not having the well-rounded educational experience I benefited from and most in my generation benefited from." We must change No Child Left Behind, he has said, "so that the assessment is one that takes into account all the factors that go into a good education."
Although some Democrats and Republicans want to ignore the law's goal distortion, observers with varying policy perspectives share the new president's view that NCLB requires a radical reconsideration. The Center on Education Policy, headed by Jack Jennings (formerly an aide to Democrats on the House education committee), has publicized the loss of instruction in social studies, science, the arts, and physical education, especially for disadvantaged children. Chester E. Finn Jr. and Diane Ravitch, who served as federal education officials in Republican administrations, complain that present policy means only "top private schools and a few suburban systems will stick with education broadly defined." While rich kids study a wide range of subjects in depth, they write, "their poor peers fill in bubbles on test sheets." There is a "zero sum" problem, Finn and Ravitch say, because "more emphasis on some things ... inevitably mean[s] less attention to others."
Yet public discussion of the law's upcoming reauthorization focuses almost entirely on correcting flaws in math and reading measurement: substituting "growth models" for fixed levels, modifying the 2014 deadline for attaining student proficiency, standardizing state definitions of proficiency, modifying "confidence intervals" in reporting. While these steps may improve the sophistication of math and reading data, none addresses the goal distortion caused by exclusive accountability for basic skills.
Designing accountability tools that require satisfactory performance across a balanced set of outcomes requires a significant federal research-and-development effort, which could build on prior experience. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress was developed in the 1960s, it measured a broad range of cognitive and noncognitive knowledge and skills. NAEP abandoned that breadth when its budget was slashed in the 1970s, however, and never restored it.
To see whether students learned to cooperate, for example, the early NAEP program sent trained observers to sampled schools. In teams of four, 9-year-olds were offered prizes (such as yo-yos) for guessing what object was hidden in a box. Students could ask yes-or-no questions, but all team members had to agree on each question asked. NAEP rated the students on whether they suggested new questions, gave reasons for viewpoints, or otherwise demonstrated cooperative problem-solving skills. It then reported to the nation on the percentage of children capable of cooperative problem-solving.
For teenagers, NAEP assessors provided lists of issues about which young people typically had strong opinions. Students had to collaborate in writing recommendations to resolve them. For 13-year-olds, lists included topics such as whether they should have curfews for getting home, and for 17-year-olds, the age eligibility for voting, drinking, or smoking. NAEP rated students on whether they took clear positions, gave reasons for viewpoints, helped organize internal procedures, and defended another's right to disagree.
Early NAEP understood that teaching civic responsibility involved more than having students memorize historical facts. So in 1969, during the era of the civil rights revolution, the assessment asked teenagers what they felt they should do if they saw black children barred from entering a park. NAEP reported that 82 percent of 13-year-olds and 90 percent of 17-year-olds knew that they should do something constructive, such as tell parents, report it to a civil rights or civil liberties organization, write letters to the newspaper, or take social action such as picketing or leafleting.
The early version of NAEP also assessed 17-year-olds' ability to consider alternative viewpoints, by asking them to state arguments both for and against a heated public issue of the time, such as whether college students should be drafted. It asked 9- and 13-year-olds if something reported in a newspaper might be untrue. It also asked teenagers if they belonged to any nonschool clubs or organizations; interviewers followed up with questions to verify answers' accuracy.
To assess commitment to civil liberties, NAEP asked teenagers if someone should be permitted to say on television that "Russia is better than the United States," that "some races of people are better than others," or that "it is not necessary to believe in God." The assessment reported the discouraging result that only a small minority of the teenagers thought all three statements should be permitted.
The early NAEP program also assessed personal responsibility. Seventeen-year-olds were asked what to do if, when visiting a friend, they noticed her 6-month-old baby was bruised. The correct answer was "suggest that your friend call her baby's doctor." Incorrect choices included "ignore the bruises because they are none of your business." A follow-up prompt said that at a later visit, bruises remain and "you are now suspicious that your friend may have hurt the baby." Students were asked what to do now. The correct choice was "call the local child-health agency and report your suspicions."
Certainly, if school systems were evaluated by such results, not simply by math and reading scores, incentives would shift. National reporting of low scores on the civil liberties questions, for example, could spur demands that schools do a better job on citizenship; then, the incentive to drop cooperative learning in favor of test prep in math and reading would diminish.
Designing a new accountability system will take time and care, because the problems are daunting. Observations of student behavior are not as reliable as standardized tests of basic skills, so we will have to accept that it is better to imperfectly measure a broad set of outcomes than to perfectly measure a narrow set. We will have to resolve contradictory national convictions that schools should teach citizenship and character, but not inquire about students' (and parents') personal opinions. To avoid new distortions, we'll need to make tough decisions about how to weight the measurement of the many goals of education.
The time to start on these difficult tasks is now, but the new administration won't have to begin with a blank slate. Looking back at the early National Assessment of Educational Progress can start us on a better path.
Richard Rothstein (riroth@epi.org) is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute. This article summarizes an argument from his recent book, co-written with Rebecca Jacobsen and Tamara Wilder, Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (Teachers College Press).
-Patricia
Commentary
By Richard Rothstein | Ed Week
January 28, 2009
The federal No Child Left Behind Act has succeeded in highlighting the poor math and reading skills of disadvantaged children. But on balance, the law has done more harm than good because it has terribly distorted the school curriculum. Modest modifications cannot correct this distortion. Designing a better accountability policy will take time. We cannot and should not abandon school accountability, but it's time to go back to the drawing board to get accountability right.
The first step is to understand today's curricular distortion. It has arisen because No Child Left Behind holds schools accountable for only some of their many goals. When we demand adequate math and reading scores alone, educators rationally respond by transferring resources to math and reading instruction (and drill) from social studies, history, science, the arts and music, character development, citizenship education, emotional and physical health, and physical fitness.
This shift has been most severe for the disadvantaged children the law was designed to help, because they are most at risk of failing to meet the math and reading targets. But they are also most at risk of losing curricular opportunities in other domains. In these other areas, NCLB has widened the "achievement gap."
President Barack Obama has vowed to correct this distortion. He has noted that NCLB "has become so reliant on a standardized-test model that ... subjects like history and social studies have gotten pushed aside. Arts and music time is no longer there. So the child is not having the well-rounded educational experience I benefited from and most in my generation benefited from." We must change No Child Left Behind, he has said, "so that the assessment is one that takes into account all the factors that go into a good education."
Although some Democrats and Republicans want to ignore the law's goal distortion, observers with varying policy perspectives share the new president's view that NCLB requires a radical reconsideration. The Center on Education Policy, headed by Jack Jennings (formerly an aide to Democrats on the House education committee), has publicized the loss of instruction in social studies, science, the arts, and physical education, especially for disadvantaged children. Chester E. Finn Jr. and Diane Ravitch, who served as federal education officials in Republican administrations, complain that present policy means only "top private schools and a few suburban systems will stick with education broadly defined." While rich kids study a wide range of subjects in depth, they write, "their poor peers fill in bubbles on test sheets." There is a "zero sum" problem, Finn and Ravitch say, because "more emphasis on some things ... inevitably mean[s] less attention to others."
Yet public discussion of the law's upcoming reauthorization focuses almost entirely on correcting flaws in math and reading measurement: substituting "growth models" for fixed levels, modifying the 2014 deadline for attaining student proficiency, standardizing state definitions of proficiency, modifying "confidence intervals" in reporting. While these steps may improve the sophistication of math and reading data, none addresses the goal distortion caused by exclusive accountability for basic skills.
Designing accountability tools that require satisfactory performance across a balanced set of outcomes requires a significant federal research-and-development effort, which could build on prior experience. When the National Assessment of Educational Progress was developed in the 1960s, it measured a broad range of cognitive and noncognitive knowledge and skills. NAEP abandoned that breadth when its budget was slashed in the 1970s, however, and never restored it.
To see whether students learned to cooperate, for example, the early NAEP program sent trained observers to sampled schools. In teams of four, 9-year-olds were offered prizes (such as yo-yos) for guessing what object was hidden in a box. Students could ask yes-or-no questions, but all team members had to agree on each question asked. NAEP rated the students on whether they suggested new questions, gave reasons for viewpoints, or otherwise demonstrated cooperative problem-solving skills. It then reported to the nation on the percentage of children capable of cooperative problem-solving.
For teenagers, NAEP assessors provided lists of issues about which young people typically had strong opinions. Students had to collaborate in writing recommendations to resolve them. For 13-year-olds, lists included topics such as whether they should have curfews for getting home, and for 17-year-olds, the age eligibility for voting, drinking, or smoking. NAEP rated students on whether they took clear positions, gave reasons for viewpoints, helped organize internal procedures, and defended another's right to disagree.
Early NAEP understood that teaching civic responsibility involved more than having students memorize historical facts. So in 1969, during the era of the civil rights revolution, the assessment asked teenagers what they felt they should do if they saw black children barred from entering a park. NAEP reported that 82 percent of 13-year-olds and 90 percent of 17-year-olds knew that they should do something constructive, such as tell parents, report it to a civil rights or civil liberties organization, write letters to the newspaper, or take social action such as picketing or leafleting.
The early version of NAEP also assessed 17-year-olds' ability to consider alternative viewpoints, by asking them to state arguments both for and against a heated public issue of the time, such as whether college students should be drafted. It asked 9- and 13-year-olds if something reported in a newspaper might be untrue. It also asked teenagers if they belonged to any nonschool clubs or organizations; interviewers followed up with questions to verify answers' accuracy.
To assess commitment to civil liberties, NAEP asked teenagers if someone should be permitted to say on television that "Russia is better than the United States," that "some races of people are better than others," or that "it is not necessary to believe in God." The assessment reported the discouraging result that only a small minority of the teenagers thought all three statements should be permitted.
The early NAEP program also assessed personal responsibility. Seventeen-year-olds were asked what to do if, when visiting a friend, they noticed her 6-month-old baby was bruised. The correct answer was "suggest that your friend call her baby's doctor." Incorrect choices included "ignore the bruises because they are none of your business." A follow-up prompt said that at a later visit, bruises remain and "you are now suspicious that your friend may have hurt the baby." Students were asked what to do now. The correct choice was "call the local child-health agency and report your suspicions."
Certainly, if school systems were evaluated by such results, not simply by math and reading scores, incentives would shift. National reporting of low scores on the civil liberties questions, for example, could spur demands that schools do a better job on citizenship; then, the incentive to drop cooperative learning in favor of test prep in math and reading would diminish.
Designing a new accountability system will take time and care, because the problems are daunting. Observations of student behavior are not as reliable as standardized tests of basic skills, so we will have to accept that it is better to imperfectly measure a broad set of outcomes than to perfectly measure a narrow set. We will have to resolve contradictory national convictions that schools should teach citizenship and character, but not inquire about students' (and parents') personal opinions. To avoid new distortions, we'll need to make tough decisions about how to weight the measurement of the many goals of education.
The time to start on these difficult tasks is now, but the new administration won't have to begin with a blank slate. Looking back at the early National Assessment of Educational Progress can start us on a better path.
Richard Rothstein (riroth@epi.org) is a research associate of the Economic Policy Institute. This article summarizes an argument from his recent book, co-written with Rebecca Jacobsen and Tamara Wilder, Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (Teachers College Press).
Paredes likes Perry's remarks about making college education affordable
Steve Taylor | Rio Grande Guardian
28 January 2009
Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund A. Paredes spoke at a Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce reception on Tuesday evening.
AUSTIN, January 28 - Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund A. Paredes says he likes the emphasis Gov. Rick Perry placed on college affordability in his State of the State address on Tuesday.
“Although the economic circumstances are dire, as the governor indicated in his State of the State address, we should still invest in higher education,” Paredes said Tuesday evening.
Paredes made his remarks at a reception hosted by Direct Energy at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Austin. The reception was held in conjunction with a legislative dinner being hosted by the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce.
“We are at a point now where most of the kids that are coming up through K thru 12 and are likely to go to college are Latino and they are poor,” Paredes told the audience. “Over 70 percent of the college age students that will be considering attending community colleges and universities over the next ten to 15 years will be Latino and they will be poor.”
Paredes added: “We cannot build the economy we want in Texas; we cannot sustain the economic progress we have made in Texas over the past ten years unless we support those kids.”
In his State of the State address, Perry proposed increased funding for the Texas Grant Program. He noted that the program, which has disbursed almost $1.5 billion in tuition and fees to over 161,000 students, had “opened the door” for traditionally underserved Texans.
“I like this approach because it not only knocks down a barrier between hard working students and the success they desire, it also keeps our college classrooms supplied with students who are motivated and prepared to succeed,” Perry said.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, author of the bill that set up the Texas Grant Program, has long complained that the program is being under-funded.
In his State of the State address, Perry also proposed freezing a student’s college tuition rates for four years at the level they pay as an entering freshman. “This will help Texas families plan while giving students another incentive to finish on time,” Perry said.
Paredes said he liked what he heard in the State of the State address.
“Higher education has to be among our highest priorities. Even in tough economic situations we have to invest in the higher education of our young people,” Paredes told the TAMACC audience. “The Coordinating Board has established as its highest priority increases in funding for financial aid programs for our universities and our community colleges.”
Paredes pointed out that 70 percent of Latino kids that go to university start off in community colleges. “So, we have to make sure that funding is available for students when they go to community colleges and to help them defer or pay for their expenses and help them finish a community college type education program or help them transfer to a university,” he said.
Paredes then made a heartfelt plea for TAMACC members and supporters to get behind legislative efforts to make college more accessible and affordable.
“We will have some tough discussions this session about how we allocate limited funds. I strongly urge all of you to support financial aid. The Governor said this morning that he would support substantial increases in financial aid for our youngsters in Texas. Please support higher levels of funding for the students. We cannot have a prosperous future in Texas unless we make that investment in all our needy students but particularly the large percentage that will be Latino students,” Paredes said.
Asked afterwards to elaborate on his thoughts about the state of higher education in Texas, Paredes told the Guardian how important community colleges are.
“It is very important that state leaders recognize that community colleges are the lynchpin of educational attainment in Texas. They serve as the most appropriate point of entry for students of all backgrounds, particularly poor students who don’t have the resources to attend university so we need to fund community colleges at higher levels,” Paredes said.
“Also, community colleges have done a wonderful job in Texas of holding down the costs and remaining accessible. I think they are at the breaking point. If we do not fund them at higher levels they are going to have to find resources somewhere and that likely will be in tuition and fees.”
Asked if he felt enough lawmakers and state leaders realize the importance of community colleges, Paredes said: “I do not know if people are as thoroughly informed as they need to be but I am noticing a shift. They are absolutely vital to the well being of Texas.”
Paredes also hammered home the point about investing in higher education even in tough economic times.
“Despite the fact that we live in a tough budgetary environment we still need to invest in the future of Texas and there is no more vital issue for the future of Texas than higher education. We need to improve educational attainment and make our young people competitive in a global economy,” Paredes said.
“When you consider the demographics of Texas, that 70 percent of the growth will be in the Latino community and most of the youngsters are poor we have to invest in them. We have to give them the resources they need to go to college.”
Paredes said that both the state and students have to live up to their commitments.
“We need to send a message to our young people that if we are going to invest money in you, you expect you to perform at high levels. There’s got to be accountability on both sides. The state needs to be accountable in investing in its young people and young people need to know that they have to work hard,” Paredes said.
The Higher Education Coordinating Board has achieved “dramatic improvements” in its Closing the Gaps goal, Paredes added. “College rates are going up, completion rates are going up. Among Latinos, we have seen a 50 percent increase in attendance and completion rates. We are making progress. We can go to the legislature and say, yes, we are asking for more money but we are getting better results with the money you provided us,” he said.
© Copyright of the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com, Melinda Barrera, Publisher. All rights reserved.
28 January 2009
Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund A. Paredes spoke at a Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce reception on Tuesday evening.
AUSTIN, January 28 - Texas Higher Education Commissioner Raymund A. Paredes says he likes the emphasis Gov. Rick Perry placed on college affordability in his State of the State address on Tuesday.
“Although the economic circumstances are dire, as the governor indicated in his State of the State address, we should still invest in higher education,” Paredes said Tuesday evening.
Paredes made his remarks at a reception hosted by Direct Energy at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Austin. The reception was held in conjunction with a legislative dinner being hosted by the Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce.
“We are at a point now where most of the kids that are coming up through K thru 12 and are likely to go to college are Latino and they are poor,” Paredes told the audience. “Over 70 percent of the college age students that will be considering attending community colleges and universities over the next ten to 15 years will be Latino and they will be poor.”
Paredes added: “We cannot build the economy we want in Texas; we cannot sustain the economic progress we have made in Texas over the past ten years unless we support those kids.”
In his State of the State address, Perry proposed increased funding for the Texas Grant Program. He noted that the program, which has disbursed almost $1.5 billion in tuition and fees to over 161,000 students, had “opened the door” for traditionally underserved Texans.
“I like this approach because it not only knocks down a barrier between hard working students and the success they desire, it also keeps our college classrooms supplied with students who are motivated and prepared to succeed,” Perry said.
State Sen. Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, author of the bill that set up the Texas Grant Program, has long complained that the program is being under-funded.
In his State of the State address, Perry also proposed freezing a student’s college tuition rates for four years at the level they pay as an entering freshman. “This will help Texas families plan while giving students another incentive to finish on time,” Perry said.
Paredes said he liked what he heard in the State of the State address.
“Higher education has to be among our highest priorities. Even in tough economic situations we have to invest in the higher education of our young people,” Paredes told the TAMACC audience. “The Coordinating Board has established as its highest priority increases in funding for financial aid programs for our universities and our community colleges.”
Paredes pointed out that 70 percent of Latino kids that go to university start off in community colleges. “So, we have to make sure that funding is available for students when they go to community colleges and to help them defer or pay for their expenses and help them finish a community college type education program or help them transfer to a university,” he said.
Paredes then made a heartfelt plea for TAMACC members and supporters to get behind legislative efforts to make college more accessible and affordable.
“We will have some tough discussions this session about how we allocate limited funds. I strongly urge all of you to support financial aid. The Governor said this morning that he would support substantial increases in financial aid for our youngsters in Texas. Please support higher levels of funding for the students. We cannot have a prosperous future in Texas unless we make that investment in all our needy students but particularly the large percentage that will be Latino students,” Paredes said.
Asked afterwards to elaborate on his thoughts about the state of higher education in Texas, Paredes told the Guardian how important community colleges are.
“It is very important that state leaders recognize that community colleges are the lynchpin of educational attainment in Texas. They serve as the most appropriate point of entry for students of all backgrounds, particularly poor students who don’t have the resources to attend university so we need to fund community colleges at higher levels,” Paredes said.
“Also, community colleges have done a wonderful job in Texas of holding down the costs and remaining accessible. I think they are at the breaking point. If we do not fund them at higher levels they are going to have to find resources somewhere and that likely will be in tuition and fees.”
Asked if he felt enough lawmakers and state leaders realize the importance of community colleges, Paredes said: “I do not know if people are as thoroughly informed as they need to be but I am noticing a shift. They are absolutely vital to the well being of Texas.”
Paredes also hammered home the point about investing in higher education even in tough economic times.
“Despite the fact that we live in a tough budgetary environment we still need to invest in the future of Texas and there is no more vital issue for the future of Texas than higher education. We need to improve educational attainment and make our young people competitive in a global economy,” Paredes said.
“When you consider the demographics of Texas, that 70 percent of the growth will be in the Latino community and most of the youngsters are poor we have to invest in them. We have to give them the resources they need to go to college.”
Paredes said that both the state and students have to live up to their commitments.
“We need to send a message to our young people that if we are going to invest money in you, you expect you to perform at high levels. There’s got to be accountability on both sides. The state needs to be accountable in investing in its young people and young people need to know that they have to work hard,” Paredes said.
The Higher Education Coordinating Board has achieved “dramatic improvements” in its Closing the Gaps goal, Paredes added. “College rates are going up, completion rates are going up. Among Latinos, we have seen a 50 percent increase in attendance and completion rates. We are making progress. We can go to the legislature and say, yes, we are asking for more money but we are getting better results with the money you provided us,” he said.
© Copyright of the Rio Grande Guardian, www.riograndeguardian.com, Melinda Barrera, Publisher. All rights reserved.
Improving Academic Preparation for College: What We Know and How State and Federal Policy Can Help
Check out the full report. Pay close attention to the language used on how to provide youth, especially minority, with academic preparation for college. Curious to what extent this is a race-conscious and equitable plan.
-Patricia
By Robin Chait, Andrea Venezia | Center for American Progress
January 27, 2009
Our society is moving toward a model of preparing all students for some kind of education and training after high school. That is what parents want for their children, what students say they want for themselves, and what analysts and policymakers at all levels believe is needed for success in a global economy. The benefits to the individual are clear—college graduates earn more money, have better career opportunities, engage in greater civic participation, and have a higher overall quality of life. The average annual income for a high school degree in 2006 was $30,072, an associate’s degree was $39,846, and a bachelor’s degree $56,897. Moreover, the advantages of college education compared to a high school degree have widened over the last 60 years, although they have leveled off more recently.
We know that students are getting the message that college pays off. In 2003-04, about 69 percent of high school seniors expected to attain a bachelor’s degree or higher, and another 18 percent expected to complete some postsecondary education. College enrollment rates increased from 49 percent in 1972 to 69 percent in 2005. Yet once students arrive in college, they are often not ready to take college-level classes. College remediation rates are high—estimates range from a little over a quarter to about a third for all freshmen, and from 42 percent to 60 percent for freshmen at two-year institutions.
College completion rates are also stagnant and students are taking longer to complete their degrees. About 83 percent of high school graduates enroll in some form of postsecondary education, but only about 52 percent of students complete their degrees. Further, a very small proportion of students complete a degree in four years—“among students starting at ‘four-year’ institutions, only 34 percent finish a B.A. in four years, 64 percent within six years, and 69 percent within eight and a half years.” Stagnant college completion rates and increasing time to complete college degrees are likely related, since students who are in school for long periods of time are less likely to graduate.
High rates of remediation, stagnant rates of college completion, and more time to degree completion suggest that many students are not fully ready to succeed academically in college. And weak academic preparation is a growing concern in the research and policy communities.
Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute has estimated that only 34 percent of all students who entered ninth grade in 2002 were prepared for college when they graduated high school. He defines college readiness as graduating with a regular diploma, having completed a minimum set of course requirements (four years of English, three years of math, and two years each of natural science, social science, and a foreign language), and being able to read at the basic level or above on the National Assessment of Education Progress reading assessment.
Rates of academic preparation are even lower for low-income students. Susan Goldberger of Jobs for the Future found in an analysis of data from the National Education Longitudinal Study that “only 21 percent of high school graduates from the lowest economic quintile are adequately prepared for college-level work (somewhat, very, or highly prepared), compared to 54 percent of graduates from the middle and upper levels.” Moreover, students with better academic preparation have higher rates of degree completion. Approximately 78 percent of students who are highly prepared for college complete their degree, compared with 31 percent of students who are not prepared and 46 percent who are minimally prepared.
While these numbers are of great concern, there is still a lack of consensus among researchers and policymakers about what it means to be prepared for college. Are strong academics enough? What role do financial and social capital play? How can federal and state policy help promote academic rigor and student preparation? In this report, we explore these questions in detail and look closely at what we know about postsecondary readiness and success; what is being done to prepare students for college at the federal, state, and local levels; and how well these efforts are working. This report draws on this analysis to outline a more expansive role for federal and state policy to improve preparation and readiness.
Federal policy could play an important role in communicating the need for all students to prepare for college and providing the public with information about what that means. It could also build states’ capacity to develop and measure students’ college readiness by supporting a pilot state program to develop and validate college readiness standards within the reauthorized NCLB/ESEA. Finally, the federal government should invest in research and development to support programs that align secondary and postsecondary education and improve students’ preparation for college; provide funding to improve academic preparation in struggling high schools; and improve data collection and analysis and require public reporting.
States could undertake a range of initiatives to ensure that their policies are translated into changes in curricula and instruction and better outcomes for students. States should develop better student support policies and align them with policies to increase academic rigor, support the development and evaluation of high school models that prepare all students for college, improve data systems to better assess where students are and where they need to be, and monitor and evaluate the implementation of all of these state policies to identify inconsistencies, implementation concerns, and needs for technical assistance.
There are many ways to think about postsecondary readiness. We define it as a student’s ability to complete a transfer-level course in core subject areas at a two- or four-year postsecondary institution with a C or better and move on to the next course in the sequence without remediation. We do not believe that one size fits all, but we do think that there are many academic pathways and instructional approaches that are compatible with postsecondary preparation, and that all students must have the opportunity to prepare for a two-year or four-year degree or credential. The terms postsecondary education, college, and higher education are used interchangeably in this paper to mean some kind of formal education or training after high school in a postsecondary institution that leads to a credential or degree.
This paper reviews the research and makes the case for a definition that includes academic rigor, grades, specific academic skills that students will need to be successful in a college-level course, and “college knowledge”—knowledge about how to apply, enroll, and succeed in a college environment. It may be difficult to come up with objective measures for all these aspects of college readiness, but it is important to consider them all in defining readiness and in helping students meet a threshold of it.
-Patricia
By Robin Chait, Andrea Venezia | Center for American Progress
January 27, 2009
Our society is moving toward a model of preparing all students for some kind of education and training after high school. That is what parents want for their children, what students say they want for themselves, and what analysts and policymakers at all levels believe is needed for success in a global economy. The benefits to the individual are clear—college graduates earn more money, have better career opportunities, engage in greater civic participation, and have a higher overall quality of life. The average annual income for a high school degree in 2006 was $30,072, an associate’s degree was $39,846, and a bachelor’s degree $56,897. Moreover, the advantages of college education compared to a high school degree have widened over the last 60 years, although they have leveled off more recently.
We know that students are getting the message that college pays off. In 2003-04, about 69 percent of high school seniors expected to attain a bachelor’s degree or higher, and another 18 percent expected to complete some postsecondary education. College enrollment rates increased from 49 percent in 1972 to 69 percent in 2005. Yet once students arrive in college, they are often not ready to take college-level classes. College remediation rates are high—estimates range from a little over a quarter to about a third for all freshmen, and from 42 percent to 60 percent for freshmen at two-year institutions.
College completion rates are also stagnant and students are taking longer to complete their degrees. About 83 percent of high school graduates enroll in some form of postsecondary education, but only about 52 percent of students complete their degrees. Further, a very small proportion of students complete a degree in four years—“among students starting at ‘four-year’ institutions, only 34 percent finish a B.A. in four years, 64 percent within six years, and 69 percent within eight and a half years.” Stagnant college completion rates and increasing time to complete college degrees are likely related, since students who are in school for long periods of time are less likely to graduate.
High rates of remediation, stagnant rates of college completion, and more time to degree completion suggest that many students are not fully ready to succeed academically in college. And weak academic preparation is a growing concern in the research and policy communities.
Jay Greene of the Manhattan Institute has estimated that only 34 percent of all students who entered ninth grade in 2002 were prepared for college when they graduated high school. He defines college readiness as graduating with a regular diploma, having completed a minimum set of course requirements (four years of English, three years of math, and two years each of natural science, social science, and a foreign language), and being able to read at the basic level or above on the National Assessment of Education Progress reading assessment.
Rates of academic preparation are even lower for low-income students. Susan Goldberger of Jobs for the Future found in an analysis of data from the National Education Longitudinal Study that “only 21 percent of high school graduates from the lowest economic quintile are adequately prepared for college-level work (somewhat, very, or highly prepared), compared to 54 percent of graduates from the middle and upper levels.” Moreover, students with better academic preparation have higher rates of degree completion. Approximately 78 percent of students who are highly prepared for college complete their degree, compared with 31 percent of students who are not prepared and 46 percent who are minimally prepared.
While these numbers are of great concern, there is still a lack of consensus among researchers and policymakers about what it means to be prepared for college. Are strong academics enough? What role do financial and social capital play? How can federal and state policy help promote academic rigor and student preparation? In this report, we explore these questions in detail and look closely at what we know about postsecondary readiness and success; what is being done to prepare students for college at the federal, state, and local levels; and how well these efforts are working. This report draws on this analysis to outline a more expansive role for federal and state policy to improve preparation and readiness.
Federal policy could play an important role in communicating the need for all students to prepare for college and providing the public with information about what that means. It could also build states’ capacity to develop and measure students’ college readiness by supporting a pilot state program to develop and validate college readiness standards within the reauthorized NCLB/ESEA. Finally, the federal government should invest in research and development to support programs that align secondary and postsecondary education and improve students’ preparation for college; provide funding to improve academic preparation in struggling high schools; and improve data collection and analysis and require public reporting.
States could undertake a range of initiatives to ensure that their policies are translated into changes in curricula and instruction and better outcomes for students. States should develop better student support policies and align them with policies to increase academic rigor, support the development and evaluation of high school models that prepare all students for college, improve data systems to better assess where students are and where they need to be, and monitor and evaluate the implementation of all of these state policies to identify inconsistencies, implementation concerns, and needs for technical assistance.
There are many ways to think about postsecondary readiness. We define it as a student’s ability to complete a transfer-level course in core subject areas at a two- or four-year postsecondary institution with a C or better and move on to the next course in the sequence without remediation. We do not believe that one size fits all, but we do think that there are many academic pathways and instructional approaches that are compatible with postsecondary preparation, and that all students must have the opportunity to prepare for a two-year or four-year degree or credential. The terms postsecondary education, college, and higher education are used interchangeably in this paper to mean some kind of formal education or training after high school in a postsecondary institution that leads to a credential or degree.
This paper reviews the research and makes the case for a definition that includes academic rigor, grades, specific academic skills that students will need to be successful in a college-level course, and “college knowledge”—knowledge about how to apply, enroll, and succeed in a college environment. It may be difficult to come up with objective measures for all these aspects of college readiness, but it is important to consider them all in defining readiness and in helping students meet a threshold of it.
California seeks to boost transfer rates to 4-year universities
Wow, this is extremely low. Less than 1 percent of transfers to on to the UC System and less than 3 percent of all transfers go on to four year institutions at all.
-Patricia
All three of the state's public college systems form a task force to help smooth the way for students seeking a bachelor's degree.
By Gale Holland
February 5, 2009
Leaders of California's public college and university systems announced Wednesday that they are launching a joint task force to boost the number of community college students who transfer to the state's four-year universities.
Only 14,000 of the 2.7 million students enrolled in the state's 110 community colleges transfer to University of California campuses, and 55,000 others move on to California State University campuses.
Although many community college students are seeking job skills or enrichment rather than a university degree, experts say the transfer path is riddled with procedural potholes even for those determined to use a two-year campus as a launching pad to further education. California ranks 39th among states in the percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded to high school graduates after six years, according to the public universities.
"Expanding the opportunity for a four-year education is a critical need for California," UC President Mark Yudof told a meeting of the Board of Regents in San Francisco. "I believe we need to be actively involved, working in the colleges themselves, and in partnership with the other institutions of higher education, to encourage students to pursue transfer options and understand that it is achievable and affordable."
All three of the state's public college systems will participate equally in the transfer task force.
Yudof, California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott, in a joint statement, said improving transfer rates would reduce the costs of obtaining a four-year degree and thus expand opportunities for underrepresented and educationally disadvantaged students, who often prefer to begin their college education close to home.
Chancellor Mark Drummond of the Los Angeles Community College District said he welcomed the initiative but added that it is a complicated process, and that it will take major statewide policy shifts to attack the problem.
Recent efforts have improved transfer rates for California students, but the growth has been slow.
Morgan Lynn, executive vice chancellor of California Community Colleges, said the task force's efforts would include research "to see what works and doesn't work" in improving transfer rates.
"Our goal for students is to ensure that when they arrive at the CSU, they have the tools, information and support they need to be successful in achieving a baccalaureate degree," Reed said in a statement. "A plan developed by the three segments holds great promise."
-Patricia
All three of the state's public college systems form a task force to help smooth the way for students seeking a bachelor's degree.
By Gale Holland
February 5, 2009
Leaders of California's public college and university systems announced Wednesday that they are launching a joint task force to boost the number of community college students who transfer to the state's four-year universities.
Only 14,000 of the 2.7 million students enrolled in the state's 110 community colleges transfer to University of California campuses, and 55,000 others move on to California State University campuses.
Although many community college students are seeking job skills or enrichment rather than a university degree, experts say the transfer path is riddled with procedural potholes even for those determined to use a two-year campus as a launching pad to further education. California ranks 39th among states in the percentage of bachelor's degrees awarded to high school graduates after six years, according to the public universities.
"Expanding the opportunity for a four-year education is a critical need for California," UC President Mark Yudof told a meeting of the Board of Regents in San Francisco. "I believe we need to be actively involved, working in the colleges themselves, and in partnership with the other institutions of higher education, to encourage students to pursue transfer options and understand that it is achievable and affordable."
All three of the state's public college systems will participate equally in the transfer task force.
Yudof, California State University Chancellor Charles Reed and California Community Colleges Chancellor Jack Scott, in a joint statement, said improving transfer rates would reduce the costs of obtaining a four-year degree and thus expand opportunities for underrepresented and educationally disadvantaged students, who often prefer to begin their college education close to home.
Chancellor Mark Drummond of the Los Angeles Community College District said he welcomed the initiative but added that it is a complicated process, and that it will take major statewide policy shifts to attack the problem.
Recent efforts have improved transfer rates for California students, but the growth has been slow.
Morgan Lynn, executive vice chancellor of California Community Colleges, said the task force's efforts would include research "to see what works and doesn't work" in improving transfer rates.
"Our goal for students is to ensure that when they arrive at the CSU, they have the tools, information and support they need to be successful in achieving a baccalaureate degree," Reed said in a statement. "A plan developed by the three segments holds great promise."
Blacks Less Likely to Take A.P. Exam
Check out the full report.
-Patricia
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: February 4, 2009
More than 15 percent of the three million students who graduated from public high schools last year passed at least one Advanced Placement exam, the College Board said Wednesday, but African-American students were still far less likely to have passed, or to even have taken, an A.P. exam than white, Hispanic or Asian students.
In its fifth annual report on its A.P. program, the College Board said the program was growing steadily. More than 460,000 students, or 15.2 percent, passed an A.P. exam last year, compared with 14.1 percent in 2007 and 12.2 percent five years ago.
But the program is not spreading evenly across the nation. In Mississippi and Louisiana, fewer than 4 percent of high school graduates passed an A.P. exam last year, and in 17 other states, fewer than 10 percent passed one.
At the other end of the spectrum, in Maryland and New York, the states with the most active Advanced Placement programs, more than 23 percent of high school graduates passed an exam. And California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia also had at least one in five graduates pass an A.P. exam last year.
The A.P. program offers high school students the chance to do college-level work in dozens of subjects and, if they pass the exams, to receive college credit at many universities. The exams are marked on a scale of one to five, with a three needed to pass.
But as in most aspects of American education, troubling ethnic gaps remain. African-Americans are seriously underrepresented in the A.P. program, and no state has yet closed that gap, said Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board.
While 14 percent of last year’s high school graduates were black, they made up only 8 percent of those taking A.P. exams — and only 4 percent of those with passing scores. White students, at 63 percent of graduates, and Hispanics, at 15 percent, were nearly proportionately represented in the A.P. population. Asian students were overrepresented, making up 5 percent of graduates, but 10 percent of those taking A.P. exams.
Low-income students made up 17 percent of those who took A.P. exams last year, up from 16.2 percent in 2007, the report said.
This year, given the recession, Mr. Caperton stressed the economic benefits of the program.
“In these times of economic distress, as family budgets are squeezed and financial aid resources are spread thin, rigorous courses like A.P. that prepare students for the demands of college and foster an increased likelihood of on-time graduation can be a very valuable resource for families,” he said.
With a minority graduating from college in four years, A.P. credits can cut college costs by bolstering on-time graduation. For an out-of-state student at a public four-year university, the extra cost of taking six years to complete an undergraduate degree averages more than $58,000, the College Board said, while even five years for an in-state student costs an extra $18,000.
-Patricia
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: February 4, 2009
More than 15 percent of the three million students who graduated from public high schools last year passed at least one Advanced Placement exam, the College Board said Wednesday, but African-American students were still far less likely to have passed, or to even have taken, an A.P. exam than white, Hispanic or Asian students.
In its fifth annual report on its A.P. program, the College Board said the program was growing steadily. More than 460,000 students, or 15.2 percent, passed an A.P. exam last year, compared with 14.1 percent in 2007 and 12.2 percent five years ago.
But the program is not spreading evenly across the nation. In Mississippi and Louisiana, fewer than 4 percent of high school graduates passed an A.P. exam last year, and in 17 other states, fewer than 10 percent passed one.
At the other end of the spectrum, in Maryland and New York, the states with the most active Advanced Placement programs, more than 23 percent of high school graduates passed an exam. And California, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Virginia also had at least one in five graduates pass an A.P. exam last year.
The A.P. program offers high school students the chance to do college-level work in dozens of subjects and, if they pass the exams, to receive college credit at many universities. The exams are marked on a scale of one to five, with a three needed to pass.
But as in most aspects of American education, troubling ethnic gaps remain. African-Americans are seriously underrepresented in the A.P. program, and no state has yet closed that gap, said Gaston Caperton, the president of the College Board.
While 14 percent of last year’s high school graduates were black, they made up only 8 percent of those taking A.P. exams — and only 4 percent of those with passing scores. White students, at 63 percent of graduates, and Hispanics, at 15 percent, were nearly proportionately represented in the A.P. population. Asian students were overrepresented, making up 5 percent of graduates, but 10 percent of those taking A.P. exams.
Low-income students made up 17 percent of those who took A.P. exams last year, up from 16.2 percent in 2007, the report said.
This year, given the recession, Mr. Caperton stressed the economic benefits of the program.
“In these times of economic distress, as family budgets are squeezed and financial aid resources are spread thin, rigorous courses like A.P. that prepare students for the demands of college and foster an increased likelihood of on-time graduation can be a very valuable resource for families,” he said.
With a minority graduating from college in four years, A.P. credits can cut college costs by bolstering on-time graduation. For an out-of-state student at a public four-year university, the extra cost of taking six years to complete an undergraduate degree averages more than $58,000, the College Board said, while even five years for an in-state student costs an extra $18,000.
Texan becomes first Hispanic to lead a major school system
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — A Mexican-American pediatric surgeon will become the nation's first Hispanic to preside over a major university system when Dr. Francisco Cigarroa takes the helm at the University of Texas System, which faces financial woes and complaints about diversity.
Cigarroa, a 51-year-old pediatric transplant surgeon from Laredo, looks at his new job as the system's new chancellor starting Monday as an opportunity to exceed expectations.
"Challenges really don't dissuade me from pursuing important opportunities," Cigarroa told The Associated Press. "If you're an optimist, you see opportunities, and that's the way I've been brought up."
Cigarroa, as the chief executive officer of the UT System, will help administer an $11.5 billion operating budget and preside over 15 campuses with more than 194,000 students.
He faces complaints about soaring tuition costs, a growing battle over admissions policies and a hurricane-ravaged medical school and health center in Galveston.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Dallas | Mexico | Utah | San Antonio | Hispanic | Hurricane Ike | Yale | Galveston | University of Texas Medical Branch | Nuevo Laredo | UT-Austin | University of Texas System | UT Southwestern Medical Center | UT System | D-Laredo | Dr. Francisco Cigarroa
To address those issues, the outgoing president of the UT Health Sciences Center in San Antonio will have to enter an arena far dicier than medicine: politics. The state Legislature granted school officials the power to raise tuition rates in 2003, but has been pressuring the school system to stop increases.
Cigarroa has refused to specify his views on tuition restraints but said school UT officials and legislators have to work together to resolve the issue.
He's more passionate about the prospect of changing admissions policies, which currently dictate automatic entry to state universities for students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class.
UT wants the policy relaxed so it can have more say about who gets in the door. At UT-Austin, more than 80% of the Texas freshmen gained admission though the top 10% provision.
Cigarroa said the system could keep or even increase diversity in the student body even if the top 10% law is modified or eliminated.
"I think we can find an appropriate balance where universities not only look at the top 10%, but they also look at those wonderfully competitive students who may have not made the top 10% but have done something incredibly special," Cigarroa said.
Cigarroa also must deal with the future of University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which suffered $1 billion in damage from Hurricane Ike.
Cigarroa said revitalizing the facility would be a top priority but he couldn't say what its "appropriate size" would be.
One of nine children born to a doctor and a disciplinarian mother in Laredo, Cigarroa recalls a childhood filled with trips to his grandparents across the border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. He frequently visits his mother-in-law there.
The Yale graduate received his medical degree, with highest honors, from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. His surgical prowess has earned him the nickname "manos de oro," or "golden hands."
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, a longtime family friend, called Cigarroa a "true renaissance man" who represented the changing demographics of Texas.
"Imagine the kind of role model he'll be for young students," she said. "Imagine how many parents will look at him proudly."
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Cigarroa, a 51-year-old pediatric transplant surgeon from Laredo, looks at his new job as the system's new chancellor starting Monday as an opportunity to exceed expectations.
"Challenges really don't dissuade me from pursuing important opportunities," Cigarroa told The Associated Press. "If you're an optimist, you see opportunities, and that's the way I've been brought up."
Cigarroa, as the chief executive officer of the UT System, will help administer an $11.5 billion operating budget and preside over 15 campuses with more than 194,000 students.
He faces complaints about soaring tuition costs, a growing battle over admissions policies and a hurricane-ravaged medical school and health center in Galveston.
FIND MORE STORIES IN: Dallas | Mexico | Utah | San Antonio | Hispanic | Hurricane Ike | Yale | Galveston | University of Texas Medical Branch | Nuevo Laredo | UT-Austin | University of Texas System | UT Southwestern Medical Center | UT System | D-Laredo | Dr. Francisco Cigarroa
To address those issues, the outgoing president of the UT Health Sciences Center in San Antonio will have to enter an arena far dicier than medicine: politics. The state Legislature granted school officials the power to raise tuition rates in 2003, but has been pressuring the school system to stop increases.
Cigarroa has refused to specify his views on tuition restraints but said school UT officials and legislators have to work together to resolve the issue.
He's more passionate about the prospect of changing admissions policies, which currently dictate automatic entry to state universities for students who graduate in the top 10% of their high school class.
UT wants the policy relaxed so it can have more say about who gets in the door. At UT-Austin, more than 80% of the Texas freshmen gained admission though the top 10% provision.
Cigarroa said the system could keep or even increase diversity in the student body even if the top 10% law is modified or eliminated.
"I think we can find an appropriate balance where universities not only look at the top 10%, but they also look at those wonderfully competitive students who may have not made the top 10% but have done something incredibly special," Cigarroa said.
Cigarroa also must deal with the future of University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, which suffered $1 billion in damage from Hurricane Ike.
Cigarroa said revitalizing the facility would be a top priority but he couldn't say what its "appropriate size" would be.
One of nine children born to a doctor and a disciplinarian mother in Laredo, Cigarroa recalls a childhood filled with trips to his grandparents across the border in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. He frequently visits his mother-in-law there.
The Yale graduate received his medical degree, with highest honors, from UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. His surgical prowess has earned him the nickname "manos de oro," or "golden hands."
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, a longtime family friend, called Cigarroa a "true renaissance man" who represented the changing demographics of Texas.
"Imagine the kind of role model he'll be for young students," she said. "Imagine how many parents will look at him proudly."
Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
The Big Business of Family Detention
It's not just alleged terrorists who are suffering from our inhumane treatment of detainees. It's also children.
Courtney E. Martin | February 2, 2009 | web only
When President Barack Obama made it his first act in office to shut down Guantánamo Bay prison, he effectively ended one shameful chapter in our country's embarrassingly large book of human-rights abuses. It was not so much redemption as a reminder that this country has a long, long way to go when it comes to detention, due process, and the Geneva Convention. It's not just alleged terrorists that are suffering from our inhumane treatment. It's also children.
The United States is currently holding 30,000 immigrants in detention while they await hearings. The country operates three family immigrant detention centers, the most notorious of which is the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, a former prison currently under the private management of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The 600-bed center detains families who are awaiting asylum or immigration hearings, a major departure from past federal policy. Pre-September 11, families charged with immigration violations (which are not criminal violations) or who came to the country asking for asylum were generally allowed to live independently as long as they agreed to attend a hearing.
The transition from "catch and release" to "catch and detain" has been riddled with controversy. Immigrant detention became a boom business under the Bush administration, which supplied the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's (ICE) $1 billion-plus detention budget. Private contractors get $200 a head per day for family detention and lobbied hard for the policy shift: Mother Jones reports that "in 2004, when Congress passed legislation authorizing ICE to triple the number of immigrant detention beds, CCA's lobbying expenditures reached $3 million; since then, it has spent an additional $7 million on lobbyists."
The bottom line is not just economic, however. Children and families have suffered inexcusable indignities under this new policy, which treats them like convicted criminals instead of asylum-seekers and potential citizens. Despite the fact that myriad human rights and community groups -- such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Immigration Studies -- have condemned the practice of detaining children in prison-like environments, ICE is seeking to open three new family detention centers, doubling its capacity. As of this writing, ICE still hasn't released the names of the winning contractors and/or locations, but the announcement is expected to be made sometime this year with the new facilities scheduled to open in 2010.
Imagine this: 7- and 8-year-old children dressed in hospital scrubs, savoring the last few minutes of their one hour of recreation time a day before they are brought back to their family cells, the heavy metal door closing them in for another painfully boring stint. No toys allowed. This nightmare was a reality for too many children when Hutto first opened in 2006. The Women's Refugee Commission, a New York-based nonprofit that conducted a study in collaboration with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, found that "immigration detention facilities for families in this country may be re-traumatizing families and their children, many of whom are seeking asylum from persecution in their home countries." The commission reports that on a visit to the facility, one child slipped a note into the hand of an outside visitor that said, "Help us and ask us questions."
Thanks to lawsuits against CCA, children can now wear pajamas, play, and attend classes during the day, and pregnant women are receiving some neonatal care, but the spirit of incarceration continues. Immigration officials claim that family detention is necessary in order to prevent immigrants and asylum-seekers from fleeing the country. However, even ICE admits that alternatives -- like its own pilot program in 2004 where specialists were assigned a limited caseload of detainees whom they monitored using home visits and telephone calls -- have a 94 percent appearance rate overall.
Family detention centers may provide a meager 6 percent reduction in flight risk, but this country pays a far bigger price in lost integrity. We lock up children and their families -- many of whom have suffered economic deprivation, exploitation, and oftentimes, domestic and sexual abuse -- before they've even had a hearing as to their immigration status.
Renee Feltz, a multimedia investigative journalist based in New York City who co-runs a project on the business of immigrant detention, reports that waiting in such unbearable conditions often brings immigrants -- especially women with children -- to their knees. "Many of the people we talked to are so miserable in these facilities that they will eventually agree to being deported even if they think they have a legitimate claim to asylum," Feltz says. "They just want to get out as fast as possible."
In this way, one of the first lessons we teach potential new citizens about America is one of cruel, Orwellian hypocrisy. You must earn your freedom, if at all, via imprisonment. Dignity comes only by bearing undignified conditions. The last administration's obsession with family values is glaringly absent from this Civics 101 course. We welcome children who have heard tall tales of the abundance and liberty of America with rehabbed cells and 10 minutes to wolf down an inadequate lunch of cheap starches on a prison tray.
First and foremost, immigrant family detention must stop. On Jan. 21, Grassroots Leadership, a Southern community organizing group, launched a campaign with this goal, calling it 100 Actions in 100 Days. Given the new administration, hope for immigration reform, and a renewed focus on addressing corporate corruption, it's an opportune time to reactivate the country around this issue.
But there's an even bigger picture here that we must not lose sight of. Immigrant detention, on the whole, is riddled with corruption, inefficiencies, and indignities. Comprehensive immigration reform is a vital component of our country's next few years of healing and reform.
And an even bigger picture still: We live in a society that has bought blindly into the privatization and proliferation of our prisons. It's not so surprising that we force immigrant children to live in cells and wear hospital garb when you consider the national tendency toward incarceration, racism, and xenophobia.
We've got a lot to heal. Let's start by abolishing family detention centers immediately.
Courtney E. Martin | February 2, 2009 | web only
When President Barack Obama made it his first act in office to shut down Guantánamo Bay prison, he effectively ended one shameful chapter in our country's embarrassingly large book of human-rights abuses. It was not so much redemption as a reminder that this country has a long, long way to go when it comes to detention, due process, and the Geneva Convention. It's not just alleged terrorists that are suffering from our inhumane treatment. It's also children.
The United States is currently holding 30,000 immigrants in detention while they await hearings. The country operates three family immigrant detention centers, the most notorious of which is the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, a former prison currently under the private management of Corrections Corporation of America (CCA). The 600-bed center detains families who are awaiting asylum or immigration hearings, a major departure from past federal policy. Pre-September 11, families charged with immigration violations (which are not criminal violations) or who came to the country asking for asylum were generally allowed to live independently as long as they agreed to attend a hearing.
The transition from "catch and release" to "catch and detain" has been riddled with controversy. Immigrant detention became a boom business under the Bush administration, which supplied the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency's (ICE) $1 billion-plus detention budget. Private contractors get $200 a head per day for family detention and lobbied hard for the policy shift: Mother Jones reports that "in 2004, when Congress passed legislation authorizing ICE to triple the number of immigrant detention beds, CCA's lobbying expenditures reached $3 million; since then, it has spent an additional $7 million on lobbyists."
The bottom line is not just economic, however. Children and families have suffered inexcusable indignities under this new policy, which treats them like convicted criminals instead of asylum-seekers and potential citizens. Despite the fact that myriad human rights and community groups -- such as the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Immigration Studies -- have condemned the practice of detaining children in prison-like environments, ICE is seeking to open three new family detention centers, doubling its capacity. As of this writing, ICE still hasn't released the names of the winning contractors and/or locations, but the announcement is expected to be made sometime this year with the new facilities scheduled to open in 2010.
Imagine this: 7- and 8-year-old children dressed in hospital scrubs, savoring the last few minutes of their one hour of recreation time a day before they are brought back to their family cells, the heavy metal door closing them in for another painfully boring stint. No toys allowed. This nightmare was a reality for too many children when Hutto first opened in 2006. The Women's Refugee Commission, a New York-based nonprofit that conducted a study in collaboration with the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, found that "immigration detention facilities for families in this country may be re-traumatizing families and their children, many of whom are seeking asylum from persecution in their home countries." The commission reports that on a visit to the facility, one child slipped a note into the hand of an outside visitor that said, "Help us and ask us questions."
Thanks to lawsuits against CCA, children can now wear pajamas, play, and attend classes during the day, and pregnant women are receiving some neonatal care, but the spirit of incarceration continues. Immigration officials claim that family detention is necessary in order to prevent immigrants and asylum-seekers from fleeing the country. However, even ICE admits that alternatives -- like its own pilot program in 2004 where specialists were assigned a limited caseload of detainees whom they monitored using home visits and telephone calls -- have a 94 percent appearance rate overall.
Family detention centers may provide a meager 6 percent reduction in flight risk, but this country pays a far bigger price in lost integrity. We lock up children and their families -- many of whom have suffered economic deprivation, exploitation, and oftentimes, domestic and sexual abuse -- before they've even had a hearing as to their immigration status.
Renee Feltz, a multimedia investigative journalist based in New York City who co-runs a project on the business of immigrant detention, reports that waiting in such unbearable conditions often brings immigrants -- especially women with children -- to their knees. "Many of the people we talked to are so miserable in these facilities that they will eventually agree to being deported even if they think they have a legitimate claim to asylum," Feltz says. "They just want to get out as fast as possible."
In this way, one of the first lessons we teach potential new citizens about America is one of cruel, Orwellian hypocrisy. You must earn your freedom, if at all, via imprisonment. Dignity comes only by bearing undignified conditions. The last administration's obsession with family values is glaringly absent from this Civics 101 course. We welcome children who have heard tall tales of the abundance and liberty of America with rehabbed cells and 10 minutes to wolf down an inadequate lunch of cheap starches on a prison tray.
First and foremost, immigrant family detention must stop. On Jan. 21, Grassroots Leadership, a Southern community organizing group, launched a campaign with this goal, calling it 100 Actions in 100 Days. Given the new administration, hope for immigration reform, and a renewed focus on addressing corporate corruption, it's an opportune time to reactivate the country around this issue.
But there's an even bigger picture here that we must not lose sight of. Immigrant detention, on the whole, is riddled with corruption, inefficiencies, and indignities. Comprehensive immigration reform is a vital component of our country's next few years of healing and reform.
And an even bigger picture still: We live in a society that has bought blindly into the privatization and proliferation of our prisons. It's not so surprising that we force immigrant children to live in cells and wear hospital garb when you consider the national tendency toward incarceration, racism, and xenophobia.
We've got a lot to heal. Let's start by abolishing family detention centers immediately.
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Survey: College vital but less accessible
By Mary Beth Marklein, USA TODAY
The poor economy is ratcheting up anxieties about college affordability at a time when more Americans than ever say a college degree is essential to success, a report says today.
Those findings, based on a survey of 1,009 Americans in late December, are hardly mind-boggling, but they represent dramatic shifts in public attitude in a short period of time:
•55% in 2008 said a college degree is necessary vs. 31% in 2000.
•43% in 2008 said there are many ways to succeed without college vs. 67% in 2000.
•67% in 2008 said most people who are qualified for college don't have the opportunity to attend vs. 47% in 2000.
"These changes are quick given what we usually see in public opinion (polling)," says John Immerwahr, senior research fellow for Public Agenda, a New York-based non-profit that has been tracking attitudes about higher education since 1993. It conducted this survey with the National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education, a non-profit in San Jose that promotes access.
National Center president Patrick Callan says the survey points to "a growing sense of unfairness" and anxiety about the economy and American society. "This is not just about higher education, but it's very important that higher education not be seen as (making) it worse."
Terry Hartle of the non-profit American Council on Education, an umbrella group for colleges and universities, says perceptions may or may not reflect reality, but they matter because they drive behavior.
"If any student fails to enroll because they fear college is unaffordable, it's a tragedy," he says.
The poor economy is ratcheting up anxieties about college affordability at a time when more Americans than ever say a college degree is essential to success, a report says today.
Those findings, based on a survey of 1,009 Americans in late December, are hardly mind-boggling, but they represent dramatic shifts in public attitude in a short period of time:
•55% in 2008 said a college degree is necessary vs. 31% in 2000.
•43% in 2008 said there are many ways to succeed without college vs. 67% in 2000.
•67% in 2008 said most people who are qualified for college don't have the opportunity to attend vs. 47% in 2000.
"These changes are quick given what we usually see in public opinion (polling)," says John Immerwahr, senior research fellow for Public Agenda, a New York-based non-profit that has been tracking attitudes about higher education since 1993. It conducted this survey with the National Center on Public Policy and Higher Education, a non-profit in San Jose that promotes access.
National Center president Patrick Callan says the survey points to "a growing sense of unfairness" and anxiety about the economy and American society. "This is not just about higher education, but it's very important that higher education not be seen as (making) it worse."
Terry Hartle of the non-profit American Council on Education, an umbrella group for colleges and universities, says perceptions may or may not reflect reality, but they matter because they drive behavior.
"If any student fails to enroll because they fear college is unaffordable, it's a tragedy," he says.
Teacher Turnover, Tenure Policies, and the Distribution of Teacher Quality Can High-Poverty Schools Catch a Break?
Check out the full report
-Patricia
By Raegen Miller, Robin Chait | American Progress
December 2, 2008
In recent years education reformers have focused a great deal of attention on strategies for enhancing teacher quality. This attention makes sense, as a growing body of evidence points to the overriding importance of teachers in promoting student achievement. On average, students with a teacher in the top quartile of the talent pool achieve at levels corresponding to an additional two or three months of instruction per year, compared with peers who have a teacher in the bottom quartile.
Putting these numbers in context, this quality differential represents well over a third of the “achievement gap” between students from low-income families and those from families with higher incomes. Thus, consistent assignment to high-quality teachers can substantially lower the barriers to realizing academic success imposed by poverty. In contrast, class size reduction, a popular and expensive policy option, shows much less promise, if any, for addressing achievement gaps.
Because teacher quality is so critical to students’ success in school, gross inequity in the distribution of highly effective teachers should trouble policymakers. If students attending high-poverty schools are far less likely to be assigned effective teachers than students living in more affluent communities, then it would be a pressing matter to increase access to such teachers for economically disadvantaged students. Progress on this issue requires a careful look at the composition and dynamics of the teaching workforce.
A school’s teaching staff is not static. Teachers come and go, and the patterns of their movements between schools and into and out of the profession have undergone radical changes over the past 50 years. Researchers have begun to get a grip on these patterns and their relationship to teacher quality. This report focuses on three pieces of the puzzle: the distribution of teacher quality, teacher turnover, and tenure policies. In other words, who teaches where, who stays and who leaves, and how do tenure policies affect the decisions of teachers and the school districts that employ them?
The report is organized as follows. The first section explains how teacher quality can be measured. The very idea that teacher quality can be measured has its detractors. Some argue, on principle, that teaching is an art or a kind of sacred act that cannot be measured in any way that respects the scope or importance of the work. This point of view, however, does not hold much water in the globally competitive economy, where students need well-developed cognitive skills and where teachers, who are meant to help students develop these skills, absorb the majority of spending on public education. Historically, however, the business of measuring teacher quality has been problematic. The characteristics of teachers that are tracked most carefully are those traditionally important in hiring decisions and compensation systems (e.g., academic major, advanced degrees, years of experience). The term “qualifications” is adopted here to refer to these characteristics, which one estimate finds together explain only about 3 percent of the variation in student achievement. The rise of information technology and the recent boom in state-sponsored achievement tests, largely in response to accountability programs, have afforded researchers and policymakers access to better measures of teacher quality. These so-called “value-added” measures of teacher effectiveness have important limitations, but they hold promise for informing policies that address any inequitable distribution of effective teachers.
The second section explores the distribution of teacher quality. Although qualifications explain only a few percent of the variation observed in student achievement, they provide a reasonable basis for documenting systematic inequity in the distribution of teacher quality. Furthermore, qualifications will remain important in hiring decisions and compensation systems for the foreseeable future. An abundance of evidence suggests that the qualifications of teachers differ, on average, between high-poverty and low-poverty schools. These differences tilt in the expected direction. For example, students in high-poverty schools are less likely than students in low-poverty schools to be assigned a teacher deemed “highly qualified” under the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The third section examines teacher turnover. The term turnover encompasses mobility—teachers leaving one school for another—and attrition, which is defined as teachers leaving the classroom to take up other professional responsibilities, inside or outside of education, or to spend more time with their families. Mobility and attrition are con- founded by teachers returning to the classroom after several years away, a group that includes up to a fourth of newly hired teachers. Some turnover is inevitable; some is desirable. Chronically ineffective teachers should seek employment elsewhere. Instead of leaving the profession, however, such teachers may simply seek a school where their weak performance is less conspicuous. Attrition and mobility of effective teachers exacerbate inequity in the distribution of teacher quality.
The fourth section examines tenure, a term denoting the contractual or statutory job protections conferred on teachers who have completed a provisional phase of employment. Once tenured, a teacher’s employment may only be terminated for cause, and only after prescribed due process procedures have been followed. Tenure began as a countermeasure to various forms of employment discrimination, but successive waves of civil rights legislation have largely usurped this role. This section surveys what little is known about how tenure policies affect the distribution of teacher quality.
The last section concludes the paper by making the case that tenure embodies an important policy lever that ought to be explored. Right now, a good deal of evidence suggests that earning tenure is unrelated to what we value in teachers: their performance in the classroom. In particular, whether teachers can further student achievement is almost completely unrelated to the tenure decision. Given the interplay between teacher turnover, tenure policies, and the distribution of teacher quality, it is worth discussing what role changes in tenure policy could play in efforts to afford low-income students more access to effective teachers.
-Patricia
By Raegen Miller, Robin Chait | American Progress
December 2, 2008
In recent years education reformers have focused a great deal of attention on strategies for enhancing teacher quality. This attention makes sense, as a growing body of evidence points to the overriding importance of teachers in promoting student achievement. On average, students with a teacher in the top quartile of the talent pool achieve at levels corresponding to an additional two or three months of instruction per year, compared with peers who have a teacher in the bottom quartile.
Putting these numbers in context, this quality differential represents well over a third of the “achievement gap” between students from low-income families and those from families with higher incomes. Thus, consistent assignment to high-quality teachers can substantially lower the barriers to realizing academic success imposed by poverty. In contrast, class size reduction, a popular and expensive policy option, shows much less promise, if any, for addressing achievement gaps.
Because teacher quality is so critical to students’ success in school, gross inequity in the distribution of highly effective teachers should trouble policymakers. If students attending high-poverty schools are far less likely to be assigned effective teachers than students living in more affluent communities, then it would be a pressing matter to increase access to such teachers for economically disadvantaged students. Progress on this issue requires a careful look at the composition and dynamics of the teaching workforce.
A school’s teaching staff is not static. Teachers come and go, and the patterns of their movements between schools and into and out of the profession have undergone radical changes over the past 50 years. Researchers have begun to get a grip on these patterns and their relationship to teacher quality. This report focuses on three pieces of the puzzle: the distribution of teacher quality, teacher turnover, and tenure policies. In other words, who teaches where, who stays and who leaves, and how do tenure policies affect the decisions of teachers and the school districts that employ them?
The report is organized as follows. The first section explains how teacher quality can be measured. The very idea that teacher quality can be measured has its detractors. Some argue, on principle, that teaching is an art or a kind of sacred act that cannot be measured in any way that respects the scope or importance of the work. This point of view, however, does not hold much water in the globally competitive economy, where students need well-developed cognitive skills and where teachers, who are meant to help students develop these skills, absorb the majority of spending on public education. Historically, however, the business of measuring teacher quality has been problematic. The characteristics of teachers that are tracked most carefully are those traditionally important in hiring decisions and compensation systems (e.g., academic major, advanced degrees, years of experience). The term “qualifications” is adopted here to refer to these characteristics, which one estimate finds together explain only about 3 percent of the variation in student achievement. The rise of information technology and the recent boom in state-sponsored achievement tests, largely in response to accountability programs, have afforded researchers and policymakers access to better measures of teacher quality. These so-called “value-added” measures of teacher effectiveness have important limitations, but they hold promise for informing policies that address any inequitable distribution of effective teachers.
The second section explores the distribution of teacher quality. Although qualifications explain only a few percent of the variation observed in student achievement, they provide a reasonable basis for documenting systematic inequity in the distribution of teacher quality. Furthermore, qualifications will remain important in hiring decisions and compensation systems for the foreseeable future. An abundance of evidence suggests that the qualifications of teachers differ, on average, between high-poverty and low-poverty schools. These differences tilt in the expected direction. For example, students in high-poverty schools are less likely than students in low-poverty schools to be assigned a teacher deemed “highly qualified” under the provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act.
The third section examines teacher turnover. The term turnover encompasses mobility—teachers leaving one school for another—and attrition, which is defined as teachers leaving the classroom to take up other professional responsibilities, inside or outside of education, or to spend more time with their families. Mobility and attrition are con- founded by teachers returning to the classroom after several years away, a group that includes up to a fourth of newly hired teachers. Some turnover is inevitable; some is desirable. Chronically ineffective teachers should seek employment elsewhere. Instead of leaving the profession, however, such teachers may simply seek a school where their weak performance is less conspicuous. Attrition and mobility of effective teachers exacerbate inequity in the distribution of teacher quality.
The fourth section examines tenure, a term denoting the contractual or statutory job protections conferred on teachers who have completed a provisional phase of employment. Once tenured, a teacher’s employment may only be terminated for cause, and only after prescribed due process procedures have been followed. Tenure began as a countermeasure to various forms of employment discrimination, but successive waves of civil rights legislation have largely usurped this role. This section surveys what little is known about how tenure policies affect the distribution of teacher quality.
The last section concludes the paper by making the case that tenure embodies an important policy lever that ought to be explored. Right now, a good deal of evidence suggests that earning tenure is unrelated to what we value in teachers: their performance in the classroom. In particular, whether teachers can further student achievement is almost completely unrelated to the tenure decision. Given the interplay between teacher turnover, tenure policies, and the distribution of teacher quality, it is worth discussing what role changes in tenure policy could play in efforts to afford low-income students more access to effective teachers.
State school chief sees 'precarious' situation
Nanette Asimov, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
In his grimmest State of Education address yet, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell pointed to a "precarious" school system all but collapsing under the weight of California's fiscal crisis.
Schools expect to lose $10 billion this year alone, resulting in teacher layoffs, soaring class sizes and fewer librarians and nurses, O'Connell said in his sixth annual overview of education.
"These cuts are nothing short of breathtaking," he said, singling out Hayward Unified School District, which plans to lay off 170 of its 1,100 teachers and raise elementary class sizes from 20 to 32 students.
Other districts around the state are making similar cuts, including Lake Elsinore Unified in Riverside County, where "schools are putting duct tape over light switches to save on electricity," he said.
To ease the burden, O'Connell said his Department of Education will end compliance visits to districts for at least a year. The visits try to ensure that tax money is properly spent on numerous state-mandated programs - from after-school classes to curriculum for gifted students.
The moratorium essentially gives districts a green light to spend scarce dollars as they wish.
"During these challenging times I want districts and schools to focus every ounce of energy they have on improving student achievement, not on preparing for program audits," O'Connell said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed making such flexibility permanent and legal. While districts' officials applaud the move, education groups that benefit from the programs have criticized it.
Meanwhile, the fiscal crisis comes at a time when students are not only needier - the numbers of homeless students and those qualifying for subsidized lunch have soared - but when more is demanded of them academically, O'Connell said.
Nearly 6.3 million students are enrolled statewide, with about 45 percent scoring "proficient" on California's difficult English and math exams.
The proficiency rate must grow to about 55 percent this school year under the federal No Child Left Behind education act, or schools may face corrective action.
O'Connell also cited positive trends: 30 percent fewer students are scoring in the bottom tiers of achievement since 2002; 18 percent more schools hit test-score targets between 2007 and 2008; and more students are taking college entrance exams than ever.
But he warned that California is destined for a "two-tiered system of education" in which the students who need the most help will fall even further behind unless the state finds a way to better fund public education. As an example, he said that five years after Maryland increased spending by $2,500 per pupil, the state reading and math scores soared.
Schwarzenegger's newly appointed education adviser, Glen Thomas, responded with a rosier view of California's $41 billion state school budget.
"The governor has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect education from feeling the full effects of the state's $42 billion budget deficit," he said.
Thomas said the governor's proposal gives schools billions of dollars more than they are entitled to under Proposition 98, the law setting a minimum school-funding guarantee.
O'Connell and other education advocates say the opposite is true, and that Schwarzenegger is proposing a fiscal calculation that would rob the schools of billions of dollars they are entitled to.
The dispute mirrors the stalemate in Sacramento, as lawmakers and the governor continue negotiating over how to close the state's budget gap - estimated at $42 billion over the next 17 months.
In his address, O'Connell said he is hopeful that the federal stimulus package will bring billions of dollars to jump-start stalled school construction projects in California, and that he will sponsor legislation to place a large school construction bond on the next statewide ballot.
He said he also supports legislation to lower the threshold for passing local parcel taxes for schools, from two-thirds voter approval to 55 percent.
Such efforts have failed in the past.
E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
In his grimmest State of Education address yet, state Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell pointed to a "precarious" school system all but collapsing under the weight of California's fiscal crisis.
Schools expect to lose $10 billion this year alone, resulting in teacher layoffs, soaring class sizes and fewer librarians and nurses, O'Connell said in his sixth annual overview of education.
"These cuts are nothing short of breathtaking," he said, singling out Hayward Unified School District, which plans to lay off 170 of its 1,100 teachers and raise elementary class sizes from 20 to 32 students.
Other districts around the state are making similar cuts, including Lake Elsinore Unified in Riverside County, where "schools are putting duct tape over light switches to save on electricity," he said.
To ease the burden, O'Connell said his Department of Education will end compliance visits to districts for at least a year. The visits try to ensure that tax money is properly spent on numerous state-mandated programs - from after-school classes to curriculum for gifted students.
The moratorium essentially gives districts a green light to spend scarce dollars as they wish.
"During these challenging times I want districts and schools to focus every ounce of energy they have on improving student achievement, not on preparing for program audits," O'Connell said.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has proposed making such flexibility permanent and legal. While districts' officials applaud the move, education groups that benefit from the programs have criticized it.
Meanwhile, the fiscal crisis comes at a time when students are not only needier - the numbers of homeless students and those qualifying for subsidized lunch have soared - but when more is demanded of them academically, O'Connell said.
Nearly 6.3 million students are enrolled statewide, with about 45 percent scoring "proficient" on California's difficult English and math exams.
The proficiency rate must grow to about 55 percent this school year under the federal No Child Left Behind education act, or schools may face corrective action.
O'Connell also cited positive trends: 30 percent fewer students are scoring in the bottom tiers of achievement since 2002; 18 percent more schools hit test-score targets between 2007 and 2008; and more students are taking college entrance exams than ever.
But he warned that California is destined for a "two-tiered system of education" in which the students who need the most help will fall even further behind unless the state finds a way to better fund public education. As an example, he said that five years after Maryland increased spending by $2,500 per pupil, the state reading and math scores soared.
Schwarzenegger's newly appointed education adviser, Glen Thomas, responded with a rosier view of California's $41 billion state school budget.
"The governor has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect education from feeling the full effects of the state's $42 billion budget deficit," he said.
Thomas said the governor's proposal gives schools billions of dollars more than they are entitled to under Proposition 98, the law setting a minimum school-funding guarantee.
O'Connell and other education advocates say the opposite is true, and that Schwarzenegger is proposing a fiscal calculation that would rob the schools of billions of dollars they are entitled to.
The dispute mirrors the stalemate in Sacramento, as lawmakers and the governor continue negotiating over how to close the state's budget gap - estimated at $42 billion over the next 17 months.
In his address, O'Connell said he is hopeful that the federal stimulus package will bring billions of dollars to jump-start stalled school construction projects in California, and that he will sponsor legislation to place a large school construction bond on the next statewide ballot.
He said he also supports legislation to lower the threshold for passing local parcel taxes for schools, from two-thirds voter approval to 55 percent.
Such efforts have failed in the past.
E-mail Nanette Asimov at nasimov@sfchronicle.com.
Texas lacking in children's health care, report says
Check out the full report
-Patricia
By ANGELA WARD
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A new report ranks Texas at or near the bottom in several key indicators of children's health.
However, Gregg County Health Department Director Dr. Lewis Browne said he believes local availability of health care services is generally high.
"We've got pretty good access to medical services here," Browne said. "There are clinics that offer prenatal services based on income and free vaccinations to all county residents."
Browne said he thinks one of the reasons Texas consistently rates so poorly in national children's health survey is primarily because of the conditions in the southernmost parts of the state. In that region, a shortage of physicians combines with language barriers and economic problems to cause a lack of access to necessary medical care.
"Some women are simply unaware of what services are available when they're pregnant," Browne said. "In other cases, they just don't put a priority on prenatal care."
One thing that has increased the access to health care in Gregg County within recent years has been the addition of public transportation within Longview, he said. Before the beginning of the bus system in 2003, lack of transportation caused many families to be unable to take advantage of available health care options.
The report, compiled by Texans Care for Children, said children in Texas are more likely than children in any other state to go without health insurance, become pregnant as teens and grow up to enter the correctional system.
Christine Sinatra, communications director for the organization, said she hopes the report leads to state lawmakers increasing their investment in services that benefit children. The report focuses on a large number of factors that affect the overall well-being of children; not just health care issues, but also education and poverty levels.
"We haven't invested in our children the way we should, and that shows up in a number of factors, from infant mortality to the high school drop out rate," Sinatra said.
Texas has slipped from ninth to 21st in infant survival rates in the past five years, she said. However, Texas has advanced from 50th to 22nd nationally in immunizations.
On the Net: See the full report at www.texanscareforchildren.org/
-Patricia
By ANGELA WARD
Thursday, January 08, 2009
A new report ranks Texas at or near the bottom in several key indicators of children's health.
However, Gregg County Health Department Director Dr. Lewis Browne said he believes local availability of health care services is generally high.
"We've got pretty good access to medical services here," Browne said. "There are clinics that offer prenatal services based on income and free vaccinations to all county residents."
Browne said he thinks one of the reasons Texas consistently rates so poorly in national children's health survey is primarily because of the conditions in the southernmost parts of the state. In that region, a shortage of physicians combines with language barriers and economic problems to cause a lack of access to necessary medical care.
"Some women are simply unaware of what services are available when they're pregnant," Browne said. "In other cases, they just don't put a priority on prenatal care."
One thing that has increased the access to health care in Gregg County within recent years has been the addition of public transportation within Longview, he said. Before the beginning of the bus system in 2003, lack of transportation caused many families to be unable to take advantage of available health care options.
The report, compiled by Texans Care for Children, said children in Texas are more likely than children in any other state to go without health insurance, become pregnant as teens and grow up to enter the correctional system.
Christine Sinatra, communications director for the organization, said she hopes the report leads to state lawmakers increasing their investment in services that benefit children. The report focuses on a large number of factors that affect the overall well-being of children; not just health care issues, but also education and poverty levels.
"We haven't invested in our children the way we should, and that shows up in a number of factors, from infant mortality to the high school drop out rate," Sinatra said.
Texas has slipped from ninth to 21st in infant survival rates in the past five years, she said. However, Texas has advanced from 50th to 22nd nationally in immunizations.
On the Net: See the full report at www.texanscareforchildren.org/
Report: ICE Fugitive Operations Program Billed as Having ExplicitNational Security Focus Is Missing its Enforcement Mark
Check out the full report
-Patricia
February 4, 2009
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org
Report: ICE Fugitive Operations Program Billed as Having Explicit National Security Focus Is Missing its Enforcement Mark
WASHINGTON — The federal fugitive operations program established in 2003 to locate, apprehend and remove fugitive aliens who pose a threat to the community has instead focused chiefly on arresting unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions, according to a Migration Policy Institute report issued today.
The report, Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program, found that 73 percent of the nearly 97,000 people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fugitive operations teams between the program’s inception in 2003 and early 2008 were unauthorized immigrants without criminal records.
Despite the National Fugitive Operations Program’s mandate to apprehend dangerous fugitives, arrests of fugitive aliens with criminal convictions have represented a steadily declining share of total arrests by the teams, accounting for just 9 percent of total arrests in 2007, down from 32 percent in 2003, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own estimates.
The National Fugitive Operations Program has experienced greater growth than any other DHS immigration enforcement program — its budget rising from $9 million in 2003 to $218 million last year. In its first five years, the program has received more than $625 million. Yet ICE estimated last October that 557,762 fugitive aliens remain in the United States.
“The National Fugitive Operations Program has not delivered on its promise to find and remove dangerous fugitives. The evidence suggests that this is a case of ‘mission drift,’ in which the program has used public funding intended for one purpose for something entirely different: Apprehending non-violent non-fugitives — who constitute the easiest targets,” said MPI Non-resident Fellow Michael Wishnie, a Clinical Professor at Yale Law School and co-author of the report.
While the approximately 100 fugitive operations teams (up from eight in 2003) are supposed to arrest fugitive aliens — i.e. those with outstanding deportation, exclusion or removal orders, or those who have failed to report to the Department of Homeland Security as ordered — fully 40 percent of those arrested in 2007 had no outstanding removal order (known as ordinary status violators).
The arrests of ordinary status violators have increased since ICE in 2006 increased the quota for each seven-person fugitive operations teams from 125 arrests annually to 1,000.
Said Muzaffar Chishti, Director of MPI’s Office at New York University School of Law: “It is troubling that a program billed as having an explicit national security focus instead appears to be aimed mainly at arresting non-criminal unauthorized immigrants through the use of SWAT-like operations — typically in residential settings — that increase the risks to law enforcement personnel and civilians alike, alienate communities and misdirect scarce personnel resources."
A series of ICE memos obtained by the Immigration Justice Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which were released today, illustrate the 2006 policy shift that de-emphasized the focus on high-priority targets in favor of increased arrests.
“ICE has created tremendous bureaucratic incentives for fugitive operation teams to abandon focus on high-priority targets in favor of a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids. ICE’s home raids have primarily led to the arrests of individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE’s own enforcement priorities,” said Cardozo law professor Peter L. Markowitz, who directs the Immigration Justice Clinic and represented plaintiffs in the FOIA lawsuit.
The MPI report offers a series of recommendations, including:
* The 1,000-person annual arrest quota per team should be replaced with a system that prioritizes the arrest of dangerous fugitives over all other arrests. And the arrest priority system should be re-ordered to reflect that individuals with no criminal history or with in absentia removal orders should be designated the lowest priority.
* Fugitive operations teams should approach only targeted houses and persons.
* ICE should redeploy resources when the teams are unable to identify or pursue dangerous fugitives.
* ICE should develop a standard operating procedure addressing constitutional and humanitarian concerns that arise during fugitive operations team enforcement actions. All team agents should be required to undergo comprehensive training in accordance with this procedure, in addition to their basic law-enforcement training.
* Substantial National Fugitive Operations Team resources should be directed at improving the often error-ridden database from which information about fugitive aliens is drawn.
The report is available online at: www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/NFOP_Feb09.pdf
-Patricia
February 4, 2009
Contact: Michelle Mittelstadt
202-266-1910
mmittelstadt@migrationpolicy.org
Report: ICE Fugitive Operations Program Billed as Having Explicit National Security Focus Is Missing its Enforcement Mark
WASHINGTON — The federal fugitive operations program established in 2003 to locate, apprehend and remove fugitive aliens who pose a threat to the community has instead focused chiefly on arresting unauthorized immigrants without criminal convictions, according to a Migration Policy Institute report issued today.
The report, Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program, found that 73 percent of the nearly 97,000 people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fugitive operations teams between the program’s inception in 2003 and early 2008 were unauthorized immigrants without criminal records.
Despite the National Fugitive Operations Program’s mandate to apprehend dangerous fugitives, arrests of fugitive aliens with criminal convictions have represented a steadily declining share of total arrests by the teams, accounting for just 9 percent of total arrests in 2007, down from 32 percent in 2003, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own estimates.
The National Fugitive Operations Program has experienced greater growth than any other DHS immigration enforcement program — its budget rising from $9 million in 2003 to $218 million last year. In its first five years, the program has received more than $625 million. Yet ICE estimated last October that 557,762 fugitive aliens remain in the United States.
“The National Fugitive Operations Program has not delivered on its promise to find and remove dangerous fugitives. The evidence suggests that this is a case of ‘mission drift,’ in which the program has used public funding intended for one purpose for something entirely different: Apprehending non-violent non-fugitives — who constitute the easiest targets,” said MPI Non-resident Fellow Michael Wishnie, a Clinical Professor at Yale Law School and co-author of the report.
While the approximately 100 fugitive operations teams (up from eight in 2003) are supposed to arrest fugitive aliens — i.e. those with outstanding deportation, exclusion or removal orders, or those who have failed to report to the Department of Homeland Security as ordered — fully 40 percent of those arrested in 2007 had no outstanding removal order (known as ordinary status violators).
The arrests of ordinary status violators have increased since ICE in 2006 increased the quota for each seven-person fugitive operations teams from 125 arrests annually to 1,000.
Said Muzaffar Chishti, Director of MPI’s Office at New York University School of Law: “It is troubling that a program billed as having an explicit national security focus instead appears to be aimed mainly at arresting non-criminal unauthorized immigrants through the use of SWAT-like operations — typically in residential settings — that increase the risks to law enforcement personnel and civilians alike, alienate communities and misdirect scarce personnel resources."
A series of ICE memos obtained by the Immigration Justice Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, which were released today, illustrate the 2006 policy shift that de-emphasized the focus on high-priority targets in favor of increased arrests.
“ICE has created tremendous bureaucratic incentives for fugitive operation teams to abandon focus on high-priority targets in favor of a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids. ICE’s home raids have primarily led to the arrests of individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE’s own enforcement priorities,” said Cardozo law professor Peter L. Markowitz, who directs the Immigration Justice Clinic and represented plaintiffs in the FOIA lawsuit.
The MPI report offers a series of recommendations, including:
* The 1,000-person annual arrest quota per team should be replaced with a system that prioritizes the arrest of dangerous fugitives over all other arrests. And the arrest priority system should be re-ordered to reflect that individuals with no criminal history or with in absentia removal orders should be designated the lowest priority.
* Fugitive operations teams should approach only targeted houses and persons.
* ICE should redeploy resources when the teams are unable to identify or pursue dangerous fugitives.
* ICE should develop a standard operating procedure addressing constitutional and humanitarian concerns that arise during fugitive operations team enforcement actions. All team agents should be required to undergo comprehensive training in accordance with this procedure, in addition to their basic law-enforcement training.
* Substantial National Fugitive Operations Team resources should be directed at improving the often error-ridden database from which information about fugitive aliens is drawn.
The report is available online at: www.migrationpolicy.org/pubs/NFOP_Feb09.pdf
Monday, February 02, 2009
L.A. teachers' union calls for boycott of testing
From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. teachers' union calls for boycott of testing
Axing 'periodic assessments' would save money, UTLA says. But district leaders want teachers to give the exams, which a Times analysis suggests are boosting scores in algebra and English.
By Howard Blume
January 28, 2009
The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests.
The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive.
But there could be a downside.
The local exams, given three or four times a year at secondary schools, appear to be boosting state scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1 -- the two subjects examined by The Times -- and therefore perhaps other subjects as well.
The district tests, which have gradually permeated most core academic subjects and most grade levels, have become central to a debate over the proliferation of testing, whether it interrupts instruction and can narrow the depth and breadth of what's taught. The philosophical dispute sharpened this week amid protracted, stalled negotiations over a teachers contract and the need to slash millions to address an ongoing budget crisis.
Axing these district assessments would spare jobs by saving millions of dollars -- and would improve instruction at the same time, said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
The union's call for a boycott of the tests has emerged as an early trial for new Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who took over Jan. 1.
Cortines asserted that the assessments are part of teachers' assigned duties -- they are not optional. He also said he has and will amend aspects of the tests that need fixing. But he won't toss them out because, he said, they have contributed strongly to rising performance on the state's own annual tests.
He may be right, based on a Times' analysis of last year's improved state test scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1.
The Times found that greater participation in the district assessments was associated with better scores. In 10th-grade English, the correlation was fairly strong, accounting for nearly half the improvement.
The link was more moderate in Algebra 1, explaining about one-third of the gains for high school students in that subject.
The Times looked at these two subjects in part because the data were available -- it isn't for all subjects -- and also because of importance of these courses. Algebra 1, for example, is considered a "gateway" course to academic success.
The district has not produced its own analysis on the effect of increased participation but has collected less-conclusive data showing that students who do well on the district's tests also excel on the state's tests.
Duffy remains skeptical.
"The pig does not get fatter when you weigh it 10 times a day," Duffy said. "And if the test scores do go up, isn't it phony? Because what you are doing is teaching to the test, teaching a subject that has been narrowed down radically. We're not creating smarter kids. We're creating smarter test takers."
Duffy announced the boycott Tuesday at Emerson Middle School on the Westside, where teachers said the district tests were too burdensome on top of already mandated state and federal testing.
"We are supposed to be teaching, not testing," said Emerson English teacher Cecily Myart-Cruz. "We can come up with our own assessments in our classroom, and we do -- every day."
Top officials, however, had concluded that too many instructors failed to enforce high standards or didn't focus properly on teaching the specific skills and knowledge required by the state.
"This is not to be onerous for teachers and principals and schools," Cortines said. "It is to be helpful."
Unraveling the apparent benefit can be complex, said retired district official Roger Rasmussen, who long headed the district's analysis unit. Schools that are able to perform the assessments correctly, he said, may be those that have developed a cohesive staff, for example, which may be the real driver of improvement.
Cortines' predecessor, David L. Brewer, a retired Navy vice admiral, tackled inconsistent participation in the tests at high schools by ordering a 95% participation rate. He credited that directive with last year's rise in test scores, the biggest jump in five years.
But districtwide, the high school participation rate in English barely budged, and while the increase was greater in math, it still fell far short of Brewer's target.
Yet, the schools with increased participation generally reaped benefits. The lackluster overall response resulted in part from problems at schools. The assessments have occurred at the wrong time, for example, at some year-round campuses, where students start their school year at various times.
"My students would be tested on Mendelian genetics when we're just getting to how chromosomes separate," said Joseph Rowland, who taught science at Roosevelt High School for 22 years before moving to Franklin High this year. "It's ridiculous."
Rowland once found that his class' data had been combined with that of another teacher, rendering it pointless as a guide to future instruction. Like other teachers interviewed, he also complained about never getting data back or getting it late, though the current process is for teachers to go online and retrieve the data themselves.
Manual Arts High School English teacher Travis Miller said two rounds of his own class assessments did not count last year. Once, his tests weren't picked up on time, and once, he didn't receive all materials until the period for submitting them had closed.
Miller also knows teachers who simply refuse to give the assessments. Manual Arts' official participation rate last year was 61% in English and 14% in math.
Emerson's record on giving assessments is relatively strong, despite its prominence at the center of Tuesday's protest.
On state tests, Emerson ranks a little below average overall but well above average when compared with schools that serve a similar student population.
"This school is full of creative people and they need to have their hands untied to shine," said UCLA professor Allen F. Roberts, the parent of an Emerson 8th-grader.
The district puts the cost of the assessments at $3 million to $5 million per year. The teachers' union offers a so-far unsubstantiated figure of $150 million -- based on its interpretation of indirect costs, such as the related use of math and reading coaches to assist teachers.
howard.blume@latimes.com
Times staff writer Doug Smith provided data analysis.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times
L.A. teachers' union calls for boycott of testing
Axing 'periodic assessments' would save money, UTLA says. But district leaders want teachers to give the exams, which a Times analysis suggests are boosting scores in algebra and English.
By Howard Blume
January 28, 2009
The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests.
The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive.
But there could be a downside.
The local exams, given three or four times a year at secondary schools, appear to be boosting state scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1 -- the two subjects examined by The Times -- and therefore perhaps other subjects as well.
The district tests, which have gradually permeated most core academic subjects and most grade levels, have become central to a debate over the proliferation of testing, whether it interrupts instruction and can narrow the depth and breadth of what's taught. The philosophical dispute sharpened this week amid protracted, stalled negotiations over a teachers contract and the need to slash millions to address an ongoing budget crisis.
Axing these district assessments would spare jobs by saving millions of dollars -- and would improve instruction at the same time, said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
The union's call for a boycott of the tests has emerged as an early trial for new Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who took over Jan. 1.
Cortines asserted that the assessments are part of teachers' assigned duties -- they are not optional. He also said he has and will amend aspects of the tests that need fixing. But he won't toss them out because, he said, they have contributed strongly to rising performance on the state's own annual tests.
He may be right, based on a Times' analysis of last year's improved state test scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1.
The Times found that greater participation in the district assessments was associated with better scores. In 10th-grade English, the correlation was fairly strong, accounting for nearly half the improvement.
The link was more moderate in Algebra 1, explaining about one-third of the gains for high school students in that subject.
The Times looked at these two subjects in part because the data were available -- it isn't for all subjects -- and also because of importance of these courses. Algebra 1, for example, is considered a "gateway" course to academic success.
The district has not produced its own analysis on the effect of increased participation but has collected less-conclusive data showing that students who do well on the district's tests also excel on the state's tests.
Duffy remains skeptical.
"The pig does not get fatter when you weigh it 10 times a day," Duffy said. "And if the test scores do go up, isn't it phony? Because what you are doing is teaching to the test, teaching a subject that has been narrowed down radically. We're not creating smarter kids. We're creating smarter test takers."
Duffy announced the boycott Tuesday at Emerson Middle School on the Westside, where teachers said the district tests were too burdensome on top of already mandated state and federal testing.
"We are supposed to be teaching, not testing," said Emerson English teacher Cecily Myart-Cruz. "We can come up with our own assessments in our classroom, and we do -- every day."
Top officials, however, had concluded that too many instructors failed to enforce high standards or didn't focus properly on teaching the specific skills and knowledge required by the state.
"This is not to be onerous for teachers and principals and schools," Cortines said. "It is to be helpful."
Unraveling the apparent benefit can be complex, said retired district official Roger Rasmussen, who long headed the district's analysis unit. Schools that are able to perform the assessments correctly, he said, may be those that have developed a cohesive staff, for example, which may be the real driver of improvement.
Cortines' predecessor, David L. Brewer, a retired Navy vice admiral, tackled inconsistent participation in the tests at high schools by ordering a 95% participation rate. He credited that directive with last year's rise in test scores, the biggest jump in five years.
But districtwide, the high school participation rate in English barely budged, and while the increase was greater in math, it still fell far short of Brewer's target.
Yet, the schools with increased participation generally reaped benefits. The lackluster overall response resulted in part from problems at schools. The assessments have occurred at the wrong time, for example, at some year-round campuses, where students start their school year at various times.
"My students would be tested on Mendelian genetics when we're just getting to how chromosomes separate," said Joseph Rowland, who taught science at Roosevelt High School for 22 years before moving to Franklin High this year. "It's ridiculous."
Rowland once found that his class' data had been combined with that of another teacher, rendering it pointless as a guide to future instruction. Like other teachers interviewed, he also complained about never getting data back or getting it late, though the current process is for teachers to go online and retrieve the data themselves.
Manual Arts High School English teacher Travis Miller said two rounds of his own class assessments did not count last year. Once, his tests weren't picked up on time, and once, he didn't receive all materials until the period for submitting them had closed.
Miller also knows teachers who simply refuse to give the assessments. Manual Arts' official participation rate last year was 61% in English and 14% in math.
Emerson's record on giving assessments is relatively strong, despite its prominence at the center of Tuesday's protest.
On state tests, Emerson ranks a little below average overall but well above average when compared with schools that serve a similar student population.
"This school is full of creative people and they need to have their hands untied to shine," said UCLA professor Allen F. Roberts, the parent of an Emerson 8th-grader.
The district puts the cost of the assessments at $3 million to $5 million per year. The teachers' union offers a so-far unsubstantiated figure of $150 million -- based on its interpretation of indirect costs, such as the related use of math and reading coaches to assist teachers.
howard.blume@latimes.com
Times staff writer Doug Smith provided data analysis.
If you want other stories on this topic, search the Archives at latimes.com/archives.
Copyright 2009 Los Angeles Times
Texas Will Delay Fixing ELL Programs After All
February 2, 2009
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in Tyler, Texas, has decided that Texas may wait to overhaul the state's programs for secondary English-language learners until the appeals court decides if a lower court was correct in ruling that the state's programs don't comply with federal law. (Click here for the court document granting the stay.)
See rest of post by Mary Ann Zehr at 2:33 PM
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit, in Tyler, Texas, has decided that Texas may wait to overhaul the state's programs for secondary English-language learners until the appeals court decides if a lower court was correct in ruling that the state's programs don't comply with federal law. (Click here for the court document granting the stay.)
See rest of post by Mary Ann Zehr at 2:33 PM
L.A. teachers' union calls for boycott of testing
Axing 'periodic assessments' would save money, UTLA says. But district leaders want teachers to give the exams, which a Times analysis suggests are boosting scores in algebra and English.
By Howard Blume
January 28, 2009
The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests.
The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive.
But there could be a downside.
The local exams, given three or four times a year at secondary schools, appear to be boosting state scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1 -- the two subjects examined by The Times -- and therefore perhaps other subjects as well.
The district tests, which have gradually permeated most core academic subjects and most grade levels, have become central to a debate over the proliferation of testing, whether it interrupts instruction and can narrow the depth and breadth of what's taught. The philosophical dispute sharpened this week amid protracted, stalled negotiations over a teachers contract and the need to slash millions to address an ongoing budget crisis.
Axing these district assessments would spare jobs by saving millions of dollars -- and would improve instruction at the same time, said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
The union's call for a boycott of the tests has emerged as an early trial for new Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who took over Jan. 1.
Cortines asserted that the assessments are part of teachers' assigned duties -- they are not optional. He also said he has and will amend aspects of the tests that need fixing. But he won't toss them out because, he said, they have contributed strongly to rising performance on the state's own annual tests.
He may be right, based on a Times' analysis of last year's improved state test scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1.
The Times found that greater participation in the district assessments was associated with better scores. In 10th-grade English, the correlation was fairly strong, accounting for nearly half the improvement.
The link was more moderate in Algebra 1, explaining about one-third of the gains for high school students in that subject.
The Times looked at these two subjects in part because the data were available -- it isn't for all subjects -- and also because of importance of these courses. Algebra 1, for example, is considered a "gateway" course to academic success.
The district has not produced its own analysis on the effect of increased participation but has collected less-conclusive data showing that students who do well on the district's tests also excel on the state's tests.
Duffy remains skeptical.
"The pig does not get fatter when you weigh it 10 times a day," Duffy said. "And if the test scores do go up, isn't it phony? Because what you are doing is teaching to the test, teaching a subject that has been narrowed down radically. We're not creating smarter kids. We're creating smarter test takers."
Duffy announced the boycott Tuesday at Emerson Middle School on the Westside, where teachers said the district tests were too burdensome on top of already mandated state and federal testing.
"We are supposed to be teaching, not testing," said Emerson English teacher Cecily Myart-Cruz. "We can come up with our own assessments in our classroom, and we do -- every day."
Top officials, however, had concluded that too many instructors failed to enforce high standards or didn't focus properly on teaching the specific skills and knowledge required by the state.
"This is not to be onerous for teachers and principals and schools," Cortines said. "It is to be helpful."
Unraveling the apparent benefit can be complex, said retired district official Roger Rasmussen, who long headed the district's analysis unit. Schools that are able to perform the assessments correctly, he said, may be those that have developed a cohesive staff, for example, which may be the real driver of improvement.
Cortines' predecessor, David L. Brewer, a retired Navy vice admiral, tackled inconsistent participation in the tests at high schools by ordering a 95% participation rate. He credited that directive with last year's rise in test scores, the biggest jump in five years.
But districtwide, the high school participation rate in English barely budged, and while the increase was greater in math, it still fell far short of Brewer's target.
Yet, the schools with increased participation generally reaped benefits. The lackluster overall response resulted in part from problems at schools. The assessments have occurred at the wrong time, for example, at some year-round campuses, where students start their school year at various times.
"My students would be tested on Mendelian genetics when we're just getting to how chromosomes separate," said Joseph Rowland, who taught science at Roosevelt High School for 22 years before moving to Franklin High this year. "It's ridiculous."
Rowland once found that his class' data had been combined with that of another teacher, rendering it pointless as a guide to future instruction. Like other teachers interviewed, he also complained about never getting data back or getting it late, though the current process is for teachers to go online and retrieve the data themselves.
Manual Arts High School English teacher Travis Miller said two rounds of his own class assessments did not count last year. Once, his tests weren't picked up on time, and once, he didn't receive all materials until the period for submitting them had closed.
Miller also knows teachers who simply refuse to give the assessments. Manual Arts' official participation rate last year was 61% in English and 14% in math.
Emerson's record on giving assessments is relatively strong, despite its prominence at the center of Tuesday's protest.
On state tests, Emerson ranks a little below average overall but well above average when compared with schools that serve a similar student population.
"This school is full of creative people and they need to have their hands untied to shine," said UCLA professor Allen F. Roberts, the parent of an Emerson 8th-grader.
The district puts the cost of the assessments at $3 million to $5 million per year. The teachers' union offers a so-far unsubstantiated figure of $150 million -- based on its interpretation of indirect costs, such as the related use of math and reading coaches to assist teachers.
By Howard Blume
January 28, 2009
The Los Angeles teachers union and the city's school district are battling over a district practice that, a Times' analysis suggests, contributes to higher scores on state tests.
The practice is "periodic assessments," a bureaucratic name for exams administered by the Los Angeles Unified School District. The goal is to give teachers insight into what students need to learn while there remains time in the current school year to adjust instruction.The union Tuesday directed teachers to refuse to give them to students on the grounds that the tests are costly and counterproductive.
But there could be a downside.
The local exams, given three or four times a year at secondary schools, appear to be boosting state scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1 -- the two subjects examined by The Times -- and therefore perhaps other subjects as well.
The district tests, which have gradually permeated most core academic subjects and most grade levels, have become central to a debate over the proliferation of testing, whether it interrupts instruction and can narrow the depth and breadth of what's taught. The philosophical dispute sharpened this week amid protracted, stalled negotiations over a teachers contract and the need to slash millions to address an ongoing budget crisis.
Axing these district assessments would spare jobs by saving millions of dollars -- and would improve instruction at the same time, said A.J. Duffy, president of United Teachers Los Angeles.
The union's call for a boycott of the tests has emerged as an early trial for new Supt. Ramon C. Cortines, who took over Jan. 1.
Cortines asserted that the assessments are part of teachers' assigned duties -- they are not optional. He also said he has and will amend aspects of the tests that need fixing. But he won't toss them out because, he said, they have contributed strongly to rising performance on the state's own annual tests.
He may be right, based on a Times' analysis of last year's improved state test scores in 10th-grade English and Algebra 1.
The Times found that greater participation in the district assessments was associated with better scores. In 10th-grade English, the correlation was fairly strong, accounting for nearly half the improvement.
The link was more moderate in Algebra 1, explaining about one-third of the gains for high school students in that subject.
The Times looked at these two subjects in part because the data were available -- it isn't for all subjects -- and also because of importance of these courses. Algebra 1, for example, is considered a "gateway" course to academic success.
The district has not produced its own analysis on the effect of increased participation but has collected less-conclusive data showing that students who do well on the district's tests also excel on the state's tests.
Duffy remains skeptical.
"The pig does not get fatter when you weigh it 10 times a day," Duffy said. "And if the test scores do go up, isn't it phony? Because what you are doing is teaching to the test, teaching a subject that has been narrowed down radically. We're not creating smarter kids. We're creating smarter test takers."
Duffy announced the boycott Tuesday at Emerson Middle School on the Westside, where teachers said the district tests were too burdensome on top of already mandated state and federal testing.
"We are supposed to be teaching, not testing," said Emerson English teacher Cecily Myart-Cruz. "We can come up with our own assessments in our classroom, and we do -- every day."
Top officials, however, had concluded that too many instructors failed to enforce high standards or didn't focus properly on teaching the specific skills and knowledge required by the state.
"This is not to be onerous for teachers and principals and schools," Cortines said. "It is to be helpful."
Unraveling the apparent benefit can be complex, said retired district official Roger Rasmussen, who long headed the district's analysis unit. Schools that are able to perform the assessments correctly, he said, may be those that have developed a cohesive staff, for example, which may be the real driver of improvement.
Cortines' predecessor, David L. Brewer, a retired Navy vice admiral, tackled inconsistent participation in the tests at high schools by ordering a 95% participation rate. He credited that directive with last year's rise in test scores, the biggest jump in five years.
But districtwide, the high school participation rate in English barely budged, and while the increase was greater in math, it still fell far short of Brewer's target.
Yet, the schools with increased participation generally reaped benefits. The lackluster overall response resulted in part from problems at schools. The assessments have occurred at the wrong time, for example, at some year-round campuses, where students start their school year at various times.
"My students would be tested on Mendelian genetics when we're just getting to how chromosomes separate," said Joseph Rowland, who taught science at Roosevelt High School for 22 years before moving to Franklin High this year. "It's ridiculous."
Rowland once found that his class' data had been combined with that of another teacher, rendering it pointless as a guide to future instruction. Like other teachers interviewed, he also complained about never getting data back or getting it late, though the current process is for teachers to go online and retrieve the data themselves.
Manual Arts High School English teacher Travis Miller said two rounds of his own class assessments did not count last year. Once, his tests weren't picked up on time, and once, he didn't receive all materials until the period for submitting them had closed.
Miller also knows teachers who simply refuse to give the assessments. Manual Arts' official participation rate last year was 61% in English and 14% in math.
Emerson's record on giving assessments is relatively strong, despite its prominence at the center of Tuesday's protest.
On state tests, Emerson ranks a little below average overall but well above average when compared with schools that serve a similar student population.
"This school is full of creative people and they need to have their hands untied to shine," said UCLA professor Allen F. Roberts, the parent of an Emerson 8th-grader.
The district puts the cost of the assessments at $3 million to $5 million per year. The teachers' union offers a so-far unsubstantiated figure of $150 million -- based on its interpretation of indirect costs, such as the related use of math and reading coaches to assist teachers.
Court says private school can expel lesbians
Wow, this is a strong and scary statement: ""if you're a religious school, you can discriminate on any basis you want."
-Patricia
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled.
Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws.
"The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework," Justice Betty Richli said in the 3-0 ruling, issued Monday.
As with the Boy Scouts, she said, the primary function of the school is to instill its values in young people, who are told of its policies when they enroll.
Kirk Hanson, a lawyer for the two girls, said he was disappointed and would talk to them about a possible appeal to the state Supreme Court.
According to the court, he said, "if you're a religious school, you can discriminate on any basis you want."
He also noted that all children must attend school, either public or private, and said schools serve different purposes from a voluntary organization like the Boy Scouts.
John McKay, a lawyer for California Lutheran, said he was pleased the court recognized that "a religious school is not a business, and the purpose of a religious school is to teach Christian values."
Any state law that required the school to admit gays or lesbians would violate the school's freedom of expression and religion, McKay said.
The ruling is the first to consider a religious school's status under California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination by businesses and was amended in 2005 to include discrimination based on sexual orientation. State education law also forbids anti-gay bias, but that law applies only to public schools.
The girls were juniors at the high school in Wildomar (Riverside County) when the principal, Gregory Bork, summoned them to his office in September 2005 and questioned them separately about their sexual orientation and whether they loved each other. The principal acted after another student reported postings on the girls' MySpace pages.
Bork suspended the girls based on their answers, and the school's directors expelled them a month later.
The girls, who later graduated from another high school, have not been identified and have not discussed their sexual orientation, Hanson said. Their suit said the school had no right to dismiss them because of its perception that they were lesbians.
The court acknowledged that past rulings have interpreted the Unruh Act's definition of businesses broadly, to include a Boys' Club, the Rotary Club and a private golf club that let the public use its facilities.
But the school differs from those institutions, the court said, because the main reason for its existence is the religious message it seeks to instill in its students.
Read the ruling
The ruling in Jane Doe vs. California Lutheran can be read at: links.sfgate.com/ZFZP
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
-Patricia
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
A private religious high school can expel students it believes are lesbians because the school isn't covered by California civil rights laws, a state appeals court has ruled.
Relying on a 1998 state Supreme Court ruling that allowed the Boy Scouts to exclude gays and atheists, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Bernardino said California Lutheran High School is a social organization entitled to follow its own principles, not a business subject to state anti-discrimination laws.
"The whole purpose of sending one's child to a religious school is to ensure that he or she learns even secular subjects within a religious framework," Justice Betty Richli said in the 3-0 ruling, issued Monday.
As with the Boy Scouts, she said, the primary function of the school is to instill its values in young people, who are told of its policies when they enroll.
Kirk Hanson, a lawyer for the two girls, said he was disappointed and would talk to them about a possible appeal to the state Supreme Court.
According to the court, he said, "if you're a religious school, you can discriminate on any basis you want."
He also noted that all children must attend school, either public or private, and said schools serve different purposes from a voluntary organization like the Boy Scouts.
John McKay, a lawyer for California Lutheran, said he was pleased the court recognized that "a religious school is not a business, and the purpose of a religious school is to teach Christian values."
Any state law that required the school to admit gays or lesbians would violate the school's freedom of expression and religion, McKay said.
The ruling is the first to consider a religious school's status under California's Unruh Civil Rights Act, which forbids discrimination by businesses and was amended in 2005 to include discrimination based on sexual orientation. State education law also forbids anti-gay bias, but that law applies only to public schools.
The girls were juniors at the high school in Wildomar (Riverside County) when the principal, Gregory Bork, summoned them to his office in September 2005 and questioned them separately about their sexual orientation and whether they loved each other. The principal acted after another student reported postings on the girls' MySpace pages.
Bork suspended the girls based on their answers, and the school's directors expelled them a month later.
The girls, who later graduated from another high school, have not been identified and have not discussed their sexual orientation, Hanson said. Their suit said the school had no right to dismiss them because of its perception that they were lesbians.
The court acknowledged that past rulings have interpreted the Unruh Act's definition of businesses broadly, to include a Boys' Club, the Rotary Club and a private golf club that let the public use its facilities.
But the school differs from those institutions, the court said, because the main reason for its existence is the religious message it seeks to instill in its students.
Read the ruling
The ruling in Jane Doe vs. California Lutheran can be read at: links.sfgate.com/ZFZP
E-mail Bob Egelko at begelko@sfchronicle.com.
Sunday, February 01, 2009
Bid for flexibility in use of class-size reduction funds criticized
Unions and activists say Schwarzenegger's proposal would mean bigger classes in poor and minority schools. Administrators say adding a few more pupils per class could save the program.
By Seema Mehta
January 31, 2009
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal to allow school districts to use state class-size reduction funding any way they choose is alarming teachers unions and community activists, who say it will inevitably lead to ballooning classrooms in the state's neediest communities.
"What's most offensive is that eliminating class-size reduction won't save the state one dime," said David A. Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn., which is launching a television ad blitz this weekend urging Californians to call Schwarzenegger and their legislators to oppose the proposal. "Districts will continue to receive that funding from the state, but won't have to spend that money on class-size reduction, or frankly, even in the classroom."
Activists say the proposal will take the greatest toll on minority and poor districts.
"I can assure you that the districts in poorer neighborhoods will be the first to increase classroom sizes, [which] means the achievement gap will widen," said Alicia Gaddis, board chairwoman of the Sacramento branch of the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "That is a tragedy."
The proposal is among many aimed at dealing with California's deep financial crisis. The state is facing a projected deficit of nearly $42 billion by the middle of next year. The 2009-10 budget is far from finalized, and it is unknown whether the class-size reduction proposal will survive negotiations in Sacramento. But education will probably face major cuts, because it makes up about 40% of the state budget.
A Schwarzenegger spokesman called the CTA's claims "misleading."
"If a school district believes class-size reduction is one of the highest priorities, nothing in the governor's proposal will prevent them from being able to carry it on," said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Department of Finance.
He said the suggestion for greater flexibility in how districts can spend nearly $15.7 billion next year in so-called categorical funds, including $1.3 billion for kindergarten through third grade class-size reduction, came last fall from district superintendents as a way to address the impending state-funding cuts.
"The governor is proposing basically to tear down the fences that restrict how these dollars can be spent in order to give local school districts the greatest flexibility possible to allocate these dollars where they are needed the most," Palmer said.
Class-size reduction, which became law in 1996, pays districts $1,071 yearly per student in kindergarten through third-grade classes with an average of 20 students or fewer per teacher. Several studies have shown that smaller class sizes lead to academic gains.
But several California district officials said that without greater flexibility, class-size reduction, which is subsidized with other district funds, will be on the chopping block as districts make tough decisions.
"Flexibility is always a good thing for a school district because we have a better and more intimate understanding of what our own district needs are," said Leslie Crunelle, assistant superintendent of educational services in the San Gabriel Unified School District.
Alice Petrossian, chief academic officer in the Pasadena Unified School District, said cutting class-size reduction could save the district hundreds of thousands of dollars, but allowing the district to add a couple of students to each class would help keep smaller classes intact.
"The flexibility in class-size reduction is crucial to saving class-size reduction," Petrossian said. "Here's what the option is: If we don't get some level of flexibility to move up to 22 or 23 [students], the next option for districts who are cutting it will be [class sizes of] 30 or 31."
She said school boards that try to summarily eliminate class-size reduction and spend the money on other costs, particularly if they are not in the classroom, will face parental revolt.
The governor's proposal could also ease a move being considered for next year by Los Angeles Unified to increase class sizes in kindergarten through third grade and decrease sizes in fourth- and fifth-grade classes to meet a ratio of 25 students per teacher across those grades.
But other educators, such as state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who wrote the class-size reduction legislation in 1996 while a member of the state Senate, say the governor's proposal will lead to a dismantling of class-size reduction and an increase in the achievement gap.
"It's a sad day for all of California," he said. "This would be a major step backward. We know class-size reduction works. To address the dropout rate, we need more class-size reduction at more grade levels."
By Seema Mehta
January 31, 2009
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget proposal to allow school districts to use state class-size reduction funding any way they choose is alarming teachers unions and community activists, who say it will inevitably lead to ballooning classrooms in the state's neediest communities.
"What's most offensive is that eliminating class-size reduction won't save the state one dime," said David A. Sanchez, president of the California Teachers Assn., which is launching a television ad blitz this weekend urging Californians to call Schwarzenegger and their legislators to oppose the proposal. "Districts will continue to receive that funding from the state, but won't have to spend that money on class-size reduction, or frankly, even in the classroom."
Activists say the proposal will take the greatest toll on minority and poor districts.
"I can assure you that the districts in poorer neighborhoods will be the first to increase classroom sizes, [which] means the achievement gap will widen," said Alicia Gaddis, board chairwoman of the Sacramento branch of the Assn. of Community Organizations for Reform Now. "That is a tragedy."
The proposal is among many aimed at dealing with California's deep financial crisis. The state is facing a projected deficit of nearly $42 billion by the middle of next year. The 2009-10 budget is far from finalized, and it is unknown whether the class-size reduction proposal will survive negotiations in Sacramento. But education will probably face major cuts, because it makes up about 40% of the state budget.
A Schwarzenegger spokesman called the CTA's claims "misleading."
"If a school district believes class-size reduction is one of the highest priorities, nothing in the governor's proposal will prevent them from being able to carry it on," said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the state Department of Finance.
He said the suggestion for greater flexibility in how districts can spend nearly $15.7 billion next year in so-called categorical funds, including $1.3 billion for kindergarten through third grade class-size reduction, came last fall from district superintendents as a way to address the impending state-funding cuts.
"The governor is proposing basically to tear down the fences that restrict how these dollars can be spent in order to give local school districts the greatest flexibility possible to allocate these dollars where they are needed the most," Palmer said.
Class-size reduction, which became law in 1996, pays districts $1,071 yearly per student in kindergarten through third-grade classes with an average of 20 students or fewer per teacher. Several studies have shown that smaller class sizes lead to academic gains.
But several California district officials said that without greater flexibility, class-size reduction, which is subsidized with other district funds, will be on the chopping block as districts make tough decisions.
"Flexibility is always a good thing for a school district because we have a better and more intimate understanding of what our own district needs are," said Leslie Crunelle, assistant superintendent of educational services in the San Gabriel Unified School District.
Alice Petrossian, chief academic officer in the Pasadena Unified School District, said cutting class-size reduction could save the district hundreds of thousands of dollars, but allowing the district to add a couple of students to each class would help keep smaller classes intact.
"The flexibility in class-size reduction is crucial to saving class-size reduction," Petrossian said. "Here's what the option is: If we don't get some level of flexibility to move up to 22 or 23 [students], the next option for districts who are cutting it will be [class sizes of] 30 or 31."
She said school boards that try to summarily eliminate class-size reduction and spend the money on other costs, particularly if they are not in the classroom, will face parental revolt.
The governor's proposal could also ease a move being considered for next year by Los Angeles Unified to increase class sizes in kindergarten through third grade and decrease sizes in fourth- and fifth-grade classes to meet a ratio of 25 students per teacher across those grades.
But other educators, such as state Supt. of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, who wrote the class-size reduction legislation in 1996 while a member of the state Senate, say the governor's proposal will lead to a dismantling of class-size reduction and an increase in the achievement gap.
"It's a sad day for all of California," he said. "This would be a major step backward. We know class-size reduction works. To address the dropout rate, we need more class-size reduction at more grade levels."
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