Bush-Democrat alliance on education law feared
By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published January 12, 2007
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Some conservatives on Capitol Hill are worried that President Bush will cut a deal with Democrats that would not only renew his education law, but also dramatically expand it, including perhaps more requirements for the high school level.
"I am concerned, and I think a lot of conservatives are," said Rep. Jeff Flake, Arizona Republican.
Mr. Bush is urging Congress this year to renew one of his biggest domestic accomplishments, the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law of 2002, which aims to increase student achievement through more testing and by tracking results of schools and holding them accountable. Democrats, who now control the House and Senate, are demanding some changes to the law, most notably a significant boost in funding levels.
The option of adding high school reform to this year's "to-do" list hasn't been publicly discussed lately, but Mr. Bush included the makings of such a plan in his budget proposal last year. The NCLB law focuses on grade school and requires testing just once in reading and math from grades 10 to 12. His plan from last year would have expanded high school testing to all three years.
All these factors could add up to the perfect storm of more funding and more school requirements, some Republicans worry. Mr. Flake said he sees a scenario in which Mr. Bush gives Democrats the increased funding they want in exchange for including more requirements for high school.
"Conservatives don't fear the president will work with Democrats to expand No Child Left Behind, we expect it," said Rep. Mike Pence, Indiana Republican. "It's going to be more red tape and more resources."
"It's a legitimate concern," agreed Rep. Dan Lungren, California Republican.
Republicans are basing much of their fear on what happened in 2001, when Mr. Bush teamed up with Democrats such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts to win overwhelming approval in Congress. But conservatives -- several of whom voted against the legislation as a federal intrusion into the classroom -- said the good administration ideas, such as increased funding flexibility for states, were watered down by the time the measure reached the president's desk.
Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said education policy seems to be an issue on which Mr. Bush thinks he can work with Democrats to accomplish his goals, especially in these last two years of his presidency.
"My rationale is that the president's agenda is not going to keep him from working with the Democrats at the expense of the Republicans," Mr. King said. "The president is concerned about his legacy."
So far, Mr. Bush has praised the NCLB law and urged Congress to renew it. He has agreed to work with Congress on some changes to it, but he hasn't indicated his position on the Democrats' funding demands. The high school reform issue didn't come up in a Monday meeting between Mr. Bush and top education lawmakers -- Mr. Kennedy, the new chairman of the Senate education, panel; House education panel Chairman George Miller, California Democrat; and their Republican counterparts, Sen. Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming and Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of California.
Mr. McKeon, who says it's too soon to fully expand the law in high schools, said: "I hope that it's not something they push for."
Mr. Kennedy supports working on high school reform as part of the NCLB renewal, a spokeswoman said. Mr. Miller doesn't want to simply overlay the NCLB framework onto the high school level, but he thinks high school reform is "critically important," a spokesman said.
White House spokesman Chad Colby said this week, "The administration still believes NCLB should be expanded in high schools as part of broader high school reform."
The administration will submit its 2008 budget request to Congress next month.
Mr. Lungren said conservatives should bend Mr. Bush's ear before he starts negotiating education policy with liberals such as Mr. Kennedy. But this negotiating "dance" will be a challenge, Mr. Lungren acknowledged, especially because many Republicans have spent their entire Capitol Hill careers as members of the majority party.
"We've got to be on our toes," he said.
Copyright © 2007 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20070112-120720-6739r.htm
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
County officials: Detention center treating immigrants humanely
I'm glad to hear that the detention center is humane. This says nothing, however, of whether imprisoning families is an appropriate or humane policy. Educating the children (some of them U.S. citizens) to remains a concern. They're entitled to 7 hours of instruction by state law, but only receiving 7 hours. It's also interesting that the parents are getting parenting classes as opposed to other kinds of classes that they can or should be getting. Wonder how it was determined that this is what they "needed?" This suggests an array of needs that haven't been met. I'm left with the thought that a gilded cage is still a cage. What our immigration policies have come too.... -Angela
County officials: Detention center treating immigrants humanely
Williamson commissioners tour facility in response to residents' protests
Click-2-Listen
By Juan Castillo, Lisa Ogle
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
When protesters expressed outrage last month that an immigrant- detention center in Taylor has children in custody and charged that they are housed in prisonlike conditions with substandard care, Williamson County commissioners pledged to learn more about the T. Don Hutto Residential Center.
After touring the private facility in visits over the past two weeks, most commissioners say they are satisfied with the care for the families held there.
"I think it's a very well-run facility, and they probably are doing the best thing they possibly can," said County Judge Dan Gattis Sr., who toured the detention center with Commissioner Valerie Covey for about three hours Dec. 29. "These people were living very comfortably from what I saw."
But Commissioner Lisa Birkman, who visited the center Friday with Commissioner Ron Morrison, wanted to know whether the detention center's living quarters can be made more family-friendly, though she did not specify how that could be done.
Birkman, who taught English as a second language for 13 years, said she would ask the county's director of juvenile services to offer recommendations.
Commissioner Cynthia Long toured the jail Thursday. County spokeswoman Connie Watson said that she set up the tours to accommodate commissioners' schedules and that commissioners did not intentionally or unintentionally avoid visiting as a group, which would have required public notice.
The Austin American-Statesman requested a tour of the facility last week and is awaiting a response from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
The 512-bed T. Don Hutto Residential Center is one of only two in the country that detains unauthorized immigrant families, including children, on noncriminal charges while awaiting federal disposition of their cases. Many people held there, if not most, seek asylum in the United States and are from countries other than Mexico.
Detaining all unauthorized immigrants follows a policy implemented last year by the Department of Homeland Security.
Much of the criticism about the Taylor jail has centered on accusations that it is immoral and inhumane to imprison children, but the federal government says the T. Don Hutto facility was designed for families and is a humane way to maintain family unity while enforcing immigration laws.
Critics, however, contend that children receive better care, including a full education and access to caseworkers, when housed separately and in residential facilities designed for them.
Birkman and Covey said they understood critics' concerns but stressed the value of keeping families together.
"I have to think, 'What are the other options?' " Birkman said. "I have four children, and as a mom, if I were detained, I'd rather the kids be with me."
The Taylor jail began holding immigrant families in May under a contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Williamson County selected Corrections Corporation of America to operate the facility and receives $1 per day for each inmate.
Last month, dozens of protesters held a vigil outside the jail after a 2 1/2-day, 35-mile walk from Austin. During a Commissioners Court meeting the following week, three county residents spoke out against the detention center.
Gattis and other commissioners said they found most, if not all, complaints unfounded. In separate interviews, they said they toured the cafeteria and living, classroom and medical areas, and spoke with teachers and administrators. They described good conditions, compassionate staff members and a relaxed, comfortable environment.
"They've taken a prison and softened it to be a detention center for families," Covey said.
The commissioners said adults take parenting classes, and children receive instruction in English and life skills. They said they saw children studying in classrooms and playing, with access to a library, computers, video games and television.
Critics said families complain about conditions, including health care. Frances Valdez, an attorney and clinical fellow at the University of Texas Law School Immigration Clinic who has visited clients there, said that children receive one hour of classroom instruction per day and that some family members reported becoming ill from food served there.
Commissioners said prison officials explained that children receive one hour of direct classroom instruction from state-certified teachers and then do assigned work for at least three hours.
A spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency said a full school day includes seven hours of instruction.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it employs state-certified teachers and certified dietitians, and the U.S. Public Health Service operates a medical area along with a mental health staff.
Birkman said prison officials explained that the usual stay at the center is 20 to 45 days. Eighty-five to 90 percent of those detained are ultimately deported, Covey said.
Gattis said commissioners would continue monitoring center operations.
jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635
logle@statesman.com; 246-1150
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/10/10immigjail.html
County officials: Detention center treating immigrants humanely
Williamson commissioners tour facility in response to residents' protests
Click-2-Listen
By Juan Castillo, Lisa Ogle
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
When protesters expressed outrage last month that an immigrant- detention center in Taylor has children in custody and charged that they are housed in prisonlike conditions with substandard care, Williamson County commissioners pledged to learn more about the T. Don Hutto Residential Center.
After touring the private facility in visits over the past two weeks, most commissioners say they are satisfied with the care for the families held there.
"I think it's a very well-run facility, and they probably are doing the best thing they possibly can," said County Judge Dan Gattis Sr., who toured the detention center with Commissioner Valerie Covey for about three hours Dec. 29. "These people were living very comfortably from what I saw."
But Commissioner Lisa Birkman, who visited the center Friday with Commissioner Ron Morrison, wanted to know whether the detention center's living quarters can be made more family-friendly, though she did not specify how that could be done.
Birkman, who taught English as a second language for 13 years, said she would ask the county's director of juvenile services to offer recommendations.
Commissioner Cynthia Long toured the jail Thursday. County spokeswoman Connie Watson said that she set up the tours to accommodate commissioners' schedules and that commissioners did not intentionally or unintentionally avoid visiting as a group, which would have required public notice.
The Austin American-Statesman requested a tour of the facility last week and is awaiting a response from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency.
The 512-bed T. Don Hutto Residential Center is one of only two in the country that detains unauthorized immigrant families, including children, on noncriminal charges while awaiting federal disposition of their cases. Many people held there, if not most, seek asylum in the United States and are from countries other than Mexico.
Detaining all unauthorized immigrants follows a policy implemented last year by the Department of Homeland Security.
Much of the criticism about the Taylor jail has centered on accusations that it is immoral and inhumane to imprison children, but the federal government says the T. Don Hutto facility was designed for families and is a humane way to maintain family unity while enforcing immigration laws.
Critics, however, contend that children receive better care, including a full education and access to caseworkers, when housed separately and in residential facilities designed for them.
Birkman and Covey said they understood critics' concerns but stressed the value of keeping families together.
"I have to think, 'What are the other options?' " Birkman said. "I have four children, and as a mom, if I were detained, I'd rather the kids be with me."
The Taylor jail began holding immigrant families in May under a contract with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. Williamson County selected Corrections Corporation of America to operate the facility and receives $1 per day for each inmate.
Last month, dozens of protesters held a vigil outside the jail after a 2 1/2-day, 35-mile walk from Austin. During a Commissioners Court meeting the following week, three county residents spoke out against the detention center.
Gattis and other commissioners said they found most, if not all, complaints unfounded. In separate interviews, they said they toured the cafeteria and living, classroom and medical areas, and spoke with teachers and administrators. They described good conditions, compassionate staff members and a relaxed, comfortable environment.
"They've taken a prison and softened it to be a detention center for families," Covey said.
The commissioners said adults take parenting classes, and children receive instruction in English and life skills. They said they saw children studying in classrooms and playing, with access to a library, computers, video games and television.
Critics said families complain about conditions, including health care. Frances Valdez, an attorney and clinical fellow at the University of Texas Law School Immigration Clinic who has visited clients there, said that children receive one hour of classroom instruction per day and that some family members reported becoming ill from food served there.
Commissioners said prison officials explained that children receive one hour of direct classroom instruction from state-certified teachers and then do assigned work for at least three hours.
A spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency said a full school day includes seven hours of instruction.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said it employs state-certified teachers and certified dietitians, and the U.S. Public Health Service operates a medical area along with a mental health staff.
Birkman said prison officials explained that the usual stay at the center is 20 to 45 days. Eighty-five to 90 percent of those detained are ultimately deported, Covey said.
Gattis said commissioners would continue monitoring center operations.
jcastillo@statesman.com; 445-3635
logle@statesman.com; 246-1150
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/10/10immigjail.html
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Educators feeling left behind
Educators feeling left behind
Changes requested on 5th anniversary of 'No Child' statute
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Angela Townsend
Plain Dealer Reporter
While the Bush administration touted the merits of No Child Left Behind on its fifth anniversary Monday, national and local educators called for changes in what they say is a flawed law.
No Child Left Behind won bipartisan backing when Congress passed it in 2002, and it's up for renewal this year.
The main goal is to have all students perform at grade level in reading and math by 2014.
That's admirable, educators say, but difficult to accomplish when financial constraints, uneven interpretations and an overemphasis on testing come with the package.
"There are too many people and too many school systems that are labeled as failing," National Education Association President Reg Weaver said Monday.
Instead of widespread sanctions, "let's figure out what's wrong and how we can help these people."
Schools that get federal aid but do not make enough progress must provide tutoring, allow students to transfer or initiate other reforms such as changing the staff.
The law's financial impact has been hard to quantify, but the cost includes teacher training, new textbooks and additional staffing. High-poverty districts like Cleveland, where many children are ill-prepared for school and lack family support, are especially challenged by the law's demands.
"Given the right resources, all problems can be adequately addressed," Cleveland schools CEO Eugene Sanders said. "But to expect a level of achievement to occur given that level of inequity. . . ?
"They basically say to you, 'Make it work,' but they don't give you the resources needed to make it work."
In a meeting on Monday with congressional leaders, President Bush pushed for the law's reauthorization but was noncommittal on their request for more money to help schools meet its requirements.
Paul Yocum, superintendent of the Cardinal district in Geauga County, echoed Sanders' complaints about the lack of money.
"We're not against upping the standards for our students," he said. "But when we're in a time of financial difficulty . . . it falls back on property owners - our voters."
Rick Buckosh, superintendent of the Clearview schools in Lorain County, said he has had to add remediation courses - not an easy thing to do when the district is laying off teachers.
Under No Child Left Behind, some veteran teachers are being told that they are not "highly qualified" to do their jobs.
Karen Vince, a special-education intervention specialist at Nordonia High School in Summit County, is one of 400 educators whose comments are included in a new NEA publication about the law.
"I've taught for 33 years, the majority of that in special education," said Vince, who this year has a class of 13 cognitively disabled students.
But holding the right license wasn't enough under the federal law. Two years ago, Vince's district sent her to four weeks of summer classes and one weekend workshop for coursework that transformed her into "highly qualified."
What did she learn?
"Basically, how to use the content standards book and some skills that are not applicable to what I teach," she said. "I had to take algebra . . . and I'm teaching my kids how to tell time."
Lawmakers outlined more concerns for U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings during Monday's meeting. They included: how to test special education and limited-English-speaking students; a desire to give schools credit for progress even when they fall short of annual targets; and the need to give students access to high-quality free tutoring.
Patti Picard, curriculum director for Hudson schools in Summit County, sees value in the law's clear standards, which have helped school districts set academic priorities, she said.
At the same time, such a strong emphasis on standardized testing is disconcerting, she added.
"When something like No Child Left Behind focuses so closely on a test score, it does affect the kind of teaching that you do," Picard said. "It becomes kind of a forced march."
She hopes legislators listen to the people who best know the challenges of teaching youngsters. Otherwise, she said, "I'm afraid that we're going to create a culture of people who have lost their zest for love of learning."
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
atownsend@plaind.com, 216-999-3894
© 2007 The Plain Dealer© 2007 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.
http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/116833546448420.xml&coll=2
Changes requested on 5th anniversary of 'No Child' statute
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Angela Townsend
Plain Dealer Reporter
While the Bush administration touted the merits of No Child Left Behind on its fifth anniversary Monday, national and local educators called for changes in what they say is a flawed law.
No Child Left Behind won bipartisan backing when Congress passed it in 2002, and it's up for renewal this year.
The main goal is to have all students perform at grade level in reading and math by 2014.
That's admirable, educators say, but difficult to accomplish when financial constraints, uneven interpretations and an overemphasis on testing come with the package.
"There are too many people and too many school systems that are labeled as failing," National Education Association President Reg Weaver said Monday.
Instead of widespread sanctions, "let's figure out what's wrong and how we can help these people."
Schools that get federal aid but do not make enough progress must provide tutoring, allow students to transfer or initiate other reforms such as changing the staff.
The law's financial impact has been hard to quantify, but the cost includes teacher training, new textbooks and additional staffing. High-poverty districts like Cleveland, where many children are ill-prepared for school and lack family support, are especially challenged by the law's demands.
"Given the right resources, all problems can be adequately addressed," Cleveland schools CEO Eugene Sanders said. "But to expect a level of achievement to occur given that level of inequity. . . ?
"They basically say to you, 'Make it work,' but they don't give you the resources needed to make it work."
In a meeting on Monday with congressional leaders, President Bush pushed for the law's reauthorization but was noncommittal on their request for more money to help schools meet its requirements.
Paul Yocum, superintendent of the Cardinal district in Geauga County, echoed Sanders' complaints about the lack of money.
"We're not against upping the standards for our students," he said. "But when we're in a time of financial difficulty . . . it falls back on property owners - our voters."
Rick Buckosh, superintendent of the Clearview schools in Lorain County, said he has had to add remediation courses - not an easy thing to do when the district is laying off teachers.
Under No Child Left Behind, some veteran teachers are being told that they are not "highly qualified" to do their jobs.
Karen Vince, a special-education intervention specialist at Nordonia High School in Summit County, is one of 400 educators whose comments are included in a new NEA publication about the law.
"I've taught for 33 years, the majority of that in special education," said Vince, who this year has a class of 13 cognitively disabled students.
But holding the right license wasn't enough under the federal law. Two years ago, Vince's district sent her to four weeks of summer classes and one weekend workshop for coursework that transformed her into "highly qualified."
What did she learn?
"Basically, how to use the content standards book and some skills that are not applicable to what I teach," she said. "I had to take algebra . . . and I'm teaching my kids how to tell time."
Lawmakers outlined more concerns for U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings during Monday's meeting. They included: how to test special education and limited-English-speaking students; a desire to give schools credit for progress even when they fall short of annual targets; and the need to give students access to high-quality free tutoring.
Patti Picard, curriculum director for Hudson schools in Summit County, sees value in the law's clear standards, which have helped school districts set academic priorities, she said.
At the same time, such a strong emphasis on standardized testing is disconcerting, she added.
"When something like No Child Left Behind focuses so closely on a test score, it does affect the kind of teaching that you do," Picard said. "It becomes kind of a forced march."
She hopes legislators listen to the people who best know the challenges of teaching youngsters. Otherwise, she said, "I'm afraid that we're going to create a culture of people who have lost their zest for love of learning."
Information from the Associated Press was included in this story.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
atownsend@plaind.com, 216-999-3894
© 2007 The Plain Dealer© 2007 cleveland.com All Rights Reserved.
http://www.cleveland.com/printer/printer.ssf?/base/cuyahoga/116833546448420.xml&coll=2
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Education task force recommends more testing security
Education task force recommends more testing security
Random audits and system of reporting and investigating among panel's suggestions.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Schools would be subject to random audits in an effort to prevent cheating on the state's standardized tests under recommendations made Thursday to the Texas Education Agency.
The agency is expected to adopt the recommendations from the Task Force on Test Security. That panel issued the recommendations in response to an investigation commissioned by the agency that found testing irregularities at 700 campuses statewide in 2005.
Last month, 592 schools were cleared of wrongdoing. Investigations remain open at 104 campuses, and four other schools have since closed.
Four Austin schools — Dobie and Murchison middle schools and Akins and McCallum high schools — remain under investigation, as does Westwood High School in Round Rock. The state cleared eight Austin and eight Round Rock campuses, as well as schools in the Dripping Springs, Hays, Leander, Georgetown, Eanes, Lake Travis and Pflugerville districts.
Austin school district spokesman Andy Welch said that the recommendations appear to be in line with current procedures and that he did not anticipate any undue burden from implementing them.
The district conducts random checks at various schools, Welch said. "We certainly welcome the principles the task force has presented to the commissioner. We believe the integrity of the test is paramount. It's why we do the random checks. We have very intensive training for those at the campus level."
Welch said the recommendations ensuring rapid resolution of suspected violations are particularly welcome.
"We've always felt with the Caveon report that it's almost a cold case file," Welch said, referring to the 2005 investigation by Caveon Test Security. "These recommendations are designed to address problems head on."
Round Rock officials attributed test gains flagged as suspicious in Caveon's report to new programs for struggling students. Spokeswoman JoyLynn Occhiuzzi said Round Rock performs random checks on teachers and students during the exam.
"We have nothing to hide. TEA staff is always welcome in our schools," Occhiuzzi said. She added that it would be helpful if schools were given more information in a more timely manner about suspected violations. "Something that could end this type of situation quicker would be welcome."
State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley appointed the task force in August. The panel of business and education leaders — including former Austin trustee Olga Garza — also called for an analysis system to study one-time occurrences as well as trends. The system would include quicker resolution when irregularities are suspected.
"I welcome the recommendations from the task force, and we will give strong consideration to all their suggestions," Neeley said. "Over the past several years, TEA has taken a number of steps to enhance test security, but that must be an ongoing process that is regularly refined and updated."
The task force also suggested that the agency:
•assemble a panel of educators and public representatives to review and make recommendations regarding test practices and statistical procedures in test integrity analysis;
•develop criteria for triggering on-site investigations, a standardized protocol for such investigations and criteria for referrals to the newly created inspector general;
•develop procedures to ensure rapid follow-up and resolution of suspected violations;
•facilitate confidential reporting directly to the agency;
•require districts to keep test security materials and signed security oaths for five years.
"We will do whatever it takes to make sure our students' test results are valid and reliable and our testing program above reproach," Neely said.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/05/5takscheating.html
Random audits and system of reporting and investigating among panel's suggestions.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Schools would be subject to random audits in an effort to prevent cheating on the state's standardized tests under recommendations made Thursday to the Texas Education Agency.
The agency is expected to adopt the recommendations from the Task Force on Test Security. That panel issued the recommendations in response to an investigation commissioned by the agency that found testing irregularities at 700 campuses statewide in 2005.
Last month, 592 schools were cleared of wrongdoing. Investigations remain open at 104 campuses, and four other schools have since closed.
Four Austin schools — Dobie and Murchison middle schools and Akins and McCallum high schools — remain under investigation, as does Westwood High School in Round Rock. The state cleared eight Austin and eight Round Rock campuses, as well as schools in the Dripping Springs, Hays, Leander, Georgetown, Eanes, Lake Travis and Pflugerville districts.
Austin school district spokesman Andy Welch said that the recommendations appear to be in line with current procedures and that he did not anticipate any undue burden from implementing them.
The district conducts random checks at various schools, Welch said. "We certainly welcome the principles the task force has presented to the commissioner. We believe the integrity of the test is paramount. It's why we do the random checks. We have very intensive training for those at the campus level."
Welch said the recommendations ensuring rapid resolution of suspected violations are particularly welcome.
"We've always felt with the Caveon report that it's almost a cold case file," Welch said, referring to the 2005 investigation by Caveon Test Security. "These recommendations are designed to address problems head on."
Round Rock officials attributed test gains flagged as suspicious in Caveon's report to new programs for struggling students. Spokeswoman JoyLynn Occhiuzzi said Round Rock performs random checks on teachers and students during the exam.
"We have nothing to hide. TEA staff is always welcome in our schools," Occhiuzzi said. She added that it would be helpful if schools were given more information in a more timely manner about suspected violations. "Something that could end this type of situation quicker would be welcome."
State Education Commissioner Shirley Neeley appointed the task force in August. The panel of business and education leaders — including former Austin trustee Olga Garza — also called for an analysis system to study one-time occurrences as well as trends. The system would include quicker resolution when irregularities are suspected.
"I welcome the recommendations from the task force, and we will give strong consideration to all their suggestions," Neeley said. "Over the past several years, TEA has taken a number of steps to enhance test security, but that must be an ongoing process that is regularly refined and updated."
The task force also suggested that the agency:
•assemble a panel of educators and public representatives to review and make recommendations regarding test practices and statistical procedures in test integrity analysis;
•develop criteria for triggering on-site investigations, a standardized protocol for such investigations and criteria for referrals to the newly created inspector general;
•develop procedures to ensure rapid follow-up and resolution of suspected violations;
•facilitate confidential reporting directly to the agency;
•require districts to keep test security materials and signed security oaths for five years.
"We will do whatever it takes to make sure our students' test results are valid and reliable and our testing program above reproach," Neely said.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/05/5takscheating.html
Friday, January 05, 2007
Hiring Undocumented Immigrants for the U.S. Military
Check out today's Counterpunch. -Angela
January 5, 2007
Who Will Serve?
Growing the Military
By JORGE MARISCAL
In late December 2006, the Bush administration reversed its previous position and agreed to a permanent expansion of the Army and Marine Corps. In reality, the size of the two "ground services" has grown steadily since 2001 when Congress approved a temporary increase of 30,000 to the Army and authorized additional increases to the Army and Marines in 2005 and 2006. The current proposal would make these increases permanent and by 2012 achieve the objective of an active-duty Army of 542,400 and a Marine Corps of 190,000.
In their public statements, Pentagon officials claimed that finding the bodies to reach these goals would not be difficult. Increased bonuses, massive publicity campaigns, and appeals to patriotism would be enough to attract volunteers, they argued.
Lesser-known programs such as the Army GED Plus Enlistment Program in which applicants without high school diplomas are allowed to enlist while they complete a high school equivalency certificate are expected to help (interestingly, the GED Plus Enlistment Program is available only in inner city areas). The Army's recent fudging of entrance requirements to accept an increased percentage of recruits with minor criminal records may also raise enlistment numbers.
Given the prospect of a prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq, however, the Pentagon's optimistic predictions about increasing the size of the ground services by making minor adjustments to existing recruiting practices may not pan out. In anticipation of difficult days ahead for recruiters, no sooner had Bush announced his decision than conservative think tanks began to recycle proposals about recruiting foreigners into the U.S. military.
In a recent Boston Globe article, unidentified Army sources reported that Pentagon officials and Congress are investigating "the feasibility of going beyond U.S. borders to recruit soldiers and Marines." Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, and Max Boot of the Council on Foreign relations cited historical precedents for using foreign troops. Since at least 2005 Boot has been recommending the establishment of "recruiting stations along the U.S.-Mexico border" as a way to solve the problems of military manpower and illegal immigration.
But the fact that several sources in the Globe article, including spokesmen for the Army and the Latino advocacy group National Council for La Raza (NCLR), expressed disagreement with proposals to recruit foreign nationals means that other more feasible options may begin to surface.
A likely scenario is that the Pentagon will focus on one specific sector of the undocumented population--foreign nationals raised and educated in the United States. According to the Urban Institute, every year approximately 60,000 undocumented immigrants or children of immigrants (who have lived in the United States five years or longer) graduate from U.S. high schools. By marketing the military to this group, problems associated with the recruitment of foreigners such as poor English language skills and low educational levels could be alleviated.
So far military recruiters have limited their efforts to the pursuit of citizens and permanent residents (green card holders). It is a little-known fact, however, that the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 amended current legal statutes by allowing military service secretaries to waive citizenship and residency requirements "if such Secretary determines that the enlistment of such person is vital to the national interest" (U.S. Code Title 10, Chapter 31, §504: 2006).
Is the DREAM Act the Pentagon's Dream Too?
If the Pentagon were to decide to exercise its new prerogative and begin to recruit undocumented youth in order to grow the Army and Marines, the most obvious selling point would be permanent residency and eventual citizenship. This in fact is one of the little-known aspects of the DREAM Act, legislation that would grant conditional residency to most undocumented high school graduates and permanent residency in exchange for the successful completion of two years of college or two years of military service.
In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 10, 2006, Under Secretary of Defense David Chu said: "According to an April 2006 study from the National Immigration Law Center, there are an estimated 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented alien young adults who entered the U.S. at an early age and graduate from high school each year, many of whom are bright, energetic and potentially interested in military service...Provisions of S. 2611, such as the DREAM Act, would provide these young people the opportunity of serving the United States in uniform."
More recently, Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve and a faculty member at West Point told a reporter that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people" without the unknown personal details that would accompany foreign recruits. "They are already going to come vetted by Homeland Security. They will already have graduated from high school," she said. "They are prime candidates."
The lure of citizenship is already a tool for recruiting green card holders, especially because of expedited naturalization procedures put in place for military personnel in 2002. In San Diego, for example, recruiters have told permanent residents "I can help you get citizenship" when in fact the military has no input into the final granting or denial of citizenship.
Although exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, roughly 20% of legal residents in the military who have applied for naturalization since late 2001 have been denied citizenship. This suggests that military service carries no guarantee that permanent residents will be granted the one benefit for which they probably enlisted and for which they may be forced to risk their life.
Other anecdotes recount recruiters threatening that the immigration status of recruits and their family would be affected should the recruit try to back out of an enlistment agreement. More devious recruiters have used the law requiring undocumented youth to register for Selective Service as a way to convince non-English speaking parents that there is obligatory military service in the United States.
The expansion of the recruiting pool to include the undocumented would be a Recruiting Command's dream and may be the only way for the Pentagon to increase the size of the Army and Marines Corps. A 2006 study by the Migration Policy Institute calculated that passage of the DREAM Act "would immediately make 360,000 unauthorized high school graduates aged 18 to 24 eligible for conditional legal status [and] that about 715,000 unauthorized youth between ages 5 and 17 would become eligible sometime in the future."
Ironically, nativist and restrictionist groups as well as anti-militarism activists will oppose the recruitment of the undocumented although for completely different reasons. Organizations such as National Council for La Raza (NCLR) that oppose the recruitment of foreigners would most likely support a vehicle for recruiting undocumented graduates from U.S. high schools. In May 2006, NCLR praised the passage of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (Senate Bill 2611) that included a DREAM Act provision.
While the DREAM Act may facilitate access to college for a small percentage of these undocumented students, in many cases other factors will militate against the college option. Given the difficulty undocumented youth have in affording college tuition, the pressure on them to make financial contributions to extended families, and the tendency among many to adopt uncritical forms of patriotism based on "gratitude," military not college recruiters may be the ones who benefit the most.
As one undocumented student wrote to me:
"I was brought to America [from Mexico] when I was 12. I am 21 now and I am only going to college because in the state of Illinois I pay in-state tuition despite being illegal. I would serve in the military if I was given an opportunity to do so and DIE for America if necessary. Shouldn't I be able to be legal?"
Military manpower needs, limited economic and educational opportunity, and the desire for social acceptance could transport immigrants and their children to the frontlines of future imperial misadventures such as the quagmire in Iraq.
Jorge Mariscal is a Vietnam veteran and director of the Chicano-Latino Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of Project YANO (San Diego). Visit his blog at: jorgemariscal.blogspot.com/ He can be reached at: gmariscal@ucsd.edu
January 5, 2007
Who Will Serve?
Growing the Military
By JORGE MARISCAL
In late December 2006, the Bush administration reversed its previous position and agreed to a permanent expansion of the Army and Marine Corps. In reality, the size of the two "ground services" has grown steadily since 2001 when Congress approved a temporary increase of 30,000 to the Army and authorized additional increases to the Army and Marines in 2005 and 2006. The current proposal would make these increases permanent and by 2012 achieve the objective of an active-duty Army of 542,400 and a Marine Corps of 190,000.
In their public statements, Pentagon officials claimed that finding the bodies to reach these goals would not be difficult. Increased bonuses, massive publicity campaigns, and appeals to patriotism would be enough to attract volunteers, they argued.
Lesser-known programs such as the Army GED Plus Enlistment Program in which applicants without high school diplomas are allowed to enlist while they complete a high school equivalency certificate are expected to help (interestingly, the GED Plus Enlistment Program is available only in inner city areas). The Army's recent fudging of entrance requirements to accept an increased percentage of recruits with minor criminal records may also raise enlistment numbers.
Given the prospect of a prolonged U.S. presence in Iraq, however, the Pentagon's optimistic predictions about increasing the size of the ground services by making minor adjustments to existing recruiting practices may not pan out. In anticipation of difficult days ahead for recruiters, no sooner had Bush announced his decision than conservative think tanks began to recycle proposals about recruiting foreigners into the U.S. military.
In a recent Boston Globe article, unidentified Army sources reported that Pentagon officials and Congress are investigating "the feasibility of going beyond U.S. borders to recruit soldiers and Marines." Michael O'Hanlon of the Brookings Institution, Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute, and Max Boot of the Council on Foreign relations cited historical precedents for using foreign troops. Since at least 2005 Boot has been recommending the establishment of "recruiting stations along the U.S.-Mexico border" as a way to solve the problems of military manpower and illegal immigration.
But the fact that several sources in the Globe article, including spokesmen for the Army and the Latino advocacy group National Council for La Raza (NCLR), expressed disagreement with proposals to recruit foreign nationals means that other more feasible options may begin to surface.
A likely scenario is that the Pentagon will focus on one specific sector of the undocumented population--foreign nationals raised and educated in the United States. According to the Urban Institute, every year approximately 60,000 undocumented immigrants or children of immigrants (who have lived in the United States five years or longer) graduate from U.S. high schools. By marketing the military to this group, problems associated with the recruitment of foreigners such as poor English language skills and low educational levels could be alleviated.
So far military recruiters have limited their efforts to the pursuit of citizens and permanent residents (green card holders). It is a little-known fact, however, that the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006 amended current legal statutes by allowing military service secretaries to waive citizenship and residency requirements "if such Secretary determines that the enlistment of such person is vital to the national interest" (U.S. Code Title 10, Chapter 31, §504: 2006).
Is the DREAM Act the Pentagon's Dream Too?
If the Pentagon were to decide to exercise its new prerogative and begin to recruit undocumented youth in order to grow the Army and Marines, the most obvious selling point would be permanent residency and eventual citizenship. This in fact is one of the little-known aspects of the DREAM Act, legislation that would grant conditional residency to most undocumented high school graduates and permanent residency in exchange for the successful completion of two years of college or two years of military service.
In his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 10, 2006, Under Secretary of Defense David Chu said: "According to an April 2006 study from the National Immigration Law Center, there are an estimated 50,000 to 65,000 undocumented alien young adults who entered the U.S. at an early age and graduate from high school each year, many of whom are bright, energetic and potentially interested in military service...Provisions of S. 2611, such as the DREAM Act, would provide these young people the opportunity of serving the United States in uniform."
More recently, Lt. Col. Margaret Stock of the U.S. Army Reserve and a faculty member at West Point told a reporter that the DREAM Act could help recruiters meet their goals by providing a "highly qualified cohort of young people" without the unknown personal details that would accompany foreign recruits. "They are already going to come vetted by Homeland Security. They will already have graduated from high school," she said. "They are prime candidates."
The lure of citizenship is already a tool for recruiting green card holders, especially because of expedited naturalization procedures put in place for military personnel in 2002. In San Diego, for example, recruiters have told permanent residents "I can help you get citizenship" when in fact the military has no input into the final granting or denial of citizenship.
Although exact numbers are difficult to ascertain, roughly 20% of legal residents in the military who have applied for naturalization since late 2001 have been denied citizenship. This suggests that military service carries no guarantee that permanent residents will be granted the one benefit for which they probably enlisted and for which they may be forced to risk their life.
Other anecdotes recount recruiters threatening that the immigration status of recruits and their family would be affected should the recruit try to back out of an enlistment agreement. More devious recruiters have used the law requiring undocumented youth to register for Selective Service as a way to convince non-English speaking parents that there is obligatory military service in the United States.
The expansion of the recruiting pool to include the undocumented would be a Recruiting Command's dream and may be the only way for the Pentagon to increase the size of the Army and Marines Corps. A 2006 study by the Migration Policy Institute calculated that passage of the DREAM Act "would immediately make 360,000 unauthorized high school graduates aged 18 to 24 eligible for conditional legal status [and] that about 715,000 unauthorized youth between ages 5 and 17 would become eligible sometime in the future."
Ironically, nativist and restrictionist groups as well as anti-militarism activists will oppose the recruitment of the undocumented although for completely different reasons. Organizations such as National Council for La Raza (NCLR) that oppose the recruitment of foreigners would most likely support a vehicle for recruiting undocumented graduates from U.S. high schools. In May 2006, NCLR praised the passage of the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act (Senate Bill 2611) that included a DREAM Act provision.
While the DREAM Act may facilitate access to college for a small percentage of these undocumented students, in many cases other factors will militate against the college option. Given the difficulty undocumented youth have in affording college tuition, the pressure on them to make financial contributions to extended families, and the tendency among many to adopt uncritical forms of patriotism based on "gratitude," military not college recruiters may be the ones who benefit the most.
As one undocumented student wrote to me:
"I was brought to America [from Mexico] when I was 12. I am 21 now and I am only going to college because in the state of Illinois I pay in-state tuition despite being illegal. I would serve in the military if I was given an opportunity to do so and DIE for America if necessary. Shouldn't I be able to be legal?"
Military manpower needs, limited economic and educational opportunity, and the desire for social acceptance could transport immigrants and their children to the frontlines of future imperial misadventures such as the quagmire in Iraq.
Jorge Mariscal is a Vietnam veteran and director of the Chicano-Latino Arts and Humanities Program at the University of California, San Diego. He is a member of Project YANO (San Diego). Visit his blog at: jorgemariscal.blogspot.com/ He can be reached at: gmariscal@ucsd.edu
Are Texas children fated for failure?
Christopher Swanson of the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center researched and wrote this report. Texas fares abysmally in it. The press packet offers the following about the 13 indicators: "The 13 indicators that make up the index capture key performance or attainment outcomes at various stages in a person’s lifetime or are correlated with later success. For example, in the early-childhood years, indicators include the percent of children living in families that earn a decent wage and the percent of children with at least one parent who has a postsecondary degree – factors that research shows have an impact on how well children perform in school."
-Angela
Are Texas children fated for failure?
Texas ranks lower than all but three states in offering opportunities for success, study says.
By Bob Dart
WASHINGTON BUREAU
Thursday, January 04, 2007
WASHINGTON — A child born in Texas has less of a chance at achieving academic and economic success than a child born in almost any other state, an analysis released Wednesday by an educational research group found.
In its "Chance for Success Index," Texas ranked 48th among the 50 states and District of Columbia, reported the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center. Only Arizona, Louisiana and New Mexico were lower.
Virginia's children had the best chance to succeed of those in any state, said the report, "From Cradle to Career: Connecting American Education From Birth to Adulthood."
But the findings are not an indictment of Texas public schools, stressed Christopher Swanson, director of the research center and author of the report. Indeed, he said the state's educational system is improving rapidly and doing a good job of offsetting many factors outside the classrooms.
The study "looks at education through a broader lens," he said. "Overall, the index captures the cumulative effects of education experience from birth through adulthood and pinpoints the chance for success at each stage and for each state. We find that a child's life prospects depend greatly on where he or she lives."
Many factors are beyond the reach of the school system. To see why Texas children are behind other states, it is useful to look at the advantages enjoyed by Virginia children.
"The average child in Virginia starts out ahead of the curve," the report said. Painting a statistical family portrait, Swanson showed that Virginia children are less likely to live in a low-income home and more likely to have college-educated parents than those in other states.
Blessed with these advantages, Virginia children are then more likely to succeed in elementary school, finish high school and go to college than kids in other states. Once the students have graduated, Virginia's well-educated adult population and strong economy offer better opportunities. The educated young Virginians stay in the state, find good jobs and have children, and the cycle is repeated.
In Texas and other states deemed to offer fewer opportunities, the cycle is reversed. Children are more likely to live in poverty, speak Spanish at home and have poorly educated parents. That contributes to academic shortcomings. After reaching adulthood, young Texans find an economy with fewer opportunities for high-paying jobs, Swanson said.
The Texas education system "is actually a bright spot," he said, but it can't "solve all the problems of society."
The Chance for Success Index is based on 13 indicators at various stages in life that are correlated with future achievement. For example, research has shown that early academic success is linked to family income and parental education. Children from families that are financially well off and whose parents have postgraduate degrees do better in elementary school than those from low-income families with high school dropouts as parents — at least, statistically speaking. Then, children who do well in elementary school are more likely to succeed in high school, go to college and find successful careers.
In general, the report shows that children born in the South and Southwest have less of a chance of academic and financial success than do those born in the Northeast and north central states.
Swanson said Texas faces a huge challenge in the index because its populace contains so many immigrants from Mexico and Central America. These newcomers are likely to be poor, speak Spanish and be relatively uneducated — all factors that foretell scholastic and economic problems for their children.
In contrast, none of the top 10 states in the index — Virginia, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Vermont — is near the nation's southern border.
But immigration is only one factor. Although three of the bottom four states border Mexico, and Louisiana is nearby, the lowest 10 also include Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, West Virginia, Nevada and South Carolina.
A state's economy, especially its ability to provide high-paying jobs for a well-educated work force, is important, Swanson said.
Increasingly, industries want to be "where the talent is," said Mary Jo Waits, director of the Pew Center for the States, an offshoot of the Pew Charitable Trusts that is charged with finding effective public policies on issues facing the states.
Talented people "are going to choose states where their chances for success and their children's chances for success are greatest" — which speaks to the importance of this study, she said.
Based in Bethesda, Md., the nonprofit Research Center for Editorial Projects in Education conducts studies on issues in education that are often published in Education Week magazine. Funding for this research project was provided by the Pew Center for the States.
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/04/4success.html
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Business group says reforms will help teachers
Dr. Ed Fuller correctly states that these reforms will do little, if anything, to remedy the serious problem our state has with teachers who do not teach in areas for which they are certified. Relying on the TAKS test as a basis for teacher evaluation is indeed already being done and is resulting in enormous teaching to the test. -Angela
Business group says reforms will help teachers
Performance of students would play larger role in judging educators.
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 04, 2007
State law should require schools to fire teachers whose students repeatedly show little or no improvement after the teachers receive extra coaching, a business group said Wednesday.
That recommendation and others came from the Governor's Business Council, a group of 100 businessmen and businesswomen from around the state who periodically recommend changes in state law. Members of the council hope that lawmakers will work the recommendations into policies they will consider when their five-month session begins Tuesday.
Despite the group's name, Gov. Rick Perry does not appoint members of the business council or direct its work, Perry spokesman Robert Black said. But he said Perry's office would review the recommendations.
The group also called for extra money for teachers in low-income schools that show the most improvement and for teachers who take hard-to-fill assignments such as math, science and special education. Last year, the Legislature created a vast pay-for-performance program, much of which is still taking effect.
"We have yet to reach our goals because we have not gotten to the heart of the matter in our reform efforts," said Charles McMahen, a retired Compass Bank executive who leads the business council. "We must now focus directly on enabling our teachers to achieve excellence."
But some teachers groups responded to the business group's report by saying many of the council's goals can be met under current law.
The report said that current evaluation systems for teachers are inadequate and often reward vague concepts and fads. It calls for teacher evaluations to consider whether student performance improved.
Sandy Kress, a lawyer who led the business council's research, said performance would be measured by test scores and other factors such as graduation rates and success in Advanced Placement classes. Teacher evaluations should include reviews from principals and peers, the report says.
The report says veteran teachers who are deemed ineffective should receive extra help and coaching. If their students continue to perform poorly over three years, they should be fired, it says.
Teachers in their first three years, who are easier to fire than veterans because they get probationary contracts, should be watched more closely, the report says.
"If you had 10 teachers in your child's school and five of them were really effective, and four of them were on the path to effective and one of them was persistently ineffective, whose children would you want to be in that teacher's class? Yours?" asked Kress, who was a key adviser to President Bush on the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Jeri Stone of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association said that student performance is already a small part of the criteria that school districts use to evaluate teachers and that districts have the option of putting a greater emphasis on student performance. The council's proposal would ramp up the pressure that teachers and students face on tests, Stone said.
"It's a very small percentage of teachers who are underperforming, and principals and school districts have plenty of authority to make a change under current law," Stone said.
Ed Fuller, a University of Texas research associate who studies school staffing, said almost 43,000 Texas teachers are teaching subjects for which they are not qualified. He said he does not think the council's recommendations would affect that number significantly.
Fuller also said the state's main test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, is not a good tool for measuring student improvement.
The council also proposed that the state publish more data on students and teachers; develop new evaluations and pay incentives for principals; and rate teacher-training programs and colleges of education based on their graduates' effectiveness.
jembry@statesman.com; 445-3654
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/04/4education.html
Business group says reforms will help teachers
Performance of students would play larger role in judging educators.
By Jason Embry
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Thursday, January 04, 2007
State law should require schools to fire teachers whose students repeatedly show little or no improvement after the teachers receive extra coaching, a business group said Wednesday.
That recommendation and others came from the Governor's Business Council, a group of 100 businessmen and businesswomen from around the state who periodically recommend changes in state law. Members of the council hope that lawmakers will work the recommendations into policies they will consider when their five-month session begins Tuesday.
Despite the group's name, Gov. Rick Perry does not appoint members of the business council or direct its work, Perry spokesman Robert Black said. But he said Perry's office would review the recommendations.
The group also called for extra money for teachers in low-income schools that show the most improvement and for teachers who take hard-to-fill assignments such as math, science and special education. Last year, the Legislature created a vast pay-for-performance program, much of which is still taking effect.
"We have yet to reach our goals because we have not gotten to the heart of the matter in our reform efforts," said Charles McMahen, a retired Compass Bank executive who leads the business council. "We must now focus directly on enabling our teachers to achieve excellence."
But some teachers groups responded to the business group's report by saying many of the council's goals can be met under current law.
The report said that current evaluation systems for teachers are inadequate and often reward vague concepts and fads. It calls for teacher evaluations to consider whether student performance improved.
Sandy Kress, a lawyer who led the business council's research, said performance would be measured by test scores and other factors such as graduation rates and success in Advanced Placement classes. Teacher evaluations should include reviews from principals and peers, the report says.
The report says veteran teachers who are deemed ineffective should receive extra help and coaching. If their students continue to perform poorly over three years, they should be fired, it says.
Teachers in their first three years, who are easier to fire than veterans because they get probationary contracts, should be watched more closely, the report says.
"If you had 10 teachers in your child's school and five of them were really effective, and four of them were on the path to effective and one of them was persistently ineffective, whose children would you want to be in that teacher's class? Yours?" asked Kress, who was a key adviser to President Bush on the federal No Child Left Behind law.
Jeri Stone of the Texas Classroom Teachers Association said that student performance is already a small part of the criteria that school districts use to evaluate teachers and that districts have the option of putting a greater emphasis on student performance. The council's proposal would ramp up the pressure that teachers and students face on tests, Stone said.
"It's a very small percentage of teachers who are underperforming, and principals and school districts have plenty of authority to make a change under current law," Stone said.
Ed Fuller, a University of Texas research associate who studies school staffing, said almost 43,000 Texas teachers are teaching subjects for which they are not qualified. He said he does not think the council's recommendations would affect that number significantly.
Fuller also said the state's main test, the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, is not a good tool for measuring student improvement.
The council also proposed that the state publish more data on students and teachers; develop new evaluations and pay incentives for principals; and rate teacher-training programs and colleges of education based on their graduates' effectiveness.
jembry@statesman.com; 445-3654
Find this article at:
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/01/04/4education.html
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Producer of Gore's Film to Distribute Free Copies Via Web Site
I'm glad that the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) made the right decision and decided to make Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH available to science teachers throughout the nation.
-Angela
December 21, 2006
Producer of Gore's Film to Distribute Free Copies Via Web Site
By Sean Cavanagh
A producer of former Vice President Al Gore's film about global warming has arranged to have free copies of it given to science teachers through a Web site, after a leading education group made a controversial decision not to distribute the documentary directly to its members.
Laurie David, the co-producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," said this week that the first 50,000 teachers who request the movie for use in their classrooms would be given DVD copies, on a first-come, first-served basis. Information on obtaining the movie is posted at www.participate.net, a Web site maintained by Participant Productions, a Beverly Hills, Calif.-based film-production company that seeks to raise awareness of social issues.
Ms. David originally offered to give 50,000 free copies of the film to the National Science Teachers Association, an influential professional organization in Arlington, Va., if NSTA officials would agree to distribute copies to its 56,000 members. The NSTA rejected that offer, saying it would have violated the organization's policy of not distributing or endorsing products from outside groups or individuals.
That decision angered supporters of the film, who questioned whether the NSTA's stance was based on its having received funding from oil interests, including the foundations of the ExxonMobil Corp. and the Conoco Phillips Co. The fossil-fuel industry has disputed some of the statements about the assertions of human activities on climate change that are made in Mr. Gore's film.
NSTA officials denied any such motivation and offered Ms. David various alternatives for making teachers aware of the film. Officials from the teachers' association said Ms. David rejected those proposals.
A teacher who logs on to the Participant Productions site is asked to provide a nine-digit federal tax identification number for his or her school. The DVDs were made available Dec. 18, and the offer will continue until Jan. 18. Teachers will receive the materials in six to eight weeks.
"Since the film debuted, we have received hundreds of e-mails from teachers interested in using 'An Inconvenient Truth' in their classrooms to educate students about global warming," Ms. David said in a statement. "I hope it helps inspire and move a generation toward solving this urgent problem."
Ms. David's statement was released by the National Resources Defense Council, a New York City-based environmental group that was critical of the NSTA's decision not to distribute the DVD and on whose board Ms. David serves. She said the film giveaway was supported financially by Participant Productions, Paramount Vantage, a film distributor, and the Environmental Media Association, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization.
NSTA officials initially offered to put information about Mr. Gore's film on the organization's Web site, and distribute it through e-mail and printed materials—efforts that they argued would have had a broad impact. The organization also has invited the former vice president to speak at its annual meeting in March, an offer that still stands, NSTA spokeswoman Jodi Peterson said in an e-mail this week.
After learning of Ms. David's efforts to distribute the film on the Web site, the NSTA put a link to that Web address from the organization's own homepage, at www.nsta.org.
Vol. 26, Issue 18
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/12/21/18nsta_web.h26.html
Prominent Teacher-Educator Assails Field, Suggests New Accrediting Body in Report
—File Photo by Emile Wamsteker for Education WeekThis one got past me. it came out on Sept. 20, 2006. Worth looking at. -Angela
Prominent Teacher-Educator Assails Field, Suggests New Accrediting Body in Report
But others finding fault with Levine’s conclusions, methodology.
By Vaishali Honawar
In a new study that has already raised some hackles, a noted expert on teacher education paints the field as a troubled one in which a majority of aspiring teachers are educated in low-quality programs that do not sufficiently prepare them for the classroom.
In his 140-page report, which includes surveys of alumni, school principals, and deans of teacher-training institutions, as well as case studies of 28 programs that cover the wide spectrum of teacher education, Arthur E. Levine, the former president of Teachers College, Columbia University, describes such programs as “unruly and chaotic” Wild West towns that lack a standard approach to preparing teachers.
Universities that produce a majority of teacher graduates have lower admission standards, professors with lesser credentials, and fewer resources, and they produce graduates who are less effective in the classroom, the report asserts.
Further, the debate over whether teaching is a profession or a craft has left programs unsure about whether they should become professional schools or remain grounded in the academic world of arts and sciences.
Pointing to the proliferation of alternative teacher-preparation programs, the report warns: “There is a real danger that if we do not clean our own house, America’s university-based teacher education programs will disappear.”
Even before its official release date of Sept. 18, the report had stirred up opposition among those responsible for policing quality in teacher education with a recommendation to improve quality control through a complete redesign of the system used to accredit teacher programs.
The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education, a Washington-based group that accredits more than half the 1,200 programs in the nation, called the report “contradictory.”
Arthur E. Wise, its president, also criticized the report’s methodology and the fact that it has not been peer-reviewed. “Many of the major points in the report are supported by anecdotes,” he said. “In a scholarly work based on fieldwork, one would expect to see richer connections drawn between the conclusions in the report and actual data that was gathered.”
Mr. Levine, who is now the president of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation in Princeton, N.J., dismissed the criticism, saying the report drew no conclusions that did not flow from findings. Putting the report together was a lengthy and detailed process that took more than two years, he said, and included several surveys as well as the case studies, for which academics and retired or freelance education journalists conducted site visits at each school.
Mr. Levine said he used the journalists because he wanted someone who could ask hard questions and because a report based entirely on the findings of educators could appear biased. Alvin Sanoff, a former U.S. News & World Report assistant managing editor who worked on the magazine’s annual college-rankings project, served as project manager for Mr. Levine’s study.
‘Exemplary’ Programs
The report is the second in a series of four Mr. Levine is preparing on the schools of education, where the majority of school leaders, teachers, and scholars are educated. His last report was a damning assessment of the programs that prepare most of the nation’s superintendents and principals. ("Study Blasts Leadership Preparation," March 16, 2005.)
Remaking Teacher Education
In his report, Arthur E. Levine recommends a number of ways to improve the preparation of aspiring teachers.
• Transform education schools from ivory towers into professional schools focused on classroom practice.
• Focus on student achievement as the primary measure of teacher education program success.
• Rebuild teacher education programs around the skills and knowledge that promote classroom learning; make five-year teacher education programs the norm.
• Establish effective mechanisms for teacher education quality control.
• Close failing teacher education programs, strengthen promising ones, and expand excellent ones by creating incentives for outstanding students and career-changers to enter teacher education at doctoral universities.
SOURCE: “Educating School Teachers”
Mr. Levine said in an interview that despite the depressing state, he sees hope for teacher education. “The condition of teacher education is better than the conditions found in leadership programs,” he said. “There were no models in the country for school leadership.”
The report highlights four programs as “exemplary” and worthy of emulation by others—models that he says have embraced practice and practitioners, and have received the support of their universities. A quarter of the sites visited could be described as strong.
One of the exemplary programs is at Alverno College, a baccalaureate general college in Milwaukee and an open-admissions school, where entering students often come unprepared.
While the college requires entrants to the teacher school to pass tests, including the Praxis I, the faculty and staff are willing to work with highly motivated students who fail the exams the first time round. Although small, the college is one of the five top feeder institutions for the Milwaukee public schools, and its graduates are highly rated by principals. Five years after graduation, 85 percent of graduates are still teaching.
Others cited by the report as exemplary are Emporia State University in Kansas, the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and Stanford University.
“Individually and collectively, [these programs] show how high the quality of teacher education can be,” the report says. “Their programs reflect the needs of today’s schools and students; and they tie the success of their programs to student learning. … They integrate and give appropriate balance to academic and clinical education.”
“What they say is, any school in the country and any type of institution can create a strong teacher education program,” Mr. Levine said.
But the overall picture he paints is not a cheerful one, of programs that teach outdated curricula and have failed to keep pace with demographics, technology, global competition, and pressures to raise student achievement.
Meanwhile, universities have exacerbated the situation by continuing to treat teacher-preparation programs as “cash cows,” leading them to set low admission and graduation standards for their students, Mr. Levine contends.
Down on NCATE
One of the report’s more controversial elements is its criticism of the low bar set by quality-control mechanisms for schools of education by states and by NCATE. The report does not discuss the only other accrediting body in the nation, the Teacher Education Accreditation Council, saying it is too new and small.
Current quality-control requirements, Mr. Levine says, are procedural rather than substantive. Calling current notions of quality “misplaced and dated,” the report recommends the creation of a new accrediting mechanism, to be named the National Council for the Accreditation of Schools of Education. The report says the most promising approach to redesigning accreditation could be for a neutral party that has worked on teacher education reform to form a blue-ribbon panel for the purpose of redesigning accreditation.
Among the flaws of NCATE, according to the report, is that elite institutions are less likely than others to seek its accreditation, with the result that “teacher education accrediting policy and standards are more likely to reflect the practices of the average or subpar programs rather than the outstanding ones.”
As an example of poor quality-control practices, the report points to an unnamed public university that it says admits and graduates poorly prepared students, has a weak curriculum, and low course quality. Despite those problems, it says, the university has received the nod from both its state and NCATE.
Sharon P. Robinson, the president of the Washington-based American Association of Colleges for Teacher Education, or AACTE, a group that represents about 750 colleges of education and that is a member institution of NCATE, called the recommendation for redesigning accreditation “over the top.”
“NCATE has given every indication that it is capable of reforming and changing and implementing and embracing new ideas and innovation, so I don’t understand the evidence that would put forth such a dramatic recommendation,” she said.
In recent years, for example, the accrediting body has switched to a performance-based system for judging a program’s effectiveness.
Mr. Wise of NCATE said the report, while it criticizes his organization, also affirms the group’s standards and procedures. Moreover, he said, the nine criteria used by the report to evaluate education schools bear a strong resemblance to NCATE standards.
The NCATE president also called Mr. Levine’s criticism of universities that produce a majority of teacher graduates as having low standards and less qualified faculties as “implicit elitism.”
“We might all wish that elite institutions would produce a more significant share of America’s teachers, but given the current economics of higher education and the teaching profession, that has never occurred in the past, nor does it appear likely to happen any time in the foreseeable future,” Mr. Wise said. Teacher education, he added, has not been an important part of the mission of some top-ranked institutions.
The four programs Mr. Levine highlights as being among the best are all NCATE-accredited.
“NCATE is a lot of work, but it has been nothing but a good experience for us,” said Phil Bennett, the interim dean of the Teachers’ College at Emporia State University. NCATE guidelines have helped Emporia State adhere to the highest standards in teacher education, he said. “When you mention standards, [NCATE] is indeed the standard for us.”
Attracting Attention
Both NCATE and AACTE officials acknowledge that Mr. Levine makes some conclusions that are on target.
Mr. Wise applauded some of the report’s recommendations to improve teacher-training programs, including focusing on student achievement and transforming schools from ivory towers into professional schools focused on classroom practice. He said his group has been working assiduously over the past decade to move those goals forward.
“Art [Levine] delved into a number of areas that help us understand why our ambitions have not been realized,” said Ms. Robinson of AACTE. Among other measures, she agrees that teacher education needs to be financed better so it can be restructured as a profession, much like medicine or engineering.
Deborah Loewenberg-Ball, the dean of the school of education at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, said the report is important because even though programs have for a long time been in agreement that teacher education needs to be improved radically, they have been unable to find support on a national level. “A report like this can help attract the nation’s policymakers to the fact that if we want quality schools, teacher education has to be at top of our agenda,” she said.
Universities, the report says, have an obligation to evaluate the quality of their teacher education programs. It proposes that universities establish timetables of no more than five years for closing poor programs and strengthening strong ones. If universities fail to do so, states should step in.
“The focus at many universities has been more on quantity and generating dollars rather than quality,” Mr. Levine said. “Expectations are so low on the part of the central administration that they haven’t made the effort to push education schools to raise the quality of teacher education programs.”
The report also calls for rebuilding teacher education programs around the skills and knowledge that promote classroom learning, and making five-year programs the norm.
It asks states to improve funding for teacher salaries, including tying salary scales to teacher qualifications and performance to reward the best teachers and keep them in classrooms.
Vol. 26, Issue 04, Pages 1,18-19
______________________________________________
Arthur E. Levine
AGE: 58
POSITION: President, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree in biology, Brandeis University; Ph.D., in sociology and higher education, State University of New York at Buffalo
PREVIOUS POSTS:
• President and professor of education, Teachers College, Columbia University
• Chairman, higher education program; chairman, Institute for Educational Management; senior lecturer, Harvard University graduate school of education
• President, Bradford College; senior fellow, Carnegie Foundation and Carnegie Council for Policy Studies in Higher Education
BOOKS:
• When Hope and Fear Collide: A Portrait of Today’s College Student (with Jeanette S. Cureton);
• Beating the Odds: How the Poor Get to College (with Jana Nidiffer);
• Higher Learning in America;
• Shaping Higher Education’s Future;
• When Dreams and Heroes Died: A Portrait of Today’s College Students;
• Handbook on Undergraduate Curriculum;
• Quest for Common Learning (with Ernest Boyer);
• Opportunity in Adversity (with Janice Green);
• Why Innovation Fails
RESEARCH AREAS: Increasing access to higher education and improving equity in the schools
HONORS AND AWARDS:
• Guggenheim Fellowship;
• Carnegie Fellowship;
• American Council on Education’s “Book of the Year” award for Reform of Undergraduate Education;
• Educational Press Association’s annual award for writing (three times);
• named “One of the Most Outstanding Leaders in the Academic Community,” Change magazine, 1998;
• Academic Leadership Award, Council of Independent Colleges;
• Educator of the Year Award, Phi Delta Kappa;
• Educator of the Year Award, Urban College, Boston
PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS: Board member, Blackboard Inc., DePaul University, and All Kinds of Minds; member, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
SOURCES: Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation; Arthur E. Levine
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/09/20/04teachprep.h26.html
Democrats eye overhaul of education programs
By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 24, 2006
Education policy is in for some changes under the new Democrat-controlled Congress.
Cracking down on the student-loan industry, cutting loan interest rates, boosting the amount of government money for education and rewriting portions of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law governing elementary education are among the goals of Democrats next year.
On top of that, a few other laws must be renewed, too -- the Higher Education Act, the Head Start program for preschoolers and the Workforce Investment Act for job-training programs.
"It's a big year," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, a California Republican who will hand over the gavel of the House Education Committee to Rep. George Miller, California Democrat.
In the Senate, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will set education policy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Massachusetts Democrat said recently he aims for an "important increase" in education dollars. Despite a "tight budget" environment, he said, voters in November sent a clear message that they not only want change in Iraq but also a greater emphasis placed on domestic issues.
"It seems to me the American people spoke very clearly," he said.
One of the first orders of business for Democrats will be to cut the interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans in half -- a goal House Democratic leaders said the House will tackle in its first 100 hours of operation next year.
Mr. Kennedy may include the rate-cut proposal in a broader bill that would forgive student loans after 25 years, increase the Pell Grant maximum award to $5,100 and cap federal student-loan payments at 15 percent of the borrower's monthly discretionary income.
The price tag for all of this is still in flux, but estimates for the rate-cut proposal alone could reach $50 billion, depending on whose loans are targeted for cuts, a Democratic aide said.
Mr. Kennedy recently said student loans "work well for banks but not for students."
Another priority -- especially for President Bush -- is renewing the No Child Left Behind Law of 2002, which is due to expire. Democrats helped approve the law, which requires states to hold failing elementary schools accountable and bring all students to reading and math proficiency, but they've complained that schools are struggling to comply because Congress and Mr. Bush have provided about $40 billion less than the funding levels set out in the law.
Democrats will push for more money, though Mr. Kennedy said he knows he may not close the funding gap right away. Meanwhile, both sides of the aisle are working on tweaks and changes the law may need in areas such as how teachers are measured and promoted and the way troubled schools are handled. Republican aides predicted NCLB renewal could be relatively smooth.
Mr. Kennedy, who stood next to Mr. Bush at the bill-signing ceremony in 2002, said recently he remains willing to work with the president if he is committed.
"Given the many failures of implementation by his administration and the meager commitments to education reforms in his budgets, the president has a high hurdle to cross to demonstrate that he is seriously committed to these reforms," he said.
Republican leaders said Democrats' promise of big bucks for education doesn't jibe with their loud pledges of fiscal reform.
"If they stick with what they said they want to do, they're going to be spending a significant amount, and I would think they'd have trouble finding those dollars," said outgoing Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican. "It's going to be an interesting exercise for them."
Copyright © 2007 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061223-114252-1108r.htm
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 24, 2006
Education policy is in for some changes under the new Democrat-controlled Congress.
Cracking down on the student-loan industry, cutting loan interest rates, boosting the amount of government money for education and rewriting portions of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law governing elementary education are among the goals of Democrats next year.
On top of that, a few other laws must be renewed, too -- the Higher Education Act, the Head Start program for preschoolers and the Workforce Investment Act for job-training programs.
"It's a big year," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, a California Republican who will hand over the gavel of the House Education Committee to Rep. George Miller, California Democrat.
In the Senate, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will set education policy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Massachusetts Democrat said recently he aims for an "important increase" in education dollars. Despite a "tight budget" environment, he said, voters in November sent a clear message that they not only want change in Iraq but also a greater emphasis placed on domestic issues.
"It seems to me the American people spoke very clearly," he said.
One of the first orders of business for Democrats will be to cut the interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans in half -- a goal House Democratic leaders said the House will tackle in its first 100 hours of operation next year.
Mr. Kennedy may include the rate-cut proposal in a broader bill that would forgive student loans after 25 years, increase the Pell Grant maximum award to $5,100 and cap federal student-loan payments at 15 percent of the borrower's monthly discretionary income.
The price tag for all of this is still in flux, but estimates for the rate-cut proposal alone could reach $50 billion, depending on whose loans are targeted for cuts, a Democratic aide said.
Mr. Kennedy recently said student loans "work well for banks but not for students."
Another priority -- especially for President Bush -- is renewing the No Child Left Behind Law of 2002, which is due to expire. Democrats helped approve the law, which requires states to hold failing elementary schools accountable and bring all students to reading and math proficiency, but they've complained that schools are struggling to comply because Congress and Mr. Bush have provided about $40 billion less than the funding levels set out in the law.
Democrats will push for more money, though Mr. Kennedy said he knows he may not close the funding gap right away. Meanwhile, both sides of the aisle are working on tweaks and changes the law may need in areas such as how teachers are measured and promoted and the way troubled schools are handled. Republican aides predicted NCLB renewal could be relatively smooth.
Mr. Kennedy, who stood next to Mr. Bush at the bill-signing ceremony in 2002, said recently he remains willing to work with the president if he is committed.
"Given the many failures of implementation by his administration and the meager commitments to education reforms in his budgets, the president has a high hurdle to cross to demonstrate that he is seriously committed to these reforms," he said.
Republican leaders said Democrats' promise of big bucks for education doesn't jibe with their loud pledges of fiscal reform.
"If they stick with what they said they want to do, they're going to be spending a significant amount, and I would think they'd have trouble finding those dollars," said outgoing Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican. "It's going to be an interesting exercise for them."
Copyright © 2007 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061223-114252-1108r.htm
Title I Money Not Reaching Students Who Need It Most, Report Says
Published: December 20, 2006 / ED WEEK
Title I Money Not Reaching Students Who Need It Most, Report Says
By Michelle R. Davis
As federal funding meant to help the most disadvantaged students makes its way from the halls of the U.S. Capitol down to individual schools, the dollars intended to help poor and minority students are often diverted from the most needy students, concludes a report released today by the Education Trust.
In a new analysis of how Title I funds are distributed, the Washington-based research and advocacy organization looked at how the $12.7 billion program funnels money from the federal government to the states and to local districts. The “Funding Gaps 2006” report found that the money doesn’t end up where it could help students who need it most. This issue is critical, the report’s authors say, as educators are working toward closing the educational achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers.
“As our national education ambitions have grown bigger and bigger, we have not updated our school finance policies to reflect this new national reality,” said Goodwin Liu, a co-author of the study and a co-director of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity at the University of California at Berkeley.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act calls for all students to reach proficiency standards by 2014.
The study’s analysis of Title I dollars shows that the formula used to dole out funds from the largest federal education program reinforces the funding gaps between the poorest and wealthiest states. The money is allocated based in part on how much each state spends per pupil on education, he said. So a state that spends more of its own money on each student will also get more federal Title I money for each student. Maryland, for example, had fewer poor children than Arkansas but received 51 percent more Title I aid per poor child, according to the report.
“If our national aspiration is to ensure that all kids achieve proficiency, the way we fund our schools doesn’t resemble that at all,” Mr. Liu said. “If we were serious about closing achievement gaps we wouldn’t be giving the least resources to the states that spend the least on them. We would give the most to them to compensate.”
That’s not a new argument, said Bruce Hunter, the chief lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. “The question is, if the citizens of a state elect not to fund education very well, should the federal government reward that?” he said. “The last two times this question was asked, Congress answered negatively.”
Necessary First Steps
The Title I allocation formula was set up in part to reflect the reality that a dollar in New York state doesn’t go as far as a dollar in Arkansas, Mr. Liu said. However, there are now much more sophisticated ways to adjust for cost factors and when that is done, large disparities remain, he said. The report suggests reforms that include altering the Title I formula.
Concerns about funding distribution, particularly when it comes to Title I, have been raised before, said Brenda Welburn, the executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Association of State Boards of Education.
Ms. Welburn said states realize some districts have a higher percentage of disadvantaged students, but that other districts also have students who need to be served by Title I.
The report notes that the problem is not limited to federal funds. State revenue, too, is distributed inconsistently, said Ross Wiener, the policy director for the Education Trust, and a co-author of the study along with Eli Pristoop, an Education Trust data analyst who studied the distribution of state education funding over several years.
After examining 14,000 school districts in the 2003-04 school year, Mr. Wiener and Mr. Pristoop concluded that often districts with the most students living in poverty don’t get the most state education aid. After adjusting for the additional costs of educating poor students, they found that, on average, states and localities spend $908 less per student in districts educating the greatest number of minority students and $825 less per student in districts educating the most low-income students compared with what is spent in the wealthiest districts. But they also found that there are states, such as Massachusetts and Kentucky, that target more money to high-poverty districts.
“A lot of people believe that we either provide equal resources in all schools or that because of programs like Title I we actually provide more resources in high poverty schools and that’s not the case,” Mr. Wiener said. “We need to acknowledge that we haven’t done some of the first steps that could help us make more progress.”
‘People Are Frustrated’
But even within school districts, the money isn’t allocated so that it reaches the poorest students, according to co-author Marguerite Roza, a research assistant professor at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle. An analysis by Ms. Roza found that on paper it appeared that more federal, state, and local education dollars were flowing to high-poverty and high-minority schools, but a closer look at overall budgeting showed otherwise.
A prime example is teachers’ salaries, she said in an interview. Schools with many disadvantaged students often have the least experienced teachers earning the lowest salaries, resulting in a funding gap compared with schools with more experienced, higher-paid teachers.
“There’s a real commitment to closing the achievement gap, but the problem is we haven’t been able to do that and people are frustrated by our progress,” Ms. Roza said. “But you want to make sure the system itself isn’t working against the kids.”
Vol. 26
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/12/20/18edtrust_web.h26.html
Title I Money Not Reaching Students Who Need It Most, Report Says
By Michelle R. Davis
As federal funding meant to help the most disadvantaged students makes its way from the halls of the U.S. Capitol down to individual schools, the dollars intended to help poor and minority students are often diverted from the most needy students, concludes a report released today by the Education Trust.
In a new analysis of how Title I funds are distributed, the Washington-based research and advocacy organization looked at how the $12.7 billion program funnels money from the federal government to the states and to local districts. The “Funding Gaps 2006” report found that the money doesn’t end up where it could help students who need it most. This issue is critical, the report’s authors say, as educators are working toward closing the educational achievement gap between disadvantaged students and their more affluent peers.
“As our national education ambitions have grown bigger and bigger, we have not updated our school finance policies to reflect this new national reality,” said Goodwin Liu, a co-author of the study and a co-director of the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Race, Ethnicity, and Diversity at the University of California at Berkeley.
The federal No Child Left Behind Act calls for all students to reach proficiency standards by 2014.
The study’s analysis of Title I dollars shows that the formula used to dole out funds from the largest federal education program reinforces the funding gaps between the poorest and wealthiest states. The money is allocated based in part on how much each state spends per pupil on education, he said. So a state that spends more of its own money on each student will also get more federal Title I money for each student. Maryland, for example, had fewer poor children than Arkansas but received 51 percent more Title I aid per poor child, according to the report.
“If our national aspiration is to ensure that all kids achieve proficiency, the way we fund our schools doesn’t resemble that at all,” Mr. Liu said. “If we were serious about closing achievement gaps we wouldn’t be giving the least resources to the states that spend the least on them. We would give the most to them to compensate.”
That’s not a new argument, said Bruce Hunter, the chief lobbyist for the American Association of School Administrators in Arlington, Va. “The question is, if the citizens of a state elect not to fund education very well, should the federal government reward that?” he said. “The last two times this question was asked, Congress answered negatively.”
Necessary First Steps
The Title I allocation formula was set up in part to reflect the reality that a dollar in New York state doesn’t go as far as a dollar in Arkansas, Mr. Liu said. However, there are now much more sophisticated ways to adjust for cost factors and when that is done, large disparities remain, he said. The report suggests reforms that include altering the Title I formula.
Concerns about funding distribution, particularly when it comes to Title I, have been raised before, said Brenda Welburn, the executive director of the Alexandria, Va.-based National Association of State Boards of Education.
Ms. Welburn said states realize some districts have a higher percentage of disadvantaged students, but that other districts also have students who need to be served by Title I.
The report notes that the problem is not limited to federal funds. State revenue, too, is distributed inconsistently, said Ross Wiener, the policy director for the Education Trust, and a co-author of the study along with Eli Pristoop, an Education Trust data analyst who studied the distribution of state education funding over several years.
After examining 14,000 school districts in the 2003-04 school year, Mr. Wiener and Mr. Pristoop concluded that often districts with the most students living in poverty don’t get the most state education aid. After adjusting for the additional costs of educating poor students, they found that, on average, states and localities spend $908 less per student in districts educating the greatest number of minority students and $825 less per student in districts educating the most low-income students compared with what is spent in the wealthiest districts. But they also found that there are states, such as Massachusetts and Kentucky, that target more money to high-poverty districts.
“A lot of people believe that we either provide equal resources in all schools or that because of programs like Title I we actually provide more resources in high poverty schools and that’s not the case,” Mr. Wiener said. “We need to acknowledge that we haven’t done some of the first steps that could help us make more progress.”
‘People Are Frustrated’
But even within school districts, the money isn’t allocated so that it reaches the poorest students, according to co-author Marguerite Roza, a research assistant professor at the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington in Seattle. An analysis by Ms. Roza found that on paper it appeared that more federal, state, and local education dollars were flowing to high-poverty and high-minority schools, but a closer look at overall budgeting showed otherwise.
A prime example is teachers’ salaries, she said in an interview. Schools with many disadvantaged students often have the least experienced teachers earning the lowest salaries, resulting in a funding gap compared with schools with more experienced, higher-paid teachers.
“There’s a real commitment to closing the achievement gap, but the problem is we haven’t been able to do that and people are frustrated by our progress,” Ms. Roza said. “But you want to make sure the system itself isn’t working against the kids.”
Vol. 26
http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2006/12/20/18edtrust_web.h26.html
"Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Stronger Nation"
Good information that I just got from the Assessment Reform Network (ARN) Listserve. This report is worth checking out. -Angela
The task force mentioned below in Susan's message is one that was formed in 2005:
http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/education/commbios.cfm
It released a report called "Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Stronger Nation" that can be found at
http://emailimages.ctsg.com/caf/edureport_gsbf_full_report.pdf
So does this mean that Pelosi is going to re-convene this task force? If so, this might give a good sense of how the Dems will try to re-package NCLB.
Key provisions: (see http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0823governor23.html)
1) Extend the school year in low-performing schools, expand after-school programs, pay for universal preschool and full-day kindergarten and increase federal college grants.
2) Develop a uniform, but voluntary, set of nationwide student learning goals, or curriculum, for core courses.
3) Improve teacher training and offer financial incentives to entice teachers to work in high-poverty schools.
4) Link neighborhood schools with their communities and families by providing such things as social services, English classes, parenting skills classes and home visits.
Estimated cost: the plan calls for a $325 billion investment in education over the next 10 years. It would cost $39 billion annually once it is fully implemented in 2010.
Approximately $21 billion would go toward the flagship commitment of expanding and redesigning learning time, including $7.2 billion to extend the school year in low-performing districts; $3.6 billion to expand after-school programs; $8.7 billion to support universal preschool and full-day kindergarten and $8.4 billion to redesign and connect high school to affordable college study, offset by a savings of $7 billion by abolishing bank-subsidizing student loans.
Additionally, $6 billion annually would put more highly qualified teachers in classrooms; $6 billion would link schools to families and communities and $6 billion would be set aside for investments in school facilities, assistance to low-performing schools and the development of national standards and high-quality assessments.
The $39 billion annual investment would come from the federal government and would be accompanied by additional increases at the state and local levels. The proposal doesn't pinpoint a source for the additional funds but suggests that by forgoing future tax cuts, such as the elimination of the estate tax, the federal government could pay for the plan.
The task force mentioned below in Susan's message is one that was formed in 2005:
http://www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/education/commbios.cfm
It released a report called "Getting Smarter, Becoming Fairer: A Progressive Education Agenda for a Stronger Nation" that can be found at
http://emailimages.ctsg.com/caf/edureport_gsbf_full_report.pdf
So does this mean that Pelosi is going to re-convene this task force? If so, this might give a good sense of how the Dems will try to re-package NCLB.
Key provisions: (see http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0823governor23.html)
1) Extend the school year in low-performing schools, expand after-school programs, pay for universal preschool and full-day kindergarten and increase federal college grants.
2) Develop a uniform, but voluntary, set of nationwide student learning goals, or curriculum, for core courses.
3) Improve teacher training and offer financial incentives to entice teachers to work in high-poverty schools.
4) Link neighborhood schools with their communities and families by providing such things as social services, English classes, parenting skills classes and home visits.
Estimated cost: the plan calls for a $325 billion investment in education over the next 10 years. It would cost $39 billion annually once it is fully implemented in 2010.
Approximately $21 billion would go toward the flagship commitment of expanding and redesigning learning time, including $7.2 billion to extend the school year in low-performing districts; $3.6 billion to expand after-school programs; $8.7 billion to support universal preschool and full-day kindergarten and $8.4 billion to redesign and connect high school to affordable college study, offset by a savings of $7 billion by abolishing bank-subsidizing student loans.
Additionally, $6 billion annually would put more highly qualified teachers in classrooms; $6 billion would link schools to families and communities and $6 billion would be set aside for investments in school facilities, assistance to low-performing schools and the development of national standards and high-quality assessments.
The $39 billion annual investment would come from the federal government and would be accompanied by additional increases at the state and local levels. The proposal doesn't pinpoint a source for the additional funds but suggests that by forgoing future tax cuts, such as the elimination of the estate tax, the federal government could pay for the plan.
Democrats eye overhaul of education programs
By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 24, 2006
Advertisement
Education policy is in for some changes under the new Democrat-controlled Congress.
Cracking down on the student-loan industry, cutting loan interest rates, boosting the amount of government money for education and rewriting portions of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law governing elementary education are among the goals of Democrats next year.
On top of that, a few other laws must be renewed, too -- the Higher Education Act, the Head Start program for preschoolers and the Workforce Investment Act for job-training programs.
"It's a big year," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, a California Republican who will hand over the gavel of the House Education Committee to Rep. George Miller, California Democrat.
In the Senate, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will set education policy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Massachusetts Democrat said recently he aims for an "important increase" in education dollars. Despite a "tight budget" environment, he said, voters in November sent a clear message that they not only want change in Iraq but also a greater emphasis placed on domestic issues.
"It seems to me the American people spoke very clearly," he said.
One of the first orders of business for Democrats will be to cut the interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans in half -- a goal House Democratic leaders said the House will tackle in its first 100 hours of operation next year.
Mr. Kennedy may include the rate-cut proposal in a broader bill that would forgive student loans after 25 years, increase the Pell Grant maximum award to $5,100 and cap federal student-loan payments at 15 percent of the borrower's monthly discretionary income.
The price tag for all of this is still in flux, but estimates for the rate-cut proposal alone could reach $50 billion, depending on whose loans are targeted for cuts, a Democratic aide said.
Mr. Kennedy recently said student loans "work well for banks but not for students."
Another priority -- especially for President Bush -- is renewing the No Child Left Behind Law of 2002, which is due to expire. Democrats helped approve the law, which requires states to hold failing elementary schools accountable and bring all students to reading and math proficiency, but they've complained that schools are struggling to comply because Congress and Mr. Bush have provided about $40 billion less than the funding levels set out in the law.
Democrats will push for more money, though Mr. Kennedy said he knows he may not close the funding gap right away. Meanwhile, both sides of the aisle are working on tweaks and changes the law may need in areas such as how teachers are measured and promoted and the way troubled schools are handled. Republican aides predicted NCLB renewal could be relatively smooth.
Mr. Kennedy, who stood next to Mr. Bush at the bill-signing ceremony in 2002, said recently he remains willing to work with the president if he is committed.
"Given the many failures of implementation by his administration and the meager commitments to education reforms in his budgets, the president has a high hurdle to cross to demonstrate that he is seriously committed to these reforms," he said.
Republican leaders said Democrats' promise of big bucks for education doesn't jibe with their loud pledges of fiscal reform.
"If they stick with what they said they want to do, they're going to be spending a significant amount, and I would think they'd have trouble finding those dollars," said outgoing Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican. "It's going to be an interesting exercise for them."
Copyright © 2007 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061223-114252-1108r.htm
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published December 24, 2006
Advertisement
Education policy is in for some changes under the new Democrat-controlled Congress.
Cracking down on the student-loan industry, cutting loan interest rates, boosting the amount of government money for education and rewriting portions of President Bush's No Child Left Behind law governing elementary education are among the goals of Democrats next year.
On top of that, a few other laws must be renewed, too -- the Higher Education Act, the Head Start program for preschoolers and the Workforce Investment Act for job-training programs.
"It's a big year," said Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon, a California Republican who will hand over the gavel of the House Education Committee to Rep. George Miller, California Democrat.
In the Senate, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy will set education policy as chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. The Massachusetts Democrat said recently he aims for an "important increase" in education dollars. Despite a "tight budget" environment, he said, voters in November sent a clear message that they not only want change in Iraq but also a greater emphasis placed on domestic issues.
"It seems to me the American people spoke very clearly," he said.
One of the first orders of business for Democrats will be to cut the interest rate for federally guaranteed student loans in half -- a goal House Democratic leaders said the House will tackle in its first 100 hours of operation next year.
Mr. Kennedy may include the rate-cut proposal in a broader bill that would forgive student loans after 25 years, increase the Pell Grant maximum award to $5,100 and cap federal student-loan payments at 15 percent of the borrower's monthly discretionary income.
The price tag for all of this is still in flux, but estimates for the rate-cut proposal alone could reach $50 billion, depending on whose loans are targeted for cuts, a Democratic aide said.
Mr. Kennedy recently said student loans "work well for banks but not for students."
Another priority -- especially for President Bush -- is renewing the No Child Left Behind Law of 2002, which is due to expire. Democrats helped approve the law, which requires states to hold failing elementary schools accountable and bring all students to reading and math proficiency, but they've complained that schools are struggling to comply because Congress and Mr. Bush have provided about $40 billion less than the funding levels set out in the law.
Democrats will push for more money, though Mr. Kennedy said he knows he may not close the funding gap right away. Meanwhile, both sides of the aisle are working on tweaks and changes the law may need in areas such as how teachers are measured and promoted and the way troubled schools are handled. Republican aides predicted NCLB renewal could be relatively smooth.
Mr. Kennedy, who stood next to Mr. Bush at the bill-signing ceremony in 2002, said recently he remains willing to work with the president if he is committed.
"Given the many failures of implementation by his administration and the meager commitments to education reforms in his budgets, the president has a high hurdle to cross to demonstrate that he is seriously committed to these reforms," he said.
Republican leaders said Democrats' promise of big bucks for education doesn't jibe with their loud pledges of fiscal reform.
"If they stick with what they said they want to do, they're going to be spending a significant amount, and I would think they'd have trouble finding those dollars," said outgoing Senate Budget Committee Chairman Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican. "It's going to be an interesting exercise for them."
Copyright © 2007 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20061223-114252-1108r.htm
Stop the Raid on Student Aid
From Steve Blackledge
CALPIRG Legislative Director
SteveB@calpirg.org
>Average student debt levels have more than doubled in the last
>decade and more students and their families are finding themselves
>buried under the burden of student loan debt.
>
>Last year, even as interest rates on loans skyrocketed, Congress cut
>the student loan program by $12 billion dollars. While students
>struggle with increasing debt, the private lenders are making huge
>profits and receiving billions of dollars in subsidies from the
>federal government.
>
>Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has committed to cutting student
>loan interest rates in half within the first 100 hours of the new
>Congress as it convenes in early January, but will need the support
>of the rest of Congress.
>
>Please tell your representative to put real student aid above
>subsidies to corporate lenders. Then ask your friends and family to
>help out too by forwarding this email to them.
>
>To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser:
>http://calpirg.org/CA.asp?id=1824&id4=ES
>
>
Background
>
>A college degree is becoming a necessity in today's world, and
>students are doing whatever it takes to pay for college, including
>taking on more and more debt. Average student debt levels have more
>than doubled in the last decade, and nearly two-thirds of all
>four-year college graduates now have student loans.
>
>Last year, Congress cut the student loan program by $12 billion
>dollars, money that could have gone to lowering interest rates or
>making college more affordable. As college costs continue to swell,
>more students have to borrow to pay for their degree. A full 39% of
>student borrowers graduate with unmanageable levels of federal
>student loan debt.
>
>As more students take out larger loans, private student lenders have
>worked to increase their subsidies at the expense of students and
>taxpayers. Lenders like Sallie Mae capitalize on excessive federal
>subsidies and oppose loan reforms that could help students.
>
>We need our leaders to do more to help. Congress and the Bush
>Administration should take action to reduce the burden of student
>debt by reducing waste in the loan programs, by increasing grant aid
>and by cutting interest rates in half.
>
>Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has committed to cutting student
>loan interest rates in half within the first 100 hours of the new
>Congress as it convenes in early January, but will need the support
>of the rest of Congress.
>
>Please tell your representative to put real student aid above
>subsidies to corporate lenders. Then ask your friends and family to
>help out too by forwarding this email to them.
>
>To take action, click on this link or paste CALPIRG it into your web browser
CALPIRG Legislative Director
SteveB@calpirg.org
>Average student debt levels have more than doubled in the last
>decade and more students and their families are finding themselves
>buried under the burden of student loan debt.
>
>Last year, even as interest rates on loans skyrocketed, Congress cut
>the student loan program by $12 billion dollars. While students
>struggle with increasing debt, the private lenders are making huge
>profits and receiving billions of dollars in subsidies from the
>federal government.
>
>Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has committed to cutting student
>loan interest rates in half within the first 100 hours of the new
>Congress as it convenes in early January, but will need the support
>of the rest of Congress.
>
>Please tell your representative to put real student aid above
>subsidies to corporate lenders. Then ask your friends and family to
>help out too by forwarding this email to them.
>
>To take action, click on this link or paste it into your web browser:
>http://calpirg.org/CA.asp?id=1824&id4=ES
>
>
Background
>
>A college degree is becoming a necessity in today's world, and
>students are doing whatever it takes to pay for college, including
>taking on more and more debt. Average student debt levels have more
>than doubled in the last decade, and nearly two-thirds of all
>four-year college graduates now have student loans.
>
>Last year, Congress cut the student loan program by $12 billion
>dollars, money that could have gone to lowering interest rates or
>making college more affordable. As college costs continue to swell,
>more students have to borrow to pay for their degree. A full 39% of
>student borrowers graduate with unmanageable levels of federal
>student loan debt.
>
>As more students take out larger loans, private student lenders have
>worked to increase their subsidies at the expense of students and
>taxpayers. Lenders like Sallie Mae capitalize on excessive federal
>subsidies and oppose loan reforms that could help students.
>
>We need our leaders to do more to help. Congress and the Bush
>Administration should take action to reduce the burden of student
>debt by reducing waste in the loan programs, by increasing grant aid
>and by cutting interest rates in half.
>
>Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has committed to cutting student
>loan interest rates in half within the first 100 hours of the new
>Congress as it convenes in early January, but will need the support
>of the rest of Congress.
>
>Please tell your representative to put real student aid above
>subsidies to corporate lenders. Then ask your friends and family to
>help out too by forwarding this email to them.
>
>To take action, click on this link or paste CALPIRG it into your web browser
New poll detects a change in the political climate in the Capitol
Very interesting. Texas has become more Democrat according to a recent poll. This report in today's Houston Chronicle provides more detail on the number of republican and democratic votes that House Speaker Craddick has and needs. Rep. Brian McCall (Plano) is a major contender. This poll certainly makes matters more difficult for Craddick. We'll see what happens on January 9th when the legislature reconvenes. -Angela
Sat, Dec. 30, 2006
By Bud Kennedy
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The earth shook in Austin this week, and not only because two of our Republican neighbors decided to try to bring down the overbearing West Texas tyranny in the Texas House.
Early tremors had already jolted House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland, now rejected by two of his lieutenants and challenged from inside his own party.
Then came The Poll.
Texas Democrats have pulled even with Republicans, and the state is now about half red, half blue. At least, that's according to 1,053 Texans surveyed by an independent Democratic pollster.
The poll's news announcement focused on one specific response: By 46 percent to 35 percent, respondents said Democrats "care" more about "people like me." That's a reversal from two years ago.
But most eyes went immediately to the bottom line of the poll, conducted in early December by Austin-based Montgomery & Associates:
Asked which political party they lean toward, 45 percent chose Democrat.
Only 43 percent chose Republican. If you figure in the poll's margin of error, that's a tie.
Two years ago, in the same Democratic poll, Republicans led by 55 percent to 34 percent.
Pollster Jeff Montgomery returned a phone call Friday from San Antonio, on his way to a bipartisan college football weekend watching the Texas Longhorns in the Alamo Bowl.
The poll doesn't mean Democrats are about to take back the Capitol, he said. He surveyed 1,053 adults, not specifically voters.
"Clearly, Texas is still a Republican state," he said. "But this is the first time people have even shown much interest in calling themselves Democrats."
If Craddick was already on his way out -- and it's beginning to look that way -- the poll certainly helped Plano investor Brian McCall and Waxahachie lawyer Jim Pitts give him a shove. Republicans are slipping in the Texas House under Craddick's leadership, and McCall and Pitts suggest choosing another speaker Jan. 9.
"There is an attitude change nationally that is affecting Texas," said Cal Jillson, the Southern Methodist University political science professor who correctly foresaw a Republican sweep of state offices in the November elections and also the Democratic gains in the Texas House.
"People are increasingly concerned with the results they see from the Republican majority," he said. "In Austin, those numbers are playing themselves out in the hanging of Tom Craddick. Republicans have begun to panic that the unease in the public is going to be taken out of their hide."
Craddick's leadership team has taken a pounding in the last two elections. Arlington voters soundly rejected state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, who had shaped state education policy. Two years earlier, Fort Worth voters bounced state Rep. Glenn Lewis, a Forest Hill Democrat who had lined up with Craddick on school vouchers.
Democrats picked up six Texas House seats this year and have cut Republicans' edge to 80-69, with one seat still to be decided in a special election.
The Republicans couldn't even pick up an open House seat north of Lubbock, where Craddick backed a Plainview Republican who outspent his Democratic opponent 5-to-1 but still lost.
Jillson said the Democrats' success came because voters are unhappy with President Bush, Congress and Washington.
But they're not all that happy with Austin, and particularly not with the Texas House.
"People are looking at [Gov.] Rick Perry" -- re-elected despite drawing only 39 percent of the vote -- "and even more starkly at Craddick, and they're saying, 'I don't see problem-solving. I see a fairly mean-spirited partisanship.'"
Jillson compared Craddick to the deposed U.S. House majority leader, also from Texas: "He's a two-bit Tom DeLay."
Republicans' popularity peaked in 2002 and 2004, Jillson said. The shifting Texas numbers are also affected by demographic changes, with more Texans of Hispanic descent reaching voting age, but the political shift is outpacing the shift in population, he said.
In Dallas on New Year's morning, an entire slate of Democrats will be sworn into office in a ceremony at a hotel, replacing the Republican officials and judges who used to run the Dallas County Courthouse. That was the result of the county's abrupt population change, Jillson said.
"But mostly, it's an attitude change," he said. "Out in East Texas, you're starting to see more people talk about the Democrats."
Montgomery, the Austin pollster, said his poll was not timed with the Texas House speaker's election.
"We didn't think this would have anything to do with the speaker's race," he said. "It's a Texas poll, but I think it's more about Washington."
Maybe. But it's hitting first in Austin.
By the numbers
Political parties Texans say they lean toward:
2006 2005 2004
Democrat 45.1% 37.2% 33.9%
Republican 42.6 49.2 54.7
Independent 6.4 10.5 10.2
SOURCE: Montgomery & Associates
Bud Kennedy's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 817-390-7538 bud @budkennedy.com
© 2006 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.dfw.com
Sat, Dec. 30, 2006
By Bud Kennedy
Star-Telegram Staff Writer
The earth shook in Austin this week, and not only because two of our Republican neighbors decided to try to bring down the overbearing West Texas tyranny in the Texas House.
Early tremors had already jolted House Speaker Tom Craddick of Midland, now rejected by two of his lieutenants and challenged from inside his own party.
Then came The Poll.
Texas Democrats have pulled even with Republicans, and the state is now about half red, half blue. At least, that's according to 1,053 Texans surveyed by an independent Democratic pollster.
The poll's news announcement focused on one specific response: By 46 percent to 35 percent, respondents said Democrats "care" more about "people like me." That's a reversal from two years ago.
But most eyes went immediately to the bottom line of the poll, conducted in early December by Austin-based Montgomery & Associates:
Asked which political party they lean toward, 45 percent chose Democrat.
Only 43 percent chose Republican. If you figure in the poll's margin of error, that's a tie.
Two years ago, in the same Democratic poll, Republicans led by 55 percent to 34 percent.
Pollster Jeff Montgomery returned a phone call Friday from San Antonio, on his way to a bipartisan college football weekend watching the Texas Longhorns in the Alamo Bowl.
The poll doesn't mean Democrats are about to take back the Capitol, he said. He surveyed 1,053 adults, not specifically voters.
"Clearly, Texas is still a Republican state," he said. "But this is the first time people have even shown much interest in calling themselves Democrats."
If Craddick was already on his way out -- and it's beginning to look that way -- the poll certainly helped Plano investor Brian McCall and Waxahachie lawyer Jim Pitts give him a shove. Republicans are slipping in the Texas House under Craddick's leadership, and McCall and Pitts suggest choosing another speaker Jan. 9.
"There is an attitude change nationally that is affecting Texas," said Cal Jillson, the Southern Methodist University political science professor who correctly foresaw a Republican sweep of state offices in the November elections and also the Democratic gains in the Texas House.
"People are increasingly concerned with the results they see from the Republican majority," he said. "In Austin, those numbers are playing themselves out in the hanging of Tom Craddick. Republicans have begun to panic that the unease in the public is going to be taken out of their hide."
Craddick's leadership team has taken a pounding in the last two elections. Arlington voters soundly rejected state Rep. Kent Grusendorf, who had shaped state education policy. Two years earlier, Fort Worth voters bounced state Rep. Glenn Lewis, a Forest Hill Democrat who had lined up with Craddick on school vouchers.
Democrats picked up six Texas House seats this year and have cut Republicans' edge to 80-69, with one seat still to be decided in a special election.
The Republicans couldn't even pick up an open House seat north of Lubbock, where Craddick backed a Plainview Republican who outspent his Democratic opponent 5-to-1 but still lost.
Jillson said the Democrats' success came because voters are unhappy with President Bush, Congress and Washington.
But they're not all that happy with Austin, and particularly not with the Texas House.
"People are looking at [Gov.] Rick Perry" -- re-elected despite drawing only 39 percent of the vote -- "and even more starkly at Craddick, and they're saying, 'I don't see problem-solving. I see a fairly mean-spirited partisanship.'"
Jillson compared Craddick to the deposed U.S. House majority leader, also from Texas: "He's a two-bit Tom DeLay."
Republicans' popularity peaked in 2002 and 2004, Jillson said. The shifting Texas numbers are also affected by demographic changes, with more Texans of Hispanic descent reaching voting age, but the political shift is outpacing the shift in population, he said.
In Dallas on New Year's morning, an entire slate of Democrats will be sworn into office in a ceremony at a hotel, replacing the Republican officials and judges who used to run the Dallas County Courthouse. That was the result of the county's abrupt population change, Jillson said.
"But mostly, it's an attitude change," he said. "Out in East Texas, you're starting to see more people talk about the Democrats."
Montgomery, the Austin pollster, said his poll was not timed with the Texas House speaker's election.
"We didn't think this would have anything to do with the speaker's race," he said. "It's a Texas poll, but I think it's more about Washington."
Maybe. But it's hitting first in Austin.
By the numbers
Political parties Texans say they lean toward:
2006 2005 2004
Democrat 45.1% 37.2% 33.9%
Republican 42.6 49.2 54.7
Independent 6.4 10.5 10.2
SOURCE: Montgomery & Associates
Bud Kennedy's column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 817-390-7538 bud @budkennedy.com
© 2006 Star-Telegram and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.dfw.com
San Antonio's proven that school vouchers work well
What the authors fail to recognize is the impact of funding equalization on Edgewood that correlated to improvement in its public schools. -Angela
Dec. 25, 2006, 6:35PM
San Antonio's proven that school vouchers work well
Edgewood experiment a clear success in all ways
By GREG FORSTER and JAY P. GREENE
As the Texas Legislature gears up for another debate over school vouchers in the coming session, naturally Texans are looking for evidence on whether vouchers work. They should look at the long-running voucher program in San Antonio. As with programs across the country, the evidence shows that vouchers work.
While Texas doesn't have a government-sponsored school choice program, San Antonio has had a voucher program funded with private contributions since 1998. It allows students in public schools in the Edgewood school district to attend private schools they otherwise couldn't afford.
Many people think that voucher programs will hurt public schools, draining them of the talent and resources they need to succeed. Others suggest that vouchers will improve public schools by exposing them to greater competition. Because most students will remain in public schools even with a voucher program, the most important empirical issue about vouchers is determining how they will affect achievement in public schools.
We conducted an analysis to determine whether Edgewood's public schools have been improving or declining since the creation of the voucher program. We compared the year-to-year changes in Edgewood's performance with those of other Texas school districts, controlling for factors such as race and income.
We found that Edgewood started producing outstanding academic improvements after the voucher program was created. What had long been an extremely troubled school district began to outperform 85 percent of Texas school districts given their demographic characteristics.
That may come as a surprise, but it shouldn't. Nationwide, there is a large body of research finding that public schools exposed to vouchers make superior test score gains, including four independent studies in Florida, two in Milwaukee, and one each in Maine and Vermont.
On top of all this, we are not aware of any empirical studies in the United States that have found that public schools get worse because of school vouchers. That's an impressive track record.
The evidence that vouchers work for the students who use them is even stronger. There have been eight studies of vouchers that used "random assignment," the scientific gold standard, to compare very similar treatment and control groups. Seven of the eight studies found that voucher students outperformed students who applied for vouchers but did not receive them. The eighth also found higher test scores for voucher students, but the result failed to achieve statistical significance.
Other questions have been raised about vouchers, such as whether they will provide adequate services to disabled students, whether they exacerbate racial segregation and whether they will undermine the teaching of civic values. In all three cases, the evidence shows that vouchers produce better results than public schools.
We conducted an empirical analysis of a voucher program for disabled students in Florida. We found that disabled students using vouchers to attend private schools received better services than they had received in their public schools. They were also bullied and assaulted much less often by their peers — a major problem for disabled students.
There have been seven studies of racial segregation in voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C., that use valid empirical methods. All seven find that the private schools participating in these programs were less racially segregated than the public schools in those cities.
Public schools assign students to schools by neighborhood, ensuring that residential segregation will be reproduced in schools; vouchers break down neighborhood barriers.
And what about the teaching of civic values? Pat Wolf of the University of Arkansas collected the results of all empirical studies that measured the civic values of public and private school students — whether they tolerated the rights of those they disliked, whether they voted, whether they volunteered, and so on. Across the board, the available studies overwhelmingly found that private school students had stronger civic values than public school students.
San Antonio students get a better education because of vouchers — including not only the students who can choose the school that works best for them thanks to vouchers, but also the students who remain in public schools and benefit from vouchers' competitive effects.
Now the only question is whether the rest of Texas wants to reap the same benefits as San Antonio.
Forster is a senior fellow at the Milton Friedman Foundation; Greene is head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. They are authors of "Education Myths" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4425646.html
Dec. 25, 2006, 6:35PM
San Antonio's proven that school vouchers work well
Edgewood experiment a clear success in all ways
By GREG FORSTER and JAY P. GREENE
As the Texas Legislature gears up for another debate over school vouchers in the coming session, naturally Texans are looking for evidence on whether vouchers work. They should look at the long-running voucher program in San Antonio. As with programs across the country, the evidence shows that vouchers work.
While Texas doesn't have a government-sponsored school choice program, San Antonio has had a voucher program funded with private contributions since 1998. It allows students in public schools in the Edgewood school district to attend private schools they otherwise couldn't afford.
Many people think that voucher programs will hurt public schools, draining them of the talent and resources they need to succeed. Others suggest that vouchers will improve public schools by exposing them to greater competition. Because most students will remain in public schools even with a voucher program, the most important empirical issue about vouchers is determining how they will affect achievement in public schools.
We conducted an analysis to determine whether Edgewood's public schools have been improving or declining since the creation of the voucher program. We compared the year-to-year changes in Edgewood's performance with those of other Texas school districts, controlling for factors such as race and income.
We found that Edgewood started producing outstanding academic improvements after the voucher program was created. What had long been an extremely troubled school district began to outperform 85 percent of Texas school districts given their demographic characteristics.
That may come as a surprise, but it shouldn't. Nationwide, there is a large body of research finding that public schools exposed to vouchers make superior test score gains, including four independent studies in Florida, two in Milwaukee, and one each in Maine and Vermont.
On top of all this, we are not aware of any empirical studies in the United States that have found that public schools get worse because of school vouchers. That's an impressive track record.
The evidence that vouchers work for the students who use them is even stronger. There have been eight studies of vouchers that used "random assignment," the scientific gold standard, to compare very similar treatment and control groups. Seven of the eight studies found that voucher students outperformed students who applied for vouchers but did not receive them. The eighth also found higher test scores for voucher students, but the result failed to achieve statistical significance.
Other questions have been raised about vouchers, such as whether they will provide adequate services to disabled students, whether they exacerbate racial segregation and whether they will undermine the teaching of civic values. In all three cases, the evidence shows that vouchers produce better results than public schools.
We conducted an empirical analysis of a voucher program for disabled students in Florida. We found that disabled students using vouchers to attend private schools received better services than they had received in their public schools. They were also bullied and assaulted much less often by their peers — a major problem for disabled students.
There have been seven studies of racial segregation in voucher programs in Milwaukee, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C., that use valid empirical methods. All seven find that the private schools participating in these programs were less racially segregated than the public schools in those cities.
Public schools assign students to schools by neighborhood, ensuring that residential segregation will be reproduced in schools; vouchers break down neighborhood barriers.
And what about the teaching of civic values? Pat Wolf of the University of Arkansas collected the results of all empirical studies that measured the civic values of public and private school students — whether they tolerated the rights of those they disliked, whether they voted, whether they volunteered, and so on. Across the board, the available studies overwhelmingly found that private school students had stronger civic values than public school students.
San Antonio students get a better education because of vouchers — including not only the students who can choose the school that works best for them thanks to vouchers, but also the students who remain in public schools and benefit from vouchers' competitive effects.
Now the only question is whether the rest of Texas wants to reap the same benefits as San Antonio.
Forster is a senior fellow at the Milton Friedman Foundation; Greene is head of the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas. They are authors of "Education Myths" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005).
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4425646.html
State needs haven for students who fail TAKS
EDITORIAL BOARD--AUSTIN AM-STATESMAN
Today's editorial lays out well the state's dilemma on TAKS testing in historical perspective. In reference to students who stayed in school and passed their courses, "Eleven percent, nearly 28,000 students, of the 2006 graduating class didn't get diplomas because they flunked the TAKS. That was their sixth try at passing it."
Here is what the editorial board recommends: "The Legislature should create an alternative diploma for TAKS refugees to allow students who have repeatedly failed the exit exam to appeal their situations and satisfy requirements in other ways. They could do that, for instance, by passing certain remedial or basic courses at a community college."
The legislature should also consider passing a multiple measures system whereby students that fail are evaluated on the basis of other criteria that can compensate for poor or failing test performance. State Rep. Dora Olivo (Fort Bend) has just filed such a bill--at the exit level, as well as at the levels (3, 5, & 8) affected by social promotion. -Angela
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
They are neither high school graduates nor dropouts. Let's call them TAKS refugees.
That's what we call Texas high school students who have completed all requirements to graduate and get their diplomas, save one: passing all four portions of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the state's exit exam. They roam from test to test trying to pass long after their classmates have collected their diplomas. Meanwhile, the futures of students who chronically flunk the exam are on hold. Without a diploma, they share dismal employment prospects with dropouts. Yet, like graduates, they stayed in school and passed their courses.
Thousands of Texas students end up in TAKS purgatory every year. In the 2005-06 school year, more than 39,000 students flunked. The only way out is by passing all sections of the TAKS that measures language arts, social studies, math and science skills. No one knows how many of those students ultimately jump that hurdle because school districts and the Texas Education Agency stop tracking them after awhile. What we do know is that the number of TAKS refugees, like compounding interest, balloons every year. Only those who continue taking the test are counted. Those who give up or pursue a GED disappear from state and local figures.
The Legislative mandate for a high stakes exit test created the dilemma. It's up to the Legislature fix the problem and this is a good time to do that.
For Texas students, exit testing is not new. The state has graduated several generations of Texans (since 1987) under the test requirement. But the test was easier and measured basic skills in fewer subjects. Sure, there was a small percentage of students who didn't pass and that was bad enough. Now the test is tougher and broader. Failures have spiked. Eleven percent, nearly 28,000 students, of the 2006 graduating class didn't get diplomas because they flunked the TAKS. That was their sixth try at passing it.
The growing numbers of TAKS failures have severe consequences for those students and for Texas.
Without a diploma, students are limited in their options for college and the work force. Those are the folks who tend to end up in minimum wage jobs, on welfare or in jail. They don't expand the tax base. They shrink it.
State higher education officials have told us we need tens of thousands more students in college and in job training to keep Texas competitive in the modern economy. That goal becomes ever more elusive if students are unable to obtain their high school diplomas.
There are several ways the Legislature can address the crisis. It starts with acknowledging the problem.
Debbie Graves Ratliffe, a TEA spokeswoman, suggested a voluntary registration system to help track those who don't pass the TAKS exit test. That would allow students to take the exam after they've left high school.
State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, wants to replace the TAKS in middle and high school with an end-of-year course exam in various subjects. Shapiro is thinking about using such an exam as an exit test. Exit tests should not be used to determine graduation. Even students who graduate in the top of their class are denied diplomas if they flunk the TAKS.
The Legislature should create an alternative diploma for TAKS refugees to allow students who have repeatedly failed the exit exam to appeal their situations and satisfy requirements in other ways. They could do that, for instance, by passing certain remedial or basic courses at a community college. Legislators should take action to give the TAKS refugees academic shelter.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/01/2/2taks_edit.html
Today's editorial lays out well the state's dilemma on TAKS testing in historical perspective. In reference to students who stayed in school and passed their courses, "Eleven percent, nearly 28,000 students, of the 2006 graduating class didn't get diplomas because they flunked the TAKS. That was their sixth try at passing it."
Here is what the editorial board recommends: "The Legislature should create an alternative diploma for TAKS refugees to allow students who have repeatedly failed the exit exam to appeal their situations and satisfy requirements in other ways. They could do that, for instance, by passing certain remedial or basic courses at a community college."
The legislature should also consider passing a multiple measures system whereby students that fail are evaluated on the basis of other criteria that can compensate for poor or failing test performance. State Rep. Dora Olivo (Fort Bend) has just filed such a bill--at the exit level, as well as at the levels (3, 5, & 8) affected by social promotion. -Angela
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
They are neither high school graduates nor dropouts. Let's call them TAKS refugees.
That's what we call Texas high school students who have completed all requirements to graduate and get their diplomas, save one: passing all four portions of Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, the state's exit exam. They roam from test to test trying to pass long after their classmates have collected their diplomas. Meanwhile, the futures of students who chronically flunk the exam are on hold. Without a diploma, they share dismal employment prospects with dropouts. Yet, like graduates, they stayed in school and passed their courses.
Thousands of Texas students end up in TAKS purgatory every year. In the 2005-06 school year, more than 39,000 students flunked. The only way out is by passing all sections of the TAKS that measures language arts, social studies, math and science skills. No one knows how many of those students ultimately jump that hurdle because school districts and the Texas Education Agency stop tracking them after awhile. What we do know is that the number of TAKS refugees, like compounding interest, balloons every year. Only those who continue taking the test are counted. Those who give up or pursue a GED disappear from state and local figures.
The Legislative mandate for a high stakes exit test created the dilemma. It's up to the Legislature fix the problem and this is a good time to do that.
For Texas students, exit testing is not new. The state has graduated several generations of Texans (since 1987) under the test requirement. But the test was easier and measured basic skills in fewer subjects. Sure, there was a small percentage of students who didn't pass and that was bad enough. Now the test is tougher and broader. Failures have spiked. Eleven percent, nearly 28,000 students, of the 2006 graduating class didn't get diplomas because they flunked the TAKS. That was their sixth try at passing it.
The growing numbers of TAKS failures have severe consequences for those students and for Texas.
Without a diploma, students are limited in their options for college and the work force. Those are the folks who tend to end up in minimum wage jobs, on welfare or in jail. They don't expand the tax base. They shrink it.
State higher education officials have told us we need tens of thousands more students in college and in job training to keep Texas competitive in the modern economy. That goal becomes ever more elusive if students are unable to obtain their high school diplomas.
There are several ways the Legislature can address the crisis. It starts with acknowledging the problem.
Debbie Graves Ratliffe, a TEA spokeswoman, suggested a voluntary registration system to help track those who don't pass the TAKS exit test. That would allow students to take the exam after they've left high school.
State Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, wants to replace the TAKS in middle and high school with an end-of-year course exam in various subjects. Shapiro is thinking about using such an exam as an exit test. Exit tests should not be used to determine graduation. Even students who graduate in the top of their class are denied diplomas if they flunk the TAKS.
The Legislature should create an alternative diploma for TAKS refugees to allow students who have repeatedly failed the exit exam to appeal their situations and satisfy requirements in other ways. They could do that, for instance, by passing certain remedial or basic courses at a community college. Legislators should take action to give the TAKS refugees academic shelter.
http://www.statesman.com/opinion/content/editorial/stories/01/2/2taks_edit.html
A New Year for School Reform
This piece takes at face value the positive trend of "nudging scores." It fails to take the dropout rate into consideration and how these trends also connect to it. Relentless myopia? Willful myopia? How many children we're losing, who are "getting disappeared" should be our real focus. -Angela
December 31, 2006
Editorial
A New Year for School Reform
The No Child Left Behind Act broke new ground when it required the states to educate impoverished children up to the same standards as their affluent counterparts, in exchange for federal aid. The law did not just drop out of the sky. It represented a deliberate attempt by Congress to ratify and accelerate the school reform effort that swept the country in the early 1990’s, when the states began to embrace standards-based accountability systems that quickly showed promising results.
The achievement gains have fallen far short of what Congress hoped for when it passed the landmark federal law — and also far short of what the country needs to keep pace with its economic rivals. In addition, student performance has flattened in recent years. In many cases, that is because states that reaped all of the early, easy gains that are typically achieved by merely paying attention to a long-neglected problem failed to do the tougher work necessary to sustain their reforms.
Recent studies offer sobering news about the challenges that lie ahead. Happily, there is also encouraging news from the states that have stayed the course and continued to build rigorous, standards-based reforms.
The value of the standards movement itself was underscored this year in an analysis that was part of Education Week magazine’s annual survey of student achievement. Analyzing student performance between 1992 and 2005, the study found clear signs of progress, especially in fourth-grade math performance, which had gone up nearly two grade levels since 1992. Black and Hispanic students, by the way, showed larger gains than their white counterparts over that same period. Had the scores of white students not risen at all, the progress by black and Hispanic students would have substantially erased the white-minority achievement gap.
The news was less heartening in reading performance, which inched up only about two points over the same time period. Even so, Education Week found that reading achievement for black, Hispanic and low-income fourth graders had risen at nearly three times the national average.
Low-income students still lag far behind their affluent counterparts. But the data in a subsequent study by the Fordham Foundation shows that states that commit to rigorous standards and accountability systems can make progress in this difficult area. The bad news is that only eight states even achieved what Fordham described as “moderate progress.”
Those states are: Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Washington and California. In California especially, statewide reforms (and, in Los Angeles, dynamic leadership by the former superintendent, Roy Romer) are clearly having an effect. These gains are tentative and will certainly evaporate if the states lose momentum. But they show that performance for low-income students can be nudged upward if states hew to rigorous reforms.
That bad news is that too few states are actually doing that.
With the easy achievement gains already behind us, the next level of progress will require rigorous systemic change. The states, for example, will need to adopt rigorous examinations that track the federal test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more closely. They will have to crack down on state teachers colleges that turn out poor graduates, and devise ways — including differential pay — to persuade highly qualified teachers to work in failing schools that they have historically avoided. To move forward, the country must also find new ways to support and transform failing schools, beyond labeling them failures and presuming that the stigma will inspire better performance.
These are difficult issues. But they are the ones that Congress needs to focus on as it moves toward reauthorizing No Child Left Behind.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/opinion/31sun2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
December 31, 2006
Editorial
A New Year for School Reform
The No Child Left Behind Act broke new ground when it required the states to educate impoverished children up to the same standards as their affluent counterparts, in exchange for federal aid. The law did not just drop out of the sky. It represented a deliberate attempt by Congress to ratify and accelerate the school reform effort that swept the country in the early 1990’s, when the states began to embrace standards-based accountability systems that quickly showed promising results.
The achievement gains have fallen far short of what Congress hoped for when it passed the landmark federal law — and also far short of what the country needs to keep pace with its economic rivals. In addition, student performance has flattened in recent years. In many cases, that is because states that reaped all of the early, easy gains that are typically achieved by merely paying attention to a long-neglected problem failed to do the tougher work necessary to sustain their reforms.
Recent studies offer sobering news about the challenges that lie ahead. Happily, there is also encouraging news from the states that have stayed the course and continued to build rigorous, standards-based reforms.
The value of the standards movement itself was underscored this year in an analysis that was part of Education Week magazine’s annual survey of student achievement. Analyzing student performance between 1992 and 2005, the study found clear signs of progress, especially in fourth-grade math performance, which had gone up nearly two grade levels since 1992. Black and Hispanic students, by the way, showed larger gains than their white counterparts over that same period. Had the scores of white students not risen at all, the progress by black and Hispanic students would have substantially erased the white-minority achievement gap.
The news was less heartening in reading performance, which inched up only about two points over the same time period. Even so, Education Week found that reading achievement for black, Hispanic and low-income fourth graders had risen at nearly three times the national average.
Low-income students still lag far behind their affluent counterparts. But the data in a subsequent study by the Fordham Foundation shows that states that commit to rigorous standards and accountability systems can make progress in this difficult area. The bad news is that only eight states even achieved what Fordham described as “moderate progress.”
Those states are: Delaware, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Texas, Washington and California. In California especially, statewide reforms (and, in Los Angeles, dynamic leadership by the former superintendent, Roy Romer) are clearly having an effect. These gains are tentative and will certainly evaporate if the states lose momentum. But they show that performance for low-income students can be nudged upward if states hew to rigorous reforms.
That bad news is that too few states are actually doing that.
With the easy achievement gains already behind us, the next level of progress will require rigorous systemic change. The states, for example, will need to adopt rigorous examinations that track the federal test, the National Assessment of Educational Progress, more closely. They will have to crack down on state teachers colleges that turn out poor graduates, and devise ways — including differential pay — to persuade highly qualified teachers to work in failing schools that they have historically avoided. To move forward, the country must also find new ways to support and transform failing schools, beyond labeling them failures and presuming that the stigma will inspire better performance.
These are difficult issues. But they are the ones that Congress needs to focus on as it moves toward reauthorizing No Child Left Behind.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/31/opinion/31sun2.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
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