by Morgan Smith | Texas Tribune
December 8, 2010
The biennial budget shortfall you’ve heard so much about — estimated to be anywhere from $13 billion to $28 billion — will require the Legislature to take a paring knife and possibly a machete to government agencies and programs. The largest single consumer of state dollars is public education, so it’s hard to imagine a scenario in which funding for teacher salaries, curricular materials and the like isn’t on the chopping block, especially if state lawmakers want to make good on their promises of no new taxes.
Nobody knows for sure how drastic the cuts will be until January, when the comptroller releases her revenue estimate and lawmakers unveil their starting budget. But one educated guess in November suggested school districts may have to prune between $3 billion and $5 billion from the more than $35 billion public ed budget, which represents just under 44 percent of the state’s general revenue spending. Where is that money going to come from?
First, expect fewer teachers in classrooms. For most Texas school districts, personnel costs — employee salaries and benefits — account for 80 percent to 90 percent of total expenses. While the goal for belt-tightening districts will be “to stay as far away from the children” as possible, says Wayne Pierce, the executive director of the Equity Center, which advocates for increased funding to districts, there’s only so much they can do without touching such a large chunk of their budget.
With the specter of the 2011 shortfall looming, many districts have already stripped what they can from administrative and custodial positions, he says. And delaying routine maintenance like fixing leaky roofs until better times can only take them so far. That leaves spending on teachers, which in turn means cutting salaries and, in some cases, eliminating positions. "You have to have electricity, you have to have gasoline for the buses, you have to have teaching supplies,” Pierce says. “So bottom line, you have to cut personnel.”
More cost savings could result from lawmakers lightening the regulatory burden on districts. “The Legislature says we're giving you less money, but we’re not going to make you do this, so you figure out how to spend it,” explains Sheryl Pace, a senior analyst at the Texas Taxpayers and Research Association.
For instance, state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, has proposed lifting the cap on class size. A state law passed in 1984 requires no greater than a 22-to-1 student-to-teacher ratio in the pre-kindergarten through the fourth grade. If the Legislature decided to temporarily remove that mandate, it would relieve districts from the burden of creating a new class with an additional teacher and classroom every time the number of students in the class hits 23 — something Patrick has said would save them “millions and millions of dollars.”
Teachers’ groups oppose that approach. They question whether the benefit will outweigh the detriment to students’ educational experience, and if it will actually help reduce costs. Districts can already apply for a waiver if they lack the space or qualified teachers to create a new class. Brock Gregg, a lobbyist with the Association of Texas Professional Educators, says his organization is “very focused” on making sure the lawmakers understand how essential small class sizes are to effective public education. “If cuts occur,” Gregg says, “the priority should be on keeping experienced, qualified teachers in front each teacher in an appropriate-sized class so students can receive individual attention.”
Another legislative mandate that could also be on the chopping block is the restriction placed on schools that want to fire teachers before their contracts expire. “Right now it’s very difficult for districts to reduce the number of teachers they employ,” Pace says. “If they want to lay off a teacher, they have go through multiple hearings, unless the district declares financial exigency." That proposal — unlike the class-size rethink, which has attracted the support of some superintendents and school boards — isn’t as popular politically. But if the cuts will be as large as some estimates, lawmakers may have to make it easier for districts to shed staff.
Of course, many in the education community hope that the Legislature will find a way to avoid narrowing their part of the budgetary pie. They shouldn’t get their hopes up, says state Rep. Scott Hochberg, D-Houston, the vice chairman of the House Public Education Committee. “If the numbers are the numbers that people are talking about, and there's no new revenue,” Hochberg says, “then I don't see how you avoid it unless you gut everything else.”
Hochberg believes, however, that lawmakers should look for ways to soften districts’ financial hardships without touching class size requirements. “There's awful lot that's unmandated that schools chose to do — from athletics to convocation centers to a whole host of other things,” he says. “It would seem to me that before you start cutting away the core education mission of school districts, you [should] look at what I consider to be extras."
For his own part, Hochberg has filed legislation to ease annual testing requirements for districts. While he says that won’t save much at the state level, it will save districts money at local level by cutting or eliminating the cost of test administration — and allow for less painful scrimping in other areas.
In the background of any conversation about cuts to education is the prospect of a new school finance bill from state Sen. Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, chairwoman of the Senate Public Education Committee, and state Rep. Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, chairman of the House Public Education Committee, who announced at a Texas Association of School Administrators conference on Dec. 1 their intention to propose legislation reforming the current system.
Developing a new way of allocating funds in the current financial climate is likely to mean less, not more, money for schools, Gregg says.
"It’s not a happy scenario for school districts, because it means that everyone may face cuts at the same time as funding streams are coming to them in a different way," he says. “It’s kind of a scary time.”
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
Class size limits, charter school caps may change as Texas looks to trim costs
This was an issue last session as well. A major counter argument to amending state code was that currently there are no instances where a few students over the maximum class size limit were forcing schools to create an entirely new class. Currently there is a safety net that allows schools in those situations to apply for a waiver. According to TEA, there are no records of any waivers ever being denied. SO school leaders that argue that the current class size limit policy is hurting schools needs to be probed deeper.
There is no data that shows that the current waiver/ school safety net is not enough. There's more going on here that isn't being aired out.
-Patricia
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
AUSTIN – The Senate Education Committee wants the Legislature to consider easing class size limits in elementary schools to save money and eliminating the cap on independent charter schools in Texas.
Several of the panel's recommendations for lawmakers' 2011 session would have far-reaching effects on public schools, such as a change in the strict class size limit of 22 pupils in kindergarten through fourth grade.
Teacher groups are gearing up to fight any tampering with the requirement, but those seeking change question whether the standard is as beneficial as when it was first enacted 25 years ago.
The class size standard is costly because every time a class in the five affected grade levels hits 23 or more students, a new class must be created with an additional teacher and classroom. So any statewide change could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars.
Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said recently that the No. 1 money-saving request from school superintendents is for revision of the standard. The change is being considered as lawmakers prepare to deal with a state revenue shortfall that could total as much as $24 billion over the next two years.
"They feel if we don't have any new money next year – which we probably won't – then, what can the Legislature do to eliminate some of the mandates that are the most cumbersome and costly. And 22-to-1 is at the top of the list," the senator said.
Teacher leaders insisted the 22-pupil limit has been critical to achievement gains for elementary students over the last two decades and vowed to oppose any effort to weaken or water down the standard.
The recommendation on charter schools would remove the cap of 215 charter school operators – a limit that has been in effect for several years. Republican lawmakers have generally favored the allowance of more charter schools, while Democrats have called for stronger state oversight of existing charter campuses.
Committee members also recommended that the state's Permanent School Fund be used to guarantee construction bonds for charter schools and that their state funding be increased to match what regular public schools receive.
The four Democrats on the committee voiced objections to some of the charter school recommendations, saying the state cannot commit more funding to charter schools at a time when regular public schools are facing possible cutbacks.
There is no data that shows that the current waiver/ school safety net is not enough. There's more going on here that isn't being aired out.
-Patricia
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
AUSTIN – The Senate Education Committee wants the Legislature to consider easing class size limits in elementary schools to save money and eliminating the cap on independent charter schools in Texas.
Several of the panel's recommendations for lawmakers' 2011 session would have far-reaching effects on public schools, such as a change in the strict class size limit of 22 pupils in kindergarten through fourth grade.
Teacher groups are gearing up to fight any tampering with the requirement, but those seeking change question whether the standard is as beneficial as when it was first enacted 25 years ago.
The class size standard is costly because every time a class in the five affected grade levels hits 23 or more students, a new class must be created with an additional teacher and classroom. So any statewide change could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars.
Senate Education Committee Chairwoman Florence Shapiro, R-Plano, said recently that the No. 1 money-saving request from school superintendents is for revision of the standard. The change is being considered as lawmakers prepare to deal with a state revenue shortfall that could total as much as $24 billion over the next two years.
"They feel if we don't have any new money next year – which we probably won't – then, what can the Legislature do to eliminate some of the mandates that are the most cumbersome and costly. And 22-to-1 is at the top of the list," the senator said.
Teacher leaders insisted the 22-pupil limit has been critical to achievement gains for elementary students over the last two decades and vowed to oppose any effort to weaken or water down the standard.
The recommendation on charter schools would remove the cap of 215 charter school operators – a limit that has been in effect for several years. Republican lawmakers have generally favored the allowance of more charter schools, while Democrats have called for stronger state oversight of existing charter campuses.
Committee members also recommended that the state's Permanent School Fund be used to guarantee construction bonds for charter schools and that their state funding be increased to match what regular public schools receive.
The four Democrats on the committee voiced objections to some of the charter school recommendations, saying the state cannot commit more funding to charter schools at a time when regular public schools are facing possible cutbacks.
Texas' new standardized STAAR tests will be tougher, longer
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
Thursday, December 2, 2010
AUSTIN – Texas students will have to answer more questions – and spend more time in class answering them – when the state's new student testing program is rolled out for the 2011-12 school year.
A preview of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, sent to school districts Wednesday also indicated that college and career readiness rather than minimum skills will be the focus for older students.
Students will have less opportunity to guess at multiple choice questions as more open-ended items appear on tests – particularly in math and science – requiring students to come up with original answers.
STAAR will replace the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills for students in grades three through 11. State education officials predicted that the test will "again raise the bar for Texas education."
"STAAR will represent a more unified, comprehensive assessment program that will incorporate more rigorous college and career readiness standards," a report from the Texas Education Agency states.
Among the key changes discussed in the report are:
•Assessments in most grades and subjects will be longer, and overall test difficulty will be increased by including more rigorous items.
•The rigor of items will be increased by measuring skills at a greater depth and level of complexity. That will help better evaluate the academic growth of higher-achieving students.
•Performance standards will be set so that they require a higher level of student competency than is now required on the TAKS.
•To make sure the tests are rigorous enough, student performance on STAAR will be compared with results on standardized national and international assessments.
The new testing program has a goal of putting Texas among the top 10 states for graduating college-ready students by the end of the decade.
All students in grades three through eight will be tested in reading and math, with students in specific grades also tested in science, social studies and writing.
In high school, students will take 12 end-of-course exams – three each in English, math, science and social studies. A student will have to earn a passing average in each subject area to receive a diploma. The STAAR end-of-course exams will be phased in with ninth-graders in the 2011-12 school year.
Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the education agency, said elementary and middle school students are now tested on only one subject per day each year. For example, a fourth-grader – being tested in math, reading and writing – takes three days of exams.
That will not increase under the STAAR test, but students will have more questions and those will be more difficult, causing students to spend more time finishing it. That means instead of most students finishing up by noon or shortly after, students will probably be working until early afternoon.
The tests will not be timed.
"Each successive testing program in Texas has gotten more challenging for students, and that's what will happen with the next generation of tests," Ratcliffe said.
High school students will take their end-of-course tests as they complete each subject, with the test counting as 15 percent of the final grade in the course.
Results from the STAAR will be used to calculate annual school and district performance ratings beginning in the summer of 2013.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
AUSTIN – Texas students will have to answer more questions – and spend more time in class answering them – when the state's new student testing program is rolled out for the 2011-12 school year.
A preview of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, sent to school districts Wednesday also indicated that college and career readiness rather than minimum skills will be the focus for older students.
Students will have less opportunity to guess at multiple choice questions as more open-ended items appear on tests – particularly in math and science – requiring students to come up with original answers.
STAAR will replace the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills for students in grades three through 11. State education officials predicted that the test will "again raise the bar for Texas education."
"STAAR will represent a more unified, comprehensive assessment program that will incorporate more rigorous college and career readiness standards," a report from the Texas Education Agency states.
Among the key changes discussed in the report are:
•Assessments in most grades and subjects will be longer, and overall test difficulty will be increased by including more rigorous items.
•The rigor of items will be increased by measuring skills at a greater depth and level of complexity. That will help better evaluate the academic growth of higher-achieving students.
•Performance standards will be set so that they require a higher level of student competency than is now required on the TAKS.
•To make sure the tests are rigorous enough, student performance on STAAR will be compared with results on standardized national and international assessments.
The new testing program has a goal of putting Texas among the top 10 states for graduating college-ready students by the end of the decade.
All students in grades three through eight will be tested in reading and math, with students in specific grades also tested in science, social studies and writing.
In high school, students will take 12 end-of-course exams – three each in English, math, science and social studies. A student will have to earn a passing average in each subject area to receive a diploma. The STAAR end-of-course exams will be phased in with ninth-graders in the 2011-12 school year.
Debbie Ratcliffe, a spokeswoman for the education agency, said elementary and middle school students are now tested on only one subject per day each year. For example, a fourth-grader – being tested in math, reading and writing – takes three days of exams.
That will not increase under the STAAR test, but students will have more questions and those will be more difficult, causing students to spend more time finishing it. That means instead of most students finishing up by noon or shortly after, students will probably be working until early afternoon.
The tests will not be timed.
"Each successive testing program in Texas has gotten more challenging for students, and that's what will happen with the next generation of tests," Ratcliffe said.
High school students will take their end-of-course tests as they complete each subject, with the test counting as 15 percent of the final grade in the course.
Results from the STAAR will be used to calculate annual school and district performance ratings beginning in the summer of 2013.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Conference Announcement sponsored by the University of Texas Center for Education Policy
The center that I direct at UT is sponsoring this event. More on this later. Stay tuned.
Angela Valenzuela
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Dr. Emilio Zamora wins Texas Philosophical Award for Best Book on Texas for 2010
I write to share wonderful news that Emilio Zamora won another major book award, this time from the Philosophical Society of Texas http://www.pstx.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=2&Itemid=8> for the best book for 2010, winning the best book in Texas for fiction and non-fiction. This is now the fourth award for his book, Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 2009). The other awards are from the Texas State Historical Association, the Texas Institute for Letters, and the Tejano Geneological Society, Austin, Texas. Were it not that he had already won the T.R. Fehrenbach award for The World of the Mexican Worker in Texas, he would have been a solid candidate for that one, too (inside info :-)
He receive the award in my hometown of San Angelo, Texas this past Saturday on December 4, 2010.
I’ve read this book. It is excellent and it’s a great Christmas gift and available for purchase at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Claiming+Rights+and+Righting+Wrongs+in+Texas&x=0&y=0
Emilio’s breadth of work and scholarship encourages the view that a forceful re-articulation of human and civil rights is the direction that we, too, must take for these times of deepening inequalities.
Angela Valenzuela
Texas Lawmakers Look to Cut Texas Education Budget
Check out the Comptroller's site for the Financial Allocation Study for Texas, that has information on WHO is involved in the discussion to develop a methodology to measure efficiency.
-Patricia
by Ben Philpott
December 3, 2010
Figuring out whether a school district spends money efficiently is hard. Variables like student population, ethnicity, income level and even district geography all figure in the answer. Allen Spelce, a spokesman for Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, says lawmakers soon will have a better picture.
"In 2009 the Legislature directed the comptroller's office to develop a method to compare school districts on a level playing field," Spelce says, "and to determine which districts and campuses allocate their financial resources in a manor that contributes to high academic achievement and cost-effective operations."
The study, to be released next week, will show how much bang schools and districts are getting for the education buck, and it should have enough detail that lawmakers can see what's working and what isn't in all districts — no matter how big or small, rural or urban. The report will be one of the main factors lawmakers use as they decide what has to be cut from the budget. "Where we get into trouble with efficiency is when you have a state system that's as inefficient as the current one is," says Ray Freeman, deputy executive director of the Equity Center, a school finance think tank. "And then you want to tell school districts they need to be more efficient."
Freeman believes the inefficiency is at the state level because the per-student funding amount varies wildly from district to district. Instead, he says, that pay scale should be made uniform, and then it will be easier to figure out which districts are being efficient. Freeman also worries whether all this talk of efficiency is just code for budget cuts — like not giving schools extra money to educate the thousands of new students who have moved to Texas in the last two years.
"The new students are going to be there regardless," he says, "and the school district's got to educate them. So it's essentially a budget cut if they don't recognize the fact that we're going to have thousands of new students to educate in the state."
The lawmakers who will write the state's education budget have already said they're working on a new school finance system, one that might provide funds for all those new students. But in a year of efficiencies and budget cuts, no one expects it to be much.
-Patricia
by Ben Philpott
December 3, 2010
Figuring out whether a school district spends money efficiently is hard. Variables like student population, ethnicity, income level and even district geography all figure in the answer. Allen Spelce, a spokesman for Texas Comptroller Susan Combs, says lawmakers soon will have a better picture.
"In 2009 the Legislature directed the comptroller's office to develop a method to compare school districts on a level playing field," Spelce says, "and to determine which districts and campuses allocate their financial resources in a manor that contributes to high academic achievement and cost-effective operations."
The study, to be released next week, will show how much bang schools and districts are getting for the education buck, and it should have enough detail that lawmakers can see what's working and what isn't in all districts — no matter how big or small, rural or urban. The report will be one of the main factors lawmakers use as they decide what has to be cut from the budget. "Where we get into trouble with efficiency is when you have a state system that's as inefficient as the current one is," says Ray Freeman, deputy executive director of the Equity Center, a school finance think tank. "And then you want to tell school districts they need to be more efficient."
Freeman believes the inefficiency is at the state level because the per-student funding amount varies wildly from district to district. Instead, he says, that pay scale should be made uniform, and then it will be easier to figure out which districts are being efficient. Freeman also worries whether all this talk of efficiency is just code for budget cuts — like not giving schools extra money to educate the thousands of new students who have moved to Texas in the last two years.
"The new students are going to be there regardless," he says, "and the school district's got to educate them. So it's essentially a budget cut if they don't recognize the fact that we're going to have thousands of new students to educate in the state."
The lawmakers who will write the state's education budget have already said they're working on a new school finance system, one that might provide funds for all those new students. But in a year of efficiencies and budget cuts, no one expects it to be much.
UT System officials spell out plans for Valley vision Officials hope to expand academic and health offerings.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, Dec. 3, 2010
"Plant the flag."
That's how University of Texas System Regents Gene Powell and Robert Stillwell put it a year ago when they summed up what the state's largest university system ought to do in the Rio Grande Valley. Their point was that the system should plan to dramatically expand its academic and health offerings in the fast-growing region, which has long been a stepchild when it comes to higher education.
They might have been preaching to the converted. Regents with ties to South Texas include Janiece Longoria, who grew up in Pharr, and Colleen McHugh, who lives in Corpus Christi and leads the board. The system's chancellor, Francisco Cigarroa, grew up in Laredo and expanded health programs in South Texas when he was president of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.
On Friday, at a retreat in Austin, system officials outlined their progress to the Board of Regents. The efforts don't amount to a planting of the flag, but that moment might come in February, when the officials plan to ask the board for permission and money to begin the initial steps of a 10-year vision they are developing.
"This is ambitious. This is long term," said David Prior, the system's executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Cigarroa said he hopes to come up with $4 million to $5 million for hiring faculty members in science, technology, engineering and math at UT-Brownsville and UT-Pan American. He said the money likely would come from system endowments and savings from debt restructuring and other cost-cutting measures. Communities in the Valley would be asked to match the system's contribution dollar for dollar through donations and other means, he said.
The system is working on a parallel track to ramp up its health programs in the region. It already operates three satellite medical campuses — known collectively as the Regional Academic Health Center — in Harlingen, Brownsville and Edinburg. The largest unit, at Harlingen, has 50 medical students from San Antonio in clinical rotations. Cigarroa hopes to double that.
Hospitals in the Valley have agreed to provide 127 new residency slots for freshly minted doctors undergoing additional training, said Kenneth Shine, the system's executive vice chancellor for health affairs.
One long-term goal is a full-fledged medical school in the Valley. State lawmakers approved a measure last year that authorizes — but stops short of requiring — the UT regents to establish a medical school in Cameron County, whose major cities are Brownsville and Harlingen. But with the state facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, it's unlikely that the Legislature would allocate significant funds for such a venture anytime soon.
Friday, Dec. 3, 2010
"Plant the flag."
That's how University of Texas System Regents Gene Powell and Robert Stillwell put it a year ago when they summed up what the state's largest university system ought to do in the Rio Grande Valley. Their point was that the system should plan to dramatically expand its academic and health offerings in the fast-growing region, which has long been a stepchild when it comes to higher education.
They might have been preaching to the converted. Regents with ties to South Texas include Janiece Longoria, who grew up in Pharr, and Colleen McHugh, who lives in Corpus Christi and leads the board. The system's chancellor, Francisco Cigarroa, grew up in Laredo and expanded health programs in South Texas when he was president of the UT Health Science Center at San Antonio.
On Friday, at a retreat in Austin, system officials outlined their progress to the Board of Regents. The efforts don't amount to a planting of the flag, but that moment might come in February, when the officials plan to ask the board for permission and money to begin the initial steps of a 10-year vision they are developing.
"This is ambitious. This is long term," said David Prior, the system's executive vice chancellor for academic affairs.
Cigarroa said he hopes to come up with $4 million to $5 million for hiring faculty members in science, technology, engineering and math at UT-Brownsville and UT-Pan American. He said the money likely would come from system endowments and savings from debt restructuring and other cost-cutting measures. Communities in the Valley would be asked to match the system's contribution dollar for dollar through donations and other means, he said.
The system is working on a parallel track to ramp up its health programs in the region. It already operates three satellite medical campuses — known collectively as the Regional Academic Health Center — in Harlingen, Brownsville and Edinburg. The largest unit, at Harlingen, has 50 medical students from San Antonio in clinical rotations. Cigarroa hopes to double that.
Hospitals in the Valley have agreed to provide 127 new residency slots for freshly minted doctors undergoing additional training, said Kenneth Shine, the system's executive vice chancellor for health affairs.
One long-term goal is a full-fledged medical school in the Valley. State lawmakers approved a measure last year that authorizes — but stops short of requiring — the UT regents to establish a medical school in Cameron County, whose major cities are Brownsville and Harlingen. But with the state facing a multibillion-dollar budget shortfall, it's unlikely that the Legislature would allocate significant funds for such a venture anytime soon.
San Antonio activists draw national attention
By Melissa Ludwig
Friday, December 3, 2010
Hunger strikes and civil disobedience by San Antonio activists has become the talk of the nation among supporters of the DREAM Act, according to the League of United Latin American Citizens.
As of Friday, a Methodist minister was still in the Bexar County Jail and a group of activists was on the 24th day of a hunger strike, actions intended to pressure Congress into voting on the measure during the lame-duck session.
The Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith, 41, was one of 16 activists arrested Monday night after refusing to leave the local office of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Smith chose not to post bond and to stay in custody until Congress brings the DREAM Act to a vote.
Brent Wilkes, national executive director for LULAC, said news of the actions has made national waves, inspiring hundreds — including himself — to join the hunger strike.
“In Washington, D.C., everyone is talking about what the San Antonio students are doing,” Wilkes said. “I think it's incredible.”
The act would give immigrants brought to the country illegally as children a path to citizenship if they complete two years of college or military service and have “good moral character.”
The House is expected to vote on the act next week, but passage in the Senate is an uphill battle.
Some conservatives have called the act an unfair amnesty, and Republican senators have complained it is too broad.
To address Republicans' concerns, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., introduced a more restrictive version Tuesday that tightens the definition of “good moral character,” lowers the age cap for eligible applicants from 35 to 30 and forces illegal immigrants to pay out-of-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
It also extends the probationary period for obtaining permanent residency to 10 years and adds another three years before the immigrants can apply for citizenship.
Passage of the DREAM Act would result in a $1.4 billion reduction of the federal deficit from 2011-2020, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Thursday, although organizations opposed to the bill dispute that figure.
Hutchison is among a few Republican senators considered a “swing vote” on the DREAM Act because she had supported it at one time. After the arrests in San Antonio, activists had sit-ins at Hutchison's offices in Houston, Austin and Harlingen, according to local strikers.
On Friday, she said she remains opposed to the bill. “The protesters' tactics are not persuasive, and the senator hopes that hunger strikes and demonstrations will not be used for legislation that must have a consensus that cannot be achieved in this manner,” according to a statement from her press secretary.
The core group of activists — most of them students at the University of Texas at San Antonio — led a community meeting Thursday night at the downtown campus to plan events for the weekend and Monday.
“You all are the future demographic of this state, and this is not a controversial issue for your generation,” said Walter Wilson, a UTSA political science professor.
Subsisting on juice and water, the strikers are nearing the point where the lack of food could take a serious toll on their bodies, said Joseph Huerta, a nutritional consultant caring for the strikers.
As of Friday, Smith was on the ninth day of a hunger strike and has attracted nightly vigils outside the jail since her arrest.
“She has never been to jail before, but she has always stood up for what she believes,” said her 17-year-old son, Derek Smith. “I am proud of her.”
Friday, December 3, 2010
Hunger strikes and civil disobedience by San Antonio activists has become the talk of the nation among supporters of the DREAM Act, according to the League of United Latin American Citizens.
As of Friday, a Methodist minister was still in the Bexar County Jail and a group of activists was on the 24th day of a hunger strike, actions intended to pressure Congress into voting on the measure during the lame-duck session.
The Rev. Lorenza Andrade Smith, 41, was one of 16 activists arrested Monday night after refusing to leave the local office of U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Smith chose not to post bond and to stay in custody until Congress brings the DREAM Act to a vote.
Brent Wilkes, national executive director for LULAC, said news of the actions has made national waves, inspiring hundreds — including himself — to join the hunger strike.
“In Washington, D.C., everyone is talking about what the San Antonio students are doing,” Wilkes said. “I think it's incredible.”
The act would give immigrants brought to the country illegally as children a path to citizenship if they complete two years of college or military service and have “good moral character.”
The House is expected to vote on the act next week, but passage in the Senate is an uphill battle.
Some conservatives have called the act an unfair amnesty, and Republican senators have complained it is too broad.
To address Republicans' concerns, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., introduced a more restrictive version Tuesday that tightens the definition of “good moral character,” lowers the age cap for eligible applicants from 35 to 30 and forces illegal immigrants to pay out-of-state tuition at public colleges and universities.
It also extends the probationary period for obtaining permanent residency to 10 years and adds another three years before the immigrants can apply for citizenship.
Passage of the DREAM Act would result in a $1.4 billion reduction of the federal deficit from 2011-2020, according to a Congressional Budget Office report released Thursday, although organizations opposed to the bill dispute that figure.
Hutchison is among a few Republican senators considered a “swing vote” on the DREAM Act because she had supported it at one time. After the arrests in San Antonio, activists had sit-ins at Hutchison's offices in Houston, Austin and Harlingen, according to local strikers.
On Friday, she said she remains opposed to the bill. “The protesters' tactics are not persuasive, and the senator hopes that hunger strikes and demonstrations will not be used for legislation that must have a consensus that cannot be achieved in this manner,” according to a statement from her press secretary.
The core group of activists — most of them students at the University of Texas at San Antonio — led a community meeting Thursday night at the downtown campus to plan events for the weekend and Monday.
“You all are the future demographic of this state, and this is not a controversial issue for your generation,” said Walter Wilson, a UTSA political science professor.
Subsisting on juice and water, the strikers are nearing the point where the lack of food could take a serious toll on their bodies, said Joseph Huerta, a nutritional consultant caring for the strikers.
As of Friday, Smith was on the ninth day of a hunger strike and has attracted nightly vigils outside the jail since her arrest.
“She has never been to jail before, but she has always stood up for what she believes,” said her 17-year-old son, Derek Smith. “I am proud of her.”
Farmers Branch to discuss possibly forming its own school district
our long-term success and our quality of life" divisive and far left-leaning."
I'll stop there.
-Patricia
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Farmers Branch City Council intends to explore options on whether the city can form its own school district in the wake of criticism surrounding a LULAC mentoring program.
Mayor Tim O'Hare told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) on Friday that the intent is to explore whether the city can "remove itself from both the Carrollton-Farmers Branch and Dallas Independent School Districts and to form our own school district."
An executive session item on Tuesday's council meeting agenda lists discussion of potential litigation against public school districts within the boundaries of the city of Farmers Branch.
No one was available at City Hall to comment late Friday afternoon. But in O'Hare's statement to Channel 8, the mayor said that the council would meet with a lawyer who specializes in school district matters.
"We may also receive legal advice regarding legal and legislative options available to the city to address the concerns of residents, past and present, about the effect the current public school districts serving Farmers Branch have on our long-term success and our quality of life," he said
O'Hare has criticized the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district for allowing a chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens to mentor students at Carrollton's R.L. Turner High School, which is also attended by students in Farmers Branch.
LULAC activists were a fixture in protests in this suburb over a renters ordinance that sought to bar illegal immigrants from rental housing. The ordinance was ruled unconstitutional by a Dallas federal judge, but the city is appealing the ruling.
The mentoring program was started last September by LULAC Council 4782 to combat the dropout rate in public schools and to encourage students to advance their higher education. O'Hare and council member Michelle Holmes have questioned the involvement of LULAC, saying no political organization should be invited in the public school system to mentor schoolchildren.
O'Hare called LULAC "divisive and far left-leaning in their political view."
Victoria Neave, an attorney who runs the LULAC mentoring program, said the chapter would continue its work at R.L. Turner. It received a two-year, $20,000 grant for dropout prevention work from Ford Motor Co.
"We will continue to do what we are doing. Our program is successful. What is discussed in the media is going to continue to push our students to do better, and we'll proceed with our grant for the next two years," Neave said.
The Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board discussed the mentoring program and its value Thursday night but took no action. LULAC Council 4782 is a 5-year-old chapter headed by Gloria Levario, a health care consultant.
The city has spent nearly $4 million defending itself from litigation in the last four years.
I'll stop there.
-Patricia
Saturday, December 4, 2010
The Farmers Branch City Council intends to explore options on whether the city can form its own school district in the wake of criticism surrounding a LULAC mentoring program.
Mayor Tim O'Hare told WFAA-TV (Channel 8) on Friday that the intent is to explore whether the city can "remove itself from both the Carrollton-Farmers Branch and Dallas Independent School Districts and to form our own school district."
An executive session item on Tuesday's council meeting agenda lists discussion of potential litigation against public school districts within the boundaries of the city of Farmers Branch.
No one was available at City Hall to comment late Friday afternoon. But in O'Hare's statement to Channel 8, the mayor said that the council would meet with a lawyer who specializes in school district matters.
"We may also receive legal advice regarding legal and legislative options available to the city to address the concerns of residents, past and present, about the effect the current public school districts serving Farmers Branch have on our long-term success and our quality of life," he said
O'Hare has criticized the Carrollton-Farmers Branch school district for allowing a chapter of the League of United Latin American Citizens to mentor students at Carrollton's R.L. Turner High School, which is also attended by students in Farmers Branch.
LULAC activists were a fixture in protests in this suburb over a renters ordinance that sought to bar illegal immigrants from rental housing. The ordinance was ruled unconstitutional by a Dallas federal judge, but the city is appealing the ruling.
The mentoring program was started last September by LULAC Council 4782 to combat the dropout rate in public schools and to encourage students to advance their higher education. O'Hare and council member Michelle Holmes have questioned the involvement of LULAC, saying no political organization should be invited in the public school system to mentor schoolchildren.
O'Hare called LULAC "divisive and far left-leaning in their political view."
Victoria Neave, an attorney who runs the LULAC mentoring program, said the chapter would continue its work at R.L. Turner. It received a two-year, $20,000 grant for dropout prevention work from Ford Motor Co.
"We will continue to do what we are doing. Our program is successful. What is discussed in the media is going to continue to push our students to do better, and we'll proceed with our grant for the next two years," Neave said.
The Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board discussed the mentoring program and its value Thursday night but took no action. LULAC Council 4782 is a 5-year-old chapter headed by Gloria Levario, a health care consultant.
The city has spent nearly $4 million defending itself from litigation in the last four years.
Saturday, December 04, 2010
UT students protest proposed budget cuts
Students chant in the University of Texas' Main Building to protest proposed budget cuts to programs within UT's College of Liberal Arts on Wednesday. About 150 students and faculty members participated in a 2 1/2-hour rally. See more photos of the protest with this story at statesman.com.
African American and Mexican American centers to get partial reprieve, officials say.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 10:55 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010
Students protesting proposed budget reductions for ethnic studies at the University of Texas waved signs, chanted slogans, delivered speeches and marched into two campus buildings Wednesday.
UT police officials estimated that 150 people participated in the rally. UT officials described the protesters, who included some faculty members, as peaceful. There were no arrests.
Still, protesters' feelings ran fairly hot on a campus where challenges to the administration tend to be low key, in contrast with some University of California schools, where rallies in recent months against tuition increases have turned violent, and in sharp contrast with Italy, where police in riot gear tangled Tuesday with students upset about tuition increases and education cutbacks.
Among the signs and chants at UT: "Let's just face it. These budget cuts are racist."
The protesters focused on proposed cuts for a dozen or so centers and institutes dealing with ethnic, women's and gender studies at UT's College of Liberal Arts. Jerome Bump, an English professor, said he was surprised when a college faculty panel recommended cuts for African American and Mexican American studies. He noted that the administration has pushed to increase diversity in student, faculty and staff ranks in recent years, and he said the budget proposals undercut that commitment.
Kaye Crawford, a senior majoring in African studies, agreed. "If you are recruiting these students and then you tell them that their heritage and the teaching of that heritage is not important, it sends all of us a mixed message," Crawford said.
Richard Flores, senior associate dean of academic affairs for the College of Liberal Arts , said officials plan to scale back the proposed cuts for the Center for African and African American Studies and the Center for Mexican American Studies. Flores said UT President William Powers Jr. had previously told college officials that the proposed cuts — 41 percent for each of those units — were too deep for programs that are priorities for UT.
The College of Liberal Arts, UT's largest academic unit, is in belt-tightening mode because state leaders have ordered universities and state agencies to trim spending by 5 percent in the current budget and submit plans for an additional 10 percent cut for the two-year budget period that begins in September 2011.
The college's portion of the spending reductions amounts to $3.3 million, Flores said. To allow for merit pay increases of 1 or 2 percent, officials want to reduce spending by $3.75 million.
African American and Mexican American centers to get partial reprieve, officials say.
By Ralph K.M. Haurwitz | AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Updated: 10:55 p.m. Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2010
Students protesting proposed budget reductions for ethnic studies at the University of Texas waved signs, chanted slogans, delivered speeches and marched into two campus buildings Wednesday.
UT police officials estimated that 150 people participated in the rally. UT officials described the protesters, who included some faculty members, as peaceful. There were no arrests.
Still, protesters' feelings ran fairly hot on a campus where challenges to the administration tend to be low key, in contrast with some University of California schools, where rallies in recent months against tuition increases have turned violent, and in sharp contrast with Italy, where police in riot gear tangled Tuesday with students upset about tuition increases and education cutbacks.
Among the signs and chants at UT: "Let's just face it. These budget cuts are racist."
The protesters focused on proposed cuts for a dozen or so centers and institutes dealing with ethnic, women's and gender studies at UT's College of Liberal Arts. Jerome Bump, an English professor, said he was surprised when a college faculty panel recommended cuts for African American and Mexican American studies. He noted that the administration has pushed to increase diversity in student, faculty and staff ranks in recent years, and he said the budget proposals undercut that commitment.
Kaye Crawford, a senior majoring in African studies, agreed. "If you are recruiting these students and then you tell them that their heritage and the teaching of that heritage is not important, it sends all of us a mixed message," Crawford said.
Richard Flores, senior associate dean of academic affairs for the College of Liberal Arts , said officials plan to scale back the proposed cuts for the Center for African and African American Studies and the Center for Mexican American Studies. Flores said UT President William Powers Jr. had previously told college officials that the proposed cuts — 41 percent for each of those units — were too deep for programs that are priorities for UT.
The College of Liberal Arts, UT's largest academic unit, is in belt-tightening mode because state leaders have ordered universities and state agencies to trim spending by 5 percent in the current budget and submit plans for an additional 10 percent cut for the two-year budget period that begins in September 2011.
The college's portion of the spending reductions amounts to $3.3 million, Flores said. To allow for merit pay increases of 1 or 2 percent, officials want to reduce spending by $3.75 million.
Reid moves forward on DREAM Act
Please check out the new links added to this blog on the right-hand sidebar. They were complied and provided by DREAM Act advocates hard at work to get out the word.
-Patricia
By SCOTT WONG | 11/30/10 5:16 PM EST
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would file a motion Tuesday so the Senate could take up the DREAM Act, setting up a showdown over the immigration bill that would provide some young, undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Reid vowed earlier this month to hold votes on the standalone immigration bill during the lame-duck session. But Reid has been unable to hold together his 58-member caucus, and it’s uncertain if he’ll be able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.
Already, Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas said they will not vote for cloture on the bill. But Republican Sens. Dick Lugar of Indiana and Bob Bennett, who was defeated in his Utah primary race, have signaled they will vote for the DREAM Act.
At this point, pro-immigration activists, Reid and other Democrats are courting a handful of other moderate Republicans, including Sens. George Lemieux (Fla.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) and Scott Brown (Mass.).
Lemieux, who is retiring from the Senate, told POLITICO on Tuesday that Democrats couldn’t count on his vote until a deal is reached on extending Bush-era tax cuts and the border is secured.
“There are ways to stop illegal immigration,” said Lemieux, who recently toured the Arizona-Mexico border with Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). “If we could do a significant border security measure, then I’d be willing to talk about the situation of these kids who are brought here through no fault of their own. But until we do that, I’m not supportive.”
Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Brown, indicated his opposition: "Senator Brown is opposed to illegal immigration and is opposed to amnesty. The DREAM Act is backdoor amnesty. Senator Brown believes that reforms should be made to streamline the process for those who are seeking citizenship through the legal-and-proper channels."
The DREAM Act, sponsored by Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), would open up a channel for citizenship to immigrants who were illegally brought to the United States as children. To qualify for legalization, immigrants must have entered the U.S. before age 16, lived in the country at least five consecutive years before the bill’s enactment; been admitted to a college or earned a high-school diploma or GED certificate; and should have no serious criminal record.
Those who receive conditional resident status would need to attend college or serve in the military at least two years. More than 2.1 million illegal immigrants could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act, but only about 825,000 would likely receive citizenship, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has been heading up GOP opposition to the bill, arguing that it offers “amnesty” to those who have broken the law and encourages more illegal immigration.
Reid’s cloture motion comes as the Obama administration, immigration advocates and some faith leaders engage in a full-court press to pass the bill. Cabinet members, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, have been lobbying lawmakers and speaking with reporters, urging passage of the DREAM Act. And Hispanic and immigration groups are targeting moderate and retiring senators.
“The issue is being taken seriously by both sides of the aisle,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which backs the DREAM Act and advocates for immigrant rights. “This is really going to come down to: Are Republicans going to stand in the way of the DREAM Act? The ball is very much in their court, and the country’s fastest-growing electorate is watching them very closely.”
-Patricia
By SCOTT WONG | 11/30/10 5:16 PM EST
Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he would file a motion Tuesday so the Senate could take up the DREAM Act, setting up a showdown over the immigration bill that would provide some young, undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship.
Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Reid vowed earlier this month to hold votes on the standalone immigration bill during the lame-duck session. But Reid has been unable to hold together his 58-member caucus, and it’s uncertain if he’ll be able to get the 60 votes needed to overcome a GOP filibuster.
Already, Democratic Sens. Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Mark Pryor of Arkansas said they will not vote for cloture on the bill. But Republican Sens. Dick Lugar of Indiana and Bob Bennett, who was defeated in his Utah primary race, have signaled they will vote for the DREAM Act.
At this point, pro-immigration activists, Reid and other Democrats are courting a handful of other moderate Republicans, including Sens. George Lemieux (Fla.), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas) and Scott Brown (Mass.).
Lemieux, who is retiring from the Senate, told POLITICO on Tuesday that Democrats couldn’t count on his vote until a deal is reached on extending Bush-era tax cuts and the border is secured.
“There are ways to stop illegal immigration,” said Lemieux, who recently toured the Arizona-Mexico border with Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). “If we could do a significant border security measure, then I’d be willing to talk about the situation of these kids who are brought here through no fault of their own. But until we do that, I’m not supportive.”
Gail Gitcho, a spokeswoman for Brown, indicated his opposition: "Senator Brown is opposed to illegal immigration and is opposed to amnesty. The DREAM Act is backdoor amnesty. Senator Brown believes that reforms should be made to streamline the process for those who are seeking citizenship through the legal-and-proper channels."
The DREAM Act, sponsored by Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), would open up a channel for citizenship to immigrants who were illegally brought to the United States as children. To qualify for legalization, immigrants must have entered the U.S. before age 16, lived in the country at least five consecutive years before the bill’s enactment; been admitted to a college or earned a high-school diploma or GED certificate; and should have no serious criminal record.
Those who receive conditional resident status would need to attend college or serve in the military at least two years. More than 2.1 million illegal immigrants could be eligible to apply for legal status under the DREAM Act, but only about 825,000 would likely receive citizenship, according to an analysis by the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute.
Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee, has been heading up GOP opposition to the bill, arguing that it offers “amnesty” to those who have broken the law and encourages more illegal immigration.
Reid’s cloture motion comes as the Obama administration, immigration advocates and some faith leaders engage in a full-court press to pass the bill. Cabinet members, including Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, have been lobbying lawmakers and speaking with reporters, urging passage of the DREAM Act. And Hispanic and immigration groups are targeting moderate and retiring senators.
“The issue is being taken seriously by both sides of the aisle,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, which backs the DREAM Act and advocates for immigrant rights. “This is really going to come down to: Are Republicans going to stand in the way of the DREAM Act? The ball is very much in their court, and the country’s fastest-growing electorate is watching them very closely.”
Keeping Obama to His Word
Rep. Luis Gutierrez is a hero to many Hispanics. He says he won't change his methods, no matter who gets irritated.
by Arian Campo-Flores
Newsweek (November 29, 2010)
(November 29, 2010) Once you've made a promise to U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, it's a bad idea to break it. Because if you do, he'll call you on it, and then he'll broadcast your perfidy incessantly, with every megaphone he can get his hands on, to anyone who will listen. Just ask President Barack Obama, who failed to keep his word on tackling immigration reform in his first year in office. Though the two Chicago Democrats were once close, Gutierrez has spent much of the past two years badgering the president on the issue. "He was clear in his commitment to me," says Gutierrez. And yet "everything has been enforcement, enforcement, enforcement"-more deportations of undocumented immigrants, more troops |on the border.
"How," asks Gutierrez, "is this different from what George W. Bush did?" Gutierrez, 56, is the most passionate, tireless, and nettlesome voice in Congress on immigration matters. He's a constant presence at rallies and on TV, defending the undocumented and railing against xenophobia. It's no surprise that a recent Pew Hispanic Center survey ranked him the second-most-important Latino leader in the country, after Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "He's as close as the Latino community has to a Martin Luther King figure," says Frank Sharry, founder of the pro-immigrant group America's Voice. Yet Gutierrez's tactics are controversial. While many admire his tenacity and credit him with keeping immigration reform alive, others, including members of the Obama administration, believe his confrontational style can be counterproductive. He sees things more simply. "I have only one loyalty," he says, "and that's to the immigrant community."
Gutierrez has now embarked on his latest campaign: to secure quick passage of the DREAM Act, which would legalize undocumented youths who attend college or serve in the military. With a Republican takeover of the House imminent, the lame-duck session of Congress offers the last chance (for a while, at least) to get it done. It won't be easy, given the noxious atmosphere in Washington. Yet Gutierrez has already launched a nationwide tour of churches to rally immigrants and their supporters, and has begun rounding up votes in the House. Two weeks ago, he and a few other lawmakers met with Obama at the White House. "We want you to put everything you can behind this," he says they told the president. Obama agreed to help-by, among other things, placing personal calls to wavering lawmakers.
Gutierrez's first stop on his church tour was St. Brigid's in Brooklyn a week ago. Joined by Rep. Nydia Velázquez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and other elected officials, he was received with adulation by the hundreds of people packed in the pews. His speeches at events like these-delivered in a stentorian voice, despite his slight physique-resemble revivalist sermons. He started off softly, then crescendoed to ear-splitting decibels, jabbing his index finger toward the heavens. "The other side is waiting for us to get tired!" Gutierrez thundered in Spanish. "Is anyone here tired?" "No!" the audience roared back.
The son of Puerto Rican parents, Gutierrez has long had a fiery streak. He was a student leader and community organizer before entering politics, first as an alderman and then a congressman representing a majority-Latino district. Though he's about to start his 10th term, Gutierrez's activist roots still show. Within weeks of Obama's taking office, he set off on a 30-city tour to highlight the stories of families split apart by deportations and to pressure the administration to take on immigration reform. One year later, with things at a standstill, Gutierrez turned more adversarial. He said Hispanics were becoming angry and disillusioned, and were losing patience with the president.
In May of this year, he was arrested at an immigration protest in front of the White House. The following month, he threatened to urge Latinos to sit out the midterm elections if Democrats didn't act on immigration reform. "In any movement, you need agitators," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, which has pushed for reform. "I frankly admire him for having the courage to take on friends and allies." That sentiment isn't shared by many in the administration. Gutierrez clashed repeatedly with Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, whom he considered a prime impediment to an immigration overhaul.
Another administration official, who didn't want to be named to avoid exacerbating tensions, complains that Gutierrez "has contributed to the flawed impression that the president can do this by himself"-when, in fact, he depends on Congress to move legislation. "It saddens me ... that [the president] and I have had these very public differences," says Gutierrez. It's quite a turnaround for the two men. When Obama was a freshman U.S. senator, he used to call Gutierrez regularly for advice. When he decided to run for president, he sought Gutierrez's endorsement early on-and got it. "There was a time when I was the only elected Latino that was for him. They were all for Hillary [Clinton]," says Gutierrez. "I love him. I want him to do well ... But I have to be true to what I believe in." (Cecilia Muñoz, a White House point person on immigration, calls Gutierrez "an important moral voice" and says that he and the president "are on the same side of the issue.") Outside the administration, some backers of immigration reform also have misgivings about Gutierrez's approach. He "transformed what had been a narrow policy issue into a litmus-test identity issue for Hispanics, and that made the debate a whole different ball game," says
Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA, a coalition of business groups that rely on immigrant labor. Gutierrez is "incredibly effective at what he does ... [But] there's part of me that always gets a little worried about identity politics." Still, Gutierrez has a track record of pragmatism, too. He took flak from some advocates for including strict enforcement provisions in an immigration bill he crafted with Republican Rep. Jeff Flake in 2007 (it didn't pass). "He can go from being a bomb thrower to being a dealmaker," says Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress. "That's a pretty important bilingual ability."
Gutierrez's promotion of the DREAM Act is itself a compromise. Pro-immigrant forces agonized over whether to abandon the fight for a comprehensive bill in favor of a narrower one that would benefit only a slice of the undocumented population. In the end, they concluded that only the DREAM Act had a real chance. Gutierrez thinks the measure can prevail in the House. The bigger challenge is in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to bring the bill to the floor in the next few weeks.
Given the need for 60 votes to break a filibuster and the likely defection of a handful of Democrats, the measure's backers need to win over at least a half dozen Republicans-a tall order these days. But seven current Senate GOP members voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, and a few others who are retiring aren't considered hardliners. The immigrant movement will face a much more adverse climate in Congress next year. As a result, Gutierrez is trying to redirect its energy toward a different end: persuading Obama to use his executive powers to stop the deportation of law-abiding illegal immigrants.
To ratchet up the pressure, Gutierrez is encouraging acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. "We cannot be a slave to the legislative process," he says. "That's what we've done, and it hasn't served us very well." Given that some Republican lawmakers have made clear they plan to use their newfound power to crack down even more on illegal immigrants, "the next couple of years are going to be an extraordinary battle," says Rosenberg. Gutierrez's "voice will be needed more than ever." And you can be certain you'll hear it.
by Arian Campo-Flores
Newsweek (November 29, 2010)
(November 29, 2010) Once you've made a promise to U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, it's a bad idea to break it. Because if you do, he'll call you on it, and then he'll broadcast your perfidy incessantly, with every megaphone he can get his hands on, to anyone who will listen. Just ask President Barack Obama, who failed to keep his word on tackling immigration reform in his first year in office. Though the two Chicago Democrats were once close, Gutierrez has spent much of the past two years badgering the president on the issue. "He was clear in his commitment to me," says Gutierrez. And yet "everything has been enforcement, enforcement, enforcement"-more deportations of undocumented immigrants, more troops |on the border.
"How," asks Gutierrez, "is this different from what George W. Bush did?" Gutierrez, 56, is the most passionate, tireless, and nettlesome voice in Congress on immigration matters. He's a constant presence at rallies and on TV, defending the undocumented and railing against xenophobia. It's no surprise that a recent Pew Hispanic Center survey ranked him the second-most-important Latino leader in the country, after Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. "He's as close as the Latino community has to a Martin Luther King figure," says Frank Sharry, founder of the pro-immigrant group America's Voice. Yet Gutierrez's tactics are controversial. While many admire his tenacity and credit him with keeping immigration reform alive, others, including members of the Obama administration, believe his confrontational style can be counterproductive. He sees things more simply. "I have only one loyalty," he says, "and that's to the immigrant community."
Gutierrez has now embarked on his latest campaign: to secure quick passage of the DREAM Act, which would legalize undocumented youths who attend college or serve in the military. With a Republican takeover of the House imminent, the lame-duck session of Congress offers the last chance (for a while, at least) to get it done. It won't be easy, given the noxious atmosphere in Washington. Yet Gutierrez has already launched a nationwide tour of churches to rally immigrants and their supporters, and has begun rounding up votes in the House. Two weeks ago, he and a few other lawmakers met with Obama at the White House. "We want you to put everything you can behind this," he says they told the president. Obama agreed to help-by, among other things, placing personal calls to wavering lawmakers.
Gutierrez's first stop on his church tour was St. Brigid's in Brooklyn a week ago. Joined by Rep. Nydia Velázquez, chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and other elected officials, he was received with adulation by the hundreds of people packed in the pews. His speeches at events like these-delivered in a stentorian voice, despite his slight physique-resemble revivalist sermons. He started off softly, then crescendoed to ear-splitting decibels, jabbing his index finger toward the heavens. "The other side is waiting for us to get tired!" Gutierrez thundered in Spanish. "Is anyone here tired?" "No!" the audience roared back.
The son of Puerto Rican parents, Gutierrez has long had a fiery streak. He was a student leader and community organizer before entering politics, first as an alderman and then a congressman representing a majority-Latino district. Though he's about to start his 10th term, Gutierrez's activist roots still show. Within weeks of Obama's taking office, he set off on a 30-city tour to highlight the stories of families split apart by deportations and to pressure the administration to take on immigration reform. One year later, with things at a standstill, Gutierrez turned more adversarial. He said Hispanics were becoming angry and disillusioned, and were losing patience with the president.
In May of this year, he was arrested at an immigration protest in front of the White House. The following month, he threatened to urge Latinos to sit out the midterm elections if Democrats didn't act on immigration reform. "In any movement, you need agitators," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, which has pushed for reform. "I frankly admire him for having the courage to take on friends and allies." That sentiment isn't shared by many in the administration. Gutierrez clashed repeatedly with Rahm Emanuel, Obama's former chief of staff, whom he considered a prime impediment to an immigration overhaul.
Another administration official, who didn't want to be named to avoid exacerbating tensions, complains that Gutierrez "has contributed to the flawed impression that the president can do this by himself"-when, in fact, he depends on Congress to move legislation. "It saddens me ... that [the president] and I have had these very public differences," says Gutierrez. It's quite a turnaround for the two men. When Obama was a freshman U.S. senator, he used to call Gutierrez regularly for advice. When he decided to run for president, he sought Gutierrez's endorsement early on-and got it. "There was a time when I was the only elected Latino that was for him. They were all for Hillary [Clinton]," says Gutierrez. "I love him. I want him to do well ... But I have to be true to what I believe in." (Cecilia Muñoz, a White House point person on immigration, calls Gutierrez "an important moral voice" and says that he and the president "are on the same side of the issue.") Outside the administration, some backers of immigration reform also have misgivings about Gutierrez's approach. He "transformed what had been a narrow policy issue into a litmus-test identity issue for Hispanics, and that made the debate a whole different ball game," says
Tamar Jacoby, president of ImmigrationWorks USA, a coalition of business groups that rely on immigrant labor. Gutierrez is "incredibly effective at what he does ... [But] there's part of me that always gets a little worried about identity politics." Still, Gutierrez has a track record of pragmatism, too. He took flak from some advocates for including strict enforcement provisions in an immigration bill he crafted with Republican Rep. Jeff Flake in 2007 (it didn't pass). "He can go from being a bomb thrower to being a dealmaker," says Angela Kelley of the Center for American Progress. "That's a pretty important bilingual ability."
Gutierrez's promotion of the DREAM Act is itself a compromise. Pro-immigrant forces agonized over whether to abandon the fight for a comprehensive bill in favor of a narrower one that would benefit only a slice of the undocumented population. In the end, they concluded that only the DREAM Act had a real chance. Gutierrez thinks the measure can prevail in the House. The bigger challenge is in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid has pledged to bring the bill to the floor in the next few weeks.
Given the need for 60 votes to break a filibuster and the likely defection of a handful of Democrats, the measure's backers need to win over at least a half dozen Republicans-a tall order these days. But seven current Senate GOP members voted for the DREAM Act in 2007, and a few others who are retiring aren't considered hardliners. The immigrant movement will face a much more adverse climate in Congress next year. As a result, Gutierrez is trying to redirect its energy toward a different end: persuading Obama to use his executive powers to stop the deportation of law-abiding illegal immigrants.
To ratchet up the pressure, Gutierrez is encouraging acts of nonviolent civil disobedience. "We cannot be a slave to the legislative process," he says. "That's what we've done, and it hasn't served us very well." Given that some Republican lawmakers have made clear they plan to use their newfound power to crack down even more on illegal immigrants, "the next couple of years are going to be an extraordinary battle," says Rosenberg. Gutierrez's "voice will be needed more than ever." And you can be certain you'll hear it.
Education reform: Have business-savvy officials improved big-city schools?
Big-city mayors have been turning to leaders from the business world to push their agenda of education reform. Critics say schools need leadership from educators.
By Amanda Paulson, Staff writer / November 29, 2010
Chicago
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg surprised many people in early November with his choice of successor to schools chancellor Joel Klein, who announced he was stepping down after an eight-year tenure in which he added charter schools, closed failing schools, and gave more power to principals.
Cathleen Black, chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, has no background in education – even less than Mr. Klein had in 2002, when Mayor Bloomberg had to make a case for his appointment – and is already encountering stiff opposition.
But in some ways, the selection of a businessperson with little in the way of education experience has become the expected path for big-city mayors trying to radically shake up systems struggling with high dropout rates and low test scores.
RELATED - Study in America: Top 5 countries sending students to US
Meanwhile, Washington and Chicago, two other high-profile cities closely identified with mayoral control of schools, are also losing their superintendents this fall.
The changing of the educational guard raises questions about both the future of the reforms in these cities and about the success of mayoral control, touted by some reformers as crucial to effecting major changes.
"These are cities where there's been really significant, and in many ways unprecedented, progress in improved schools and better achievement," says Jon Schnur, chief executive officer and cofounder of New Leaders for New Schools, which recruits and trains principals. "This is an important juncture for each of these cities to show that substantial progress under mayoral control can be followed by more progress under leadership change."
New York State law requires the chancellor to hold a certificate in educational leadership and have three years' experience in schools; the education commissioner, David Steiner, is threatening to deny Ms. Black a waiver unless an educator is appointed as her deputy.
Klein, who has both fervent admirers and fierce critics, previously was a lawyer and top Justice Department official. His education experience was limited to a very brief stint teaching math in a public school.
Ron Huberman, who is resigning as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, was president of Chicago's public transit system – and a former chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley – when Mayor Daley appointed him in 2009. Even Arne Duncan, the CEO he replaced, had no classroom experience. He left to become US secretary of Education.
"The nontraditional has become traditional," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "It's almost as if educators need not apply." Ms. Weingarten says that she's open to noneducators – especially if paired with top deputies who do have strong education backgrounds – but that she worries that always looking to business leaders will hurt the profession.
Other critics are more blunt. "Yes, a superintendent should have a background in education," says Diane Ravitch, author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System." "There are very specific issues ... having to do with curricula, instruction, pedagogy, relations.… Education is not a business."
The idea behind mayoral control of schools is that getting rid of an elected school board streamlines and speeds up the decisionmaking process and offers a clear line of accountability.
It was pioneered in Boston in the early 1990s under Mayor Thomas Menino, who was reelected a year ago to his fifth term. But there aren't many examples of how it will fare under transitioning mayors, as is happening in Washington and Chicago.
In Washington, Mayor Adrian Fenty was voted out at least in part over opposition to the controversial reforms of Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who resigned shortly after his primary loss. In Chicago, Daley, who will be replaced next year, is letting his successor name a permanent schools CEO to replace Mr. Huberman.
"People have in too facile a way interpreted mayoral control to mean stability," says Jeffrey Henig, an education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College. "What the D.C. case in particular demonstrates is that it's no guarantee."
Professor Henig emphasizes that mayoral control has often been so tied to powerful mayors that it's hard to imagine how it will fare as they leave.
"What proponents never thought much about is what happens when dealing with weaker mayors," says Frederick Hess, the American Enterprise Institute's director of education policy studies, citing Washington as an example.
Perhaps the biggest question facing these cities is whether the reforms will be retained under the new leadership.
Some of that, of course, will depend on the successors, but also on the reforms themselves.
In Washington, where Ms. Rhee fought hard to change the contract with the local teachers union (making it easier to fire teachers, among other things), "these changes are fairly deeply embedded now," says Mr. Hess.
In the meantime, the market-driven reforms popular with leaders like Klein and Rhee represent the direction in which much of education policy is moving, and most observers expect them to continue.
"Under these three mayors, the public saw big, irrefutable achievement gains," says Mr. Schnur, referring to Bloomberg, Daley, and Mr. Fenty. "I think there's a very strong foundation ... on which to build."
By Amanda Paulson, Staff writer / November 29, 2010
Chicago
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg surprised many people in early November with his choice of successor to schools chancellor Joel Klein, who announced he was stepping down after an eight-year tenure in which he added charter schools, closed failing schools, and gave more power to principals.
Cathleen Black, chairwoman of Hearst Magazines, has no background in education – even less than Mr. Klein had in 2002, when Mayor Bloomberg had to make a case for his appointment – and is already encountering stiff opposition.
But in some ways, the selection of a businessperson with little in the way of education experience has become the expected path for big-city mayors trying to radically shake up systems struggling with high dropout rates and low test scores.
RELATED - Study in America: Top 5 countries sending students to US
Meanwhile, Washington and Chicago, two other high-profile cities closely identified with mayoral control of schools, are also losing their superintendents this fall.
The changing of the educational guard raises questions about both the future of the reforms in these cities and about the success of mayoral control, touted by some reformers as crucial to effecting major changes.
"These are cities where there's been really significant, and in many ways unprecedented, progress in improved schools and better achievement," says Jon Schnur, chief executive officer and cofounder of New Leaders for New Schools, which recruits and trains principals. "This is an important juncture for each of these cities to show that substantial progress under mayoral control can be followed by more progress under leadership change."
New York State law requires the chancellor to hold a certificate in educational leadership and have three years' experience in schools; the education commissioner, David Steiner, is threatening to deny Ms. Black a waiver unless an educator is appointed as her deputy.
Klein, who has both fervent admirers and fierce critics, previously was a lawyer and top Justice Department official. His education experience was limited to a very brief stint teaching math in a public school.
Ron Huberman, who is resigning as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, was president of Chicago's public transit system – and a former chief of staff to Mayor Richard Daley – when Mayor Daley appointed him in 2009. Even Arne Duncan, the CEO he replaced, had no classroom experience. He left to become US secretary of Education.
"The nontraditional has become traditional," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers. "It's almost as if educators need not apply." Ms. Weingarten says that she's open to noneducators – especially if paired with top deputies who do have strong education backgrounds – but that she worries that always looking to business leaders will hurt the profession.
Other critics are more blunt. "Yes, a superintendent should have a background in education," says Diane Ravitch, author of "The Death and Life of the Great American School System." "There are very specific issues ... having to do with curricula, instruction, pedagogy, relations.… Education is not a business."
The idea behind mayoral control of schools is that getting rid of an elected school board streamlines and speeds up the decisionmaking process and offers a clear line of accountability.
It was pioneered in Boston in the early 1990s under Mayor Thomas Menino, who was reelected a year ago to his fifth term. But there aren't many examples of how it will fare under transitioning mayors, as is happening in Washington and Chicago.
In Washington, Mayor Adrian Fenty was voted out at least in part over opposition to the controversial reforms of Chancellor Michelle Rhee, who resigned shortly after his primary loss. In Chicago, Daley, who will be replaced next year, is letting his successor name a permanent schools CEO to replace Mr. Huberman.
"People have in too facile a way interpreted mayoral control to mean stability," says Jeffrey Henig, an education professor at Columbia University's Teachers College. "What the D.C. case in particular demonstrates is that it's no guarantee."
Professor Henig emphasizes that mayoral control has often been so tied to powerful mayors that it's hard to imagine how it will fare as they leave.
"What proponents never thought much about is what happens when dealing with weaker mayors," says Frederick Hess, the American Enterprise Institute's director of education policy studies, citing Washington as an example.
Perhaps the biggest question facing these cities is whether the reforms will be retained under the new leadership.
Some of that, of course, will depend on the successors, but also on the reforms themselves.
In Washington, where Ms. Rhee fought hard to change the contract with the local teachers union (making it easier to fire teachers, among other things), "these changes are fairly deeply embedded now," says Mr. Hess.
In the meantime, the market-driven reforms popular with leaders like Klein and Rhee represent the direction in which much of education policy is moving, and most observers expect them to continue.
"Under these three mayors, the public saw big, irrefutable achievement gains," says Mr. Schnur, referring to Bloomberg, Daley, and Mr. Fenty. "I think there's a very strong foundation ... on which to build."
Ravitch answers Gates
Pretty interesting exchange between Gates and Ravich. Really shows what it means to challenge business interests' endeavors.
-Patricia
By Valerie Strauss | Washington Post
November 30, 3010
In a paean to Bill Gates, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter calls Diane Ravitch the Microsoft founder's "chief adversary."
It's the world's richest (or second richest) man vs. an education historian and New York University research professor.
Gates, through his philanthropic foundation, has invested billions of dollars in education experiments and now has a pivotal role in reform efforts. Ravitch, the author of the bestselling The Death and Life of the Great American School System, has become the most vocal opponent of the Obama administration's education policy. She says Gates is backing the wrong initiatives and harming public schools.
In the Newsweek piece, Gates poses some questions aimed at Ravitch. I asked her to answer them. Below are the questions Gates asked, in bold, and the answers, in italics, that Ravitch provided in an email.
Gates: “Does she like the status quo?"
Ravitch: "No, I certainly don't like the status quo. I don't like the attacks on teachers, I don't like the attacks on the educators who work in our schools day in and day out, I don't like the phony solutions that are now put forward that won't improve our schools at all. I am not at all content with the quality of American education in general, and I have expressed my criticisms over many years, long before Bill Gates decided to make education his project. I think American children need not only testing in basic skills, but an education that includes the arts, literature, the sciences, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, economics, and physical education.
"I don't hear any of the corporate reformers expressing concern about the way standardized testing narrows the curriculum, the way it rewards convergent thinking and punishes divergent thinking, the way it stamps out creativity and originality. I don't hear any of them worried that a generation will grow up ignorant of history and the workings of government. I don't hear any of them putting up $100 million to make sure that every child has the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. All I hear from them is a demand for higher test scores and a demand to tie teachers' evaluations to those test scores. That is not going to improve education."
Gates: "Is she sticking up for decline?"
Ravitch: "Of course not! If we follow Bill Gates' demand to judge teachers by test scores, we will see stagnation, and he will blame it on teachers. We will see stagnation because a relentless focus on test scores in reading and math will inevitably narrow the curriculum only to what is tested. This is not good education.
"Last week, he said in a speech that teachers should not be paid more for experience and graduate degrees. I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers' pay. Does he truly believe that our nation's schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience? Who does he listen to? He needs to get himself a smarter set of advisers.
"Of course, we need to make teaching a profession that attracts and retains wonderful teachers, but the current anti-teacher rhetoric emanating from him and his confreres demonizes and demoralizes even the best teachers. I have gotten letters from many teachers who tell me that they have had it, they have never felt such disrespect; and I have also met young people who tell me that the current poisonous atmosphere has persuaded them not to become teachers. Why doesn't he make speeches thanking the people who work so hard day after day, educating our nation's children, often in difficult working conditions, most of whom earn less than he pays his secretaries at Microsoft?"
Gates: "Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts?"
Ravitch: "Does Bill Gates realize that every contract is signed by two parties: management and labor? Why does management agree to 400-page contracts? I don't know how many pages should be in a union contract, but I do believe that teachers should be evaluated by competent supervisors before they receive tenure (i.e., the right to due process).
"Once they have due process rights, they have the right to a hearing when someone wants to fire them. The reason for due process rights is that teachers in the past have been fired because of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, or because they did not make a political contribution to the right campaign, or for some other reason not related to their competence.
"Gates probably doesn't know this, but 50% of all those who enter teaching leave within the first five years. Our biggest problem is not getting rid of deadbeats, but recruiting, retaining, and supporting teachers. We have to replace 300,000 teachers (of nearly 4 million) every single year. What are his ideas about how to do this?"
Gates: "Does she think all those ‘dropout factories’ are lonely?"
Ravitch: "This may come as a surprise to Bill Gates, but the schools he refers to as "dropout factories" enroll large numbers of high-need students. Many of them don't speak or read English; many of them enter high school three and four grade levels behind. He assumes the schools created the problems the students have; but in many cases, the schools he calls "dropout factories" are filled with heroic teachers and administrators trying their best to help kids who have massive learning problems.
"Unless someone from the district or the state actually goes into the schools and does a diagnostic evaluation, it is unfair to stigmatize the schools with the largest numbers of students who are English-language learners, special-education, and far behind in their learning. That's like saying that an oncologist is not as good a doctor as a dermatologist because so many of his patients die. Mr. Gates, first establish the risk factor before throwing around the labels and closing down schools."
Gates: "If there’s some other magic way to reduce the dropout rate, we’re all ears.”
Ravitch: "Here's the sad truth: There is no magic way to reduce the dropout rate. It involves looking at the reasons students leave school, as well as the conditions in which they live. The single biggest correlate with low academic achievement (contrary to the film Waiting for Superman) is poverty. Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care. worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse. They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated. They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing. This affects their academic performance. They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well-off.
"The United States today has a child poverty rate of over 20%, and it is rising. This is a national scandal. The film compares us to Finland, but doesn't mention that their child poverty rate is under 5%. Mr. Gates, why don't you address the root causes of low academic achievement, which is not 'bad teachers,' but poverty. It won't involve magic, but it would certainly require the best thinking that you can assemble. And if anyone can afford to do it, surely you can.
I don't mean to suggest that schools as they are now are just fine: They are not. Every school should have a rich and balanced curriculum; many don't. Every child should look forward to coming to school, for his or her favorite studies and activities, but those are the very studies and activities likely to lose out to endless test preparation. Schools need many things: Some need more resources and better conditions for teaching and learning; all need a stable, experienced staff. Teachers need opportunities for intellectual growth and colleagueship. Tests should be used diagnostically, to help students and teachers, not to allocate bonuses and punishments. Teachers, principals, administrators, parents, and local communities should collaborate to create caring communities, and that's happening in many places. I know that none of this is the "magic way" that you are looking for, Mr. Gates, but any educator will tell you that education is a slow, laborious process that requires good teachers, able leadership, willing students, a strong curriculum, and willing students. None of that happens magically."
I also asked Ravitch about her reaction to the strange comparison Alter made in calling her "the Whittaker Chambers of school reform." She wrote:
"I wondered if Alter knows much about history. Whittaker Chambers renounced Communism and embraced American patriotism. Was Alter suggesting that Bill Gates is the Alger Hiss of school reform? I thought it was a weird analogy.
-Patricia
By Valerie Strauss | Washington Post
November 30, 3010
In a paean to Bill Gates, Newsweek's Jonathan Alter calls Diane Ravitch the Microsoft founder's "chief adversary."
It's the world's richest (or second richest) man vs. an education historian and New York University research professor.
Gates, through his philanthropic foundation, has invested billions of dollars in education experiments and now has a pivotal role in reform efforts. Ravitch, the author of the bestselling The Death and Life of the Great American School System, has become the most vocal opponent of the Obama administration's education policy. She says Gates is backing the wrong initiatives and harming public schools.
In the Newsweek piece, Gates poses some questions aimed at Ravitch. I asked her to answer them. Below are the questions Gates asked, in bold, and the answers, in italics, that Ravitch provided in an email.
Gates: “Does she like the status quo?"
Ravitch: "No, I certainly don't like the status quo. I don't like the attacks on teachers, I don't like the attacks on the educators who work in our schools day in and day out, I don't like the phony solutions that are now put forward that won't improve our schools at all. I am not at all content with the quality of American education in general, and I have expressed my criticisms over many years, long before Bill Gates decided to make education his project. I think American children need not only testing in basic skills, but an education that includes the arts, literature, the sciences, history, geography, civics, foreign languages, economics, and physical education.
"I don't hear any of the corporate reformers expressing concern about the way standardized testing narrows the curriculum, the way it rewards convergent thinking and punishes divergent thinking, the way it stamps out creativity and originality. I don't hear any of them worried that a generation will grow up ignorant of history and the workings of government. I don't hear any of them putting up $100 million to make sure that every child has the chance to learn to play a musical instrument. All I hear from them is a demand for higher test scores and a demand to tie teachers' evaluations to those test scores. That is not going to improve education."
Gates: "Is she sticking up for decline?"
Ravitch: "Of course not! If we follow Bill Gates' demand to judge teachers by test scores, we will see stagnation, and he will blame it on teachers. We will see stagnation because a relentless focus on test scores in reading and math will inevitably narrow the curriculum only to what is tested. This is not good education.
"Last week, he said in a speech that teachers should not be paid more for experience and graduate degrees. I wonder why a man of his vast wealth spends so much time trying to figure out how to cut teachers' pay. Does he truly believe that our nation's schools will get better if we have teachers with less education and less experience? Who does he listen to? He needs to get himself a smarter set of advisers.
"Of course, we need to make teaching a profession that attracts and retains wonderful teachers, but the current anti-teacher rhetoric emanating from him and his confreres demonizes and demoralizes even the best teachers. I have gotten letters from many teachers who tell me that they have had it, they have never felt such disrespect; and I have also met young people who tell me that the current poisonous atmosphere has persuaded them not to become teachers. Why doesn't he make speeches thanking the people who work so hard day after day, educating our nation's children, often in difficult working conditions, most of whom earn less than he pays his secretaries at Microsoft?"
Gates: "Does she really like 400-page [union] contracts?"
Ravitch: "Does Bill Gates realize that every contract is signed by two parties: management and labor? Why does management agree to 400-page contracts? I don't know how many pages should be in a union contract, but I do believe that teachers should be evaluated by competent supervisors before they receive tenure (i.e., the right to due process).
"Once they have due process rights, they have the right to a hearing when someone wants to fire them. The reason for due process rights is that teachers in the past have been fired because of their race, their religion, their sexual orientation, or because they did not make a political contribution to the right campaign, or for some other reason not related to their competence.
"Gates probably doesn't know this, but 50% of all those who enter teaching leave within the first five years. Our biggest problem is not getting rid of deadbeats, but recruiting, retaining, and supporting teachers. We have to replace 300,000 teachers (of nearly 4 million) every single year. What are his ideas about how to do this?"
Gates: "Does she think all those ‘dropout factories’ are lonely?"
Ravitch: "This may come as a surprise to Bill Gates, but the schools he refers to as "dropout factories" enroll large numbers of high-need students. Many of them don't speak or read English; many of them enter high school three and four grade levels behind. He assumes the schools created the problems the students have; but in many cases, the schools he calls "dropout factories" are filled with heroic teachers and administrators trying their best to help kids who have massive learning problems.
"Unless someone from the district or the state actually goes into the schools and does a diagnostic evaluation, it is unfair to stigmatize the schools with the largest numbers of students who are English-language learners, special-education, and far behind in their learning. That's like saying that an oncologist is not as good a doctor as a dermatologist because so many of his patients die. Mr. Gates, first establish the risk factor before throwing around the labels and closing down schools."
Gates: "If there’s some other magic way to reduce the dropout rate, we’re all ears.”
Ravitch: "Here's the sad truth: There is no magic way to reduce the dropout rate. It involves looking at the reasons students leave school, as well as the conditions in which they live. The single biggest correlate with low academic achievement (contrary to the film Waiting for Superman) is poverty. Children who grow up in poverty get less medical care. worse nutrition, less exposure to knowledge and vocabulary, and are more likely to be exposed to childhood diseases, violence, drugs, and abuse. They are more likely to have relatives who are incarcerated. They are more likely to live in economic insecurity, not knowing if there is enough money for a winter coat or food or housing. This affects their academic performance. They tend to have lower attendance and to be sick more than children whose parents are well-off.
"The United States today has a child poverty rate of over 20%, and it is rising. This is a national scandal. The film compares us to Finland, but doesn't mention that their child poverty rate is under 5%. Mr. Gates, why don't you address the root causes of low academic achievement, which is not 'bad teachers,' but poverty. It won't involve magic, but it would certainly require the best thinking that you can assemble. And if anyone can afford to do it, surely you can.
I don't mean to suggest that schools as they are now are just fine: They are not. Every school should have a rich and balanced curriculum; many don't. Every child should look forward to coming to school, for his or her favorite studies and activities, but those are the very studies and activities likely to lose out to endless test preparation. Schools need many things: Some need more resources and better conditions for teaching and learning; all need a stable, experienced staff. Teachers need opportunities for intellectual growth and colleagueship. Tests should be used diagnostically, to help students and teachers, not to allocate bonuses and punishments. Teachers, principals, administrators, parents, and local communities should collaborate to create caring communities, and that's happening in many places. I know that none of this is the "magic way" that you are looking for, Mr. Gates, but any educator will tell you that education is a slow, laborious process that requires good teachers, able leadership, willing students, a strong curriculum, and willing students. None of that happens magically."
I also asked Ravitch about her reaction to the strange comparison Alter made in calling her "the Whittaker Chambers of school reform." She wrote:
"I wondered if Alter knows much about history. Whittaker Chambers renounced Communism and embraced American patriotism. Was Alter suggesting that Bill Gates is the Alger Hiss of school reform? I thought it was a weird analogy.
8th-grade retention rate is same as before law required passage of TAKS
Check out an earlier post to this blog titled "HISD considers easing the path to the next grade" on the same issue of retention and promotion policies.
-Patricia
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
Saturday, November 27, 2010
AUSTIN – An education law that was designed to cause more eighth-graders who can't pass the TAKS test to be held back is actually having little impact on the percentage of students who are flunking.
Although the retention rate for eighth-graders jumped the first year they were required to pass the TAKS to be promoted to high school, the rate has now dropped back to what it was before the tough new standard was implemented to help stamp out social promotion in middle schools, new data from the Texas Education Agency shows.
The percentage of students retained for the 2009-10 school year – 1.5 percent of all eighth-graders – was identical to the figure from two years earlier when there was no state requirement for those students to pass the TAKS. In the first year of the testing mandate, nearly 2 percent – 6,323 pupils – were held back in the fall of 2008.
Nearly 40,000 eighth-graders failed the TAKS in 2009, but fewer than one in 10 was held back. Most of those promoted were beneficiaries of a waiver provision that allows a student to move to the next grade if the teacher, parents and principal agree that's best for the child.
State education officials had warned of a possible spike in the number of students flunking. But they said that millions of dollars in additional funding and required remedial classes targeting students who fail the TAKS eliminated the worst-case scenario for the new requirement, called the Student Success Initiative.
Other educators said the low retention rate also reflects how local schools are reluctant to keep low-performing eighth-graders in middle school for an extra year, partly because officials fear they might become more likely to drop out.
House Public Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, said the requirement may have to be studied to see whether it is accomplishing what was intended – curtailing the number of students automatically promoted to the next grade regardless of what they achieve.
"It's important to see how effective this program is and to modify it if it's not," Eissler said. "You don't want to just flow students through the eighth grade and then make it worse when they get to ninth grade."
Last year, Texas spent about $44 million on extra classes, tutoring, summer school and teacher training as part of the Student Success Initiative program.
"The money may be better spent on other programs," Eissler said, noting that lawmakers will be looking at ways to improve middle school education during their next session that begins in January.
Dallas-area rates
Overall, 4 percent of all students in Texas schools – 177,701 pupils – were retained for the 2009-10 school year based on their grades and test scores in the spring of 2009. The highest retention rate in the elementary grades was 5.6 percent in the first grade, and the highest in secondary grades was 12.3 percent in the ninth grade.
Among Dallas-area school districts, overall retention rates ranged from half a percent in Highland Park to 6.2 percent in Duncanville. In the Dallas district, the rate across all grade levels was 5.1 percent, and for eighth-graders 2.5 percent.
Much of the attention in Texas has been on fifth- and eighth-graders because they are the only students required to pass the TAKS to gain promotion under a 1999 law passed by the Legislature to curtail the widespread practice of social promotion.
The law was originally proposed by former Gov. George W. Bush, who persuaded lawmakers to launch the Student Success Initiative program shortly before he became president. Third-graders also came under the original social promotion law, but the Legislature decided to drop them from the testing requirement last year.
For fifth-graders, the retention rate in 2009-10 was 1.7 percent. The vast majority of students who failed the math or reading sections of the TAKS – 87 percent – were promoted using the waiver provision or by giving them an alternative exam.
Dropout concerns
Debbie Ratcliffe of the TEA gave credit to tutoring and other remedial programs that are helping students who fail the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, but she acknowledged that some students are being promoted because of concerns that retention causes some students to drop out of school.
"When you have a student who is not successful at that age, he or she begins to give serious thought to dropping out, and one of the characteristics of a dropout is that they are over-age for their grade level after being retained," she said.
"A lot of schools will go ahead and promote those children [who fail the TAKS], especially if their grades have been fair to good. The idea is to keep them moving forward in the classes where they do well, while the schools try to improve their skills in classes where they have having problems," she said. "One of the strengths of the law is that it causes schools to focus on these struggling students and find ways to help them succeed."
But many educators still question the concept of requiring students to pass a standardized test to be promoted. And minority rights groups criticize the requirement because it has a disproportionate impact on minority students.
Retention rates for black and Hispanic students in Texas in 2009 were more than twice that for white students, as more than three-fourths of all students retained were black or Hispanic, according to TEA figures.
Proponents of the testing requirement say it is unsound to promote students who lack the necessary skills for the next grade level. Groups such as the National Center for Fair and Open Testing argue that retention – based on a test – hurts rather than helps the student.
"Students that have been retained once have a 40 percent higher chance of dropping out and a 60 percent higher chance if retained twice," the center said in a 2007 report. "This happens largely because being over-age in-grade damages students' self-confidence and leads them to disengage from school."
Check out the Dallas-Area Retention Rate Figures
-Patricia
By TERRENCE STUTZ / The Dallas Morning News
Saturday, November 27, 2010
AUSTIN – An education law that was designed to cause more eighth-graders who can't pass the TAKS test to be held back is actually having little impact on the percentage of students who are flunking.
Although the retention rate for eighth-graders jumped the first year they were required to pass the TAKS to be promoted to high school, the rate has now dropped back to what it was before the tough new standard was implemented to help stamp out social promotion in middle schools, new data from the Texas Education Agency shows.
The percentage of students retained for the 2009-10 school year – 1.5 percent of all eighth-graders – was identical to the figure from two years earlier when there was no state requirement for those students to pass the TAKS. In the first year of the testing mandate, nearly 2 percent – 6,323 pupils – were held back in the fall of 2008.
Nearly 40,000 eighth-graders failed the TAKS in 2009, but fewer than one in 10 was held back. Most of those promoted were beneficiaries of a waiver provision that allows a student to move to the next grade if the teacher, parents and principal agree that's best for the child.
State education officials had warned of a possible spike in the number of students flunking. But they said that millions of dollars in additional funding and required remedial classes targeting students who fail the TAKS eliminated the worst-case scenario for the new requirement, called the Student Success Initiative.
Other educators said the low retention rate also reflects how local schools are reluctant to keep low-performing eighth-graders in middle school for an extra year, partly because officials fear they might become more likely to drop out.
House Public Education Committee Chairman Rob Eissler, R-The Woodlands, said the requirement may have to be studied to see whether it is accomplishing what was intended – curtailing the number of students automatically promoted to the next grade regardless of what they achieve.
"It's important to see how effective this program is and to modify it if it's not," Eissler said. "You don't want to just flow students through the eighth grade and then make it worse when they get to ninth grade."
Last year, Texas spent about $44 million on extra classes, tutoring, summer school and teacher training as part of the Student Success Initiative program.
"The money may be better spent on other programs," Eissler said, noting that lawmakers will be looking at ways to improve middle school education during their next session that begins in January.
Dallas-area rates
Overall, 4 percent of all students in Texas schools – 177,701 pupils – were retained for the 2009-10 school year based on their grades and test scores in the spring of 2009. The highest retention rate in the elementary grades was 5.6 percent in the first grade, and the highest in secondary grades was 12.3 percent in the ninth grade.
Among Dallas-area school districts, overall retention rates ranged from half a percent in Highland Park to 6.2 percent in Duncanville. In the Dallas district, the rate across all grade levels was 5.1 percent, and for eighth-graders 2.5 percent.
Much of the attention in Texas has been on fifth- and eighth-graders because they are the only students required to pass the TAKS to gain promotion under a 1999 law passed by the Legislature to curtail the widespread practice of social promotion.
The law was originally proposed by former Gov. George W. Bush, who persuaded lawmakers to launch the Student Success Initiative program shortly before he became president. Third-graders also came under the original social promotion law, but the Legislature decided to drop them from the testing requirement last year.
For fifth-graders, the retention rate in 2009-10 was 1.7 percent. The vast majority of students who failed the math or reading sections of the TAKS – 87 percent – were promoted using the waiver provision or by giving them an alternative exam.
Dropout concerns
Debbie Ratcliffe of the TEA gave credit to tutoring and other remedial programs that are helping students who fail the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, but she acknowledged that some students are being promoted because of concerns that retention causes some students to drop out of school.
"When you have a student who is not successful at that age, he or she begins to give serious thought to dropping out, and one of the characteristics of a dropout is that they are over-age for their grade level after being retained," she said.
"A lot of schools will go ahead and promote those children [who fail the TAKS], especially if their grades have been fair to good. The idea is to keep them moving forward in the classes where they do well, while the schools try to improve their skills in classes where they have having problems," she said. "One of the strengths of the law is that it causes schools to focus on these struggling students and find ways to help them succeed."
But many educators still question the concept of requiring students to pass a standardized test to be promoted. And minority rights groups criticize the requirement because it has a disproportionate impact on minority students.
Retention rates for black and Hispanic students in Texas in 2009 were more than twice that for white students, as more than three-fourths of all students retained were black or Hispanic, according to TEA figures.
Proponents of the testing requirement say it is unsound to promote students who lack the necessary skills for the next grade level. Groups such as the National Center for Fair and Open Testing argue that retention – based on a test – hurts rather than helps the student.
"Students that have been retained once have a 40 percent higher chance of dropping out and a 60 percent higher chance if retained twice," the center said in a 2007 report. "This happens largely because being over-age in-grade damages students' self-confidence and leads them to disengage from school."
Check out the Dallas-Area Retention Rate Figures
Can a Publisher Run Schools? The Experts Debate
By ALISON LEIGH COWAN | NY Times
November 24, 2010
Michael R. Bloomberg, in his successful bid to become mayor, sold himself as an expert manager, a businessman who had made a fortune in private industry. He has now named Cathleen P. Black, a magazine executive, to be the next chancellor of New York City’s public schools. Why?
“Cathie Black is a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector,” Mayor Bloomberg said this month. “She is brilliant, she is innovative, she is driven — and there is virtually nobody who knows more about the needs of the 21st-century work force for which we need to prepare our kids.”
Ms. Black also has virtually no professional experience in education — not at the head of a classroom, not in charge of a school district, certainly not responsible for 1.1 million children.
Is it, then, a sure thing that an expert manager in one field can succeed in another? The New York Times asked four prominent experts in business management what they made of the mayor’s choice, and his confidence in her transferable skills. As a group, they were not put off by the idea. They held up several examples of corporate chieftains who hopscotched successfully from industry to industry, people like Louis V. Gerstner Jr., who went from RJR Nabisco, a maker of food and cigarettes, to I.B.M, a maker of computer equipment.
But the management gurus stopped short of echoing Mr. Bloomberg’s view that Ms. Black was indeed the perfect choice.
•
Warren G. Bennis, a distinguished professor of business at the University of Southern California who has written about management for half a century.
Professor Bennis said he had concerns about the process by which Mr. Bloomberg made his pick, given how few people at the upper echelons of the school system appear to have been consulted before the public announcement. But he thought Ms. Black could still succeed.
“It was an unusual way of handling a major appointment,” said Professor Bennis, who has served as provost of the State University of New York in Buffalo and as president of the University of Cincinnati. “It does not mean she won’t be successful. But my point is, it’s not the way it usually is done and it will create some handicaps for her. The groups that she will be working most closely with have not been consulted about the appointment, and that, in my experience, is not an effective way to make a top appointment.”
Still, he was careful to say: “Based on what I know of her background and experience, chances are she has the stuff. She’ll get to know the territory. I think she has the emotional intelligence, and she’s had the habit of success in her career. That’s very important. But the process is highly unusual and is a handicap to anyone who takes the position under those conditions.”
•
Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, founder of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale University’s School of Management.
Professor Sonnenfeld said he appreciated the debate over Ms. Black’s prior credentials, but said it was not fair.
“I don’t know if it’s a gender issue,” he said. “That she’s not an educator is obvious. Skills and temperament, that should be the debate, not the résumé issues.”
From what he has seen of Ms. Black over the years, he said, she has done well managing across difficult constituencies and in times of scarce resources.
“She’s also had to deal with strong and difficult personalities. She’s the one who said quite proudly before other newspapers woke up to this, ‘We’re going to have women on the front page, not just in the style section, and we’re going to have African-Americans on our front, not ghettoized in the sports pages.’ It’s that same kind of inspirational entrepreneurial thinking that can make a difference here.
“The truth is, I’ve often been skeptical about general managers being interchangeable regardless of the industry, but it’s possible to overcome that. But it’s not beyond her skill set. She listens well and intelligently and does find common ground, but she will have to assiduously build the case for why she has something to add here and a different way to get the job done.”
•
Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Gifted managers from outside an industry,” Professor Useem said, “can indeed come in and perform extremely well if they bring an underlying skill set that the enterprise needs at the moment.”
As for Ms. Black, he said, her “history at Hearst was extraordinary in terms of making difficult decisions, building the enterprise up and keeping costs down.”
“She was put in charge of various magazines that by my recollection, under her leadership did indeed prosper,” he added. “Keep in mind, these were well within her comfort zone. So it was a natural fit. School superintendent is a big stretch, of course.”
He ticked off several wrinkles that might pose fresh challenges for her: “For starters, the number of stakeholders is much greater in public education than in the private sector: regulators, the city, the union, teachers, parents. So you’ve got to be a very fast study in who the major stakeholders are and what they want.
“She is walking into an extremely difficult crucible — maybe fishbowl is a better way to put it — where these forces that are putting demands on you and resistance against what you’d like to achieve are probably as big as she’s ever experienced in her career. In the private sector, investors want total shareholder return and employees want higher pay and pensions and customers want the cheapest products, and her track record in adjudicating between these extremely conflicting pressures is very good.”
•
Todd Jick, professor of management at Columbia Business School, who has written a book, “Managing Change.”
“The question always comes up,” Professor Jick said. “Are leaders who come from inside more likely to succeed and more effective at making change than people brought in from outside? That’s the question and there is usually a split opinion. Insiders better understand the culture. Outsiders are dispassionate, objective and less indebted to people.”
In general, he said, outsiders who have some familiarity with the industry they are entering fare better, but that is not a prerequisite.
“By choosing an outsider, the likelihood is there’s some expectation for new thinking and new approaches.”
Examining a two-page job description of the chancellor’s role that the school system has made available, Professor Jick said he was struck by the use of verbs like “ensure,” “control” and “promulgate.”
The verbs do not evoke big change. “It sounds,” he said, “more like continuous improvement. But she will have to determine if that is sufficient.”
“She needs to make her agenda and assessment process transparent to the organization. This can’t be enshrouded in secrecy as she takes on the job. She can set out to do a listening tour that can be made transparent. She can talk about how no major decisions will be made in the first three months. She can set out the main areas she wants to learn about and examine. She can set out her own ambitions and aspirations for the school system. She can take some of the mystery out of her being unknown to most people in the school system.”
November 24, 2010
Michael R. Bloomberg, in his successful bid to become mayor, sold himself as an expert manager, a businessman who had made a fortune in private industry. He has now named Cathleen P. Black, a magazine executive, to be the next chancellor of New York City’s public schools. Why?
“Cathie Black is a superstar manager who has succeeded spectacularly in the private sector,” Mayor Bloomberg said this month. “She is brilliant, she is innovative, she is driven — and there is virtually nobody who knows more about the needs of the 21st-century work force for which we need to prepare our kids.”
Ms. Black also has virtually no professional experience in education — not at the head of a classroom, not in charge of a school district, certainly not responsible for 1.1 million children.
Is it, then, a sure thing that an expert manager in one field can succeed in another? The New York Times asked four prominent experts in business management what they made of the mayor’s choice, and his confidence in her transferable skills. As a group, they were not put off by the idea. They held up several examples of corporate chieftains who hopscotched successfully from industry to industry, people like Louis V. Gerstner Jr., who went from RJR Nabisco, a maker of food and cigarettes, to I.B.M, a maker of computer equipment.
But the management gurus stopped short of echoing Mr. Bloomberg’s view that Ms. Black was indeed the perfect choice.
•
Warren G. Bennis, a distinguished professor of business at the University of Southern California who has written about management for half a century.
Professor Bennis said he had concerns about the process by which Mr. Bloomberg made his pick, given how few people at the upper echelons of the school system appear to have been consulted before the public announcement. But he thought Ms. Black could still succeed.
“It was an unusual way of handling a major appointment,” said Professor Bennis, who has served as provost of the State University of New York in Buffalo and as president of the University of Cincinnati. “It does not mean she won’t be successful. But my point is, it’s not the way it usually is done and it will create some handicaps for her. The groups that she will be working most closely with have not been consulted about the appointment, and that, in my experience, is not an effective way to make a top appointment.”
Still, he was careful to say: “Based on what I know of her background and experience, chances are she has the stuff. She’ll get to know the territory. I think she has the emotional intelligence, and she’s had the habit of success in her career. That’s very important. But the process is highly unusual and is a handicap to anyone who takes the position under those conditions.”
•
Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, founder of the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at Yale University’s School of Management.
Professor Sonnenfeld said he appreciated the debate over Ms. Black’s prior credentials, but said it was not fair.
“I don’t know if it’s a gender issue,” he said. “That she’s not an educator is obvious. Skills and temperament, that should be the debate, not the résumé issues.”
From what he has seen of Ms. Black over the years, he said, she has done well managing across difficult constituencies and in times of scarce resources.
“She’s also had to deal with strong and difficult personalities. She’s the one who said quite proudly before other newspapers woke up to this, ‘We’re going to have women on the front page, not just in the style section, and we’re going to have African-Americans on our front, not ghettoized in the sports pages.’ It’s that same kind of inspirational entrepreneurial thinking that can make a difference here.
“The truth is, I’ve often been skeptical about general managers being interchangeable regardless of the industry, but it’s possible to overcome that. But it’s not beyond her skill set. She listens well and intelligently and does find common ground, but she will have to assiduously build the case for why she has something to add here and a different way to get the job done.”
•
Michael Useem, director of the Center for Leadership and Change Management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
“Gifted managers from outside an industry,” Professor Useem said, “can indeed come in and perform extremely well if they bring an underlying skill set that the enterprise needs at the moment.”
As for Ms. Black, he said, her “history at Hearst was extraordinary in terms of making difficult decisions, building the enterprise up and keeping costs down.”
“She was put in charge of various magazines that by my recollection, under her leadership did indeed prosper,” he added. “Keep in mind, these were well within her comfort zone. So it was a natural fit. School superintendent is a big stretch, of course.”
He ticked off several wrinkles that might pose fresh challenges for her: “For starters, the number of stakeholders is much greater in public education than in the private sector: regulators, the city, the union, teachers, parents. So you’ve got to be a very fast study in who the major stakeholders are and what they want.
“She is walking into an extremely difficult crucible — maybe fishbowl is a better way to put it — where these forces that are putting demands on you and resistance against what you’d like to achieve are probably as big as she’s ever experienced in her career. In the private sector, investors want total shareholder return and employees want higher pay and pensions and customers want the cheapest products, and her track record in adjudicating between these extremely conflicting pressures is very good.”
•
Todd Jick, professor of management at Columbia Business School, who has written a book, “Managing Change.”
“The question always comes up,” Professor Jick said. “Are leaders who come from inside more likely to succeed and more effective at making change than people brought in from outside? That’s the question and there is usually a split opinion. Insiders better understand the culture. Outsiders are dispassionate, objective and less indebted to people.”
In general, he said, outsiders who have some familiarity with the industry they are entering fare better, but that is not a prerequisite.
“By choosing an outsider, the likelihood is there’s some expectation for new thinking and new approaches.”
Examining a two-page job description of the chancellor’s role that the school system has made available, Professor Jick said he was struck by the use of verbs like “ensure,” “control” and “promulgate.”
The verbs do not evoke big change. “It sounds,” he said, “more like continuous improvement. But she will have to determine if that is sufficient.”
“She needs to make her agenda and assessment process transparent to the organization. This can’t be enshrouded in secrecy as she takes on the job. She can set out to do a listening tour that can be made transparent. She can talk about how no major decisions will be made in the first three months. She can set out the main areas she wants to learn about and examine. She can set out her own ambitions and aspirations for the school system. She can take some of the mystery out of her being unknown to most people in the school system.”
Class Sizes Show Signs of Growing
By Sarah D. Sparks | Ed Week
December 1, 2010
After dropping for decades, average class sizes in American schools may be growing again as schools cope with budget shortfalls.
Although some educators see the rising numbers as a worrisome trend, others see an opportunity for innovation.
“Yes, small class sizes do help, but it’s not the only way. What we need to focus on is how schools are becoming more flexible to meet the different needs of kids,” said Thomas Starratt, the principal of Boynton Middle School in New Ipswich, N.H., where the average class size at the school has crept up from 18 to 22 since the recent economic recession took its toll.
The national ratio of students to their teachers fell between 1980 and 2008, from 17.6 to 15.8 students per public school teacher, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Because the statistics count special education and other specialized teachers who normally have much smaller classes than regular teachers do, the U.S. Department of Education estimates the current average class size at more like 25 students. That number is likely to rise, given states’ and districts’ financial constraints, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last month at a Washington forum.
Nearly all the states that have changed their class-size laws since 2008 have relaxed restrictions, in many cases specifically to ease districts’ budget burdens, according to the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
“I anticipate that a number of districts may be asked next year to weigh targeted class-size increases against the loss of music, arts, and after-school programming,” Mr. Duncan said at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute meeting. “It’s difficult to talk about class size, … but we owe it to the country’s children to have those conversations. … We support shifting away from class-size-based reduction that is not evidence-based.”
Read on...
December 1, 2010
After dropping for decades, average class sizes in American schools may be growing again as schools cope with budget shortfalls.
Although some educators see the rising numbers as a worrisome trend, others see an opportunity for innovation.
“Yes, small class sizes do help, but it’s not the only way. What we need to focus on is how schools are becoming more flexible to meet the different needs of kids,” said Thomas Starratt, the principal of Boynton Middle School in New Ipswich, N.H., where the average class size at the school has crept up from 18 to 22 since the recent economic recession took its toll.
The national ratio of students to their teachers fell between 1980 and 2008, from 17.6 to 15.8 students per public school teacher, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Because the statistics count special education and other specialized teachers who normally have much smaller classes than regular teachers do, the U.S. Department of Education estimates the current average class size at more like 25 students. That number is likely to rise, given states’ and districts’ financial constraints, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said last month at a Washington forum.
Nearly all the states that have changed their class-size laws since 2008 have relaxed restrictions, in many cases specifically to ease districts’ budget burdens, according to the Denver-based Education Commission of the States.
“I anticipate that a number of districts may be asked next year to weigh targeted class-size increases against the loss of music, arts, and after-school programming,” Mr. Duncan said at the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute meeting. “It’s difficult to talk about class size, … but we owe it to the country’s children to have those conversations. … We support shifting away from class-size-based reduction that is not evidence-based.”
Read on...
HISD considers easing the path to the next grade
What research shows is that the best thing you can do for a student is to promote them with resources. What we too often see is students retained with no resources, other than perhaps test-preparation.
Extending the multiple criteria assessment that was passed last session in House Bill 3 is one of the best things that HISD can do for its students. What's concerning though is that the policy to evaluate teachers based on student test scores is coming into opposition to this because (as the article shows) teachers are explicitly expressing their perception that promoted students are a liability and potential threat to their jobs.
It's clear that multiple criteria assessment for students is also necessary for teachers. This shouldn't be a problem since we now do it for schools under the new accountability system.
-Patricia
Draft proposal suggests reversing policy of promotion through tests, but Grier questions lowering standard
By ERICKA MELLON | HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Nov. 19, 2010
Houston school district officials are debating whether to make it easier for students to be promoted to the next grade level, reversing a decade-old policy touted as one of the toughest in Texas.
A draft proposal from Superintendent Terry Grier's administration, delivered to the school board Thursday, suggests that students should no longer be automatically retained if they fail the state TAKS test or the national Stanford exam.
The change would bring HISD in line with most other districts, which don't require the testing for promotion, but some board members — and Grier himself — questioned whether lowering the standards was the right move.
HISD implemented the stricter rules in the late 1990s under then-Superintendent Rod Paige in an effort to end social promotion - which is the practice of advancing children based on their age, not their academic ability.
"I'm not a fan of social promotion," Grier said. "I worry about the rigor that's in our district right now, and I certainly don't want it to be easier to promote students who don't have the skills they need to be successful at the next grade level."
But, Grier added, research shows that students who are at least two years older than their classmates - generally because they were retained - are more likely to drop out.
Grier said he plans to make a formal recommendation on new promotion standards in coming months, and it could differ from the proposal made by Chuck Morris, his chief academic officer, and Carla Stevens, the assistant superintendent of research.
Whatever HISD decides, fifth- and eighth-graders still would have to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills under state law.
Scores good, but . . .
Stevens said the tougher promotion standards have not pushed student performance above other districts that follow the state guidelines.
"If all of that had worked," she said, "then our test scores should have skyrocketed and our graduation rates should have skyrocketed. Our TAKS scores are good. Our SAT and ACT scores are good, but they're not really where we want them to be."
Former HISD board member Don McAdams, who supported the stricter promotion standards at the time, expressed concern.
"The whole point about promotion standards is to make sure that every kid meets the standard," said McAdams, who now works as a consultant to school boards. "If the promotion standard is what the teachers say, there is a tendency statistically for students to be promoted who aren't ready for the next grade level."
Paige, who left his job running HISD to become the U.S. secretary of education, said he didn't want to second-guess the current administration and board.
"In general, high standards are the way to go, but they have information that I don't have access to," he said.
Stevens suggested that holding students back a grade because they failed the TAKS or the Stanford in one subject doesn't always make sense.
"It may be one piece of something they're not getting, maybe a component of math," she said. "That doesn't mean they should repeat the entire grade and repeat science and social studies and everything. We want them to be receiving on-grade instruction and then receive interventions and assistance in areas where they are deficient."
Last year, nearly 26,000 students in HISD - about 13 percent of the district - didn't meet the promotion standards. But the majority didn't end up being retained because they passed their courses in summer school or a campus committee gave them a waiver.
Above-average retention
Still, HISD retains a higher percentage of students than the state average, according to data from the Texas Education Agency.
Gayle Fallon, the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said it wouldn't be fair to hold teachers accountable for the students' TAKS and Stanford scores if they are no longer part of the promotion requirements. The district gives bonuses to teachers based on student test scores and is working to incorporate them into teachers' formal job evaluations.
"You can't measure teachers on a standard that every child in the room knows doesn't count," she said.
Extending the multiple criteria assessment that was passed last session in House Bill 3 is one of the best things that HISD can do for its students. What's concerning though is that the policy to evaluate teachers based on student test scores is coming into opposition to this because (as the article shows) teachers are explicitly expressing their perception that promoted students are a liability and potential threat to their jobs.
It's clear that multiple criteria assessment for students is also necessary for teachers. This shouldn't be a problem since we now do it for schools under the new accountability system.
-Patricia
Draft proposal suggests reversing policy of promotion through tests, but Grier questions lowering standard
By ERICKA MELLON | HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Nov. 19, 2010
Houston school district officials are debating whether to make it easier for students to be promoted to the next grade level, reversing a decade-old policy touted as one of the toughest in Texas.
A draft proposal from Superintendent Terry Grier's administration, delivered to the school board Thursday, suggests that students should no longer be automatically retained if they fail the state TAKS test or the national Stanford exam.
The change would bring HISD in line with most other districts, which don't require the testing for promotion, but some board members — and Grier himself — questioned whether lowering the standards was the right move.
HISD implemented the stricter rules in the late 1990s under then-Superintendent Rod Paige in an effort to end social promotion - which is the practice of advancing children based on their age, not their academic ability.
"I'm not a fan of social promotion," Grier said. "I worry about the rigor that's in our district right now, and I certainly don't want it to be easier to promote students who don't have the skills they need to be successful at the next grade level."
But, Grier added, research shows that students who are at least two years older than their classmates - generally because they were retained - are more likely to drop out.
Grier said he plans to make a formal recommendation on new promotion standards in coming months, and it could differ from the proposal made by Chuck Morris, his chief academic officer, and Carla Stevens, the assistant superintendent of research.
Whatever HISD decides, fifth- and eighth-graders still would have to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills under state law.
Scores good, but . . .
Stevens said the tougher promotion standards have not pushed student performance above other districts that follow the state guidelines.
"If all of that had worked," she said, "then our test scores should have skyrocketed and our graduation rates should have skyrocketed. Our TAKS scores are good. Our SAT and ACT scores are good, but they're not really where we want them to be."
Former HISD board member Don McAdams, who supported the stricter promotion standards at the time, expressed concern.
"The whole point about promotion standards is to make sure that every kid meets the standard," said McAdams, who now works as a consultant to school boards. "If the promotion standard is what the teachers say, there is a tendency statistically for students to be promoted who aren't ready for the next grade level."
Paige, who left his job running HISD to become the U.S. secretary of education, said he didn't want to second-guess the current administration and board.
"In general, high standards are the way to go, but they have information that I don't have access to," he said.
Stevens suggested that holding students back a grade because they failed the TAKS or the Stanford in one subject doesn't always make sense.
"It may be one piece of something they're not getting, maybe a component of math," she said. "That doesn't mean they should repeat the entire grade and repeat science and social studies and everything. We want them to be receiving on-grade instruction and then receive interventions and assistance in areas where they are deficient."
Last year, nearly 26,000 students in HISD - about 13 percent of the district - didn't meet the promotion standards. But the majority didn't end up being retained because they passed their courses in summer school or a campus committee gave them a waiver.
Above-average retention
Still, HISD retains a higher percentage of students than the state average, according to data from the Texas Education Agency.
Gayle Fallon, the president of the Houston Federation of Teachers, said it wouldn't be fair to hold teachers accountable for the students' TAKS and Stanford scores if they are no longer part of the promotion requirements. The district gives bonuses to teachers based on student test scores and is working to incorporate them into teachers' formal job evaluations.
"You can't measure teachers on a standard that every child in the room knows doesn't count," she said.
As governor, Rick Scott likely to push big changes for schools
This is a pretty troubling statement: "...much of Scott's education agenda focuses on doing away with what he calls an "outdated system" that relies too heavily on traditional schools. Technological advances mean students don't need to be in school buildings to take classes..."
While this may be the solution for certain privileged students, this approach is very problematic for poor, minority first-generation college students because it removes opportunities to gain the number one factor that leads to further opportunity: social capital (i.e., PEOPLE)!
The notion of offering parent choice is completely void of responding to many parent's choice to have equitable schools in their communities. Not all families and communities advocate for individualistic approaches to education reform.
Love thy neighbor, right?
You can check out Bush's "Foundation for Florida's Future" campaign, which includes their legislative agenda.
-Patricia
Republicans tell critics to stop worrying. But they also promise major reforms, including merit pay.
By Leslie Postal and Dave Weber, Orlando Sentinel
November 13, 2010
Former Gov. Jeb Bush shook up Florida's education establishment and sparked major reforms during his eight years in office.
Now, Gov.-elect Rick Scott is ready to take the baton and finish what Bush began.
While Republicans are energized, critics are worried that Florida's new governor is preparing to dismantle public education.
"Everyone has deep, deep concerns," said Gay Parker head of the Seminole Education Association. "He has made his education platform fairly clear, and it is privatizing education."
But GOP lawmakers insist that public schools won't be going away, just changing.
They agree that Scott — a former health care executive who won his first bid for elected office — will try to expand the Bush era reforms. But they also point out that similar reforms, such as merit pay for teachers, are happening across the country and are now embraced in large part by President Barack Obama.
'Outdated system'
Bush, first elected in 1998, ushered in what he called an education "renaissance" in his first year in office, passing laws to grade public schools, expand standardized testing such as the FCAT and offer private-school tuition vouchers to students. I
Scott pledges to embrace those goals. And it's no coincidence that the Foundation for Florida's Future, a group created by Bush, is involved in developing Scott's education policies.
"We are very excited about the incoming team as far as the commitment to education reform," said Jaryn Emhof, spokesman for the foundation. "You have an entire focus on education right now."
Although Scott has not announced specific proposals for his first legislative session, he advocates "the right learning environment for each student, not the bureaucracy."
That means more choices for students outside traditional schools. It also means new ways to evaluate and pay teachers that are based on student success, not years on the job. And it means continued focus on school performance and accountability and a continued push to make sure students leave high school ready for college or work.
But much of Scott's education agenda focuses on doing away with what he calls an "outdated system" that relies too heavily on traditional schools. Technological advances mean students don't need to be in school buildings to take classes, he said, and parents should have more choices about how their children are educated.
To that end, lawmakers and educators expect a push to expand charter schools, online learning through virtual schools and taxpayer-financed tuition vouchers for private schools.
All of which will chip away at the traditional public schools, which could end up with less money, fewer students and reduced program offerings, critics say.
"I am concerned about the dismantling of public education brick by brick," said Sen. Frederica Wilson, D- Miami Gardens, a staunch opponent of the direction Republicans have been taking Florida's schools.
Merit pay revisited
Other Democrats and plenty of educators share Wilson's fears. They are particularly nervous about a new push toward a merit-pay law for teachers.
The Legislature passed a controversial merit-pay bill last spring that was derided by many teachers and then vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist. Under that proposal, teacher pay and job-security were based in large part on student test scores.
A new version is expected to be debated when the next legislative session starts in March. Lawmakers feel confident they can get a law passed, but they also say they will look at tamer versions devised with more participation from educators.
"We found out in this past session that you can't push something through so quickly that has such an impact on the educational system and not bring everyone to the table and allow them a voice," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey.
Fasano said in his district the bill passed by the Legislature was criticized even by members of his local Republican executive committee.
The Florida Education Association, which backed Scott's opponent, Alex Sink, welcomes a chance to help shape legislation, though the union isn't confident it will be included.
"If you are going to make a radical change in a profession, you certainly ought to talk to those in the profession and get their thoughts on it," said Mark Pudlow, the union's spokesman.
Central Florida school board members hope merit pay isn't taken up in Scott's first year in office, though they concede a delay isn't likely. They want a chance to work out their federal Race to the Top grant program proposals, which also includes merit-pay provisions, before details are muddied by a new state law.
"Race to the Top needs to be looked at as R & D, research and development," said Candace Lankford, chairman of the Volusia County School Board and the president of the Florida School Boards Association. "We need to be allowed to take the time to work through these complicated issues and not do it in one legislative session."
Despite campaign promises, Scott's education agenda could be slowed by Florida's still sputtering economy that next year is expected to mean a state budget shortfall of $2.5 billion or more. And although education is important, Scott has said job creation is his number one goal.
"We'll try to live within our means and at the same time try to assure education is given a top priority," said Senator–elect David Simmons, a Longwood Republican who previously served in the House of Representatives.
Scott wants to change how schools are funded, reducing school property taxes by up to 19 percent and filling the gap with other state funds.
Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, a former Volusia school administrator heavily involved in education issues during her stint in the Legislature, said that plan worries her.
"Certainly we want to reduce taxes, but we don't want to hurt education," Lynn said, adding that Scott may have to temper some of his camping promises once in office.
"He may change his thinking on some things when he sees how the process works."
Leslie Postal can be reached at lpostal@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5273. Dave Weber can be reached at dweber@orlandosentinel.com or 407-883-7885.
While this may be the solution for certain privileged students, this approach is very problematic for poor, minority first-generation college students because it removes opportunities to gain the number one factor that leads to further opportunity: social capital (i.e., PEOPLE)!
The notion of offering parent choice is completely void of responding to many parent's choice to have equitable schools in their communities. Not all families and communities advocate for individualistic approaches to education reform.
Love thy neighbor, right?
You can check out Bush's "Foundation for Florida's Future" campaign, which includes their legislative agenda.
-Patricia
Republicans tell critics to stop worrying. But they also promise major reforms, including merit pay.
By Leslie Postal and Dave Weber, Orlando Sentinel
November 13, 2010
Former Gov. Jeb Bush shook up Florida's education establishment and sparked major reforms during his eight years in office.
Now, Gov.-elect Rick Scott is ready to take the baton and finish what Bush began.
While Republicans are energized, critics are worried that Florida's new governor is preparing to dismantle public education.
"Everyone has deep, deep concerns," said Gay Parker head of the Seminole Education Association. "He has made his education platform fairly clear, and it is privatizing education."
But GOP lawmakers insist that public schools won't be going away, just changing.
They agree that Scott — a former health care executive who won his first bid for elected office — will try to expand the Bush era reforms. But they also point out that similar reforms, such as merit pay for teachers, are happening across the country and are now embraced in large part by President Barack Obama.
'Outdated system'
Bush, first elected in 1998, ushered in what he called an education "renaissance" in his first year in office, passing laws to grade public schools, expand standardized testing such as the FCAT and offer private-school tuition vouchers to students. I
Scott pledges to embrace those goals. And it's no coincidence that the Foundation for Florida's Future, a group created by Bush, is involved in developing Scott's education policies.
"We are very excited about the incoming team as far as the commitment to education reform," said Jaryn Emhof, spokesman for the foundation. "You have an entire focus on education right now."
Although Scott has not announced specific proposals for his first legislative session, he advocates "the right learning environment for each student, not the bureaucracy."
That means more choices for students outside traditional schools. It also means new ways to evaluate and pay teachers that are based on student success, not years on the job. And it means continued focus on school performance and accountability and a continued push to make sure students leave high school ready for college or work.
But much of Scott's education agenda focuses on doing away with what he calls an "outdated system" that relies too heavily on traditional schools. Technological advances mean students don't need to be in school buildings to take classes, he said, and parents should have more choices about how their children are educated.
To that end, lawmakers and educators expect a push to expand charter schools, online learning through virtual schools and taxpayer-financed tuition vouchers for private schools.
All of which will chip away at the traditional public schools, which could end up with less money, fewer students and reduced program offerings, critics say.
"I am concerned about the dismantling of public education brick by brick," said Sen. Frederica Wilson, D- Miami Gardens, a staunch opponent of the direction Republicans have been taking Florida's schools.
Merit pay revisited
Other Democrats and plenty of educators share Wilson's fears. They are particularly nervous about a new push toward a merit-pay law for teachers.
The Legislature passed a controversial merit-pay bill last spring that was derided by many teachers and then vetoed by Gov. Charlie Crist. Under that proposal, teacher pay and job-security were based in large part on student test scores.
A new version is expected to be debated when the next legislative session starts in March. Lawmakers feel confident they can get a law passed, but they also say they will look at tamer versions devised with more participation from educators.
"We found out in this past session that you can't push something through so quickly that has such an impact on the educational system and not bring everyone to the table and allow them a voice," said Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey.
Fasano said in his district the bill passed by the Legislature was criticized even by members of his local Republican executive committee.
The Florida Education Association, which backed Scott's opponent, Alex Sink, welcomes a chance to help shape legislation, though the union isn't confident it will be included.
"If you are going to make a radical change in a profession, you certainly ought to talk to those in the profession and get their thoughts on it," said Mark Pudlow, the union's spokesman.
Central Florida school board members hope merit pay isn't taken up in Scott's first year in office, though they concede a delay isn't likely. They want a chance to work out their federal Race to the Top grant program proposals, which also includes merit-pay provisions, before details are muddied by a new state law.
"Race to the Top needs to be looked at as R & D, research and development," said Candace Lankford, chairman of the Volusia County School Board and the president of the Florida School Boards Association. "We need to be allowed to take the time to work through these complicated issues and not do it in one legislative session."
Despite campaign promises, Scott's education agenda could be slowed by Florida's still sputtering economy that next year is expected to mean a state budget shortfall of $2.5 billion or more. And although education is important, Scott has said job creation is his number one goal.
"We'll try to live within our means and at the same time try to assure education is given a top priority," said Senator–elect David Simmons, a Longwood Republican who previously served in the House of Representatives.
Scott wants to change how schools are funded, reducing school property taxes by up to 19 percent and filling the gap with other state funds.
Sen. Evelyn Lynn, R-Ormond Beach, a former Volusia school administrator heavily involved in education issues during her stint in the Legislature, said that plan worries her.
"Certainly we want to reduce taxes, but we don't want to hurt education," Lynn said, adding that Scott may have to temper some of his camping promises once in office.
"He may change his thinking on some things when he sees how the process works."
Leslie Postal can be reached at lpostal@orlandosentinel.com or 407-420-5273. Dave Weber can be reached at dweber@orlandosentinel.com or 407-883-7885.
For L.A., possible lessons in D.C.'s controversial teacher evaluation system
In school districts including Washington's, New York's and Houston's, officials are using a method called 'value-added' to bring a measure of objectivity to the process. But virtually no one endorses it as the sole gauge of an instructor.
By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2010
Reporting from Washington —
Roxanne Brummell has thrived in what many consider the toughest new testing ground for teachers in the nation.
The fifth-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., earned a "highly effective" rating under the district's controversial system that rewards — and sometimes fires — teachers based in part on their students' progress on standardized tests. In just seven months, she helped boost her students' reading scores by an average of 24%.
Brummell's reward: a $20,000 bonus and recognition at district award ceremonies.
Brummell, a Guyana native, likes the acknowledgment and the data-driven feedback. But she frets that the district is relying too heavily on standardized tests and isn't doing enough to help teachers who are struggling.
As for the bonus, she almost didn't accept it. One condition was that she give up various rights if laid off in a budget crunch.
"I love it, but it has its flaws," she said of the district's evaluation system, as she recovered from a busy day of explaining improper fractions.
Her complex feelings reflect the nationwide ambivalence toward the growing movement to hold teachers more accountable for what their students actually learn. Until now, evaluations typically have involved a school administrator making a quick, pre-announced visit to a teacher's classroom. But in major districts including Washington's, New York's and Houston's — and perhaps soon, Los Angeles' — officials are using a method called "value-added" to bring a measure of objectivity to the process.
Value-added assesses a teacher's effectiveness at raising students' performance on standardized tests compared with how they did in previous years. Virtually no one endorses the method as the sole measure of an instructor.
For states to qualify for certain federal grants, the Obama administration is requiring that they link teacher evaluations to student performance. At least 27 states have passed or are considering legislation to meet that requirement.
"There is an absolute laser focus on teacher evaluation in this country now — I've never seen anything like it," said Rob Weil of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 2,200 school districts.
But the trend has stirred opposition. Some educational experts and union leaders say that value-added is not reliable enough for high-stakes decisions on firing, tenure or pay; that it is a narrow gauge of teaching; and that it pressures instructors to "teach to the test."
Supporters say it is one important tool to be used in combination with others, perhaps including end-of-course tests or reviews of student work. How much weight to give it, what stakes to attach, how many years of data to consider and even how to calculate the scores are not settled questions, leaving much room for discussion and debate.
At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is studying many of these questions, senior program officer Steve Cantrell said concerns that the method may inaccurately assess some teachers must be balanced against the likelihood that it will improve the chances for children to have an effective instructor. "If you shift the perspective from what is best for adults to what is best for students, then it's super clear that value-added can improve the system over time," he said.
In Los Angeles, the teachers union has adamantly opposed using value-added in teacher evaluations — but a school district panel named by the superintendent has recommended that it go forward. The debate erupted in August, when The Times published a database of the value-added scores of about 6,000 elementary school teachers based on seven years of testing data, prompting union protests and vows by the district to raise the issue during contract negotiations. It was the first time in the nation such information had been made public.
In New York, the city school district's recent announcement that it would release value-added scores to the media drew an immediate court challenge from the teachers union. Underscoring warring perspectives within the district, a Brooklyn public school on Friday sent a notice to parents urging them to protest the release, saying: "OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ARE NOT TEST SCORES!!"
Perhaps nowhere has the approach drawn more attention — and outrage — than in Washington, which has probably taken value-added further than any other district in the country.
Former Chancellor Michelle Rhee said she came to the nation's capital three years ago knowing her changes would wreak political havoc. But she said she was willing to take on a system that was giving passing evaluations to 95% of teachers even as only 8% of students were performing at grade level in mathematics.
"How can you have a system where you're that misaligned?" Rhee asked in a recent interview. "For me, it's always about putting this in the lens of children and families ... as opposed to making this a fight between groups of adults."
She rolled out value-added analysis last year for a group of teachers in fourth through eighth grades. This year, administrators fired 75 of those teachers with poor appraisals and gave more than 700 others rated minimally effective one year to improve. The district also rewarded more than 630 "highly effective" educators with bonuses ranging from $3,000 to $25,000.
Value-added scores counted for half of a teacher's evaluation — on the high end of what most other districts have endorsed — and judgments were made on a year's worth of data, which some experts say is questionable. The rest of the review was based on five classroom observations and other measures.
Although Rhee was often favorably profiled in the national media as an outspoken reformer, her aggressive approach became an issue in the campaign for mayor, and she resigned after her ally, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was defeated in the Democratic primary in September. Whether Washington retains the system now that Fenty and Rhee are out is an open question.
"Value-added is not ready for prime time," said George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union.
He said the system should have been tried first in a small number of schools. He also said Rhee did not adequately involve instructors in the planning after Congress gave administrators the right to impose it without collective bargaining. (Rhee and others said they involved more than 1,000 teachers through focus groups and feedback sessions.)
Vincent Gray, Washington's mayor-elect who defeated Fenty with strong backing from teachers, said he supports value-added but wanted to review the weight the test data have and "give people a chance to improve and rebut their evaluations."
Among teachers, the verdict was mixed.
Eric Bethel, who taught fifth-grade math and social studies until this year, when the district appointed him as a master educator to evaluate teachers, said he was initially wary. "I knew there was potential job loss if you were ineffective," he said.
But Bethel said he saw immediate advantages. By focusing on the individual progress of students year after year, value-added put aside factors that contribute to achievement disparities, such as family income, educational levels and English fluency, he said. His students, many of them poor children of immigrants, could not have matched the test scores of more privileged children but clearly improved their performance over last year, earning him a high value-added rating.
Bethel said he also liked another aspect of the new evaluation system: Teachers knew what was expected of them. A "blueprint" for teaching laid out specific teaching standards they would be judged on, such as providing positive reinforcement to students and using various instructional methods to accommodate different learning styles.
And then there were the rewards. Bethel received a $20,000 bonus — a "game changer" that will provide the down payment for a home. He also won professional opportunities, such as his master educator job and a district fellowship to help shape teaching strategies.
"I don't think teachers need to be fearful about value-added," Bethel said. "They'll get more credit for what they're doing."
Brummell, however, remains perturbed that the fired teachers were not given enough help to improve. One was a friend.
"I believe in second chances," she said, noting that Rhee herself recounts her first year of teaching as a disaster.
She also said she wished other measures could be used besides standardized tests. Some of her students are weak test takers who break down in tears on testing day, she said.
As Los Angeles moves to revamp its own teacher evaluation system, Rhee offered two lessons gleaned from Washington's experience. First, effectively explain what value-added is to alleviate fears about it. Second, involve teachers early in the process.
On that point, union leaders agree. "Teachers must be included in the reform process to bring about lasting change. I have never seen successful reform imposed from the top down, with a my-way-or-the-highway approach," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Jason Kamras, a chief architect of the D.C. system, urged Los Angeles to "stick to your guns" in crafting a rigorous system in the face of political pressure.
"Kids' lives are at stake," he said.
By Teresa Watanabe, Los Angeles Times
November 14, 2010
Reporting from Washington —
Roxanne Brummell has thrived in what many consider the toughest new testing ground for teachers in the nation.
The fifth-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., earned a "highly effective" rating under the district's controversial system that rewards — and sometimes fires — teachers based in part on their students' progress on standardized tests. In just seven months, she helped boost her students' reading scores by an average of 24%.
Brummell's reward: a $20,000 bonus and recognition at district award ceremonies.
Brummell, a Guyana native, likes the acknowledgment and the data-driven feedback. But she frets that the district is relying too heavily on standardized tests and isn't doing enough to help teachers who are struggling.
As for the bonus, she almost didn't accept it. One condition was that she give up various rights if laid off in a budget crunch.
"I love it, but it has its flaws," she said of the district's evaluation system, as she recovered from a busy day of explaining improper fractions.
Her complex feelings reflect the nationwide ambivalence toward the growing movement to hold teachers more accountable for what their students actually learn. Until now, evaluations typically have involved a school administrator making a quick, pre-announced visit to a teacher's classroom. But in major districts including Washington's, New York's and Houston's — and perhaps soon, Los Angeles' — officials are using a method called "value-added" to bring a measure of objectivity to the process.
Value-added assesses a teacher's effectiveness at raising students' performance on standardized tests compared with how they did in previous years. Virtually no one endorses the method as the sole measure of an instructor.
For states to qualify for certain federal grants, the Obama administration is requiring that they link teacher evaluations to student performance. At least 27 states have passed or are considering legislation to meet that requirement.
"There is an absolute laser focus on teacher evaluation in this country now — I've never seen anything like it," said Rob Weil of the American Federation of Teachers, which represents 2,200 school districts.
But the trend has stirred opposition. Some educational experts and union leaders say that value-added is not reliable enough for high-stakes decisions on firing, tenure or pay; that it is a narrow gauge of teaching; and that it pressures instructors to "teach to the test."
Supporters say it is one important tool to be used in combination with others, perhaps including end-of-course tests or reviews of student work. How much weight to give it, what stakes to attach, how many years of data to consider and even how to calculate the scores are not settled questions, leaving much room for discussion and debate.
At the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which is studying many of these questions, senior program officer Steve Cantrell said concerns that the method may inaccurately assess some teachers must be balanced against the likelihood that it will improve the chances for children to have an effective instructor. "If you shift the perspective from what is best for adults to what is best for students, then it's super clear that value-added can improve the system over time," he said.
In Los Angeles, the teachers union has adamantly opposed using value-added in teacher evaluations — but a school district panel named by the superintendent has recommended that it go forward. The debate erupted in August, when The Times published a database of the value-added scores of about 6,000 elementary school teachers based on seven years of testing data, prompting union protests and vows by the district to raise the issue during contract negotiations. It was the first time in the nation such information had been made public.
In New York, the city school district's recent announcement that it would release value-added scores to the media drew an immediate court challenge from the teachers union. Underscoring warring perspectives within the district, a Brooklyn public school on Friday sent a notice to parents urging them to protest the release, saying: "OUR STUDENTS AND TEACHERS ARE NOT TEST SCORES!!"
Perhaps nowhere has the approach drawn more attention — and outrage — than in Washington, which has probably taken value-added further than any other district in the country.
Former Chancellor Michelle Rhee said she came to the nation's capital three years ago knowing her changes would wreak political havoc. But she said she was willing to take on a system that was giving passing evaluations to 95% of teachers even as only 8% of students were performing at grade level in mathematics.
"How can you have a system where you're that misaligned?" Rhee asked in a recent interview. "For me, it's always about putting this in the lens of children and families ... as opposed to making this a fight between groups of adults."
She rolled out value-added analysis last year for a group of teachers in fourth through eighth grades. This year, administrators fired 75 of those teachers with poor appraisals and gave more than 700 others rated minimally effective one year to improve. The district also rewarded more than 630 "highly effective" educators with bonuses ranging from $3,000 to $25,000.
Value-added scores counted for half of a teacher's evaluation — on the high end of what most other districts have endorsed — and judgments were made on a year's worth of data, which some experts say is questionable. The rest of the review was based on five classroom observations and other measures.
Although Rhee was often favorably profiled in the national media as an outspoken reformer, her aggressive approach became an issue in the campaign for mayor, and she resigned after her ally, Mayor Adrian Fenty, was defeated in the Democratic primary in September. Whether Washington retains the system now that Fenty and Rhee are out is an open question.
"Value-added is not ready for prime time," said George Parker, president of the Washington Teachers Union.
He said the system should have been tried first in a small number of schools. He also said Rhee did not adequately involve instructors in the planning after Congress gave administrators the right to impose it without collective bargaining. (Rhee and others said they involved more than 1,000 teachers through focus groups and feedback sessions.)
Vincent Gray, Washington's mayor-elect who defeated Fenty with strong backing from teachers, said he supports value-added but wanted to review the weight the test data have and "give people a chance to improve and rebut their evaluations."
Among teachers, the verdict was mixed.
Eric Bethel, who taught fifth-grade math and social studies until this year, when the district appointed him as a master educator to evaluate teachers, said he was initially wary. "I knew there was potential job loss if you were ineffective," he said.
But Bethel said he saw immediate advantages. By focusing on the individual progress of students year after year, value-added put aside factors that contribute to achievement disparities, such as family income, educational levels and English fluency, he said. His students, many of them poor children of immigrants, could not have matched the test scores of more privileged children but clearly improved their performance over last year, earning him a high value-added rating.
Bethel said he also liked another aspect of the new evaluation system: Teachers knew what was expected of them. A "blueprint" for teaching laid out specific teaching standards they would be judged on, such as providing positive reinforcement to students and using various instructional methods to accommodate different learning styles.
And then there were the rewards. Bethel received a $20,000 bonus — a "game changer" that will provide the down payment for a home. He also won professional opportunities, such as his master educator job and a district fellowship to help shape teaching strategies.
"I don't think teachers need to be fearful about value-added," Bethel said. "They'll get more credit for what they're doing."
Brummell, however, remains perturbed that the fired teachers were not given enough help to improve. One was a friend.
"I believe in second chances," she said, noting that Rhee herself recounts her first year of teaching as a disaster.
She also said she wished other measures could be used besides standardized tests. Some of her students are weak test takers who break down in tears on testing day, she said.
As Los Angeles moves to revamp its own teacher evaluation system, Rhee offered two lessons gleaned from Washington's experience. First, effectively explain what value-added is to alleviate fears about it. Second, involve teachers early in the process.
On that point, union leaders agree. "Teachers must be included in the reform process to bring about lasting change. I have never seen successful reform imposed from the top down, with a my-way-or-the-highway approach," said Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
Jason Kamras, a chief architect of the D.C. system, urged Los Angeles to "stick to your guns" in crafting a rigorous system in the face of political pressure.
"Kids' lives are at stake," he said.
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