July 31, 2006
LA edunews
The LA Times has an interesting account of how the California Teachers Association whipsawed Schwarzenegger. Quick background: Prop. 98, an amendment to the state constitution, guarantees certain education spending levels. Predictably, it's also a massive obstacle to balancing the budget, which Schwarzenegger had promised to do in his 2003 campaign:
If the amount spent on education in a given year fell short of Prop. 98's guarantee, the difference would be paid off in the future. Because the state almost always owed money under Prop. 98, the education lobby, and the CTA in particular, held a political sword over the governor and the Legislature.
Accepting this reality, Schwarzenegger in his first weeks in office approached Hein again and, with (adviser Bonnie) Reiss handling much of the negotiating, cut an extraordinary deal that gave him a one-year cushion as he tried to reduce a $16-billion deficit. Under the agreement, the schools would receive whatever the Prop. 98 guarantee was eventually calculated to be in his first budget year—minus $2 billion in savings that Schwarzenegger sought.
But a year later, finding himself backed into a corner, Schwarzenegger apparently realized too late the poison pill he had swallowed. And according to this, even after the $2 billion postponement, K-12 spending in FY 2004 had been increased nearly $2.6 billion to $59 billion (a per-pupil average of $9,864). So maybe Schwarzenegger can be forgiven for thinking in late 2004 that the CTA might provide some flexibility:
On Dec. 15, three top Schwarzenegger aides, including Tom Campbell, told John Campbell (no relation to Tom), a Republican legislator who was drafting a budget reform initiative, that the governor wanted to amend Prop. 98 as part of the measure.
The next day, Schwarzenegger invited CTA President Barbara Kerr, a Riverside schoolteacher, to a meeting inside the governor's Capitol offices. Schwarzenegger and his team had decided to make no mention of the budget reform proposal. Instead, he used the meeting to try to figure out if there was any way he could renegotiate his original budget deal with CTA.
I'm having some trouble, Schwarzenegger confessed to Kerr. I can't keep the deal this year without hurting health care and other programs. Is there anything you could do to help us?
We have a deal, Kerr bluntly replied. We expect you to honor it. The CTA had agreed only to the one-time, one-year savings of $2 billion from the Prop. 98 guarantee, she said. If Schwarzenegger didn't give the schools the full Prop. 98 guarantee, including the growth, he would be taking more money from education. "I think he was startled that I didn't just say, 'Oh, OK.' I don't think he likes to be told no," Kerr said. There was discussion but no resolution. Kerr and the CTA officials left after 90 minutes.
As the article goes on to illustrate, Arnold learned the hard way that no California governor messes with the CTA. Period. Meanwhile, the editorial staff suggests that everybody on both sides of the LAUSD takeover could use some time in detention:
As legislation to carve up governance of the school district moves forward, the posturing has heated up to the point of political neener-neener. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa berates and belittles the district with questionable statistics. Superintendent Roy Romer delivers an over-the-line retort, likening the mayor to the architects of Japanese American internment. The mayor then reacts to this relatively minor miscue with dramatic outrage and demands a retraction. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger then has Villaraigosa's back with a quick verbal jab at Romer, implying that the superintendent deserves to be fired for the "horrible" job that's been done running the district.
The governor's staff needs to do a better job on prep — the point of the legislation is to disempower the fractious and glacier-slow school board, not the superintendent, who is leaving in September anyway after having made real improvements at the schools over the last few years. Those improvements, though, have been far from Romer's boast of being "spectacular." This is a district desperate for change, not fictitious accolades or poisoned barbs.
It can become easy to forget that underneath the verbal fireworks lurks an actual piece of legislation, and that it remains a step in the wrong direction. The bill comes before the state Senate Appropriations Committee in one week, and though Villaraigosa's office has been hard at work amending it, so far nothing has emerged that would move it in the necessary direction — true mayoral control of the schools.
I hope somebody over in L.A. is chronicling all this, because it probably deserves its own book. But while the LAUSD takeover brawl continues, neighboring districts are grappling with falling enrollment:
Over the last seven years, nearly 400 students have left the public school rosters in Santa Barbara. Enrollment in this wealthy, Spanish-tiled coastal haven has dropped as steadily as home prices have risen.
It is a trend expected to continue as the median home price pushes past $1 million.It is also a trend that increasingly appears to be occurring across California.
Public schools circling downtown Los Angeles are losing students as their neighborhoods gentrify. A similar shift is underway in the Bay Area, Sacramento and Los Angeles, and Orange and Ventura counties.
Statewide, public school enrollment was down slightly this year, for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. And though officials aren't quite sure of all the reasons behind the drop, they are sure that the cost of housing is one of them.
In Santa Barbara, school administrators worry about lost revenue, because funding is tied to enrollment.
Already, administrators said, the decline has cost the district millions annually. Now, having made small, less-painful cuts, they are considering larger steps, such as selling off vacant property or building housing to sell to teachers at below-market value.
Building the houses, they say, would help recruit teachers, who otherwise might not be able to afford the area, and the school system would bring in some revenue from the sales.
Another option is to start closing schools, a move that is always unpopular, said Jan Zettel, the Santa Barbara School Districts' assistant superintendent of secondary education.
"We don't think we will have to close a school in the next year," he said, "but beyond that, yes, it's entirely possible."
In response to this dilemma, a collection of philanthropists has devised the perfect solution: new edutaxes!
Every property owner in California, no matter how big or small or valuable their parcel, faces paying a flat $50 tax to fund schools under a measure voters will be asked to approve in November.
Although it's still early in the election season, the move already is generating criticism from taxpayer groups and property owners who say it's a regressive tax and adds to the burden on average citizens who are already overtaxed.
Proponents of Proposition 88 - authored by EdVoice, a coalition that includes backing from such wealthy philanthropists as Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, Silicon Valley investor John Doerr and SunAmerica Chairman Eli Broad - say the state's schools are in dire need.
But critics note the measure places the same tax on a small one-bedroom home in Reseda as it does on a mansion in Bel Air or massive farm in the Central Valley.
"I think it's going to look foolish to have the two primary proponents, Reed Hastings, the owner of Netflix, and John Doerr, another Silicon Valley billionaire, impose a tax on everyone else that hits their multimillion-dollar mansions the same as a struggling family," said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
"I'm not sure they have completely thought through how that's going to be perceived."
No matter where you may sit on the idea of a flat tax, there's no denying that last sentence is a bit of an understatement.
The Gates Foundation against the backdrop of history
Diane Ravitch points out some important history:
When judged by their influence on education, foundations have a decidedly mixed record. The most successful American philanthropists by far were Andrew Carnegie and Julius Rosenwald. Carnegie, the steel magnate, used his foundation to build 2,500 free public libraries in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, most of which are in the United States, and his name became a blessing to readers across the nation.
Rosenwald, who headed Sears, Roebuck & Co. in the early 1900s, directed his foundation to underwrite the construction of more than 5,000 schools in poor, rural, mainly African American districts in 15 Southern states, as well as to endow Tuskegee, Howard, Fisk, Atlanta and Dillard universities, which were (and are) predominantly black. Rosenwald's munificence saved a generation of black students.
At the other extreme, the most spectacular blunder by a foundation was the intervention of the Ford Foundation in the politics of New York City's public schools in the late 1960s. In a struggle for control of the school system between minority activists and the teachers union, the foundation funded the activists. Ford-sponsored community groups ousted union teachers from their schools, and the union responded by striking and closing down the schools for two months in the fall of 1968.
The ugly confrontation, accompanied by charges and countercharges of racism and anti-Semitism, poisoned black-Jewish relations in New York City for three decades. The Legislature defused the crisis by decentralizing the 1-million-pupil school district into 32 community districts, an arrangement that satisfied few people but remained in place until 2002, when the Legislature gave control of the school system to Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
So what does this mean for GatesBuffett? As Ravitch points out, the Gates Foundation has already made its share of blunders (for more on those missteps, go here). But as stated earlier, Buffett believes in Gates, which really is a pretty big deal.
Education News for Monday, July 31
Wouldn't it be nice if we could fix America's schools? - that was the intent of the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act, which set the stage for standardized testing and raising educational standards across America. (more)
Deal breaker - How Arnold Schwarzenegger changed his mind on Prop. 98 and lost the support of the all-powerful teachers union. (more)
Bill Gates, the nation's superintendent of schools - Diane Ravitch: Never before has any individual or foundation had so much power to direct the course of American education, which is one of the primary interests of the Gates Foundation. (more)
Check back later for more education news.
UPDATE:
Few poor, minority in charters - Charter schools in Utah increasingly are serving wealthy, white students and leaving poorer and minority children behind in traditional public schools, a Salt Lake Tribune analysis shows. (more)
CA schools try to deal with declining enrollment - Over the last seven years, nearly 400 students have left the public school rosters in Santa Barbara. Enrollment in this wealthy, Spanish-tiled coastal haven has dropped as steadily as home prices have risen. (more)
GAO: Growth Models Hold Promise for NCLB Accountability- Ed Week (subscription required) Carefully-constructed growth models can help meet the No Child Left Behind Act’s goal of getting the nation’s students to academic proficiency, but states face technical hurdles in creating models that work, according to a report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. (more)
School choice finally getting a hard look - Even in a state that has grabbed hold of its public school monopoly with both hands and refused to budge, the idea of choice is gaining some ground. (more)
John Stossel: How the media smear school choice - Most public schools are far from outstanding. America’s government schools have rigid one-size-fits-all rules that reward mediocrity. (more)
WSJ: Socialism in reverse - The advancement of charter schools, vouchers and private scholarship programs has been much too slow for the well-being of our poorest children. (more)
Children left behind in LA schools - If the No Child Left Behind Act is to work, school districts have to take part. And early evidence indicates that in at least one major case, that’s not happening. (more)
UPDATE:
GOP donors open wallets and open up - Money may talk, but for years, the two largest Republican political givers in Texas haven't. But like the Wizard of Oz inching out from behind the curtain, Bob Perry and James Leininger are taking measured steps into the public eye – acknowledging that their enduring silence has let critics define them as spooky, secretive power mongers. (more)
Pro/Con: Should Congress back school voucher plan? Yes - Margaret Spellings: President Bush and I believe that families in communities where schools fall short deserve choices when it comes to their children’s education. (more)
More options for students - President Bush's landmark No Child Left Behind Act, though controversial, was designed to help struggling students escape failing schools. Thanks to that law, students in three Greenville elementary schools will have the opportunity to attend better-performing schools. (more)
Jeb high executioner - How deep is Gov. Bush's capacity for revenge? Deep enough that the governor, who wants to bring Latinos into the Republican Party, would try to oust from the Legislature the man who not long ago stood to become the first Cuban-American president of the Florida Senate. (more)
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July 28, 2006
Who are the consumers of education?
ChemJerk (now there's a nom de plume) has a lengthy takedown (hat tip to this week's Carnival of Education) of the "student as customer" model, which he suggests is damaging to education in general.
First off, I think a bit of clarification on ChemJerk's part would be helpful. As he points out in the lead paragraph, this approach has its adherents in both public secondary schools and the post-secondary level, but since much of his discussion seems to have applicability largely at the college level (the three links at the end are all related to cheating in college classes), we really wouldn't have much to add.
However, here's an important perspective. I would agree with ChemJerk that many factors--due dates, grading policies, price of services--are things that no student, K-12 or post-secondary, should be able to negotiate. Furthermore, what ChemJerk points to as non-negotiables are, in a lot of ways, key indicators of the level of difficulty of a particular school. I'd suggest that students really aren't the principal consumers of K-12 education--parents and guardians are. And just as a college student has a wide array of options to decide where he or she will go to school, it should be up to a parent to find a school that has the level of achievement that best meets the needs of his or her child.
Facing the music--briefly
L.A. mayor Antonio Villaraigosa made a less than pleasant appearance before parents to talk about the takeover:
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school reform plan received its first and only local public vetting Thursday evening in a sometimes raucous hearing where Los Angeles residents addressed state lawmakers, who will have the final say.
Perhaps the most significant blow was landed by officials from neighboring cities, who announced their opposition to legislation that would give Villaraigosa substantial authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District. Parts or all of the cities fall within the boundaries of the Los Angeles school system.
For those who have been on the fence regarding the takeover, this sort of stuff will probably only sour them on the idea. If it's true that this was the mayor's first and last appearance before the public to discuss the takeover, it's obvious that, in the words of one city councilwoman, this thing "is so clearly about money and ego and not education." And of course, this sort of thing doesn't exactly help either:
A special meeting of the San Fernando City Council was scheduled for this past Friday with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to discuss reform for the LAUSD. The council, of which I am a member, had agreed to meet with Villaraigosa before taking a formal position on his reform plan, otherwise known as Assembly Bill 1381.
But the meeting was never to take place. The Mayor's Office called three hours before the scheduled start to cancel. Apparently Villaraigosa and his staff were unprepared to host a meeting that would be open to the public, as San Fernando City Council meetings must be to be in accordance with state open-meetings laws.
The image of this thing being hashed out in smoke-filled rooms likely won't sit well with Los Angeles voters.
Posted by Ryan Boots at 01:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)Education News for Friday, July 28
Read em' and smile: 5th year of better test scores for Philadelphia - In spite of all of this incredible progress, there are still too many children not performing at grade level. We must redouble our efforts and everywhere possible recommit ourselves to public-education reform so that every child at every grade can excel in school. (more)
Ryan Sager: Report card revolution - Which is better: The school whose kids start the year with As and end the year with As? Or the one whose kids start with Ds but end up with Cs or even Bs? (more)
Fl student transfers under NCLB - The number of children transferring out of Volusia County elementary schools that failed to make "adequate progress" under federal law jumbed considerably this year. (more)
Camden schools report 94% decline in violence - Violence was down in New Jersey's schools in 2004-05, though state officials are questioning steep drops in some districts and asking for more information on their reporting methods. (more)
Check back later for more education news.
UPDATE:
LA mayor grilled over takeover plan - Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's school reform plan received its first and only local public vetting Thursday evening in a sometimes raucous hearing where Los Angeles residents addressed state lawmakers, who will have the final say. (more)
Monopoly - Andrew Wolf, NY Sun: Two weeks ago, the United States Department of Education released a study that cut to the core of conservative and liberal education orthodoxy. (more)
NPR: Study questions merits of private education - Listen to the broadcast - Last week, a federal study came out that challenges the assumption that private schools are inherently better than public schools. (more)
UPDATE:
Isle schools fail federal mandate - Most states, including Hawaii, failed to meet federal requirements that all teachers be "highly qualified" in core teaching fields and that state programs for testing students be up to standards by the end of the past school year, according to the federal government. (more)
Trial program offers tutoring - Three school districts in Indiana will test a federal pilot program that will permit struggling schools to offer tutoring choice to parents in lieu of school transfers.(more)
July 27, 2006
Overdoing it?
Alexander Russo thinks I’m overreaching a bit here in taking credit for Spellings turning over a new leaf in NCLB enforcement. In response: As I pointed out in the original post, the timeline kind of speaks for itself: Spellings’s focus on transfer compliance developed not long after our filing in Los Angeles and Compton. It was NYT reporter Sam Dillon, not me, who said: “That complaint generated considerable news coverage and moved Ms. Spellings to action.” Hence, the August 15 deadline to California over the transfer requirement and her May 15 letter to the states. Also, I took particular care to not make our actions appear to have more clout than they do, or to sound like we’re the lone voice crying in the wilderness for stricter NCLB enforcement—hence, acknowledging the criticism from the business community and civil rights groups. (I try not to be so myopic as to think we’re the only ones with an interest in this thing…)
That said, Russo is right to point that out there’s lots more to NCLB compliance than just the transfer requirement, which is something I failed to acknowledge in any real detail (pressed for time). My bad.
(Oh, and he’s right on the money about Mike Petrilli. Why Fordham hasn’t launched a blog, I have no idea. They’re 90% of the way there with the Gadfly, after all.)
Posted by Ryan Boots at 04:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)Florida Today needs a spellchecker
Florida Today ran a typical hatchet job editorial going after the Bush Administration on school choice. Much of it recycles old arguments I've addressed elsewhere, but there are a couple of new gripes:
After ETS -- a private, nonprofit that develops and administers millions of achievement tests such as the SAT -- delivered its ideology-free analysis to education officials, they stamped it with a caution downplaying its usefulness.
We smell a skunk.
If the report is of such "limited utility," why waste taxpayer dollars on it?
Well, who is the skunk, USDOE or ETS? The report's disclaimers were put there by ETS. So are said disclaimers legitimate, or is ETS just a tool of USDOE? Skipping along...
We've argued before that vouchers are the wrong approach to improving education for American children. They divert taxpayer money from struggling public schools.
In the case of Florida voucher programs, that money has been handed to private schools that aren't held accountable or required to meet standards imposed on public schools, including taking the FCAT.
Once again, anti-school-choice language is employed. Much of Florida media has succeeded in making the dreaded V-word toxic by positioning vouchers as handouts to private schools. But as I've said previously, when people are told what the word actually means--letting parents decide where they want to send their kids to school--opposition to school choice experiences something of a meltdown. (The unions sidestep this argument by merely dismissing parents as "inconsequential conduits".) Of course, outfits like Florida Today aren't letting up--note the question for the online poll that accompanies this story: "Should federal or state goverments give taxpayer funds to private schools through vouchers?"
However, it's possible the editorial staff was pressed for time and rushed this out the door. That might help explain the headline: "Voucher Boondoogle".
Education News for Thursday, July 27
Education Department Expands Tutoring - The Bush administration says it again will bend the rules of the No Child Left Behind law, intending to get thousands more poor children into tutoring. (more)
Tit for Tat - Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the city council talk up a deal — LAUSD takeover in exchange for term-limit extensions. (more)
Salaries down for teachers, up for superintendents - The average U.S. teacher salary fell 0.1 percent in the past school year to $46,953, while pay for superintendents rose 1.1 percent, according to a survey by the nonprofit Educational Research Service. (more)
Villaraigosa's Takeover Attempt Would Have Dangerous Repercussions - Opinion: AB 1381, the LAUSD takeover bill, is based on flawed reasoning, violates the state constitution, and is politically motivated to advance the career of one politician, and one politician only: Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. (more)
U.S. study: Learners of English left behind - A new report says many of the 5 million English-language learners in the United States are not getting the kind of education they need to succeed on the assessment tests that make or break their schools. (more)
No Child Left Behind Act isn’t working - Letter to the editor: The No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was an excellent piece of legislation, but because education bureaucrats didn’t do their job in monitoring No Child Left Behind Act, today the act is ineffective. (more)
A clear choice - Letter to the editor: A recent editorial argued against school choice because it won't "help the public schools." What's more important, the public schools or the students who go to them? (more)
Voucher boondoogle (sic) - Editorial: Public schools are generally doing as good or better than private schools in educating students, according to a study conducted by the Education Testing Service for the U.S. Department of Education. (more)
California's Low-Income Schools to Get High-Tech Windfall - California schools could receive hundreds of millions of dollars in school technology funds made available through an antitrust settlement with Microsoft Corp., the state Department of Education announced Wednesday. (more)
Diploma dilemma - Editorial: California courts should leave the state's high school exit exam in place. (more)
Check back later for more education news.
UPDATE:
NPR: Public vs. Private School Report Spurs Controversy - Listen to Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings call her critics' charges ridiculous, saying the administration strongly supports public education. But, she says, the administration also believes parents should have choices. (more)
Ed Week: U.S. to expand pilots offering flexibility on No Child Left Behind tutoring - (subscription required) In a push to provide more children with free tutoring under the No Child Left Behind Act, U.S. Department of Education officials have announced the expansion of two pilot programs that allow school districts to offer the extra assistance a year earlier than usual, and to serve as tutoring providers even if they themselves have been deemed poor performers. (more)
Missouri hears little call for takeover of St. Louis schools - Legislators and other officials say there is little appetite for a wholesale state takeover of St. Louis Public Schools, despite concerns about the stability of a district that this month hired its sixth superintendent in a little over three years. (more)
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July 26, 2006
Exit exams and accountability
As linked on the news page, the lawsuit over California's exit exam has hit the appeals court:
Opponents of the public school exam have argued that the test penalizes students who didn't have access to a quality education, while proponents say it is a necessary indicator of student achievement.
The case has taken numerous legal twists and turns, and Tuesday's proceedings won't be the last. (emphasis added)
Oh, I gathered as much. And I understand the complaints about the sudden-death nature of the exam, which is the tripwire that brought the suit to life. But what gets me is just how difficult the exam is--which is to say, not very, according to former LA mayor Richard Riordan:
Right now, in order to graduate, seniors in the state need to pass a test — a test, mind you, that they can take as many as six times before the end of senior year. This exam only assesses whether students have attained 8th-grade math levels and 10th-grade English skills. That's correct; students only need to demonstrate middle school math skills to pass a high school exit exam. And we hope to prepare our next generation for the fierce global job competition ahead?
Some sample questions, courtesy of the Sacramento Bee:
Maybe it's just me, but none of those questions seemed particularly difficult. (Several of the commenters to the SacBee story felt the same way.) As Kimberly Swygert remarked in 2003, way back when the California Board of Ed was in the process of diluting the exam:
"Oh no, removing difficult items in no way affects the difficulty of the test. It in no way makes it easier for the less-able students to pass. It merely enhances the self-esteem of those that take it, and in California, isn't self-esteem everything?"
Actually, it feels like there's something else at work here: namely, passing the buck. See, those who fail to get a minimum of 60 percent correct in language arts and 55 percent correct in math (link) after six tries presumably shouldn't be held responsible, since the schools failed to teach them. But the teachers can't be held accountable, because the students are at a socioeconomic disadvantage. But the system overall can't be held responsible, either, because in spite of billions upon billions of dollars, schools are starved for money. So who's at fault? Apparently, nobody.
In the present system, it is said that education is "everybody's" responsibility. But when something belongs to everybody, it really seems to belong to nobody. And so it is with school choice programs versus public schools. Critics love to bang the accountability drum, and are quick to point to incidents of fraud and graft. But in those instances, individuals can be brought up on charges, somebody can be held to blame and punished accordingly. And in situations where kids aren't doing well in a particular private school, parents can turn to the school and demand an explanation. I would argue that that arrangement, while not ideal, is far preferable over situations like California (or New Jersey, or Kansas City), where pretty much everybody agrees things are broken but nobody is at fault. If you're after accountability, isn't it preferable to have an arrangement where you can at least point a finger at somebody?
Governator vs. LAUSD
Because LAUSD apparently just wasn't enough of a fistfight, Schwarzenegger has jumped into the fray.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger escalated the war of rhetoric Tuesday in the battle over reform and control of Los Angeles schools, calling the way the school district is run "horrible" and implying that Supt. Roy Romer deserved to be fired.
In an interview, Romer responded that Schwarzenegger was "just blowing in the wind."
Schwarzenegger has said consistently that he would sign legislation giving Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa more authority over the Los Angeles Unified School District. But he has never been so publicly critical in his assessment of Romer and the nation's second-largest school system.
The governor made his comments about Romer unprompted, speaking to reporters at a campaign stop in Corona.
"What I am trying to do is I am trying to be helpful to the mayor," Schwarzenegger said, "because whenever you say you want to change something, immediately you get attacked by the status quo, by those who want to hold on, like Roy Romer. He wants to hold on. He thinks it is perfect the way L.A. Unified School District has been run. He's wrong. It is horrible the way it has been run. It is disastrous. With any business in the world, if you had that kind of progress, you would be fired and they would change the system immediately."
Romer returned fire thusly:
When read a transcript of the governor's remarks, Romer's first reaction was a long, bemused laugh.
"The exaggeration in his remarks is absolutely surprising," Romer said. "There are many things that we are working on, that need to improve, but this district is very far from the status quo. I need to remind the good governor that when I came they hadn't built a new high school in 30 years. We have undertaken the most rapid development of new schools in the United States, in the history of the United States. He's just blowing in the wind."
He added: "On test scores, we have exceeded the state's average gain for six years. We're driving the state average up. We're changing more rapidly than any school district in the state of California — building our test scores, breaking into smaller school units.
"I meet few people in public office who grasp at total untruths," he said, swiping back at Schwarzenegger. (emphasis added)
No matter how this ends, it won't be pretty.
School choice as accountability
One New Jersey columnist has some choice words for the eduestablishment opposing our class action lawsuit:
Public school educators may be sincerely concerned about the potential loss of funds, but they're scared of something even bigger – that the suit finally draws attention to the fact that no one is really held accountable when kids get through 12 years of public school education and they can't read, can't count, and can't utter a full sentence without saying "like" every other word. The ones who make it into college are often shocked that they get assigned to remedial math and English classes to learn what they've missed during their grammar school and high school years.
A voucher system may not be the ideal solution for what's ailing the public schools, but it sure beats sitting around year after year paying millions of dollars for salaries, schools, teacher training, transportation and district administration only to find on graduation day that Johnny still can't read.
Children rarely have a choice about where they attend school. Such decisions are based on their parents' income and the neighborhood they wind up in. Their ZIP code remains a sure way to map where barriers to academic advancement most effectively keep kids from reaching their potential.
Public school is supposed to be the great equalizer, the place where race and class differences are subordinated to the quest for Americanization. But that goal has become secondary: The main goal seems to be a quest to shore up an educational bureaucracy that consistently falls way short of the mission to educate kids. Students forced to stay in failing schools don't get a chance to exercise their intellectual capacity and show how capable they are of mastering the basics.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Read the whole thing.
Posted by Ryan Boots at 09:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)Education News for Wednesday, July 26
Schwarzenegger Calls the Running of L.A. Unified 'Horrible' - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger escalated the war of rhetoric Tuesday in the battle over reform and control of Los Angeles schools, calling the way the school district is run "horrible" and implying that Supt. Roy Romer deserved to be fired. (more)
'Opportunity' Is Knocked (WSJ subscription required) - Editorial: Lawmakers, along with the teachers unions and liberal groups such as People for the American Way, have opposed the D.C. voucher pilot program from the outset and desperately want to see it fail. (more)
Voucher suit sends a signal to educators - Opinion: Public school educators may be sincerely concerned about the potential loss of funds related to a class action lawsuit demanding school choice for New Jersey students, but they're scared of something even bigger – that the suit finally draws attention to the fact that no one in the system is really held accountable. (more)
State Appeals Court weighs arguments over exit exam's fairness - California's high school exit exam is a crucial part of the state's effort to implement rigorous statewide academic standards, and without it, students and teachers won't be motivated to meet those standards, an attorney for the state argued Tuesday before a state Appeals Court. (more)
Church and State - Editorial: When it comes to religious schools, it's long past time for the Supreme Court to roll back hostility to religion masquerading as adherence to the First Amendment. (more)
Vouchers aren't solution - Editorial: The way to improve the quality of education in the United States is to improve public education, not to take scarce public resources and give them to private schools. (more)
California Appeals Court Hears Arguments on High School Exit Exam - A San Francisco appellate court on Tuesday heard arguments about the fairness of the California High School Exit Examination for the class of 2006. At stake are diplomas for some of the 40,000 students who failed to pass the test, which became a requirement this year. (more)
Check back later for more education news.
UPDATE:
Demanding vs. doing - NYT editorial: The story of the No Child Left Behind Act is all about the huge gap between setting standards and creating the conditions in which those standards can be met. (more)
Illinois law opens free preschool to middle class - The new law lets the state spend its money on preschool for any child, regardless of income. (more)
Florida to test for success of pre-K - Now that a year’s worth of 4-year-olds have completed prekindergarten, Florida wants to find out if its state-funded program prepared the youngsters for school. (more)
Church and State - NY Sun editorial: Some parents in Maine are trying to turn up the heat on Justice Kennedy in respect of education and the First Amendment. (more)
Star Parker: How to spend limited taxpayer education dollars - The National Center for Education Statistics, part of the U.S. Department of Education, has just released a study comparing the performance of fourth- and eighth-graders in public and private schools. (more)
Looking out for dropouts - Wash Times opinion: Every year, almost one-third of all public high-school students -- and nearly one-half of minority students -- fail to graduate from public high school with their class. (more)
Posted by Featured Guest at 08:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)July 25, 2006
Spellings and NCLB enforcement
The edusphere is abuzz over this NYT story on Margaret Spellings and NCLB compliance. If you haven't read it yet, it would be well worth your time. It answers some questions that have been raised in some quarters, and in many ways seems to introduce the next chapter of the NCLB saga.
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Posted by Ryan Boots at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)The view in Camden
In a lengthy editorial, Camden's main newspaper gives a thumbs-up on the lawsuit:
Through the 36 years poor New Jersey students (and their advocates) have fought to receive the state-mandated thorough and efficient education, one outcome has held constant: Their sub-par education.
It's time the state made good on its promise to ensure that all New Jersey students -- regardless of where they live or how much their families earn -- receive a decent education. That must include holding educators and administrators strictly accountable for student achievement and breaking down barriers that keep students locked in failing schools.
Some state officials and critics of efforts to improve academic achievement for poor students -- including Gov. Jon Corzine who won a recent lawsuit to freeze spending in poor districts -- believe the state has spent too much time and money on reform with too little to show for the investment.
Actually, lawmakers have spent more time fighting court-ordered spending on poor districts than working to improve the students' education. In fact, the state didn't comply with a court order -- stemming from a 1981 decision in the Abbott v. Burke case -- to equalize education spending in poor and wealthy suburban districts until September 1997. It is unrealistic to expect that decades of grossly inadequate education in the poor districts can be reversed in eight years.
That said, it is also clear that money isn't a panacea for what ails poor districts. Some are quick to write off poor students as beyond reach. But it appears students just aren't getting what they need and deserve. Too often, they are at the end of a feeding chain that profits most teachers, administrators, consultants and contractors. The professionals are paid, often highly compensated, regardless of whether students learn even basic math and language skills.
Meanwhile, parents are expected to keep sending their children back to failing schools with the so-far unrealized promise that the money invested and the reforms ordered will eventually take hold.
In the meantime, the opposition is starting to coalesce:
With Mayor Gwendolyn Faison at the helm, school voucher opponents on Monday night made the first concerted local effort to respond to a lawsuit seeking to give students' families the chance to use taxpayer money to attend private schools.
Walter C. Farrell, a University of North Carolina professor and voucher critic, told a group that well-heeled proponents of vouchers have turned New Jersey into its bull's-eye, with Camden an easy place to gain a foothold even though it has much to lose if money is drained from the public school system.
More accurately, it has much money to lose: many of the school districts named in the lawsuit spend more than $20,000 per pupil. Upshot: these schools are bankrupt academically, but not financially.
"It's a fortuitous time -- there's a leadership vacuum in the schools," Farrell said to a group of 100 people at the Twenty Horse Tavern.
Oh, we don't doubt that. But just out of curiosity, were there any parents among those 100 people? The story doesn't say. We kind of doubt it, given the last paragraph:
Rosa Ramirez, an organizer of the Camden Parent-Child Fund, asked Faison to organize a similar meeting to hear from parents whose children have suffered in city schools. She supports an E3-supported bill for scholarships paid for with corporate tax credits.
If there had been parents at the meeting, it's pretty unlikely Ramirez would have called for another meeting for the mayor to, you know, listen to parents who are stuck in these schools. Anyway--back to the story:
Farrell said former Superintendent Annette Knox's resignation has muted voices in opposition.
We're not terribly surprised those voices aren't louder, given the circumstances that led to her ouster:
Camden Schools Superintendent Annette D. Knox agreed yesterday to step down amid a criminal probe, a test-cheating investigation, and allegations that she gave herself bonuses.
Knox reached an agreement with the school board to buy out her three-year contract, ending her tenure as chief of South Jersey's largest school system.
She will receive nearly $200,000 severance, a third of what she had sought.
Come on, folks--speak up! Why was her resignation so unfair? Elsewhere in the Camden story:
Board of Education member Martha Wilson disagreed about the leadership vacuum characterization.
But while praising Faison for holding the event, she said the board should have assumed that leadership role.
Mrs. Wilson. I would argue there are lots and lots of things the board should have been doing until now. In fact, Derrell Bradford suggests a few today:
There is no discussion about Martin Luther King Middle in Trenton, where 80.4% of students can't pass the language arts portion of the state assessment, and 92.8% can't pass the math portion. There is no discussion about it from Newark's superintendent, where they have 24 schools on the list serving (or not serving) almost 15,000 students.
There is no discussion because there are no answers from these folks, unfortunately. There is nothing past the lip service of more money and more time these people proffer in a state where we deny the reality of public school ineptitude in these districts so adamantly we tell children they are partially proficient when then can't pass their assessments-to let them know they have failed would be too tragic. Too tragic--for the adults, that is--to admit what their inability to educate has wrought on these children.
Come on, Camden Schools! Give a substantive response to these allegations. Mayor Faison, the article says you fear "vouchers will destroy public schools". So do you mean to say that Camden schools are functioning? If we're wrong, tell us how.
Taking a hard look at NYC mayoral control
More than four years after Mike Bloomberg took over his city's schools, a NY Sun columnist examines matters at the midway point (it's scheduled to sunset in 2009) and sounds less than impressed. (Hat tip to The Chalkboard.)
Posted by Ryan Boots at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)The changing face of LAUSD
As usual, there's no shortage of edunews coming out of the City of Angels. First off, Villaraigosa makes a fascinating political move:
Moving to bolster his sway over Los Angeles' embattled public school system, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will name former schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines today to the post of deputy mayor for education, youth and families.
Cortines, a veteran educator who has led some of the nation's largest and most politically volatile school districts, including Los Angeles Unified for a brief stint, is expected to serve as an important buffer between Villaraigosa, the school board and the teachers union.
Whether the move will work is another story, and this remark makes me a bit skeptical:
Cortines would not say in an interview whether he supports state legislation that would give Villaraigosa a measure of control over the school system. But he insisted that any takeover must be a collaborative effort involving the warring sides.
He wouldn't say whether he supports the takeover? That's like Tony Snow refusing to give his position on Iraq. Meanwhile, in the "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" category, it appears LAUSD is getting in on the charter game (well, kind of):
Los Angeles school and union officials have agreed in concept to develop a group of independent small schools in the Pico-Union area, allowing students to choose a campus that best fits their interests, the district announced Monday.
Although still in the conceptual phase, the Belmont Pilot Schools Network would consist of five to 10 fully autonomous high schools launched over the next five years, with a maximum of 400 students each. Principals and teachers at those schools would work under a separate contract that would free them to determine school calendars, curricula, budgets and administrative structures.
"We're providing a menu of options, and in the Belmont area, we're going to have choice," Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer said during a morning news conference at Belmont High School.
Several officials compared the model to the freedoms given to independently run, publicly financed charter schools.
So they're not officially charter schools, but they're intended to emulate the model? Is Steve Barr's diabolical plan working?
And former mayor Richard Riordan has been making the rounds in LA papers. After endorsing the takeover plan in the LA Daily News over the weekend, he comes out swinging in favor of the exit exam:
Our schools must be held accountable for educating their students. It is completely unacceptable to let schools get away with graduating students who lack basic academic skills.
An exit exam compels principals and teachers to continue working with students until they are truly prepared for their next stage of life. Seniors who have received an inadequate education deserve to stay in high school another year, not to be "pushed out" under the guise of "graduating." No more social promotion. Students deserve to get the help they need.
To make this happen, there must be a bar by which students' skills can be measured. As the saying goes, "people rise to the expectations set for them." Take away the expectation, and you take away the incentive to meet it. So if you take away the exit exam, you take away the means by which we can measure schools' performances. If we cannot identify the cracks in the system, those cracks will never get fixed.
Read the whole thing.
Posted by Ryan Boots at 09:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)Education News for Tuesday, July 25
US Education Secretary Trumpets Bicameral School Choice Bill - The U.S. Secretary of Education is promoting legislation that would provide vouchers to low-income families with children in failing public schools, giving the children of these families the financial means to attend private schools or to receive other educational services. (more)
Former Schools Supt. to Be Named L.A. Deputy Mayor - Moving to bolster his sway over Los Angeles' embattled public school system, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will name former schools Supt. Ramon C. Cortines tomorrow to the new post of deputy mayor for education, youth and families. (more)
Let students graduate - Opinion: Recent studies reinforce the conclusion that graduation tests increase the dropout rate. Some say this is an acceptable price to pay for improving schools. But denying borderline students the benefit of a diploma hurts both these young people and our country. (more)
Education studies show: $$ wasted on them - Opinion: Let’s use our limited taxpayer dollars to enhance education freedom and not on superfluous research. (more)
NEA keeps tilting to the left - Opinion: Parents who wonder why the public schools teach so many things parents don't approve of need look no further than the official policies of the nation's largest teachers union, the National Education Association. (more)
Acid Tests (WSJ subscription required) - Test scores are the last refuge of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). They have to be, because so little else about the act is attractive. (more)
Most States Fail Demands Set Out in Education Law - Most states failed to meet federal requirements that all teachers be “highly qualified” in core teaching fields and that state programs for testing students be up to standards by the end of the past school year, according to the federal government. (more)
Former LAUSD Superintendent Ray Cortines named deputy mayor for education - Former Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Ray Cortines was named Monday as deputy mayor for education, serving as a key adviser to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as he tries to reform the nation's second-largest school district. (more)
Check back later for more education news.
UPDATE:
Don't lock pupils into failing school districts - Editorial: A lawsuit has been filed to give vouchers to New Jersey students to seek a better education outside their districts. It should be part of state efforts to improve education in poor districts. (more)
Camden voucher foes mobilize - With Camden, New Jersey Mayor Gwendolyn Faison at the helm, school voucher opponents on Monday night made the first concerted local effort to respond to a lawsuit seeking to give students' families the chance to use taxpayer money to attend private schools. (more)
Don't Give Exit Exam a Pass - Opinion: Former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan argues that if California drops the exit exam requirement for high school graduation, students will suffer the most. (more)
Plan Would Give More Flexibility in Pico-Union Schools - L.A. Unified School District and union officials agree on a concept that would give new campuses freedoms similar to those of charter sites. (more)
No to federal vouchers - Editorial: There is no justification for a national voucher system. (more)
UPDATE:
Ed Week (print edition) - Lawsuit seeks vouchers for NJ students (subscription required) - The suit, which was filed this month in Newark, seeks court-approved vouchers that could be redeemed at public or private schools—including religious ones—as a remedy to aid students in schools where large percentages of students fail to meet state standards. (more)
Tests expose flawed diplomas - USA Today: Higher dropout rates no cause to water down high school education standards. (more)
Posted by Daily News at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Beyond the Profit Motive (Brett Pawlowski)
In a 1970 article entitled “The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits,” economist Milton Friedman famously argued that a business exists for one purpose: to maximize returns for its shareholders. If shareholders want their money to go to social causes, he said, they’re perfectly capable of making that decision themselves, and the businesses they invested in have no right to make that decision for them – it simply isn’t what a business is set up to do.
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Posted by Featured Guest at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)A Lifeline for Students in Persistently Failing Public Schools (Dan Lips)
Millions of students are trapped in persistently failing public schools. On Tuesday, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings joined congressional Republicans to unveil the America’s Opportunity Scholarships initiative-a plan to give thousands of these at-risk children a chance to receive a quality education.
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Posted by Featured Guest at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)Drinking The Kool-Aid (Right Wing Prof)
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.
And indeed, there's nothing new about education professionals drinking the Jonestown kool-aid. But it does seem that there has been more kool-aid recently, as the lumbering circus elephant destroys everything in the room, and education folks all pretend the elephant isn't there.
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Posted by Featured Guest at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)A Non-Response to the New Jersey Lawsuit (Derrell Bradford)
On Thursday, July 13th, a group of New Jersey parents filed a class action lawsuit against the New Jersey Commissioner of Education, 25 Boards of Education, and numerous other public officials. The lawsuit, Crawford v. Davy, identifies a class of students attending the state's 96 worst schools: those where more than 50% of tested students have failed both their language arts and math assessments for the past two years, or 75% of them have failed one of these assessments during the same time. A little more than 60,000 students attend these schools. Just under 6% of the state's k-12 population.
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Posted by Featured Guest at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)Legalizing Markets in Happiness and Well-Being (Michael Strong)
Four years ago I moved my family to Angel Fire, New Mexico, to create a charter high school. Two teachers with whom I had previously worked ten years earlier in Alaska moved to New Mexico to work at the school I was creating. By the second year of the school, we had the created the highest ranked public high school in New Mexico based on Jay Mathews’ Challenge Index. The third year, we ranked among the “Top 100 Best Public High Schools” on Newsweek’s list.
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Posted by Featured Guest at 01:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)July 24, 2006
The California Preschool Initiative (Nina S. Rees)
The resounding defeat of California’s Proposition 82, which sought to offer all 4-year-olds in California access to free half-day preschool, appears to be a big blow to advocates of universal prekindergarten. ("Calif. Voters Reject Universal Pre-K Initiative," June 14, 2006--edweek.org subscription required.) The ambitious, $2.4 billion ballot proposal, which was defeated by a 22-point margin, would have energized legislative efforts supported by governors in more than two dozen states. If these efforts are going to succeed, advocates of universal prekindergarten need to learn from the California defeat and draft programs that avoid its pitfalls, while crafting better and smarter education policy for their constituents.
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Posted by Ryan Boots at 02:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)John Tierney and the NCES study: time for another steak dinner challenge?
This NYT column from John Tierney has already made the rounds in the edusphere, but we still have a few thoughts of our own, especially in light of some comments from Scott Elliott. First, from Tierney:
Most private-school students are not at places like Exeter or Dalton. Theyre in Catholic parochial schools and others on lean budgets. According to federal surveys, the typical private schools tuition is only about half what a public school spends per pupil.
The public schools are spending more even if you exclude their expenses for special education, buses, lunch programs and central administration, as William Howell and Paul Peterson found in a study of New York elementary schools. The political scientists calculated that the public schools were still spending twice as much per pupil as were the Catholic schools in New York.
General Motors would not celebrate the news that its $40,000 Cadillac performed almost as well as a $20,000 Honda. It would not have its dealers put up signs reading: Why Pay Less? Our Cars Are Almost As Good. But thats the logic of the teachers union leaders who want to prevent students from getting vouchers and taxpayers from saving money.
Elliott dismisses these points, and instead goes after Tierney for this passage:
The most scientific way to compare schools is with the kind of randomized experiment that has been conducted in New York, Dayton and Washington. In these cities, students from low-income families were given a chance to apply for school vouchers. After the vouchers were awarded by lottery, researchers tracked the voucher students in private schools and compared them with a control group: the losers of the lottery who remained in public school.
After three years, the white and Hispanic voucher students were doing as well as their counterparts in public school, and the African-American voucher students were testing a full grade level higher than the blacks in the control group. The parents of all the voucher students — white, Hispanic and African-American — reported that there was much less fighting, cheating, vandalism and absenteeism in their schools than did the public-school parents.
In response, Elliott digs up a Dayton Daily News article in which the research company that put the data together for one of the studies issued a disclaimer on the use of the data. Elliott concludes:
This was the best study Tierney could find to bolster the case for private schools? There hasn’t been a more definitive or independent study in seven years? I’m not sure how much he helped the cause.
I don't know why Tierney chose this particular study--obviously, we would have to ask him. However, the dispute involving the research company can be summed up in three words: difference of opinion. The research company said it's didn't see as great a difference in achievement as Peterson did. Predictably, Peterson disagreed. Happens all the time in the research realm.
And actually, I personally agree with the research company in question, Mathematica Policy Research, that the findings shouldn't be used to make policy conclusions. To my mind, it's a bit of a stretch to make any policy decisions based on a single study, no matter the field or issue at hand. Which is why, to answer Elliott's question as to whether there hasn't been a more definitive study: seven controlled, randomized studies have shown that, at worst, school choice doesn't hurt (which, oddly enough, is what the NCES study showed). In the overwhelming majority of cases, the programs produce overwhelming benefits across the board, in standardized test scores and parent satisfaction. Furthermore, such studies indicate double-digit improvement in parental satisfaction. (More on this, and the NCES study, here.)
Moral: We don't lean on a single study to support our cause. School choice opponents really should do likewise.
In addition, it's these particular types of studies that are of particular interest in the policy realm:
Random assignment control-group studies, the gold standard of social science research, allow us to stop armchair theorizing. When done properly, these studies allow researchers to isolate the impact of a particular program by observing two groups that are effectively identical.
School-choice programs have been the subject of a large number of random assignment studies. The consistent conclusion of such evaluations on school-choice programs is that parents are much more satisfied with the school their child attends, and students demonstrate varying degrees of academic gains. None of these studies shows any academic harm to students or a decline in parental satisfaction.
For example, a 1998 Harvard study found school-choice parents "very satisfied." Another control-group study led by a Georgetown scholar found that 46 percent of the private-school parents participating in a privately financed school-voucher program gave their school an "A" compared with just 15 percent of the control-group parents.
Control-group studies by Harvard, Stanford, and Georgetown researchers trump the substance-free ad hominem attacks offered by school-choice opponents. (Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan) warned that "ideological certainty easily degenerates into an insistence upon ignorance," and groundless attacks by school-choice opponents certainly qualify.
That was Matthew Ladner, then director of state projects for the Alliance, who at the time (this was back in March) issued this challenge:
The first person in the nation who can send me two random assignment school-choice studies showing significant declines in either academic performance or parental satisfaction will win a steak dinner. I'll even throw in drinks and dessert — the whole nine yards. You have one month to send the studies to Mladner@goldwaterinstitute.org. Feel free to forward this to your anti-school-choice friends and invite them to play. The more the merrier.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody picked up the gauntlet. I wonder why?
When the cure is worse than the disease
This editorial from the Des Moines Register gives me a laugh. After getting past the canned criticism of the federal voucher bill, we finally get to a suggested alternative:
If the federal government wants to raise test scores, more effort should be directed toward educating parents and lifting more families out of poverty, rather than micromanaging the local public schools. Instead of a private-school voucher, it might make more sense to give families a housing voucher, to move their kids to a better neighborhood.
First off, the editorial staff obviously has no knowledge of recent history with housing vouchers--particularly the Section 8 variety, which do specifically what this editorial is proposing. For more on the damaging nature of this program, Howard Husock does the heavy lifting. Of particular interest to this discussion:
Riverdale's Potter elementary school, once boasting a top academic reputation, now has the state's highest student turnover. Student achievement has dropped—putting paid to the idea that shipping poor families to good schools in the suburbs will cause an education ethic to rub off. Instead, the concentration of disorganized families has undermined a once good school. School funds, says the mayor, must now be diverted to the legions of "special needs" students.
In other words, the proposed solution would only serve to harm those schools that might actually be doing good work. Bravo, Des Moines Register! Secondly, the editorial staff has come out and endorsed the main form of school choice in existence today: moving to a better area. And I'm stunned. In effect, the editorial staff:
- agrees that schools in poverty-stricken areas are largely dysfunctional;
- recommends that they be abandoned;
- suggests that no type of school--public, private, or public charter--can be made to work in these areas.
In a very real sense, this editorial offends the sensibilities of everybody in the education field. Even if you are diametrically opposed to school choice, the suggestion that broken schools aren't worth fixing should at least annoy you. Furthermore, it should offend anybody working in urban reform, since the proposal isn't merely to abandon broken schools, but the entire community.
This is one big reason that this is the type of "school choice" that we keep fighting to make obsolete, since it merely reinforces the present atmosphere in which school performance is tied to real estate values. Furthermore, it keeps moving the vicious cycle in which folks keep fleeing for the suburbs. What's amazing is that this editorial sticks up for the idea.
Good tidbits from LA Daily News
Interesting education stuff on the op/ed pages yesterday. First, Villaraigosa got some political juice from moderate Republican and former mayor Richard Riordan:
Having spent the better part of my second term as mayor battling the bureaucracy at the LAUSD, I can say that this plan is a historic opportunity for reform. Villaraigosa's proposal promotes the superintendent from general manager to CEO, giving him the authority to appoint a strong management team, cut waste and return money to the classroom where it belongs.
The district's response to the mayor's reform proposal is straight out of the bureaucracy playbook: Delay, obfuscate and dissemble. As with every reform proposal over the last decade from expanded charter schools, to small learning communities, to local control of budgeting the LAUSD has mounted a full-scale campaign to resist change. District officials should be cheering on behalf of the children and finding ways to partner with the mayor.
With political consultants and public-relations experts paid for at taxpayer expense the district is engaged in an absurd spin campaign that parses the subtle difference between the awful and the terrible. The message: Everything is fine here; leave us alone.
This time, it won't work. L.A.'s economic future depends on giving more of our young people a better shot at a good life. Yet, 81 percent of LAUSD middle-school students are trapped in schools the federal government defines as failing. Nearly 90 percent of eighth-graders score below proficient on assessments of reading and math. And study after study confirms that the graduation rate in LAUSD hovers alarmingly around 50 percent.
This means that fewer than one out of four students who enter ninth grade in the LAUSD will graduate four years later with the minimum requirements to gain entry to UC or CSU colleges. A college education is a passport out of poverty for L.A.'s kids. And a well-educated work force is the engine that will keep our economy growing.
The effort to improve our schools must stay on the front burner. With the mayor's leadership, there's no doubt that it will.
The guys at School Me! might see this differently, but I'd say that the signing of a Republican to the deal may have provided Villaraigosa some currency to be used as the legislation works its way through the state legislature in Sacramento.
Now, to the editorial board, which eviscerates Roy Romer over his comparison of Villaraigosa's campaign against LAUSD to the WWII Japanese American internment:
Cringe. Is the wealthy former Colorado governor and tractor salesman being robbed of his possessions, locked up in jail, facing angry, hate-filled mobs?
Obviously, in Romer's mind, it must look that way. Here he's done this brilliant job of building schools (without really integrating them as neighborhood centers) and raised test scores (without lowering the dropout rate) and these sinister forces are trying to convince people something is fundamentally wrong in the LAUSD.
Romer really should have known better. There are certain historical events that are still raw enough that most people know enough to tread on lightly, if at all. Those would include the Holocaust, Sept. 11, 2001, and the internment of Japanese-Americans. It diminishes and exploits history's horrors to compare them to petty political grievances.
But what the offended may not realize is that Romer wasn't being insensitive when he said the propaganda being spread about LAUSD is akin to the racist, ugly misinformation spread to get Americans on board with the Japanese internment plan. He actually really believes it.
Therein lies Romer's biggest problem. His head games aren't earning him or the school district any points in this struggle over governance.
He could have been part of the reform effort from the start, even led it. Instead he chose to fight it, defending his achievements and declaring every reformer an enemy.
Is it any wonder, then, that he now sees himself as a victim of historic proportions?
Ease up, Roy. You've done a lot of things well and left a lot of work still to be done. There's still time to change course and go out a winner.
For all the cash the district has spent on PR, you'd think they could find a handler for Romer to make sure he doesn't pull stunts like these.
Taking a swing at the NEA
Ruben Navarrette is less than enthused at the union's decision to go after NCLB. But unlike a lot of columnists, he gets a bit more detailed in his criticisms:
Convinced that there is too much emphasis on regular testing, and that low-performing schools are being unfairly punished when students come up short, the union would prefer a broader-based accountability system that relies on “multiple measures of success.” Whatever that means.
The union is also queasy about the requirement in No Child Left Behind that schools test students in math and reading and then report scores according to race, disability, English proficiency and economic background. The NEA instead wants benchmarks that take into account students’ differing abilities and demographics.
It seems that many educators are less than confident in the job they’ve done when it comes to teaching minorities, those with limited English proficiency and the economically disadvantaged, and they’re not eager to broadcast their failures.
It’s outrageous. If these people get their way, the practical effect would be a lower bar