A tribute to the life and work of Cesar Chavez
American River college. Sacramento
12 noon. Thursday, March 30,2006
Duane Campbell
Professor of Bilingual/Multicultural Education
CSU-Sacramento
The spirit of Cesar Chavez lives on in the struggle for union rights and justice in the fields of California and in union halls across the nation. Along with Dolores Huerta, Philip Vera Cruz, and others, César created the United Farm Workers (UFW) the first successful union of farm workers in U.S. history and he inspired the thousands in the Chicano movement for social justice.
Today Mexican, Mexican American and Latino union leadership is common in our major cities , in government, and in several industries. For myself and others, the UFW was a school for organizing. Hundreds of activists in education, labor and community organizations owe their skills to UFW training and experience.
Wednesday, March 29, 2006
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Politicians write teacher credentialing rules?
The last time they did this they created a mess. SB 2042. and sharply reduced multicultural education and English Language support.
In a prior posting I asked if anyone knew about an Omnibus teacher preparation bill.
The bill is Senate Bill 1209. I encourage careful reading of this bill.
Among the provisions, as I read it are:
1. Consolidating pre service testing from Rica to CSET.
2. Elimination of current restrictions that teacher performance assessment would only begin when the budget provided funding for such assessment.
3. Item 8. Eliminates the current provisions that a teacher could appeal an adverse decision by a Principal.
4. Item 16. Seems to allow a district and the collective bargaining agent to agree on a separate salary schedule not based upon current regulations. (ie. Testing, Merit?)
5. Appears to sharply limit the use of Emergency Credentials.
Among the many provisions.
(13) Existing law requires each school with a substantial population of pupils of diverse ethnic backgrounds to provide an in-service preparation program designed to prepare teachers and other professional school service personnel to understand and effectively relate to the history, culture, and current problems of these pupils and their environment as specified. This bill would delete this and the related provisions.
In the replacement
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 (c) Completion of coursework in human relations in accordance with the commission’s standards of program quality and effectiveness that includes, at minimum instruction in the following: (1) The nature and content of culture. (2) Cross cultural contact and interactions. (3) Cultural diversity in the United States and California. (4) Providing instruction responsive to the diversity of the student pupil population. (5) Recognizing and responding to behavior related to bias based on race, color, religion, nationality, country of origin, ancestry, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. (6) Techniques for the peaceful resolution of conflict. (d) The commission shall establish alternative requirements for a teacher to earn the certificate, which shall be awarded as a supplementary authorization pursuant to subdivision (e) of Section 44225. (e) A teacher who possesses a credential or permit described in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) and is able to present a valid out-of-state credential or certificate that authorizes the instruction of English language learners may qualify for the certificate issued under this section by submitting an application and fee to the commission.
For one thing, this looks again like politicians writing rules for the profession, much as they did in mandating the current reading programs.
I encourage others to look at this bill. What do others think?
I think politicians should do their own job, adequately fund the schoools. They are failing at this.
Duane Campbell
Sacramento
In a prior posting I asked if anyone knew about an Omnibus teacher preparation bill.
The bill is Senate Bill 1209. I encourage careful reading of this bill.
Among the provisions, as I read it are:
1. Consolidating pre service testing from Rica to CSET.
2. Elimination of current restrictions that teacher performance assessment would only begin when the budget provided funding for such assessment.
3. Item 8. Eliminates the current provisions that a teacher could appeal an adverse decision by a Principal.
4. Item 16. Seems to allow a district and the collective bargaining agent to agree on a separate salary schedule not based upon current regulations. (ie. Testing, Merit?)
5. Appears to sharply limit the use of Emergency Credentials.
Among the many provisions.
(13) Existing law requires each school with a substantial population of pupils of diverse ethnic backgrounds to provide an in-service preparation program designed to prepare teachers and other professional school service personnel to understand and effectively relate to the history, culture, and current problems of these pupils and their environment as specified. This bill would delete this and the related provisions.
In the replacement
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 (c) Completion of coursework in human relations in accordance with the commission’s standards of program quality and effectiveness that includes, at minimum instruction in the following: (1) The nature and content of culture. (2) Cross cultural contact and interactions. (3) Cultural diversity in the United States and California. (4) Providing instruction responsive to the diversity of the student pupil population. (5) Recognizing and responding to behavior related to bias based on race, color, religion, nationality, country of origin, ancestry, gender, disability, or sexual orientation. (6) Techniques for the peaceful resolution of conflict. (d) The commission shall establish alternative requirements for a teacher to earn the certificate, which shall be awarded as a supplementary authorization pursuant to subdivision (e) of Section 44225. (e) A teacher who possesses a credential or permit described in paragraph (1) of subdivision (b) and is able to present a valid out-of-state credential or certificate that authorizes the instruction of English language learners may qualify for the certificate issued under this section by submitting an application and fee to the commission.
For one thing, this looks again like politicians writing rules for the profession, much as they did in mandating the current reading programs.
I encourage others to look at this bill. What do others think?
I think politicians should do their own job, adequately fund the schoools. They are failing at this.
Duane Campbell
Sacramento
Saturday, March 25, 2006
Los Angeles March for Immigrants' Rights
More Than 500,000 Rally in L.A. for Immigrants' Rights
By Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman
Times Staff Writer
2:51 PM PST, March 25, 2006
Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.
The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.
Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally immigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two business and pays $7,000 in taxes annually.
Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally just four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind; in his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid only $10 a day. "As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving a stick with both the American and Guatemalan flag. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."
By Teresa Watanabe and Anna Gorman
Times Staff Writer
2:51 PM PST, March 25, 2006
Joining what some are calling the nation's largest mobilization of immigrants ever, hundreds of thousands of people boisterously marched in downtown Los Angeles Saturday to protest federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants, penalize those who help them and build a security wall on the U.S. southern border. Spirited crowds representing labor, religious groups, civil-rights advocates and ordinary immigrants stretched over 26 blocks of downtown Los Angeles from Adams Blvd. along Spring Street and Broadway to City Hall, tooting kazoos, waving American flags and chanting "Si se puede!" (Yes we can!). The crowd, estimated by police at more than 500.000, represented one of the largest protest marches in Los Angeles history, surpassing Vietnam War demonstrations and the 70,000 who rallied downtown against Proposition 187, a 1994 state initiative that denied public benefits to undocumented migrants.
The marchers included both longtime residents and the newly arrived, bound by a desire for a better life and a love for this county.
Arbelica Lazo, 40, illegally immigrated from El Salvador two decades ago but said she now owns two business and pays $7,000 in taxes annually.
Jose Alberto Salvador, 33, came here illegally just four months ago to find work to support the wife and five children he left behind; in his native Guatemala, he said, what little work he could find paid only $10 a day. "As much as we need this country, we love this country," Salvador said, waving a stick with both the American and Guatemalan flag. "This country gives us opportunities we don't get at home."
Omnibus education bill in Sacramento?
Omnibus education bill?
I understand that there is talk among lobbyists at the California Capitol of passing an “Omnibus” education bill which would bring together all the education interest groups.
This proposal may well be dangerous to students of color and teachers.
The groups discussing a grand bill, by rumor, include Secretary of Education Alan Bersin ( and Margaret Fortune), ACSA (school administrators), CTA, and more.
CTA would get full funding for Prop.98 which is tempting.
However, Bersin and Fortune have demonstrated severe anti teacher positions and their participation representing the Governor gives me cause for concern. These two, neither of whom have been teachers, represent the conservative corporate side of governance.
Bersin’s proposals a few weeks ago were anti teacher, seeking to gain in the legislature what they were defeated about in Prop. 74. See earlier posts.
I encourage each of us to watch the legislative positions of our unions, associations, etc. and to be wary of any Omnibus education bill.
There is no reason to trust these people.
It might be better to fight for separate bills, such as adequate school funding, than to join together in an omnibus bill. Does anyone know more about this?
As the saying goes, if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Duane Campbell
Sacramento
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
~ George Orwell
I understand that there is talk among lobbyists at the California Capitol of passing an “Omnibus” education bill which would bring together all the education interest groups.
This proposal may well be dangerous to students of color and teachers.
The groups discussing a grand bill, by rumor, include Secretary of Education Alan Bersin ( and Margaret Fortune), ACSA (school administrators), CTA, and more.
CTA would get full funding for Prop.98 which is tempting.
However, Bersin and Fortune have demonstrated severe anti teacher positions and their participation representing the Governor gives me cause for concern. These two, neither of whom have been teachers, represent the conservative corporate side of governance.
Bersin’s proposals a few weeks ago were anti teacher, seeking to gain in the legislature what they were defeated about in Prop. 74. See earlier posts.
I encourage each of us to watch the legislative positions of our unions, associations, etc. and to be wary of any Omnibus education bill.
There is no reason to trust these people.
It might be better to fight for separate bills, such as adequate school funding, than to join together in an omnibus bill. Does anyone know more about this?
As the saying goes, if you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Duane Campbell
Sacramento
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
~ George Orwell
Monday, March 20, 2006
Teachers Conference Sat. March 25
Teachers conference:
Multicultural Education and Social Justice
Sat. March 25, 2006. CSU-Sacramento
Free.
Social justice issues such as bilingual education and immigrants' rights will be at the core of Sacramento State's 12 th Annual Multicultural Education Conference beginning at 8:30 a.m. on March 25 in the University Union. The conference, "Education Reform and Social Justice Issues: A Grassroot[Re] Examination of Race, Class and Society," is directed toward K-12 teachers, student teachers, administrators, university educators, community members, activists, parents and all others interested in multicultural education issues. Antonia Darder, educational policy professor at the University of Illinois, will give a keynote address at 9:10 a.m. in the University Union Ballroom on motivating educators and teachers' organizations to become activists in a renewed educational vision. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in East Los Angeles, Darder is a poet and an activist whose life-long commitment has been to social justice, human rights and economic democracy. The conference includes sessions concerning parent/community involvement, leadership and advocacy, and peace and conflict resolution. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Maggie Beddow at (916) 278-4127 and for a complete list of topics and times visit http://edweb.csus.edu/. For media assistance contact the Public Affairs office at (916) 278-6156.
Duane Campbell will be offering a presentation on Teaching about Cesar Chavez and a presentation on the current The anti immigrant legislation HR 4437 currently before the U.S. Senate would build a 700 mile wall along the U.S. Mexican border. ( The infamous Berlin Wall was only 46 miles long). 287 people died trying to cross it. The current U.S. wall is 70 miles long. At present some 3,500 have died trying to cross it.
This workshop will analyze the current immigration conflict and search for progressive organizing alternatives.
6000 J Street • Sacramento, CA 95819-6026 • (916) 278-6156 • infodesk@csus.edu
Multicultural Education and Social Justice
Sat. March 25, 2006. CSU-Sacramento
Free.
Social justice issues such as bilingual education and immigrants' rights will be at the core of Sacramento State's 12 th Annual Multicultural Education Conference beginning at 8:30 a.m. on March 25 in the University Union. The conference, "Education Reform and Social Justice Issues: A Grassroot[Re] Examination of Race, Class and Society," is directed toward K-12 teachers, student teachers, administrators, university educators, community members, activists, parents and all others interested in multicultural education issues. Antonia Darder, educational policy professor at the University of Illinois, will give a keynote address at 9:10 a.m. in the University Union Ballroom on motivating educators and teachers' organizations to become activists in a renewed educational vision. Born in Puerto Rico and raised in East Los Angeles, Darder is a poet and an activist whose life-long commitment has been to social justice, human rights and economic democracy. The conference includes sessions concerning parent/community involvement, leadership and advocacy, and peace and conflict resolution. The event is free and open to the public. For more information, call Maggie Beddow at (916) 278-4127 and for a complete list of topics and times visit http://edweb.csus.edu/. For media assistance contact the Public Affairs office at (916) 278-6156.
Duane Campbell will be offering a presentation on Teaching about Cesar Chavez and a presentation on the current The anti immigrant legislation HR 4437 currently before the U.S. Senate would build a 700 mile wall along the U.S. Mexican border. ( The infamous Berlin Wall was only 46 miles long). 287 people died trying to cross it. The current U.S. wall is 70 miles long. At present some 3,500 have died trying to cross it.
This workshop will analyze the current immigration conflict and search for progressive organizing alternatives.
6000 J Street • Sacramento, CA 95819-6026 • (916) 278-6156 • infodesk@csus.edu
Monday, March 13, 2006
Alan Bersin's nomination is troubled
Education nominee hits snag
Alan Bersin's critics question San Diego fund's expenses.
By Todd Milbourn -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Friday, March 10, 2006
On the eve of confirmation hearings for his place on the California State Board of Education less than three weeks away, Alan Bersin is facing questions about expenditures from an educational fund he oversaw while superintendent of San Diego schools.
A copy of a draft report from an internal audit, dated Nov. 1, 2005, and obtained by The Bee, highlights questionable record-keeping and spending from the fund, including $35,476 for meals and $3,801 for alcoholic beverages over a seven-year period.
Bersin, whom Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named secretary of education, labeled the draft report as an attempt to thwart his confirmation and settle "old political scores."
"Every one of the expenses was approved as being in accordance with purposes of the fund," said Bersin in a telephone interview Thursday. "This was all done in terms of supporting educational reform, supporting the team effort. And it was fully disclosed."
The fund in question - the superintendent's fund for innovation - was created in 1998, shortly after Bersin became superintendent of the state's second-largest school district. The fund was a partnership between the school district and the nonprofit San Diego Foundation, which gave Bersin latitude to direct expenditures. Bersin has described the fund as support for new programs in the San Diego schools.
The foundation collected money for the fund through private donations from groups such as the Walton Family Foundation, Wells Fargo and the J. Dallas & Mary H. Clark Fund.
Bersin often used the fund to reimburse his travel and entertainment expenses so the district wouldn't have to. The San Diego school board was not involved in the fund's creation and did not have oversight over its spending. That led school board members to question the foundation's activities.
Bersin spent $574,733 through the fund during his tenure, according to the report. The report calls into question about $44,871 of that, including: $471 to attend President Bush's inauguration; $160 for the Union of Pan Asian Communities annual fundraiser dinner; and $500 to Nice Guys Inc. of San Diego for an advertisement in a program booklet at an awards ceremony.
Bersin said the money was well spent, validated by improved test scores among San Diego students. Between 2002 and 2004, scores for Latino and African American students on the state's Academic Performance Index rose 8 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
He said the fund allowed him to bring in consultants, offer a signing bonus for a communications director and pay the commuting expenses for Anthony Alvarado, the San Diego district's chancellor of instruction who commuted from New York for a year and spearheaded aggressive reforms of classroom instruction that upset teachers unions.
"I don't think anyone, friend or foe alike, would say the changes weren't dramatic" and for the better, he said.
The review of the fund was commissioned in August by San Diego school board member Mitz Lee, a longtime critic of Bersin, who as a former federal prosecutor had no formal education experience when he took over the district in 1998. Lee said she was concerned that expenditures weren't approved by the school board, leaving potential for abuse.
"To me, it's all about the board exercising due diligence on financial affairs of the district," she said Thursday.
Lee said she also was concerned that the foundation hasn't disclosed a contributor of more than $207,000.
"What if those people have business or any conflicts of interest with the district?" Lee asked. Bob Kelly, executive director of the San Diego Foundation, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.
Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute on Philanthropy, a charity watchdog in Chicago, said giving a superintendent his own fund is a recipe for trouble. The $45,000 in expenses questioned in the draft report works out to about $6,000 a year.
"I'm not that surprised to see these problems happening," Borochoff said. "If you're a superintendent and you want to buy alcohol for an event or go to the inauguration, the school district has mechanisms to prevent that. This gives him too much discretion beyond what his job would ordinarily allow."
Hearings on Bersin's nomination to the state board are scheduled for later this month. The fund is on the agenda Tuesday for a closed-door session of the San Diego Unified School District, said Steven Baratte, the district's spokesman. The confirmation hearing is set for March 29.
About the writer:
The Bee's Todd Milbourn can be reached at (916) 321-1063 or tmilbourn@sacbee.com.
Alan Bersin's critics question San Diego fund's expenses.
By Todd Milbourn -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Friday, March 10, 2006
On the eve of confirmation hearings for his place on the California State Board of Education less than three weeks away, Alan Bersin is facing questions about expenditures from an educational fund he oversaw while superintendent of San Diego schools.
A copy of a draft report from an internal audit, dated Nov. 1, 2005, and obtained by The Bee, highlights questionable record-keeping and spending from the fund, including $35,476 for meals and $3,801 for alcoholic beverages over a seven-year period.
Bersin, whom Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger named secretary of education, labeled the draft report as an attempt to thwart his confirmation and settle "old political scores."
"Every one of the expenses was approved as being in accordance with purposes of the fund," said Bersin in a telephone interview Thursday. "This was all done in terms of supporting educational reform, supporting the team effort. And it was fully disclosed."
The fund in question - the superintendent's fund for innovation - was created in 1998, shortly after Bersin became superintendent of the state's second-largest school district. The fund was a partnership between the school district and the nonprofit San Diego Foundation, which gave Bersin latitude to direct expenditures. Bersin has described the fund as support for new programs in the San Diego schools.
The foundation collected money for the fund through private donations from groups such as the Walton Family Foundation, Wells Fargo and the J. Dallas & Mary H. Clark Fund.
Bersin often used the fund to reimburse his travel and entertainment expenses so the district wouldn't have to. The San Diego school board was not involved in the fund's creation and did not have oversight over its spending. That led school board members to question the foundation's activities.
Bersin spent $574,733 through the fund during his tenure, according to the report. The report calls into question about $44,871 of that, including: $471 to attend President Bush's inauguration; $160 for the Union of Pan Asian Communities annual fundraiser dinner; and $500 to Nice Guys Inc. of San Diego for an advertisement in a program booklet at an awards ceremony.
Bersin said the money was well spent, validated by improved test scores among San Diego students. Between 2002 and 2004, scores for Latino and African American students on the state's Academic Performance Index rose 8 percent and 6 percent, respectively.
He said the fund allowed him to bring in consultants, offer a signing bonus for a communications director and pay the commuting expenses for Anthony Alvarado, the San Diego district's chancellor of instruction who commuted from New York for a year and spearheaded aggressive reforms of classroom instruction that upset teachers unions.
"I don't think anyone, friend or foe alike, would say the changes weren't dramatic" and for the better, he said.
The review of the fund was commissioned in August by San Diego school board member Mitz Lee, a longtime critic of Bersin, who as a former federal prosecutor had no formal education experience when he took over the district in 1998. Lee said she was concerned that expenditures weren't approved by the school board, leaving potential for abuse.
"To me, it's all about the board exercising due diligence on financial affairs of the district," she said Thursday.
Lee said she also was concerned that the foundation hasn't disclosed a contributor of more than $207,000.
"What if those people have business or any conflicts of interest with the district?" Lee asked. Bob Kelly, executive director of the San Diego Foundation, couldn't be reached for comment Thursday.
Daniel Borochoff, president of the American Institute on Philanthropy, a charity watchdog in Chicago, said giving a superintendent his own fund is a recipe for trouble. The $45,000 in expenses questioned in the draft report works out to about $6,000 a year.
"I'm not that surprised to see these problems happening," Borochoff said. "If you're a superintendent and you want to buy alcohol for an event or go to the inauguration, the school district has mechanisms to prevent that. This gives him too much discretion beyond what his job would ordinarily allow."
Hearings on Bersin's nomination to the state board are scheduled for later this month. The fund is on the agenda Tuesday for a closed-door session of the San Diego Unified School District, said Steven Baratte, the district's spokesman. The confirmation hearing is set for March 29.
About the writer:
The Bee's Todd Milbourn can be reached at (916) 321-1063 or tmilbourn@sacbee.com.
Sunday, March 05, 2006
English Language Learners in California
Hon. Martha Escutia,
California State Senate
Dear Senator Escutia,
Thank you for your recent letter in which you and 3 other Latino legislators ask for support of one candidate for Governor. We will consider your request and his record.
In the meantime, may we point out to you in your role as Chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus that the California schools are in crisis. We have a Latino drop out rate of nearly 50%. Latino high school graduates read at about the same level as Anglo 13 year olds.
Further, it is starkly noticeable that back in 1976 there were 5 Latinos in the California legislature and we were able to pass comprehensive bilingual education to assist immigrant students. Now, we have some 26 Latino legislators and you are not even able to be certain that English Language Learners have materials to assist them to learn English. Instead they are given materials designed for fluent English speakers. See the current issue before the California Curriculum Commission of the State Board of Education to provide appropriate materials for English Language Learners.
We hope that the Latino Caucus finds it voice and focuses on matters of importance to our children.
Cordially,
Dr. Duane E. Campbell Dolores Delgado-Campbell
Professor of Education Professor of History
CSU- Sacramento American River College
California State Senate
Dear Senator Escutia,
Thank you for your recent letter in which you and 3 other Latino legislators ask for support of one candidate for Governor. We will consider your request and his record.
In the meantime, may we point out to you in your role as Chair of the Latino Legislative Caucus that the California schools are in crisis. We have a Latino drop out rate of nearly 50%. Latino high school graduates read at about the same level as Anglo 13 year olds.
Further, it is starkly noticeable that back in 1976 there were 5 Latinos in the California legislature and we were able to pass comprehensive bilingual education to assist immigrant students. Now, we have some 26 Latino legislators and you are not even able to be certain that English Language Learners have materials to assist them to learn English. Instead they are given materials designed for fluent English speakers. See the current issue before the California Curriculum Commission of the State Board of Education to provide appropriate materials for English Language Learners.
We hope that the Latino Caucus finds it voice and focuses on matters of importance to our children.
Cordially,
Dr. Duane E. Campbell Dolores Delgado-Campbell
Professor of Education Professor of History
CSU- Sacramento American River College
Friday, March 03, 2006
Collective Bargaining in Education: new book
Collective Bargaining in Education:
Negotiating Change in Today's Schools (Harvard Education Press),
edited by Jane Hannaway of the Urban Institute and Progressive Policy Institute Senior Fellow and Education Sector Co-Director
Andrew Rotherham.
This groundbreaking and timely new book takes an in-depth look at the controversial world of teacher collective bargaining and its important implications.
"It is unfathomable that, in light of recent efforts to close the student achievement gap, the body of research examining the impact of collective bargaining by teachers on public education is so scant. What are the facts and how do we find them? Hannaway and
Rotherham rightly raise the issue and put forth real alternatives"
--Andrew Stern, President, Service Employees International Union
"Jane Hannaway and Andrew Rotherham have turned a searchlight on an important and neglected subject. Collective Bargaining in Education assembles experts who often have strongly contrasting views but
whose knowledge and perspectives are invaluable. This is a must-read for anyone concerned about reforming public education."
--William L. Taylor, Chairman, Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights
Negotiating Change in Today's Schools (Harvard Education Press),
edited by Jane Hannaway of the Urban Institute and Progressive Policy Institute Senior Fellow and Education Sector Co-Director
Andrew Rotherham.
"It is unfathomable that, in light of recent efforts to close the student achievement gap, the body of research examining the impact of collective bargaining by teachers on public education is so scant. What are the facts and how do we find them? Hannaway and
Rotherham rightly raise the issue and put forth real alternatives"
--Andrew Stern, President, Service Employees International Union
"Jane Hannaway and Andrew Rotherham have turned a searchlight on an important and neglected subject. Collective Bargaining in Education assembles experts who often have strongly contrasting views but
whose knowledge and perspectives are invaluable. This is a must-read for anyone concerned about reforming public education."
--William L. Taylor, Chairman, Citizens' Commission on Civil Rights
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Los Angeles dropouts from high school
From the Los Angeles Times
L.A. Mayor Sees Dropout Rate as 'Civil Rights Issue'
By Mitchell Landsberg
Times Staff Writer
March 2, 2006
The high school dropout problem is "the new civil rights issue of our time," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared Wednesday in a speech that drew a line from the efforts to desegregate the South a half-century ago to today's struggles over the performance of Los Angeles students, who are predominantly Latino.
Acknowledging that there is wide disagreement about how many students are leaving L.A. schools, Villaraigosa told a conference on dropout issues that "whatever that number is, we are in a crisis."
The mayor, who is campaigning to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District, insisted that he wasn't "throwing stones" at the school system, many of whose top administrators were in the audience at the Leadership Forum on High School Dropouts at USC. But his speech contained plenty of brickbats.
"Make no mistake: There's a culture of complacency in this school district that's got to change," Villaraigosa said.
Schools Supt. Roy Romer, who was not present for the speech, gave his own talk later, defending the district even as he said he welcomed the mayor's "aggressive" approach to the district.
Ticking off the school system's accomplishments during his tenure — the nation's largest school-construction program, a sharp rise in standardized test scores in elementary schools — Romer said: "That's not complacency, folks. That's change!"
He added: "We have real challenges going forward. But to deny what we have accomplished together would be foolish." He said the reforms the district has set in place would take years to roll out.
The dropout issue has been at the center of local school reform discussions since last March, when a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University calculated that only 45% of students were graduating in four years from Los Angeles schools. The rate was even lower for Latino students, and much higher for white and Asian American students. African Americans were close to the districtwide average.
The school district cried foul, saying its figures showed that roughly 70% were graduating, a figure that has since risen. The district uses a different formula to calculate its graduation rate, one that the Harvard researchers and other critics say is deeply flawed.
In his repeated calls to take over the district, which is run by an elected school board, Villaraigosa has said more than half of the district's students drop out. District officials have protested, saying recently that the dropout rate had declined to 24.6% for the 2004-05 school year.
Villaraigosa said it doesn't matter; any of the figures being discussed is too high. Charging that more than 60% of Latinos and African Americans were failing to graduate, the mayor said, "These are numbers that should put a chill down your spine…. We have numbers that are every bit as insidious as the National Guard blocking the door in Little Rock" — a reference to the efforts by Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus in 1957 to stop black students from integrating all-white schools.
Villaraigosa is not the first person to frame the dropout problem as a civil rights issue. It has been a major thrust of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard and of other academic and public policy initiatives.
Gary Orfield, head of the Harvard project, told the standing-room-only conference that turnout for the event was evidence that the issue was being taken seriously, especially in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Unified recently proposed a series of changes designed to keep students in school, several of which matched recommendations made by scholars at the conference.
There is widespread agreement, for instance, that schools need to make more personal connections with students, that they need to keep better track of attendance, and that they need to do a better job of enlisting the help of parents.
Several of the L.A. Unified proposals are aimed at accomplishing those goals.
A new survey of dropouts, commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, bolsters some of the arguments behind the reforms, as well as the higher academic standards that California schools are mandating.
The national survey of 467 high school dropouts, scheduled for release today, found that a majority of those surveyed thought they would have worked harder if their schools had higher expectations of them, and that the most common reason given for dropping out was that "classes were not interesting."
"The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts" also reached some conclusions that challenge orthodox assumptions. For instance, nearly 90% of the dropouts reported that they had passing grades when they left school.
Orfield, who is considered one of the foremost scholars on the dropout issue, said that figure sounded wrong "by orders of magnitude."
"All the research suggests that academic failure is one of the basic forces" behind dropping out, he said, adding that high school dropouts are not always reliable informants.
John Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises, a Washington-based public policy firm that conducted the survey, said the researchers had confirmed with the schools that the majority of the dropouts had been passing their classes.
The survey was conducted among former students from schools in 25 cities, suburbs and small towns across the country. The respondents were not a nationally representative sample, the researchers said.
One year's class of high school dropouts will cost California $38.5 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes, another Washington-based public policy group estimated Wednesday.
"This is a very conservative estimate," said former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education.
L.A. Mayor Sees Dropout Rate as 'Civil Rights Issue'
By Mitchell Landsberg
Times Staff Writer
March 2, 2006
The high school dropout problem is "the new civil rights issue of our time," Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared Wednesday in a speech that drew a line from the efforts to desegregate the South a half-century ago to today's struggles over the performance of Los Angeles students, who are predominantly Latino.
Acknowledging that there is wide disagreement about how many students are leaving L.A. schools, Villaraigosa told a conference on dropout issues that "whatever that number is, we are in a crisis."
The mayor, who is campaigning to take over the Los Angeles Unified School District, insisted that he wasn't "throwing stones" at the school system, many of whose top administrators were in the audience at the Leadership Forum on High School Dropouts at USC. But his speech contained plenty of brickbats.
"Make no mistake: There's a culture of complacency in this school district that's got to change," Villaraigosa said.
Schools Supt. Roy Romer, who was not present for the speech, gave his own talk later, defending the district even as he said he welcomed the mayor's "aggressive" approach to the district.
Ticking off the school system's accomplishments during his tenure — the nation's largest school-construction program, a sharp rise in standardized test scores in elementary schools — Romer said: "That's not complacency, folks. That's change!"
He added: "We have real challenges going forward. But to deny what we have accomplished together would be foolish." He said the reforms the district has set in place would take years to roll out.
The dropout issue has been at the center of local school reform discussions since last March, when a study by the Civil Rights Project at Harvard University calculated that only 45% of students were graduating in four years from Los Angeles schools. The rate was even lower for Latino students, and much higher for white and Asian American students. African Americans were close to the districtwide average.
The school district cried foul, saying its figures showed that roughly 70% were graduating, a figure that has since risen. The district uses a different formula to calculate its graduation rate, one that the Harvard researchers and other critics say is deeply flawed.
In his repeated calls to take over the district, which is run by an elected school board, Villaraigosa has said more than half of the district's students drop out. District officials have protested, saying recently that the dropout rate had declined to 24.6% for the 2004-05 school year.
Villaraigosa said it doesn't matter; any of the figures being discussed is too high. Charging that more than 60% of Latinos and African Americans were failing to graduate, the mayor said, "These are numbers that should put a chill down your spine…. We have numbers that are every bit as insidious as the National Guard blocking the door in Little Rock" — a reference to the efforts by Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus in 1957 to stop black students from integrating all-white schools.
Villaraigosa is not the first person to frame the dropout problem as a civil rights issue. It has been a major thrust of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard and of other academic and public policy initiatives.
Gary Orfield, head of the Harvard project, told the standing-room-only conference that turnout for the event was evidence that the issue was being taken seriously, especially in Los Angeles.
Los Angeles Unified recently proposed a series of changes designed to keep students in school, several of which matched recommendations made by scholars at the conference.
There is widespread agreement, for instance, that schools need to make more personal connections with students, that they need to keep better track of attendance, and that they need to do a better job of enlisting the help of parents.
Several of the L.A. Unified proposals are aimed at accomplishing those goals.
A new survey of dropouts, commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, bolsters some of the arguments behind the reforms, as well as the higher academic standards that California schools are mandating.
The national survey of 467 high school dropouts, scheduled for release today, found that a majority of those surveyed thought they would have worked harder if their schools had higher expectations of them, and that the most common reason given for dropping out was that "classes were not interesting."
"The Silent Epidemic: Perspectives of High School Dropouts" also reached some conclusions that challenge orthodox assumptions. For instance, nearly 90% of the dropouts reported that they had passing grades when they left school.
Orfield, who is considered one of the foremost scholars on the dropout issue, said that figure sounded wrong "by orders of magnitude."
"All the research suggests that academic failure is one of the basic forces" behind dropping out, he said, adding that high school dropouts are not always reliable informants.
John Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises, a Washington-based public policy firm that conducted the survey, said the researchers had confirmed with the schools that the majority of the dropouts had been passing their classes.
The survey was conducted among former students from schools in 25 cities, suburbs and small towns across the country. The respondents were not a nationally representative sample, the researchers said.
One year's class of high school dropouts will cost California $38.5 billion in lost wages, taxes and productivity over their lifetimes, another Washington-based public policy group estimated Wednesday.
"This is a very conservative estimate," said former West Virginia Gov. Bob Wise, president of the Alliance for Excellent Education.
Monday, February 27, 2006
Anti intellectualism and professionalism
Very interesting essay in the American Prospect on anti intellectualism and the roles of professionals.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
No benefit found in English-only instruction
No benefit found in English-only instruction
- Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Teaching overwhelmingly in English, as mandated by 1998's Proposition 227, has had no impact on how English learners are faring in California, a state-mandated study released Tuesday has found.
The ballot measure, approved by 61 percent of the state's voters, promised that immigrant children and others who don't speak English at home would assimilate much faster if all their classes were taught in English.
It fueled an emotional debate about how best to educate the state's growing population of immigrant children. California educates one-third of the nation's English learners.
Using test data, the five-year, $2.5 million study found little difference between students who were taught in English-immersion classrooms and those enrolled in bilingual programs.
"We've looked at the available data extensively over the past five years, and we don't find any compelling evidence for the premise underpinning 227: that a major switch to English-immersion would be a panacea for English learners," said Amy Merickel, co-author of the study. The study was conducted by the American Institutes for Research and WestEd, independent, nonpartisan research agencies, on behalf of the California Department of Education.
Researchers studied students' proficiency in English and in other academic subjects in state tests conducted from 1997 through 2004.
Silicon Valley software entrepreneur Ron Unz, who bankrolled the Proposition 227 campaign, said he considered the study worthless.
"I think it's garbage, and it's extremely expensive garbage," he said. "If you want to know if rocks fall upward or downward and you spend enough money, you can find someone to say 'Sometimes they fall upward.' "
Unz said his own analysis of state test scores for the four years after Proposition 227 passed found that English learners in bilingual classes did not improve at all, while those in English immersion programs tripled their performance.
Merickel said that because the state data provides only annual snapshots such an assessment doesn't show whether individual students are progressing over time. By definition, students who do well in a bilingual program and master English, are replaced by new English learners, she said.
To track the progress of individual students over time, Merickel and her colleagues looked at longitudinal test results from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which educates more than half the state's 1.7 million English learners.
Coming on the heels of Proposition 187, which banned public services for illegal immigrants, and Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in public programs, the English-only measure brought race politics and the national debate on immigration into the classroom.
"We've been arguing about the wrong thing for a long time, and the needs of California's English learners are getting lost in that debate," Merickel said.
In line with the findings of several recent studies, including reports in 2004 and 2005 from the Public Policy Institute of California and the state Legislative Analyst's Office, the researchers said that how California educates English learners will play a significant role in the state's future.
"Given that English learners are such a large, growing and vital component of California's future, embracing the challenge of learning how to be more successful with this large population of students is essential to our state and national well-being," the authors wrote.
Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, a professor of education and head of the immigration project at New York University, said all students need much more sophisticated skills and the higher level of language skills needed for the job market of the future take longer to acquire.
"The data show very, very strongly that you learn English in two ways: one is you need good linguistic models, good teachers ...," he said. "And the better your foundation in your first language, the better you'll do in the second language."
The study's authors found that English learners have done better academically since the passage of Prop. 227. But all California students improved in the same period, and the performance gap between English learners and native English speakers has changed little.
The researchers noted that Prop 227's implementation coincided with other educational reforms -- including the federal No Child Left Behind Act, new state standards and assessments for English learners and new state funding for English language instruction -- making it hard to gauge which factors contributed to student success.
Many teachers and administrators told the researchers Prop. 227 was useful, however, in focusing attention on how -- and how well -- English learners are taught in California.
The study's authors identified nine schools across the state that were successfully educating English learners and interviewed their principals to find out the secrets to their success. The principals said what matters most are the quality of instruction, a school-wide commitment to teaching English learners and careful planning and assessment -- not the language of instruction.
The state education department's manager for language policy, Veronica Aguila, said the state will highlight effective practices. She also said officials will continue ensuring that districts tell parents they can demand that their school provide bilingual instruction, as several Bay Area districts do.
About 8 percent of current California students are in bilingual programs, down from 27 percent before Proposition 227 went into effect in fall 1998.
Previous findings
California state auditor's report, June 2005
-- Limited monitoring holds English learners back and makes it hard to assess performance statewide.
-- State tests don't reveal which programs best help English learners.
Public Policy Institute of California report, April 2005
-- No evidence that changes under Proposition 227 boost English learners' achievement.
-- Students in bilingual programs improve more slowly than those in English-only programs but they also tend to be poorer and less prepared.
California legislative analyst report, February 2004
-- About half of English learners who start California public school in kindergarten become proficient, but more than half of those who start later never do.
E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/22/MNGSUHCJF51.DTL
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
- Tyche Hendricks, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Teaching overwhelmingly in English, as mandated by 1998's Proposition 227, has had no impact on how English learners are faring in California, a state-mandated study released Tuesday has found.
The ballot measure, approved by 61 percent of the state's voters, promised that immigrant children and others who don't speak English at home would assimilate much faster if all their classes were taught in English.
It fueled an emotional debate about how best to educate the state's growing population of immigrant children. California educates one-third of the nation's English learners.
Using test data, the five-year, $2.5 million study found little difference between students who were taught in English-immersion classrooms and those enrolled in bilingual programs.
"We've looked at the available data extensively over the past five years, and we don't find any compelling evidence for the premise underpinning 227: that a major switch to English-immersion would be a panacea for English learners," said Amy Merickel, co-author of the study. The study was conducted by the American Institutes for Research and WestEd, independent, nonpartisan research agencies, on behalf of the California Department of Education.
Researchers studied students' proficiency in English and in other academic subjects in state tests conducted from 1997 through 2004.
Silicon Valley software entrepreneur Ron Unz, who bankrolled the Proposition 227 campaign, said he considered the study worthless.
"I think it's garbage, and it's extremely expensive garbage," he said. "If you want to know if rocks fall upward or downward and you spend enough money, you can find someone to say 'Sometimes they fall upward.' "
Unz said his own analysis of state test scores for the four years after Proposition 227 passed found that English learners in bilingual classes did not improve at all, while those in English immersion programs tripled their performance.
Merickel said that because the state data provides only annual snapshots such an assessment doesn't show whether individual students are progressing over time. By definition, students who do well in a bilingual program and master English, are replaced by new English learners, she said.
To track the progress of individual students over time, Merickel and her colleagues looked at longitudinal test results from the Los Angeles Unified School District, which educates more than half the state's 1.7 million English learners.
Coming on the heels of Proposition 187, which banned public services for illegal immigrants, and Proposition 209, which outlawed affirmative action in public programs, the English-only measure brought race politics and the national debate on immigration into the classroom.
"We've been arguing about the wrong thing for a long time, and the needs of California's English learners are getting lost in that debate," Merickel said.
In line with the findings of several recent studies, including reports in 2004 and 2005 from the Public Policy Institute of California and the state Legislative Analyst's Office, the researchers said that how California educates English learners will play a significant role in the state's future.
"Given that English learners are such a large, growing and vital component of California's future, embracing the challenge of learning how to be more successful with this large population of students is essential to our state and national well-being," the authors wrote.
Marcelo Suarez-Orozco, a professor of education and head of the immigration project at New York University, said all students need much more sophisticated skills and the higher level of language skills needed for the job market of the future take longer to acquire.
"The data show very, very strongly that you learn English in two ways: one is you need good linguistic models, good teachers ...," he said. "And the better your foundation in your first language, the better you'll do in the second language."
The study's authors found that English learners have done better academically since the passage of Prop. 227. But all California students improved in the same period, and the performance gap between English learners and native English speakers has changed little.
The researchers noted that Prop 227's implementation coincided with other educational reforms -- including the federal No Child Left Behind Act, new state standards and assessments for English learners and new state funding for English language instruction -- making it hard to gauge which factors contributed to student success.
Many teachers and administrators told the researchers Prop. 227 was useful, however, in focusing attention on how -- and how well -- English learners are taught in California.
The study's authors identified nine schools across the state that were successfully educating English learners and interviewed their principals to find out the secrets to their success. The principals said what matters most are the quality of instruction, a school-wide commitment to teaching English learners and careful planning and assessment -- not the language of instruction.
The state education department's manager for language policy, Veronica Aguila, said the state will highlight effective practices. She also said officials will continue ensuring that districts tell parents they can demand that their school provide bilingual instruction, as several Bay Area districts do.
About 8 percent of current California students are in bilingual programs, down from 27 percent before Proposition 227 went into effect in fall 1998.
Previous findings
California state auditor's report, June 2005
-- Limited monitoring holds English learners back and makes it hard to assess performance statewide.
-- State tests don't reveal which programs best help English learners.
Public Policy Institute of California report, April 2005
-- No evidence that changes under Proposition 227 boost English learners' achievement.
-- Students in bilingual programs improve more slowly than those in English-only programs but they also tend to be poorer and less prepared.
California legislative analyst report, February 2004
-- About half of English learners who start California public school in kindergarten become proficient, but more than half of those who start later never do.
E-mail Tyche Hendricks at thendricks@sfchronicle.com.
Page A - 1 URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/02/22/MNGSUHCJF51.DTL
©2006 San Francisco Chronicle
Monday, February 20, 2006
The Battle in the States: ie. California
Forget D.C. the Battle is in the States
By Nathan Newman and David Sirota February 20, 2006
Speaking to a packed room of 2,000 state legislators and business lobbyists gathered in Grapevine, Texas, last fall, George W. Bush thanked the crowd for its work on behalf of the conservative agenda. He wasn't talking about work they'd done on Capitol Hill, but about their collaboration to push the corporate agenda forward in statehouses across the country. The meeting was the 32nd annual gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership association for conservative lawmakers. As its chairman, Georgia State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, said of the president's speech: "It was like the governor of a state talking to his legislative leaders."
This is the critical point: The highest echelons of the conservative movement and corporate America treat state legislators not as members of 50 different institutions, but as a single set of leaders who can be mobilized on a national basis.
Recognizing this reality, the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) was formed in fall 2005 to create a counterforce to the right in statehouses across the country. Supported by groups like MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, along with unions like SEIU, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO and the Steelworkers, PLAN is working with state legislators across the country to move both a united agenda and strategic plan to take on ALEC and its allies throughout the country.
The conservative march through the states
The need to challenge the right-wing movement in the states is clear. ALEC claims more than 2,400 state lawmakers as members--roughly one-third of all state legislators--and has become one of the critical fulcrums of conservative power in the United States. Backed by many of the largest corporations in the country--including Exxon Mobil, Coors Brewing, Pfizer and Phillip Morris--ALEC is networked into conservative think tanks and allied political operations such as the Heartland Institute and the corporate-backed American Tort Reform Association. At the center of this network, ALEC helps draft and promote legislation that has crippled social service budgets, deregulated industries, slashed medical care for the poor, and undermined consumer and worker protections in state after state.
In 2004 alone, 1,108 ALEC model bills were introduced and 178 were enacted into law, a legislative assault that ALEC and its conservative allies have been repeating year after year. Given the prominence of its legislative supporters--34 state speakers of the house, 25 state senate presidents, 31 state senate leaders and 33 state house leaders are ALEC members--this success is hardly surprising.
Sadly, in the face of this daunting right-wing machine, many progressive leaders and activists remain fixated on Capitol Hill and the White House, leaving state legislators, local political organizations and unions to battle ALEC all alone. The problem is compounded by a national media that barely covers these state struggles. Even the most sophisticated national political commentators typically see fights for control of state legislatures as important only insofar as they impact redistricting of federal congressional races. Except for the occasional media spasm around a particularly virulent state legislative proposal that hands out pork to a corporation or restricts civil rights, the overall march of conservative legislation in the statehouses gets relatively little attention from progressive activists fixated on "serious" politics at the federal level.
Yet the battle for our states is incredibly serious. The conservative strategy is to use the state political arena to leverage control of national policy, and unless progressives get focused and view the battle for the states as crucial to America's political future, no amount of change at the federal level will allow us to take our country back.
Why state policy matters
Most progressives fail to realize that state governments collectively have as much--and in some cases, more--power over the issues they care about as the federal government. State and local revenues are about equal to federal tax revenue, and in an era of "flexibility" and "waivers," federal money is increasingly handed over to the states with few strings attached. In explaining conservatives' focus on state legislation, ALEC's Medicaid specialist James Frogue observed, "Innovations and reforms in Medicaid will come from the states. They will not come from D.C."
Most federal civil rights, consumer and employment laws only modify the baseline of rights established by state governments. In fact, only a tiny minority of legal struggles are pursued under federal statutes. Instead, state courts handle roughly 17 million civil cases every year, including contract, tort and real property disputes, the outcome of which turn overwhelmingly on state, not federal, law. Through state law and liability rules, the states regulate trillions of dollars of commerce.
Similarly, while there were 170,535 federal prisoners in 2004, that number is dwarfed by the 1.9 million prisoners in state and local prisons and jails. The criminal sentencing decisions that have decimated a generation of young people in minority communities were made in statehouses, not on Capitol Hill. And one of the least-understood areas of increasing state power is that wielded by public pension funds, which now control $2.7 trillion in financial assets and can shape financial markets with their investment decisions--a fact that the right is all too aware of as they launch campaigns to privatize those pensions.
With all this power in the hands of the states, conservatives recognize that with a coordinated strategy, a movement can govern the nation from the statehouses. States have been vulnerable to this right-wing takeover because most state legislatures are made up of poorly paid, part-time lawmakers with few--if any--staff to research or evaluate the laws they are asked to approve. The lack of resources means there are few staffers in legislatures who can challenge the expertise presented by ALEC and other conservative operatives, or uncover the hidden payoffs for corporate interests contained in legislation. Thus ALEC provides a stealthy, tax-exempt front for corporate interests to sell their ideas directly to statehouse leaders across the country.
At the most obvious level, ALEC gives a "public interest" sheen to the raw special pleading of Big Money before state legislatures. Here are just a few of these recent corporate campaigns:
Backed by the oil industry, ALEC has lined up legislators to lower taxes on gasoline and to undermine regulations aimed at curbing the carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming.
Backed by the drug companies, ALEC has mounted a full-scale campaign to defeat initiatives by cities and states to promote importing lower-priced select medicines from Canada.
Backed by low-wage employers, ALEC has promoted legislation to block local governments from raising local minimum wages or even requiring government contractors to pay a fair wage to their employees.
Backed by the telephone companies, ALEC has worked to bar or hamstring cities that have sought to build cheaper or even free Internet services for their residents.
Backed by the insurance companies, ALEC has been promoting a campaign to stop state insurance commissioners from requiring insurance companies to meet the same accountability and auditing rules that were imposed on publicly-traded corporations in the wake of the Enron debacle.
And ALEC has been advocating cracking down on seniors who shelter income in a home while using Medicaid to finance long term care, a campaign that would force seniors to buy "reverse annuity mortgages," a new financial instrument promoted by ALEC's financial services industry funders.
The right's strategic agenda
Still, if the right-wing movement in the states only amounted to a series of individual profit-driven campaigns, the threat posed by ALEC would merely be one of a slick, well-funded public relations operation, albeit a nasty and effective one.
But the real danger from ALEC and its associated organizations comes from conservatives' aim to structurally undermine the very capacities of government that restrain corporate power and to fuel campaigns that fracture progressive alliances and political power.
Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and arguably the premiere right-wing strategist, has famously described the conservative goal as cutting government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Key to that objective is cutting tax revenues and using constitutional limits on state taxing powers to make it politically impossible to fund social needs through government action. This strategy serves not just to limit progressive policy but, by creating a limited pool of funds, pits progressive groups against each other in a fight for resources.
Conservatives also aim to shut down the enforcement of business regulations across the states. The very success of state attorneys general in bringing tobacco and financial firms to heel has led to a backlash to limit the power of attorneys general. And where citizens have the ability to enforce regulations in the courts, the right has been gutting those citizens' legal powers. For example, one of the first acts of Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration was forcing through restrictions on the state labor code's Private Attorney General Act, which had given advocates greater power to enforce the state's labor laws.
In the last few years, no issue has consumed corporate America more than shutting the courtroom door to plaintiffs injured by corporate malfeasance under the campaign of "tort reform." Damage awards have been limited and judges have increasingly been granted the right to exclude evidence of corporate wrongdoing by limiting plaintiff witnesses. This is done through the banning of so-called "junk science," with an often-politically connected judge (rather than the jury) getting to decide which witnesses are credible. The end result of this campaign is to make it nearly impossible for poor plaintiffs to get a day in court or to prevent a judge from overturning any judgment in their favor.
Another key strategy for the corporate right is privatization, a strategy that both undermines labor standards for government services and opens the labor market to corporate profiteering. The conservative-induced budget crises in many states have served to help this process along. In 2002, ALEC co-wrote a report with the Manhattan Institute that made privatization a key solution for balancing state budgets. They proposed that Medicaid be replaced with private Medical Savings Accounts and public schools be funded with vouchers. Similarly, prison management would be privatized. Name an area of government and conservatives are seeking to hand its operations over to corporate allies who, in turn, can eliminate labor unions and use the profits to fund more campaign contributions to their political machine.
A special case of privatization has been the recent assault on state employee pension funds. In 2005, Alaska passed legislation ending guaranteed pensions for all newly hired state employees in favor of individual accounts, and legislators in California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Virginia are heading in the same direction.
The most obvious goal is to cut benefits for union workers by ending guaranteed benefits--using exactly the same rhetoric of "choice" that President Bush employed to sell his Social Security privatization scheme at the federal level. But what really enrages conservatives are decisions by trustees of these pension funds to use their shareholder voting power to challenge corporate abuses, such as the pension funds in Ohio, New York and California that voted to divest in firms involved in privatization. And of course, there is the direct payoff to the financial services firms who will end up administering the millions of private accounts in a privatized state pension system and collecting the billions of dollars in fees.
Defunding the left
The shift in control of financial assets from public trustees to private corporations highlights the most pervasive and dangerous goal of the right's campaign in the states: defunding progressive institutions and thereby leaving corporations--and a few religious conservative allies--as the only forces with significant resources in politics.
Take the 2003 legislation passed in Texas that reserved family planning dollars, including those from the federal government, exclusively for healthcare providers that do not offer abortion services or referrals. This kind of proposal, coupled with "gag rules" and "abstinence only" legislation, not only shifts abortion policy, but strips resources from the broader pro-choice community. Similarly, the push for "faith based initiatives" shifts resources from nonprofits embedded in social justice networks to conservative organizations engaged in active conservative politics.
State-based "Right to Work" campaigns were conservatives' original weapons to cut off union dues, one of the primary sources of funding for political campaigns that oppose conservatives day-in and day-out. The present round of attacks is labeled "paycheck protection"--a nice-sounding term for crippling union workers' ability to donate political contributions through workplace deductions.
The whole right-wing attack on the civil justice system also has the effect of cutting the fees for employment and other trial lawyers, who have been strong sources of political funding for progressive causes. Passing tort reforms nationally, Grover Norquist argued back in 1999, takes "a $5-10 billion a year bite out of trial lawyer fees" and shuts down the progressive "get-out-the-vote effort, funded with money from trial lawyers."
By operating at the state level, Norquist et al have successfully avoided the glare of media attention and the full political focus of progressives. It's as if the right is tunneling under the foundation of progressives; by the time the ground--and financial resources--give way, it'll be too late to save the house.
How progressives fight back
So how should progressives respond to this coordinated assault on every level of progressive policy?
The key is to fight back, coordinate our own battles, think as strategically as ALEC and its allies and win back power at the state level. As People for the American Way said in a 2003 report about ALEC: "Progressives need a collaborative and equally coordinated effort to successfully counter ALEC's influence, expose its corporate and right-wing ties, and defeat dangerous proposals launched by this 'common enemy.'"
While many grassroots efforts have continued across the country since that report, progressives have not established the coordinated response that is needed to beat back the right. To do so, we must take three steps.
First, we need to develop a deep national network of progressive legislators supported by grassroots organizations. We have to establish partnerships between national organizations, grassroots activists and state legislators in each state to find state-specific ideas that represent home-grown progressivism. Not only will these networks help bring progressive-minded people together, but they also will serve as a hotbed of information exchange so progressive legislators can equip themselves with all of the information they need to promote progressive bills.
Second, we need to promote a set of popular issues that define the progressive state agenda in the minds of voters. This could include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care, promoting family issues like paid family leave and pre-K education for all children, protecting free speech in the workplace as well as the political realm, and developing an energy independence policy that creates jobs in each state.
Third, we must develop a set of policies that beat back the right-wing attack and turn the tables on conservatives. We should use legislation strategically to highlight the hypocrisy of groups like ALEC and put conservative legislators in the uncomfortable public position of voting either the interests of their corporate patrons or the desires of their constituents.
For instance, recent legislative initiatives in states ranging from Virginia to Michigan to preserve public lands and stop sprawl divide sprawl developers from a broader population that wants both livable communities and green areas for recreation. Similarly, targeting taxpayer subsidies specifically to entrepreneurial businesses that provide a living wage, as progressives have done in a number of cities, challenges conservatives to justify their fealty to low-wage companies. Supporting paid family leave and expanded child care for working parents forces legislators to confront empty "families values" rhetoric.
Ultimately, each strategic issue will reinforce the others, undercutting opposition coalitions while adding new allies to the progressive side, exposing the hypocrisy of the conservative agenda while clarifying the progressive program, and, step-by-step, entrenching progressive power in ways that the right wing will find harder and harder to dislodge.
Progressives need to use every tool of grassroots mobilization to build unity among our side's state legislators and deploy both strong policies and innovative strategies to beat the conservatives at their own game. Our overarching strategy: find the best public policies and champion them with effective and cohesive messaging. That is what the new Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) is all about. It's time to finally end conservatives' dominance of state policy. It is time for progressives to govern from the states.
This article is being published by In These Times in conjunction with the release of PLAN's report, "Governing the Nation from the Statehouses."
Nathan Newman is the policy director for the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN).
David Sirota is the co-chair of PLAN, and a senior editor at In These Times.
By Nathan Newman and David Sirota February 20, 2006
Speaking to a packed room of 2,000 state legislators and business lobbyists gathered in Grapevine, Texas, last fall, George W. Bush thanked the crowd for its work on behalf of the conservative agenda. He wasn't talking about work they'd done on Capitol Hill, but about their collaboration to push the corporate agenda forward in statehouses across the country. The meeting was the 32nd annual gathering of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a membership association for conservative lawmakers. As its chairman, Georgia State Rep. Earl Ehrhart, said of the president's speech: "It was like the governor of a state talking to his legislative leaders."
This is the critical point: The highest echelons of the conservative movement and corporate America treat state legislators not as members of 50 different institutions, but as a single set of leaders who can be mobilized on a national basis.
Recognizing this reality, the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) was formed in fall 2005 to create a counterforce to the right in statehouses across the country. Supported by groups like MoveOn and the Center for American Progress, along with unions like SEIU, AFSCME, the AFL-CIO and the Steelworkers, PLAN is working with state legislators across the country to move both a united agenda and strategic plan to take on ALEC and its allies throughout the country.
The conservative march through the states
The need to challenge the right-wing movement in the states is clear. ALEC claims more than 2,400 state lawmakers as members--roughly one-third of all state legislators--and has become one of the critical fulcrums of conservative power in the United States. Backed by many of the largest corporations in the country--including Exxon Mobil, Coors Brewing, Pfizer and Phillip Morris--ALEC is networked into conservative think tanks and allied political operations such as the Heartland Institute and the corporate-backed American Tort Reform Association. At the center of this network, ALEC helps draft and promote legislation that has crippled social service budgets, deregulated industries, slashed medical care for the poor, and undermined consumer and worker protections in state after state.
In 2004 alone, 1,108 ALEC model bills were introduced and 178 were enacted into law, a legislative assault that ALEC and its conservative allies have been repeating year after year. Given the prominence of its legislative supporters--34 state speakers of the house, 25 state senate presidents, 31 state senate leaders and 33 state house leaders are ALEC members--this success is hardly surprising.
Sadly, in the face of this daunting right-wing machine, many progressive leaders and activists remain fixated on Capitol Hill and the White House, leaving state legislators, local political organizations and unions to battle ALEC all alone. The problem is compounded by a national media that barely covers these state struggles. Even the most sophisticated national political commentators typically see fights for control of state legislatures as important only insofar as they impact redistricting of federal congressional races. Except for the occasional media spasm around a particularly virulent state legislative proposal that hands out pork to a corporation or restricts civil rights, the overall march of conservative legislation in the statehouses gets relatively little attention from progressive activists fixated on "serious" politics at the federal level.
Yet the battle for our states is incredibly serious. The conservative strategy is to use the state political arena to leverage control of national policy, and unless progressives get focused and view the battle for the states as crucial to America's political future, no amount of change at the federal level will allow us to take our country back.
Why state policy matters
Most progressives fail to realize that state governments collectively have as much--and in some cases, more--power over the issues they care about as the federal government. State and local revenues are about equal to federal tax revenue, and in an era of "flexibility" and "waivers," federal money is increasingly handed over to the states with few strings attached. In explaining conservatives' focus on state legislation, ALEC's Medicaid specialist James Frogue observed, "Innovations and reforms in Medicaid will come from the states. They will not come from D.C."
Most federal civil rights, consumer and employment laws only modify the baseline of rights established by state governments. In fact, only a tiny minority of legal struggles are pursued under federal statutes. Instead, state courts handle roughly 17 million civil cases every year, including contract, tort and real property disputes, the outcome of which turn overwhelmingly on state, not federal, law. Through state law and liability rules, the states regulate trillions of dollars of commerce.
Similarly, while there were 170,535 federal prisoners in 2004, that number is dwarfed by the 1.9 million prisoners in state and local prisons and jails. The criminal sentencing decisions that have decimated a generation of young people in minority communities were made in statehouses, not on Capitol Hill. And one of the least-understood areas of increasing state power is that wielded by public pension funds, which now control $2.7 trillion in financial assets and can shape financial markets with their investment decisions--a fact that the right is all too aware of as they launch campaigns to privatize those pensions.
With all this power in the hands of the states, conservatives recognize that with a coordinated strategy, a movement can govern the nation from the statehouses. States have been vulnerable to this right-wing takeover because most state legislatures are made up of poorly paid, part-time lawmakers with few--if any--staff to research or evaluate the laws they are asked to approve. The lack of resources means there are few staffers in legislatures who can challenge the expertise presented by ALEC and other conservative operatives, or uncover the hidden payoffs for corporate interests contained in legislation. Thus ALEC provides a stealthy, tax-exempt front for corporate interests to sell their ideas directly to statehouse leaders across the country.
At the most obvious level, ALEC gives a "public interest" sheen to the raw special pleading of Big Money before state legislatures. Here are just a few of these recent corporate campaigns:
Backed by the oil industry, ALEC has lined up legislators to lower taxes on gasoline and to undermine regulations aimed at curbing the carbon dioxide emissions leading to global warming.
Backed by the drug companies, ALEC has mounted a full-scale campaign to defeat initiatives by cities and states to promote importing lower-priced select medicines from Canada.
Backed by low-wage employers, ALEC has promoted legislation to block local governments from raising local minimum wages or even requiring government contractors to pay a fair wage to their employees.
Backed by the telephone companies, ALEC has worked to bar or hamstring cities that have sought to build cheaper or even free Internet services for their residents.
Backed by the insurance companies, ALEC has been promoting a campaign to stop state insurance commissioners from requiring insurance companies to meet the same accountability and auditing rules that were imposed on publicly-traded corporations in the wake of the Enron debacle.
And ALEC has been advocating cracking down on seniors who shelter income in a home while using Medicaid to finance long term care, a campaign that would force seniors to buy "reverse annuity mortgages," a new financial instrument promoted by ALEC's financial services industry funders.
The right's strategic agenda
Still, if the right-wing movement in the states only amounted to a series of individual profit-driven campaigns, the threat posed by ALEC would merely be one of a slick, well-funded public relations operation, albeit a nasty and effective one.
But the real danger from ALEC and its associated organizations comes from conservatives' aim to structurally undermine the very capacities of government that restrain corporate power and to fuel campaigns that fracture progressive alliances and political power.
Grover Norquist, head of Americans for Tax Reform and arguably the premiere right-wing strategist, has famously described the conservative goal as cutting government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Key to that objective is cutting tax revenues and using constitutional limits on state taxing powers to make it politically impossible to fund social needs through government action. This strategy serves not just to limit progressive policy but, by creating a limited pool of funds, pits progressive groups against each other in a fight for resources.
Conservatives also aim to shut down the enforcement of business regulations across the states. The very success of state attorneys general in bringing tobacco and financial firms to heel has led to a backlash to limit the power of attorneys general. And where citizens have the ability to enforce regulations in the courts, the right has been gutting those citizens' legal powers. For example, one of the first acts of Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration was forcing through restrictions on the state labor code's Private Attorney General Act, which had given advocates greater power to enforce the state's labor laws.
In the last few years, no issue has consumed corporate America more than shutting the courtroom door to plaintiffs injured by corporate malfeasance under the campaign of "tort reform." Damage awards have been limited and judges have increasingly been granted the right to exclude evidence of corporate wrongdoing by limiting plaintiff witnesses. This is done through the banning of so-called "junk science," with an often-politically connected judge (rather than the jury) getting to decide which witnesses are credible. The end result of this campaign is to make it nearly impossible for poor plaintiffs to get a day in court or to prevent a judge from overturning any judgment in their favor.
Another key strategy for the corporate right is privatization, a strategy that both undermines labor standards for government services and opens the labor market to corporate profiteering. The conservative-induced budget crises in many states have served to help this process along. In 2002, ALEC co-wrote a report with the Manhattan Institute that made privatization a key solution for balancing state budgets. They proposed that Medicaid be replaced with private Medical Savings Accounts and public schools be funded with vouchers. Similarly, prison management would be privatized. Name an area of government and conservatives are seeking to hand its operations over to corporate allies who, in turn, can eliminate labor unions and use the profits to fund more campaign contributions to their political machine.
A special case of privatization has been the recent assault on state employee pension funds. In 2005, Alaska passed legislation ending guaranteed pensions for all newly hired state employees in favor of individual accounts, and legislators in California, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Virginia are heading in the same direction.
The most obvious goal is to cut benefits for union workers by ending guaranteed benefits--using exactly the same rhetoric of "choice" that President Bush employed to sell his Social Security privatization scheme at the federal level. But what really enrages conservatives are decisions by trustees of these pension funds to use their shareholder voting power to challenge corporate abuses, such as the pension funds in Ohio, New York and California that voted to divest in firms involved in privatization. And of course, there is the direct payoff to the financial services firms who will end up administering the millions of private accounts in a privatized state pension system and collecting the billions of dollars in fees.
Defunding the left
The shift in control of financial assets from public trustees to private corporations highlights the most pervasive and dangerous goal of the right's campaign in the states: defunding progressive institutions and thereby leaving corporations--and a few religious conservative allies--as the only forces with significant resources in politics.
Take the 2003 legislation passed in Texas that reserved family planning dollars, including those from the federal government, exclusively for healthcare providers that do not offer abortion services or referrals. This kind of proposal, coupled with "gag rules" and "abstinence only" legislation, not only shifts abortion policy, but strips resources from the broader pro-choice community. Similarly, the push for "faith based initiatives" shifts resources from nonprofits embedded in social justice networks to conservative organizations engaged in active conservative politics.
State-based "Right to Work" campaigns were conservatives' original weapons to cut off union dues, one of the primary sources of funding for political campaigns that oppose conservatives day-in and day-out. The present round of attacks is labeled "paycheck protection"--a nice-sounding term for crippling union workers' ability to donate political contributions through workplace deductions.
The whole right-wing attack on the civil justice system also has the effect of cutting the fees for employment and other trial lawyers, who have been strong sources of political funding for progressive causes. Passing tort reforms nationally, Grover Norquist argued back in 1999, takes "a $5-10 billion a year bite out of trial lawyer fees" and shuts down the progressive "get-out-the-vote effort, funded with money from trial lawyers."
By operating at the state level, Norquist et al have successfully avoided the glare of media attention and the full political focus of progressives. It's as if the right is tunneling under the foundation of progressives; by the time the ground--and financial resources--give way, it'll be too late to save the house.
How progressives fight back
So how should progressives respond to this coordinated assault on every level of progressive policy?
The key is to fight back, coordinate our own battles, think as strategically as ALEC and its allies and win back power at the state level. As People for the American Way said in a 2003 report about ALEC: "Progressives need a collaborative and equally coordinated effort to successfully counter ALEC's influence, expose its corporate and right-wing ties, and defeat dangerous proposals launched by this 'common enemy.'"
While many grassroots efforts have continued across the country since that report, progressives have not established the coordinated response that is needed to beat back the right. To do so, we must take three steps.
First, we need to develop a deep national network of progressive legislators supported by grassroots organizations. We have to establish partnerships between national organizations, grassroots activists and state legislators in each state to find state-specific ideas that represent home-grown progressivism. Not only will these networks help bring progressive-minded people together, but they also will serve as a hotbed of information exchange so progressive legislators can equip themselves with all of the information they need to promote progressive bills.
Second, we need to promote a set of popular issues that define the progressive state agenda in the minds of voters. This could include raising the minimum wage, expanding health care, promoting family issues like paid family leave and pre-K education for all children, protecting free speech in the workplace as well as the political realm, and developing an energy independence policy that creates jobs in each state.
Third, we must develop a set of policies that beat back the right-wing attack and turn the tables on conservatives. We should use legislation strategically to highlight the hypocrisy of groups like ALEC and put conservative legislators in the uncomfortable public position of voting either the interests of their corporate patrons or the desires of their constituents.
For instance, recent legislative initiatives in states ranging from Virginia to Michigan to preserve public lands and stop sprawl divide sprawl developers from a broader population that wants both livable communities and green areas for recreation. Similarly, targeting taxpayer subsidies specifically to entrepreneurial businesses that provide a living wage, as progressives have done in a number of cities, challenges conservatives to justify their fealty to low-wage companies. Supporting paid family leave and expanded child care for working parents forces legislators to confront empty "families values" rhetoric.
Ultimately, each strategic issue will reinforce the others, undercutting opposition coalitions while adding new allies to the progressive side, exposing the hypocrisy of the conservative agenda while clarifying the progressive program, and, step-by-step, entrenching progressive power in ways that the right wing will find harder and harder to dislodge.
Progressives need to use every tool of grassroots mobilization to build unity among our side's state legislators and deploy both strong policies and innovative strategies to beat the conservatives at their own game. Our overarching strategy: find the best public policies and champion them with effective and cohesive messaging. That is what the new Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) is all about. It's time to finally end conservatives' dominance of state policy. It is time for progressives to govern from the states.
This article is being published by In These Times in conjunction with the release of PLAN's report, "Governing the Nation from the Statehouses."
Nathan Newman is the policy director for the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN).
David Sirota is the co-chair of PLAN, and a senior editor at In These Times.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
State needs to do more to keep teachers
Report: State needs to do more to keep teachers from quitting
By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
Published 12:15 am PST Wednesday, February 15, 2006
SACRAMENTO (AP) - A moderate salary raise for new teachers boosts the chances they'll stay in the profession, but mentoring programs and training are even more effective, according to a new report.
Providing just $4,400 more in annual pay increases the chances an elementary teacher would stay by 17 percent, according to the report released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Teachers who were part of the state's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program were 26 percent more likely to stay in teaching, according to the study, "Retention of New Teachers in California." The program costs the state about $3,370 per teacher.
The Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which co-sponsors the beginning teacher program, has found similar results, said its director, Mike McKibbon.
"It makes an enormous difference in setting up the first two years as place to learn and grow and get better, rather than the way we used to do it, which was kind of a rite of passage," McKibbon said.
Still, money plays a role. The report said teachers in better-paid districts were less likely to leave their jobs or transfer to another district.
The policy institute said nearly a quarter of new hires in California leave the profession within five years, a rate that will make it even harder to fill an anticipated teacher shortage of 100,000 in the next decade.
Unless the state does something to reduce the departures, about one-fourth of new hires will simply be replacing other recently hired teachers who have left public schools. That will leave fewer experienced, highly qualified teachers, the report says.
The report's authors used data that tracked teachers who earned their California teaching certification during the 1990s.
The support program for beginning teachers received about $88 million in state funding this year and has been supported by Democrats and Republicans, McKibbon said.
"To their credit, they've seen beginning teachers as a place for investment," he said.
Other programs to integrate teachers also have shown promise, such as internships in hard-to-staff schools and a program that moves teachers' aides into programs where they can earn a teaching credential. That program has about 2,500 students this year, McKibbon said.
Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he was not surprised that the study found mentoring and tutoring programs to be effective.
"I'm convinced that teachers generally are not in the profession for money, and I think the more strengthening we can do, the more mentoring from seasoned teachers, the better," Scott said.
Earlier this month, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said he will sponsor legislation to spend $53 million for teacher coaches in the state's lowest-performing schools.
He also encouraged financial incentives to recruit teachers to work in those schools and said the state should reopen teacher-recruitment centers that were closed during budget cuts several years ago.
####
Another thing the politicians could do is to stop blaming teachers for the failures of the Governor and the legislature to adequately fund the schools. When you finance the schools at 44th. in the nation, you are going to get achievement at about 44 in the nation. Then politicians, who have done nothing, particularly Republicans, trash the schools.
By JULIET WILLIAMS, Associated Press Writer
Published 12:15 am PST Wednesday, February 15, 2006
SACRAMENTO (AP) - A moderate salary raise for new teachers boosts the chances they'll stay in the profession, but mentoring programs and training are even more effective, according to a new report.
Providing just $4,400 more in annual pay increases the chances an elementary teacher would stay by 17 percent, according to the report released Wednesday by the Public Policy Institute of California.
Teachers who were part of the state's Beginning Teacher Support and Assessment program were 26 percent more likely to stay in teaching, according to the study, "Retention of New Teachers in California." The program costs the state about $3,370 per teacher.
The Commission on Teacher Credentialing, which co-sponsors the beginning teacher program, has found similar results, said its director, Mike McKibbon.
"It makes an enormous difference in setting up the first two years as place to learn and grow and get better, rather than the way we used to do it, which was kind of a rite of passage," McKibbon said.
Still, money plays a role. The report said teachers in better-paid districts were less likely to leave their jobs or transfer to another district.
The policy institute said nearly a quarter of new hires in California leave the profession within five years, a rate that will make it even harder to fill an anticipated teacher shortage of 100,000 in the next decade.
Unless the state does something to reduce the departures, about one-fourth of new hires will simply be replacing other recently hired teachers who have left public schools. That will leave fewer experienced, highly qualified teachers, the report says.
The report's authors used data that tracked teachers who earned their California teaching certification during the 1990s.
The support program for beginning teachers received about $88 million in state funding this year and has been supported by Democrats and Republicans, McKibbon said.
"To their credit, they've seen beginning teachers as a place for investment," he said.
Other programs to integrate teachers also have shown promise, such as internships in hard-to-staff schools and a program that moves teachers' aides into programs where they can earn a teaching credential. That program has about 2,500 students this year, McKibbon said.
Sen. Jack Scott, D-Altadena, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, said he was not surprised that the study found mentoring and tutoring programs to be effective.
"I'm convinced that teachers generally are not in the profession for money, and I think the more strengthening we can do, the more mentoring from seasoned teachers, the better," Scott said.
Earlier this month, State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell said he will sponsor legislation to spend $53 million for teacher coaches in the state's lowest-performing schools.
He also encouraged financial incentives to recruit teachers to work in those schools and said the state should reopen teacher-recruitment centers that were closed during budget cuts several years ago.
####
Another thing the politicians could do is to stop blaming teachers for the failures of the Governor and the legislature to adequately fund the schools. When you finance the schools at 44th. in the nation, you are going to get achievement at about 44 in the nation. Then politicians, who have done nothing, particularly Republicans, trash the schools.
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
The State of California Schools: O'Connell
Here is the Superintendent's view of the state of California schools.
Worth reading.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/se/yr06stateofed.asp
Worth reading.
http://www.cde.ca.gov/eo/in/se/yr06stateofed.asp
Tuesday, January 31, 2006
Press spin and distortions on reading scores: the Bee
I don’t know who is writing his material for him, but based upon
Stanley Crouch’s piece “Bush shines on education,” (Sacramento Bee, 1/28/06) it looks to me as if the Bush administration is again paying for promotional editorial pieces.
To make his case he claims,” According to NAEP, between 2003 and 2005 the nation’s fourth-graders posted the best reading and math scores in the test’s history.”
While NAEP data does show a small improvement in math data, here is what they say about their reading data:
In fourth grade:
“fourth-graders’ average score was 1 point higher and eighth-graders’ average score was 1 point lower in 2005 than in 2003. Average scores in 2005 were 2 points higher than in the first assessment year, 1992, at both grades 4 and 8.
Between 1992 and 2005, there was no significant change in the percentage of fourth-graders performing at or above Basic, but the percentage performing at or above Proficient increased during this time.”
The is simply no reason to believe that reading scores are improving because the points scores went up by 2 points.
Only a press agent or a con person would make this claim.
Crouch goes on to credit George Bush’s support for “scientifically ways” of improving reading based upon the work of Dr. Reid Lyon. While Lyon’s work has become the national mandate, this is ideology posing as science.
(For more on this see Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science, by Denny Taylor, 1998) In short it is a fraud.
The so called “scientific approach” which is another name for phonics has been the state adopted and implemented approach in California since 1996. This is how all students are taught.
Lets look at California data on the NAEP:
These are NAEP’s own results:
“In 2005, the average scale score for fourth-grade students in
California was 207. This was not significantly different from1 their
average score in 2003 (206), and was higher than their average
score in 1992 (202).
California's average score (207) in 2005 was lower than that of the
Nation's public schools (217).
Of the 52 states and other jurisdictions2 that participated in the
2005 fourth-grade assessment, students' average scale scores in
California were higher than those in 1 jurisdiction, not significantly
different from those in 6 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 44
jurisdictions.
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Proficient level was 21 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (21
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1992 (19
percent).
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Basic level was 50 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (50
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1992 (48
percent).
And, at 8th. grade:
Overall Reading Results for California
In 2005, the average scale score for eighth-grade students in
California was 250. This was not significantly different from1 their
average score in 2003 (251), and was not significantly different
from their average score in 1998 (252).
California's average score (250) in 2005 was lower than that of the
Nation's public schools (260).
Of the 52 states and other jurisdictions2 that participated in the
2005 eighth-grade assessment, students' average scale scores in
California were higher than those in 1 jurisdiction, not significantly
different from those in 5 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 45
jurisdictions.
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Proficient level was 21 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (22
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1998 (21
percent).
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Basic level was 60 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (61
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1998 (63
percent).
So, in California, where this ideological approach has been used for almost eight years, there is no significant improvement in reading scores. California continues to rank about 47th. out of the 50 states and two jurisdictions (Washington D.C) . There is no evidence to support the claim of a Bush miracle. And, no evidence to support the claim that
“scientific” based reading has improved achievement.
Crouch does make one correct interpretation of the data. In the most recent tests minority students are improving their scores and “closing “ the achievement gap.
Here again from the NAEP’s own descriptions of the event.
“In 2005, male students in California had an average score that was
lower than that of female students by 10 points. In 1998, the
average score for male students was lower than that of female
students by 6 points.
In 2005, Black students had an average score that was lower than
that of White students by 24 points. In 1998, the average score for
Black students was lower than that of White students by 30 points.
In 2005, Hispanic students had an average score that was lower
than that of White students by 25 points. In 1998, the average
score for Hispanic students was lower than that of White students
by 30 points.
In 2005, students who were eligible for free/reduced-price school
lunch, an indicator of poverty, had an average score that was lower
than that of students who were not eligible for free/reduced-price
school lunch by 23 points. This performance gap was narrower
than that of 1998 (32 points).
In 2005, the score gap between students at the 75th percentile and
students at the 25th percentile was 49 points. In 1998, the score
gap between students at the 75th percentile and students at the
25th percentile was 46 points. “
So, Black students lag behind white students by 24 points, but that is 5 points better than in 1998. And Hispanic students score on overage 25 pints lower than whites, but that is a 5 point improvement over 1998. That is, the gap has declined, but these students remain over two years behind in reading. You find the same information on drop outs.
The press agents use this information to claim success, but a 24 point reading gap is a disaster. Recall, these same agents used a 2 point score increase to claim that reading scores were up.
Crouch claims that Lyons has been a leader in reading. He has been a leader in getting good press from George Bush’s admin.
See this article:
AFTER OBSERVING IT IN THE BIRMINGHAM SCHOOLS FOR A YEAR,
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PROFESSOR FRAN PERKINS CALLED VOYAGER’S CURRICULUM "THE BEST EXAMPLE OF THE WORST READING PROGRAM FOR YOUNG CHILDREN" SHE'D EVER SEEN. DETRACTORS SAY THAT VOYAGER HAS INDEED BECOME A MAJOR SUCCESS
STORY IN THE ANNALS OF EDUCATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, BASED NOT ON
PRODUCING A SUPERIOR PRODUCT BUT ON ITS FOUNDERS’ ABILITY TO ATTRACT
WELL-FUNDED AND WELL-CONNECTED INVESTORS AND TO HIRE TOP EDUCATORS AWAY
FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS THAT THEN BECOME ITS CLIENTS.
HTTP://WWW.FWWEEKLY.COM/CONTENT.ASP?ARTICLE=3561
Stanley Crouch’s piece “Bush shines on education,” (Sacramento Bee, 1/28/06) it looks to me as if the Bush administration is again paying for promotional editorial pieces.
To make his case he claims,” According to NAEP, between 2003 and 2005 the nation’s fourth-graders posted the best reading and math scores in the test’s history.”
While NAEP data does show a small improvement in math data, here is what they say about their reading data:
In fourth grade:
“fourth-graders’ average score was 1 point higher and eighth-graders’ average score was 1 point lower in 2005 than in 2003. Average scores in 2005 were 2 points higher than in the first assessment year, 1992, at both grades 4 and 8.
Between 1992 and 2005, there was no significant change in the percentage of fourth-graders performing at or above Basic, but the percentage performing at or above Proficient increased during this time.”
The is simply no reason to believe that reading scores are improving because the points scores went up by 2 points.
Only a press agent or a con person would make this claim.
Crouch goes on to credit George Bush’s support for “scientifically ways” of improving reading based upon the work of Dr. Reid Lyon. While Lyon’s work has become the national mandate, this is ideology posing as science.
(For more on this see Beginning to Read and the Spin Doctors of Science, by Denny Taylor, 1998) In short it is a fraud.
The so called “scientific approach” which is another name for phonics has been the state adopted and implemented approach in California since 1996. This is how all students are taught.
Lets look at California data on the NAEP:
These are NAEP’s own results:
“In 2005, the average scale score for fourth-grade students in
California was 207. This was not significantly different from1 their
average score in 2003 (206), and was higher than their average
score in 1992 (202).
California's average score (207) in 2005 was lower than that of the
Nation's public schools (217).
Of the 52 states and other jurisdictions2 that participated in the
2005 fourth-grade assessment, students' average scale scores in
California were higher than those in 1 jurisdiction, not significantly
different from those in 6 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 44
jurisdictions.
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Proficient level was 21 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (21
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1992 (19
percent).
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Basic level was 50 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (50
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1992 (48
percent).
And, at 8th. grade:
Overall Reading Results for California
In 2005, the average scale score for eighth-grade students in
California was 250. This was not significantly different from1 their
average score in 2003 (251), and was not significantly different
from their average score in 1998 (252).
California's average score (250) in 2005 was lower than that of the
Nation's public schools (260).
Of the 52 states and other jurisdictions2 that participated in the
2005 eighth-grade assessment, students' average scale scores in
California were higher than those in 1 jurisdiction, not significantly
different from those in 5 jurisdictions, and lower than those in 45
jurisdictions.
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Proficient level was 21 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (22
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1998 (21
percent).
The percentage of students in California who performed at or
above the NAEP Basic level was 60 percent in 2005. This
percentage was not significantly different from that in 2003 (61
percent), and was not significantly different from that in 1998 (63
percent).
So, in California, where this ideological approach has been used for almost eight years, there is no significant improvement in reading scores. California continues to rank about 47th. out of the 50 states and two jurisdictions (Washington D.C) . There is no evidence to support the claim of a Bush miracle. And, no evidence to support the claim that
“scientific” based reading has improved achievement.
Crouch does make one correct interpretation of the data. In the most recent tests minority students are improving their scores and “closing “ the achievement gap.
Here again from the NAEP’s own descriptions of the event.
“In 2005, male students in California had an average score that was
lower than that of female students by 10 points. In 1998, the
average score for male students was lower than that of female
students by 6 points.
In 2005, Black students had an average score that was lower than
that of White students by 24 points. In 1998, the average score for
Black students was lower than that of White students by 30 points.
In 2005, Hispanic students had an average score that was lower
than that of White students by 25 points. In 1998, the average
score for Hispanic students was lower than that of White students
by 30 points.
In 2005, students who were eligible for free/reduced-price school
lunch, an indicator of poverty, had an average score that was lower
than that of students who were not eligible for free/reduced-price
school lunch by 23 points. This performance gap was narrower
than that of 1998 (32 points).
In 2005, the score gap between students at the 75th percentile and
students at the 25th percentile was 49 points. In 1998, the score
gap between students at the 75th percentile and students at the
25th percentile was 46 points. “
So, Black students lag behind white students by 24 points, but that is 5 points better than in 1998. And Hispanic students score on overage 25 pints lower than whites, but that is a 5 point improvement over 1998. That is, the gap has declined, but these students remain over two years behind in reading. You find the same information on drop outs.
The press agents use this information to claim success, but a 24 point reading gap is a disaster. Recall, these same agents used a 2 point score increase to claim that reading scores were up.
Crouch claims that Lyons has been a leader in reading. He has been a leader in getting good press from George Bush’s admin.
See this article:
AFTER OBSERVING IT IN THE BIRMINGHAM SCHOOLS FOR A YEAR,
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA PROFESSOR FRAN PERKINS CALLED VOYAGER’S CURRICULUM "THE BEST EXAMPLE OF THE WORST READING PROGRAM FOR YOUNG CHILDREN" SHE'D EVER SEEN. DETRACTORS SAY THAT VOYAGER HAS INDEED BECOME A MAJOR SUCCESS
STORY IN THE ANNALS OF EDUCATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP, BASED NOT ON
PRODUCING A SUPERIOR PRODUCT BUT ON ITS FOUNDERS’ ABILITY TO ATTRACT
WELL-FUNDED AND WELL-CONNECTED INVESTORS AND TO HIRE TOP EDUCATORS AWAY
FROM PUBLIC SCHOOLS THAT THEN BECOME ITS CLIENTS.
HTTP://WWW.FWWEEKLY.COM/CONTENT.ASP?ARTICLE=3561
Monday, January 30, 2006
When politicos make poorly informed school rules
THE VANISHING CLASS
Los Angeles Times
A Formula for Failure in L.A. Schools
Because they can't pass algebra, thousands of students are denied diplomas. Many try again and again -- but still get Fs.
By Duke Helfand, Times Staff Writer
Each morning, when Gabriela Ocampo looked up at the chalkboard in her ninth-grade algebra class, her spirits sank.
There she saw a mysterious language of polynomials and slope intercepts that looked about as familiar as hieroglyphics.
She knew she would face another day of confusion, another day of pretending to follow along. She could hardly do long division, let alone solve for x.
"I felt like, 'Oh, my God, what am I going to do?' " she recalled.
Gabriela failed that first semester of freshman algebra. She failed again and again — six times in six semesters. And because students in Los Angeles Unified schools must pass algebra to graduate, her hopes for a diploma grew dimmer with each F.
Midway through 12th grade, Gabriela gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School.
Her story might be just a footnote to the Class of 2005 except that hundreds of her classmates, along with thousands of others across the district, also failed algebra.
Of all the obstacles to graduation, algebra was the most daunting.
The course that traditionally distinguished the college-bound from others has denied vast numbers of students a high school diploma.
"It triggers dropouts more than any single subject," said Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer. "I think it is a cumulative failure of our ability to teach math adequately in the public school system."
When the Los Angeles Board of Education approved tougher graduation requirements that went into effect in 2003, the intention was to give kids a better education and groom more graduates for college and high-level jobs. For the first time, students had to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry or an equivalent class to earn diplomas.
The policy was born of a worthy goal but has proved disastrous for students unprepared to meet the new demands.
In the fall of 2004, 48,000 ninth-graders took beginning algebra; 44% flunked, nearly twice the failure rate as in English. Seventeen percent finished with Ds.
In all, the district that semester handed out Ds and Fs to 29,000 beginning algebra students — enough to fill eight high schools the size of Birmingham.
Among those who repeated the class in the spring, nearly three-quarters flunked again.
The school district could have seen this coming if officials had looked at the huge numbers of high school students failing basic math.
Lawmakers in Sacramento didn't ask questions either. After Los Angeles Unified changed its policy, legislators turned algebra into a statewide graduation requirement, effective in 2004.
Now the Los Angeles school board has raised the bar again. By the time today's second-graders graduate from high school in 2016, most will have to meet the University of California's entry requirements, which will mean passing a third year of advanced math, such as algebra II, and four years of English.
Former board President Jose Huizar introduced this latest round of requirements, which the board approved in a 6-1 vote last June.
Huizar said he was motivated by personal experience: He was a marginal student growing up in Boyle Heights but excelled in high school once a counselor placed him in a demanding curriculum that propelled him to college and a law degree.
"I think there are thousands of kids like me, but we're losing them because we don't give them that opportunity," said Huizar, who left the school board after he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council last fall. "Yes, there will be dropouts. But I'm looking at the glass half full."
Discouragement, Frustration
Birmingham High in Van Nuys, where Gabriela Ocampo struggled to grasp algebra, has a failure rate that's about average for the district. Nearly half the ninth-grade class flunked beginning algebra last year.
In the spring semester alone, more freshmen failed than passed. The tally: 367 Fs and 355 passes, nearly one-third of them Ds.
All those failures and near failures have left a wake of discouraged students and exasperated teachers.
Fifteen-year-old Abraham Lemus, the son of Salvadoran immigrants, finally scraped by with a D after his mother hired a tutor. But he recalls how he failed the first time he took the course. "I was starting to get suicide thoughts in my head, just because of math," he said.
Shane Sauby, who worked as an attorney and stockbroker before becoming a teacher, volunteered to teach the students confronting first-year algebra for a second, third or fourth time. He thought he could reach them.
But, Sauby said, many of his students ignored homework, rarely studied for tests and often skipped class.
"I would look at them and say, 'What is your thinking? If you are coming here, why aren't you doing the work or paying attention or making an effort?' " he said. Many would just stare back.
Sauby, who now teaches in another district, failed as many as 90% of his students.
Like other schools in the nation's second-largest district, Birmingham High deals with failing students by shuttling them back into algebra, often with the same teachers.
Last fall, the school scheduled 17 classes of up to 40 students each for those repeating first-semester algebra.
Educational psychologists say reenrolling such students in algebra decreases their chances of graduating.
"Repeated failure makes kids think they can't do the work. And when they can't do the work, they say, 'I'm out of here,' " said Andrew Porter, director of the Learning Sciences Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The strategy has also failed to provide students with what they need most: a review of basic math.
Teachers complain that they have no time for remediation, that the rapid pace mandated by the district leaves behind students like Tina Norwood, 15, who is failing beginning algebra for the third time.
Tina, who says math has mystified her since she first saw fractions in elementary school, spends class time writing in her journal, chatting with friends or snapping pictures of herself with her cellphone.
Her teacher wasn't surprised when Tina bombed a recent test that asked her, among other things, to graph the equations 4x + y = 9 and 2x -- 3y = -- 6. She left most of the answers blank, writing a desperate message at the top of the page: "Still don't get it, not gonna get it, guess i'm seeing this next year!"
Teachers wage a daily struggle in classes filled with students like Tina.
Her teacher, George Seidel, devoted a class this fall to reviewing equations with a single variable, such as x -- 1 = 36. It's the type of lesson students were supposed to have mastered in fourth grade.
Only seven of 39 students brought their textbooks. Several had no paper or pencils. One sat for the entire period with his backpack on his shoulders, tapping his desk with a finger.
Another doodled an eagle in red ink in his notebook. Others gossiped as Seidel, a second-year teacher, jotted problems on the front board.
"Settle down," Seidel told the fifth-period students a few minutes after the bell rang. "It doesn't work if you guys are trying to talk while I'm trying to talk."
Seidel once brokered multimillion-dollar business deals but left a 25-year law career, hoping to find a more fulfilling job and satisfy an old desire to teach. Nothing, however, prepared him for period five.
"I got through a year of Vietnam," he said, "so I tell myself every day I can get through 53 minutes of fifth period…. I don't know if I am making a difference with a single kid."
Seidel did not appear to make a difference with Gabriela Ocampo. She failed his class in the fall of 2004 — her sixth and final semester of Fs in algebra.
But Gabriela didn't give Seidel much of a chance; she skipped 62 of 93 days that semester.
After dropping out, Gabriela found a $7-an-hour job at a Subway sandwich shop in Encino. She needed little math because the cash register calculated change. But she discovered the cost of not earning a diploma.
"I don't want to be there no more," she said, her eyes watering from raw onions, shortly before she quit to enroll in a training program to become a medical assistant.
Could passing algebra have changed Gabriela's future? Most educators would say yes.
Algebra, they insist, can mean the difference between menial work and high-level careers. High school students can't get into most four-year colleges without it. And the U.S. Department of Education says success in algebra II and other higher-level math is strongly associated with college completion.
Apprenticeship programs for electricians, plumbers and refrigerator technicians require algebra, which is useful in calculating needed amounts of piping and electrical wiring.
"If you want to work in the real world, if you want to wire buildings and plumb buildings, that's when it requires algebra," said Don Davis, executive director of the Electrical Training Institute, which runs apprenticeship programs for union electricians in Los Angeles.
Algebra, with its idiom of equations and variables, is more abstract than the math that comes before it. It uses symbols, usually letters, to represent numbers and sets of symbols to express mathematical relationships.
Educators say algebra offers a practical benefit: Analytical skills and formulas enable people to make sense of the world. Algebra can help a worker calculate income taxes, a baseball fan determine a pitcher's earned-run average and a driver determine a car's gas mileage.
"It's the language of generalization. It's a very powerful problem-solving tool," said Zalman Usiskin, director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.
Rationale for Algebra
Although experts widely agree that algebra sharpens young minds, some object to making it a graduation requirement.
"If you want to believe you're for standards, you're going to make kids take algebra. It has that ring of authenticity," said Robert Balfanz, an associate research scientist with the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "But you're not really thinking through the implications. There may be no good reason why algebra is essential for all high school students."
Compulsory algebra is a relatively new idea in the faddish realm of education reform.
Until recently, high schools offered a range of programs. Students seen as academically able were placed in college-prep classes. Others were funneled into vocational courses in which they learned such skills as auto mechanics and office technology.
It was an imperfect system in which some bright students, particularly minorities, could find themselves trapped in classes that steered them away from higher education.
Then, about a decade ago, the pendulum began to swing as the state decided to raise academic standards for high school graduation.
The concept of algebra for all also was meant to elevate the level of U.S. high school students, whose math performance has long trailed that of peers in other industrialized countries where algebra is introduced at earlier grade levels.
Eager to close this competitive chasm, education and business leaders in California sought to re-engineer the state's approach to math. They produced new math standards they believed would foster a "rising tide of excellence."
This meant teaching algebra earlier, as soon as eighth grade for some students, even if instructors questioned whether younger students could handle abstract concepts.
"We didn't regard any of this as extreme," Stanford University mathematician James Milgram said recently, defending the 1997 math standards he helped write. "We need competent people in this country. We're on our way to [becoming] a second-rate economic power."
Legislators joined the charge in 1999, creating a high school exit exam with algebra questions, which takes effect this spring. They then enacted the law requiring algebra for graduation, starting with the Class of 2004, to prepare students for the exam.
To its staunchest advocate in the Legislature, algebra stood for higher expectations and new opportunities.
"We have a problem with a high dropout rate. You don't address it by making it easier to get through and have the meaning of the diploma diluted," said state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), who wrote the algebra graduation law. "It should be a call to action … not to lower standards but to find ways to inspire. Our future depends on it."
'I Give Up'
Whether requiring all students to pass algebra is a good idea or not, two things are clear: Schools have not been equipped to teach it, and students have not been equipped to learn it.
Secondary schools have had to rapidly expand algebra classes despite a shortage of credentialed math teachers.
The Center for the Future of Teaching & Learning in Santa Cruz found that more than 40% of eighth-grade algebra teachers in California lack a math credential or are teaching outside their field of expertise; more than 20% of high school math teachers are similarly unprepared.
Recruitment programs and summer math institutes for teachers have been scaled back or eliminated because of budget cuts.
"It's a real collision of circumstance, and students are now having … to bear the brunt of public policy gone awry," said Margaret Gaston, executive director of the Santa Cruz research center.
High school math instructors, meanwhile, face crowded classes of 40 or more students — some of whom do not know their multiplication tables or how to add fractions or convert percentages into decimals.
Birmingham teacher Steve Kofahl said many students don't understand that X can be an abstract variable in an equation and not just a letter of the alphabet.
Birmingham math coach Kathy De Soto said she was surprised to find something else: students who still count on their fingers.
High school teachers blame middle schools for churning out ill-prepared students. The middle schools blame the elementary schools, where teachers are expected to have a command of all subjects but sometimes are shaky in math themselves.
At Cal State Northridge, the largest supplier of new teachers to Los Angeles Unified, 35% of future elementary school instructors earned Ds or Fs in their first college-level math class last year.
Some of these students had already taken remedial classes that reviewed high school algebra and geometry.
"I give up. I'm not good at math," said sophomore Alexa Ganz, 19, who received a D in math last semester even after taking two remedial courses. "I think I've been more confused this semester than helped."
Ganz, who wants to teach third grade, thinks the required math courses are overkill. "I guarantee I won't need to know all this," she said, perhaps not realizing that if she were to teach in a public school, she could be bumped as a newcomer to upper grade levels that demand greater math knowledge.
Administrators in L.A. Unified say they are trying to reverse the alarming failure rates of high school students by changing the way math is taught, starting in elementary schools.
The new approach stresses conceptual lessons rather than rote memorization, a change that some instructors think is wrong. New math coaches also are training teachers and coordinating lesson plans at many schools.
The simplest algebraic concepts are now taught — or are supposed to be taught — beginning in kindergarten.
These changes appear to be paying off, at least in elementary grades. L.A. Unified's elementary-level math scores have risen sharply over the last five years, although middle schools and high schools have yet to show significant progress.
Searching for a solution in its secondary schools, L.A. Unified is investing millions of dollars in new computer programs that teach pre-algebra, algebra and other skills.
Officials are considering other costly changes, including reducing the size of algebra classes to 25, launching algebra readiness classes for lagging eighth-graders and creating summer programs for students needing a kick-start before middle school or high school.
Some schools have taken matters into their own hands.
Cleveland High, four miles from Birmingham, places ninth- and 10th-graders who get a D or F in algebra into semester-long classes that focus on sixth- and seventh-grade material and pre-algebra. Students then return to standard algebra classes.
Eighteen percent of Cleveland's 10th-graders were proficient in algebra on state tests last spring, compared with 8% at Birmingham and 3% districtwide.
Los Angeles Times
A Formula for Failure in L.A. Schools
Because they can't pass algebra, thousands of students are denied diplomas. Many try again and again -- but still get Fs.
By Duke Helfand, Times Staff Writer
Each morning, when Gabriela Ocampo looked up at the chalkboard in her ninth-grade algebra class, her spirits sank.
There she saw a mysterious language of polynomials and slope intercepts that looked about as familiar as hieroglyphics.
She knew she would face another day of confusion, another day of pretending to follow along. She could hardly do long division, let alone solve for x.
"I felt like, 'Oh, my God, what am I going to do?' " she recalled.
Gabriela failed that first semester of freshman algebra. She failed again and again — six times in six semesters. And because students in Los Angeles Unified schools must pass algebra to graduate, her hopes for a diploma grew dimmer with each F.
Midway through 12th grade, Gabriela gathered her textbooks, dropped them at the campus book room and, without telling a soul, vanished from Birmingham High School.
Her story might be just a footnote to the Class of 2005 except that hundreds of her classmates, along with thousands of others across the district, also failed algebra.
Of all the obstacles to graduation, algebra was the most daunting.
The course that traditionally distinguished the college-bound from others has denied vast numbers of students a high school diploma.
"It triggers dropouts more than any single subject," said Los Angeles schools Supt. Roy Romer. "I think it is a cumulative failure of our ability to teach math adequately in the public school system."
When the Los Angeles Board of Education approved tougher graduation requirements that went into effect in 2003, the intention was to give kids a better education and groom more graduates for college and high-level jobs. For the first time, students had to pass a year of algebra and a year of geometry or an equivalent class to earn diplomas.
The policy was born of a worthy goal but has proved disastrous for students unprepared to meet the new demands.
In the fall of 2004, 48,000 ninth-graders took beginning algebra; 44% flunked, nearly twice the failure rate as in English. Seventeen percent finished with Ds.
In all, the district that semester handed out Ds and Fs to 29,000 beginning algebra students — enough to fill eight high schools the size of Birmingham.
Among those who repeated the class in the spring, nearly three-quarters flunked again.
The school district could have seen this coming if officials had looked at the huge numbers of high school students failing basic math.
Lawmakers in Sacramento didn't ask questions either. After Los Angeles Unified changed its policy, legislators turned algebra into a statewide graduation requirement, effective in 2004.
Now the Los Angeles school board has raised the bar again. By the time today's second-graders graduate from high school in 2016, most will have to meet the University of California's entry requirements, which will mean passing a third year of advanced math, such as algebra II, and four years of English.
Former board President Jose Huizar introduced this latest round of requirements, which the board approved in a 6-1 vote last June.
Huizar said he was motivated by personal experience: He was a marginal student growing up in Boyle Heights but excelled in high school once a counselor placed him in a demanding curriculum that propelled him to college and a law degree.
"I think there are thousands of kids like me, but we're losing them because we don't give them that opportunity," said Huizar, who left the school board after he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council last fall. "Yes, there will be dropouts. But I'm looking at the glass half full."
Discouragement, Frustration
Birmingham High in Van Nuys, where Gabriela Ocampo struggled to grasp algebra, has a failure rate that's about average for the district. Nearly half the ninth-grade class flunked beginning algebra last year.
In the spring semester alone, more freshmen failed than passed. The tally: 367 Fs and 355 passes, nearly one-third of them Ds.
All those failures and near failures have left a wake of discouraged students and exasperated teachers.
Fifteen-year-old Abraham Lemus, the son of Salvadoran immigrants, finally scraped by with a D after his mother hired a tutor. But he recalls how he failed the first time he took the course. "I was starting to get suicide thoughts in my head, just because of math," he said.
Shane Sauby, who worked as an attorney and stockbroker before becoming a teacher, volunteered to teach the students confronting first-year algebra for a second, third or fourth time. He thought he could reach them.
But, Sauby said, many of his students ignored homework, rarely studied for tests and often skipped class.
"I would look at them and say, 'What is your thinking? If you are coming here, why aren't you doing the work or paying attention or making an effort?' " he said. Many would just stare back.
Sauby, who now teaches in another district, failed as many as 90% of his students.
Like other schools in the nation's second-largest district, Birmingham High deals with failing students by shuttling them back into algebra, often with the same teachers.
Last fall, the school scheduled 17 classes of up to 40 students each for those repeating first-semester algebra.
Educational psychologists say reenrolling such students in algebra decreases their chances of graduating.
"Repeated failure makes kids think they can't do the work. And when they can't do the work, they say, 'I'm out of here,' " said Andrew Porter, director of the Learning Sciences Institute at Vanderbilt University in Nashville.
The strategy has also failed to provide students with what they need most: a review of basic math.
Teachers complain that they have no time for remediation, that the rapid pace mandated by the district leaves behind students like Tina Norwood, 15, who is failing beginning algebra for the third time.
Tina, who says math has mystified her since she first saw fractions in elementary school, spends class time writing in her journal, chatting with friends or snapping pictures of herself with her cellphone.
Her teacher wasn't surprised when Tina bombed a recent test that asked her, among other things, to graph the equations 4x + y = 9 and 2x -- 3y = -- 6. She left most of the answers blank, writing a desperate message at the top of the page: "Still don't get it, not gonna get it, guess i'm seeing this next year!"
Teachers wage a daily struggle in classes filled with students like Tina.
Her teacher, George Seidel, devoted a class this fall to reviewing equations with a single variable, such as x -- 1 = 36. It's the type of lesson students were supposed to have mastered in fourth grade.
Only seven of 39 students brought their textbooks. Several had no paper or pencils. One sat for the entire period with his backpack on his shoulders, tapping his desk with a finger.
Another doodled an eagle in red ink in his notebook. Others gossiped as Seidel, a second-year teacher, jotted problems on the front board.
"Settle down," Seidel told the fifth-period students a few minutes after the bell rang. "It doesn't work if you guys are trying to talk while I'm trying to talk."
Seidel once brokered multimillion-dollar business deals but left a 25-year law career, hoping to find a more fulfilling job and satisfy an old desire to teach. Nothing, however, prepared him for period five.
"I got through a year of Vietnam," he said, "so I tell myself every day I can get through 53 minutes of fifth period…. I don't know if I am making a difference with a single kid."
Seidel did not appear to make a difference with Gabriela Ocampo. She failed his class in the fall of 2004 — her sixth and final semester of Fs in algebra.
But Gabriela didn't give Seidel much of a chance; she skipped 62 of 93 days that semester.
After dropping out, Gabriela found a $7-an-hour job at a Subway sandwich shop in Encino. She needed little math because the cash register calculated change. But she discovered the cost of not earning a diploma.
"I don't want to be there no more," she said, her eyes watering from raw onions, shortly before she quit to enroll in a training program to become a medical assistant.
Could passing algebra have changed Gabriela's future? Most educators would say yes.
Algebra, they insist, can mean the difference between menial work and high-level careers. High school students can't get into most four-year colleges without it. And the U.S. Department of Education says success in algebra II and other higher-level math is strongly associated with college completion.
Apprenticeship programs for electricians, plumbers and refrigerator technicians require algebra, which is useful in calculating needed amounts of piping and electrical wiring.
"If you want to work in the real world, if you want to wire buildings and plumb buildings, that's when it requires algebra," said Don Davis, executive director of the Electrical Training Institute, which runs apprenticeship programs for union electricians in Los Angeles.
Algebra, with its idiom of equations and variables, is more abstract than the math that comes before it. It uses symbols, usually letters, to represent numbers and sets of symbols to express mathematical relationships.
Educators say algebra offers a practical benefit: Analytical skills and formulas enable people to make sense of the world. Algebra can help a worker calculate income taxes, a baseball fan determine a pitcher's earned-run average and a driver determine a car's gas mileage.
"It's the language of generalization. It's a very powerful problem-solving tool," said Zalman Usiskin, director of the University of Chicago School Mathematics Project.
Rationale for Algebra
Although experts widely agree that algebra sharpens young minds, some object to making it a graduation requirement.
"If you want to believe you're for standards, you're going to make kids take algebra. It has that ring of authenticity," said Robert Balfanz, an associate research scientist with the Center for Social Organization of Schools at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "But you're not really thinking through the implications. There may be no good reason why algebra is essential for all high school students."
Compulsory algebra is a relatively new idea in the faddish realm of education reform.
Until recently, high schools offered a range of programs. Students seen as academically able were placed in college-prep classes. Others were funneled into vocational courses in which they learned such skills as auto mechanics and office technology.
It was an imperfect system in which some bright students, particularly minorities, could find themselves trapped in classes that steered them away from higher education.
Then, about a decade ago, the pendulum began to swing as the state decided to raise academic standards for high school graduation.
The concept of algebra for all also was meant to elevate the level of U.S. high school students, whose math performance has long trailed that of peers in other industrialized countries where algebra is introduced at earlier grade levels.
Eager to close this competitive chasm, education and business leaders in California sought to re-engineer the state's approach to math. They produced new math standards they believed would foster a "rising tide of excellence."
This meant teaching algebra earlier, as soon as eighth grade for some students, even if instructors questioned whether younger students could handle abstract concepts.
"We didn't regard any of this as extreme," Stanford University mathematician James Milgram said recently, defending the 1997 math standards he helped write. "We need competent people in this country. We're on our way to [becoming] a second-rate economic power."
Legislators joined the charge in 1999, creating a high school exit exam with algebra questions, which takes effect this spring. They then enacted the law requiring algebra for graduation, starting with the Class of 2004, to prepare students for the exam.
To its staunchest advocate in the Legislature, algebra stood for higher expectations and new opportunities.
"We have a problem with a high dropout rate. You don't address it by making it easier to get through and have the meaning of the diploma diluted," said state Sen. Chuck Poochigian (R-Fresno), who wrote the algebra graduation law. "It should be a call to action … not to lower standards but to find ways to inspire. Our future depends on it."
'I Give Up'
Whether requiring all students to pass algebra is a good idea or not, two things are clear: Schools have not been equipped to teach it, and students have not been equipped to learn it.
Secondary schools have had to rapidly expand algebra classes despite a shortage of credentialed math teachers.
The Center for the Future of Teaching & Learning in Santa Cruz found that more than 40% of eighth-grade algebra teachers in California lack a math credential or are teaching outside their field of expertise; more than 20% of high school math teachers are similarly unprepared.
Recruitment programs and summer math institutes for teachers have been scaled back or eliminated because of budget cuts.
"It's a real collision of circumstance, and students are now having … to bear the brunt of public policy gone awry," said Margaret Gaston, executive director of the Santa Cruz research center.
High school math instructors, meanwhile, face crowded classes of 40 or more students — some of whom do not know their multiplication tables or how to add fractions or convert percentages into decimals.
Birmingham teacher Steve Kofahl said many students don't understand that X can be an abstract variable in an equation and not just a letter of the alphabet.
Birmingham math coach Kathy De Soto said she was surprised to find something else: students who still count on their fingers.
High school teachers blame middle schools for churning out ill-prepared students. The middle schools blame the elementary schools, where teachers are expected to have a command of all subjects but sometimes are shaky in math themselves.
At Cal State Northridge, the largest supplier of new teachers to Los Angeles Unified, 35% of future elementary school instructors earned Ds or Fs in their first college-level math class last year.
Some of these students had already taken remedial classes that reviewed high school algebra and geometry.
"I give up. I'm not good at math," said sophomore Alexa Ganz, 19, who received a D in math last semester even after taking two remedial courses. "I think I've been more confused this semester than helped."
Ganz, who wants to teach third grade, thinks the required math courses are overkill. "I guarantee I won't need to know all this," she said, perhaps not realizing that if she were to teach in a public school, she could be bumped as a newcomer to upper grade levels that demand greater math knowledge.
Administrators in L.A. Unified say they are trying to reverse the alarming failure rates of high school students by changing the way math is taught, starting in elementary schools.
The new approach stresses conceptual lessons rather than rote memorization, a change that some instructors think is wrong. New math coaches also are training teachers and coordinating lesson plans at many schools.
The simplest algebraic concepts are now taught — or are supposed to be taught — beginning in kindergarten.
These changes appear to be paying off, at least in elementary grades. L.A. Unified's elementary-level math scores have risen sharply over the last five years, although middle schools and high schools have yet to show significant progress.
Searching for a solution in its secondary schools, L.A. Unified is investing millions of dollars in new computer programs that teach pre-algebra, algebra and other skills.
Officials are considering other costly changes, including reducing the size of algebra classes to 25, launching algebra readiness classes for lagging eighth-graders and creating summer programs for students needing a kick-start before middle school or high school.
Some schools have taken matters into their own hands.
Cleveland High, four miles from Birmingham, places ninth- and 10th-graders who get a D or F in algebra into semester-long classes that focus on sixth- and seventh-grade material and pre-algebra. Students then return to standard algebra classes.
Eighteen percent of Cleveland's 10th-graders were proficient in algebra on state tests last spring, compared with 8% at Birmingham and 3% districtwide.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Sacramento Bee Journalism
From Dan Weintraub's web log.
Gary Delsohn, who has been covering the governor for the Bee's Capitol Bureau, is quitting to go to work for Schwarzenegger, as a speechwriter.
No comment needed.
Gary Delsohn, who has been covering the governor for the Bee's Capitol Bureau, is quitting to go to work for Schwarzenegger, as a speechwriter.
No comment needed.
Monday, January 16, 2006
Weintraub actually makes a good proposal on schools
A modest proposal
It hasn't received a huge amount of attention since no one is screaming about it, but the increase in education spending in the governor's budget proposal comes to a cool $600 per student in K-12, or an 8 percent increase over the current year. I offer a modest proposal here for how that money might be best spent.
I say we give half of it to the districts to cover general cost increases and give the rest to the teachers to decide how to spend. Really. Why not authorize each classroom teacher to spend $300 per student more in whatever way they think would best improve the education of those children? Even better, I'd take that money and give it all to the teachers who are teaching kids in the bottom half of the socioeconomic spectrum, where the achievement gap is the largest. Since half of the total increase would be going to half the kids, that would bump the amount back up to $600 for each of those kids.
If we did that, a teacher with 30 such kids in say, inner city Los Angeles, would get a chit worth $18,000. I say let them decide how to spend it. They could hire a fully credentialed teacher to work in their classroom for half the day doing small groups and one-on-ones with the toughest kids. Or they could hire a couple of aides to help out. Or they could hire someone to do intensive after-school tutoring. Or they could use it for the finest supplies, new computers, better books. You name it. I'd even be willing to let the teachers pocket some or all of the money as a salary bonus for working with tough-to-teach kids. My only rule would be they would have to write a report detailing how they spent the money and post it it on their classroom door for all the parents to see.
Does anybody doubt that this would be more effective than what the governor is proposing to do, which is give about two-thirds of the money in a general cost-of-living increase and divvy up the rest among targeted initiatives like his after-school program, teacher recruitment and training, arts and music programs and physical education?
After we empower the teachers, my next step would be to audit the results and find out whose decisions brought the greatest gain in achievement. Then publish a list of best practices for teachers to consider the following year.
Posted by dweintraub at 11:31 AM
this blog has often enough criticized Weintraub for (like politicians) being out of touch with teachers. We should recognize when he actually makes a reasonable proposal, or as he calls it, a modest proposal.
It hasn't received a huge amount of attention since no one is screaming about it, but the increase in education spending in the governor's budget proposal comes to a cool $600 per student in K-12, or an 8 percent increase over the current year. I offer a modest proposal here for how that money might be best spent.
I say we give half of it to the districts to cover general cost increases and give the rest to the teachers to decide how to spend. Really. Why not authorize each classroom teacher to spend $300 per student more in whatever way they think would best improve the education of those children? Even better, I'd take that money and give it all to the teachers who are teaching kids in the bottom half of the socioeconomic spectrum, where the achievement gap is the largest. Since half of the total increase would be going to half the kids, that would bump the amount back up to $600 for each of those kids.
If we did that, a teacher with 30 such kids in say, inner city Los Angeles, would get a chit worth $18,000. I say let them decide how to spend it. They could hire a fully credentialed teacher to work in their classroom for half the day doing small groups and one-on-ones with the toughest kids. Or they could hire a couple of aides to help out. Or they could hire someone to do intensive after-school tutoring. Or they could use it for the finest supplies, new computers, better books. You name it. I'd even be willing to let the teachers pocket some or all of the money as a salary bonus for working with tough-to-teach kids. My only rule would be they would have to write a report detailing how they spent the money and post it it on their classroom door for all the parents to see.
Does anybody doubt that this would be more effective than what the governor is proposing to do, which is give about two-thirds of the money in a general cost-of-living increase and divvy up the rest among targeted initiatives like his after-school program, teacher recruitment and training, arts and music programs and physical education?
After we empower the teachers, my next step would be to audit the results and find out whose decisions brought the greatest gain in achievement. Then publish a list of best practices for teachers to consider the following year.
Posted by dweintraub at 11:31 AM
this blog has often enough criticized Weintraub for (like politicians) being out of touch with teachers. We should recognize when he actually makes a reasonable proposal, or as he calls it, a modest proposal.
Friday, January 13, 2006
NEA on NCLB: Not much to celebrate
Not Much To Celebrate on Fourth Anniversary of 'No Child Left Behind'
NEA President Reg Weaver Evaluates Bush Administration's Education Policy
WASHINGTON -- National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver issued the following statement on the fourth anniversary of the so-called No Child Left Behind's adoption:
"Four years of President Bush's signature education policy is sufficient to weigh facts, examine data and understand this so-called 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB) Act through the experiences of millions of education professionals across America. If we distill these into one observation, it is that the anniversary marks four years of winning rhetoric and failing substance. From its inception, NCLB has been overemphasized, under funded and sugarcoated at the expense of public school children.
"New data illustrates our conclusion. It shows that more schools failed to achieve 'adequate yearly progress' (AYP) under NCLB in 2005-06 than ever before. Schools that earned high ranks, honors and distinctions for achievement and improvement under their own states' models of standards and accountability failed under the Administration's federal mandate, which leaves those schools, their students, their parents and instructors discouraged, not empowered. In remarks earlier this week in Maryland, President Bush finally agreed with NEA in declaring that 'one size doesn't fit all.'
"If Congress previously has accepted none of the blame for this policy of artificial inadequacy, it cannot avoid it now. In the final hours before its December recess, Congress adopted cuts of more than $1 billion to NCLB, sentencing even more of America's schools to failure on the fast track in 2005-06. The choice represented the most blatant disregard for the futures of the nation's children to date by our leaders.
"While many members of Congress have praised the so-called No Child Left Behind Act in their stump speeches, they clearly have little regard for it in this budget. When it came time to match money with rhetoric, Congress voted to cut funding in support of NCLB by $1 billion, which brings funding below the level provided THREE years ago.
"NEA has sought to fix and fund the policy, issuing recommendations to aid the Administration in eliminating statutory flaws and establishing legislative funding priorities, all for the sake of America's children for four years now. Our data-driven recommendations remain on the table while public school children across the nation fall farther behind. NEA has joined with 66 other national organizations in calling for 14 specific improvements to the law. We strongly encourage others to look at the facts and tell Congress that our children need more than rhetoric."
Data illustrating state-by-state federal funding losses due to recent budget cuts, AYP failures under NCLB, and the joint statement from the 67 groups may be found at www.nea.org.
Jan. 11, 2006
# # #
NEA President Reg Weaver Evaluates Bush Administration's Education Policy
WASHINGTON -- National Education Association (NEA) President Reg Weaver issued the following statement on the fourth anniversary of the so-called No Child Left Behind's adoption:
"Four years of President Bush's signature education policy is sufficient to weigh facts, examine data and understand this so-called 'No Child Left Behind' (NCLB) Act through the experiences of millions of education professionals across America. If we distill these into one observation, it is that the anniversary marks four years of winning rhetoric and failing substance. From its inception, NCLB has been overemphasized, under funded and sugarcoated at the expense of public school children.
"New data illustrates our conclusion. It shows that more schools failed to achieve 'adequate yearly progress' (AYP) under NCLB in 2005-06 than ever before. Schools that earned high ranks, honors and distinctions for achievement and improvement under their own states' models of standards and accountability failed under the Administration's federal mandate, which leaves those schools, their students, their parents and instructors discouraged, not empowered. In remarks earlier this week in Maryland, President Bush finally agreed with NEA in declaring that 'one size doesn't fit all.'
"If Congress previously has accepted none of the blame for this policy of artificial inadequacy, it cannot avoid it now. In the final hours before its December recess, Congress adopted cuts of more than $1 billion to NCLB, sentencing even more of America's schools to failure on the fast track in 2005-06. The choice represented the most blatant disregard for the futures of the nation's children to date by our leaders.
"While many members of Congress have praised the so-called No Child Left Behind Act in their stump speeches, they clearly have little regard for it in this budget. When it came time to match money with rhetoric, Congress voted to cut funding in support of NCLB by $1 billion, which brings funding below the level provided THREE years ago.
"NEA has sought to fix and fund the policy, issuing recommendations to aid the Administration in eliminating statutory flaws and establishing legislative funding priorities, all for the sake of America's children for four years now. Our data-driven recommendations remain on the table while public school children across the nation fall farther behind. NEA has joined with 66 other national organizations in calling for 14 specific improvements to the law. We strongly encourage others to look at the facts and tell Congress that our children need more than rhetoric."
Data illustrating state-by-state federal funding losses due to recent budget cuts, AYP failures under NCLB, and the joint statement from the 67 groups may be found at www.nea.org.
Jan. 11, 2006
# # #
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Teachers needed to improve schools
S. PAUL REVILLE
Bring teachers to the table
By S. Paul Reville | January 3, 2006
WHEN MASSACHUSETTS adopted the Education Reform Act of 1993, the state committed to creating a rigorous system of standards, assessments, and accountability. The accountability function was intended to identify performance problems, provide assistance, and ultimately sanction poor performance if it could be remedied with help. The state is now considering what the ''help" should be. Which approaches to turning around school performance are most successful? Which are practical and affordable?
As the volume of schools identified as ''in need of improvement" ratchets upward under the idealistic assumptions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the urgency for the state to act intensifies. It is morally and educationally unsound for authorities publicly to label poor performance without a plan and the capacity to intervene.
Intervention planning is challenging work. There is little evidence of dramatically successful ''turnaround" strategies anywhere in the country. Policy makers in virtually every state are grappling with the question of what to do with their failing schools. Research evidence is limited. State takeovers have not been successful, except on financial matters. Most state departments of education, as is the case in Massachusetts, have limited capacity, personnel, and expertise to address the complex issues of school performance.
Naturally, the policy discussion migrates away from state bureaucracies. In Massachusetts, conversations on interventions and poor performance have focused on management prerogatives, turnaround partners, and chartering or privatizing failed schools. These strategies, like many others, have little or no research evidence to support their effectiveness.
Conspicuously absent in the debate on intervention has been the role and voices of teachers and teacher unions, arguably the front line troops in any ''turnaround" strategy. There seems to be a belief in some policy circles that school improvement can be accomplished in spite of teachers rather than with them.
Some of the assumptions embedded in the prominent strategies, management prerogatives, turnaround partners, chartering, and privatization imply that teachers are the problem rather than part of the solution, that the source of expertise on fixing school problems is external rather than internal or that current leadership is highly competent. Although each of these assumptions is sometimes true, none is always or typically correct.
Teachers and, certainly, unions don't have all the answers either. They are also sometimes the source of problems, but it is folly to shape school intervention and turnaround plans without extensively consulting teachers on policies and practices.
A common flaw of educational policies is that they take a ''one size fits all" approach to solving problems or meeting challenges. Not all failing schools fail for the same reasons. Therefore, not all successful school interventions will look alike. Our intervention policies will need to take into account the substantial variation in context: communities, leadership, curriculum and teaching, resources, students, demographics, mobility and a host of other factors. Our intervention policies will need to be strong but flexible and responsive to local circumstances. Above all, we will need policies and practices that those charged with implementing see as worthwhile and likely to succeed.
However, it's not just some policy makers' neglect or management bias that keeps unions from the intervention policy table. Union leaders are sometimes ambivalent about participating in solving the problems of the accountability system for fear of being seen as collaborators with a system of assessment and accountability which some of their members still actively reject. However, enlightened leaders across the country increasingly see that, however flawed, the system of accountability is here to stay and teachers have a vital role to play in improving that system. These leaders know that unions need to be at the table.
In addition to including teachers in policy formulation, we would do well to craft state intervention policies that increase the capacity of the state Department of Education to provide real assistance and tools, like formative assessment data, leadership training, extra time, and professional development, to our most challenged schools and districts. We should also view our policy efforts as experimental. We don't have much evidence to support any of the most prominently mentioned strategies, but this doesn't absolve the state of the obligation to get involved in helping educators improve teaching and learning in the Commonwealth's most challenged schools.
S. Paul Reville is president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
Bring teachers to the table
By S. Paul Reville | January 3, 2006
WHEN MASSACHUSETTS adopted the Education Reform Act of 1993, the state committed to creating a rigorous system of standards, assessments, and accountability. The accountability function was intended to identify performance problems, provide assistance, and ultimately sanction poor performance if it could be remedied with help. The state is now considering what the ''help" should be. Which approaches to turning around school performance are most successful? Which are practical and affordable?
As the volume of schools identified as ''in need of improvement" ratchets upward under the idealistic assumptions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act, the urgency for the state to act intensifies. It is morally and educationally unsound for authorities publicly to label poor performance without a plan and the capacity to intervene.
Intervention planning is challenging work. There is little evidence of dramatically successful ''turnaround" strategies anywhere in the country. Policy makers in virtually every state are grappling with the question of what to do with their failing schools. Research evidence is limited. State takeovers have not been successful, except on financial matters. Most state departments of education, as is the case in Massachusetts, have limited capacity, personnel, and expertise to address the complex issues of school performance.
Naturally, the policy discussion migrates away from state bureaucracies. In Massachusetts, conversations on interventions and poor performance have focused on management prerogatives, turnaround partners, and chartering or privatizing failed schools. These strategies, like many others, have little or no research evidence to support their effectiveness.
Conspicuously absent in the debate on intervention has been the role and voices of teachers and teacher unions, arguably the front line troops in any ''turnaround" strategy. There seems to be a belief in some policy circles that school improvement can be accomplished in spite of teachers rather than with them.
Some of the assumptions embedded in the prominent strategies, management prerogatives, turnaround partners, chartering, and privatization imply that teachers are the problem rather than part of the solution, that the source of expertise on fixing school problems is external rather than internal or that current leadership is highly competent. Although each of these assumptions is sometimes true, none is always or typically correct.
Teachers and, certainly, unions don't have all the answers either. They are also sometimes the source of problems, but it is folly to shape school intervention and turnaround plans without extensively consulting teachers on policies and practices.
A common flaw of educational policies is that they take a ''one size fits all" approach to solving problems or meeting challenges. Not all failing schools fail for the same reasons. Therefore, not all successful school interventions will look alike. Our intervention policies will need to take into account the substantial variation in context: communities, leadership, curriculum and teaching, resources, students, demographics, mobility and a host of other factors. Our intervention policies will need to be strong but flexible and responsive to local circumstances. Above all, we will need policies and practices that those charged with implementing see as worthwhile and likely to succeed.
However, it's not just some policy makers' neglect or management bias that keeps unions from the intervention policy table. Union leaders are sometimes ambivalent about participating in solving the problems of the accountability system for fear of being seen as collaborators with a system of assessment and accountability which some of their members still actively reject. However, enlightened leaders across the country increasingly see that, however flawed, the system of accountability is here to stay and teachers have a vital role to play in improving that system. These leaders know that unions need to be at the table.
In addition to including teachers in policy formulation, we would do well to craft state intervention policies that increase the capacity of the state Department of Education to provide real assistance and tools, like formative assessment data, leadership training, extra time, and professional development, to our most challenged schools and districts. We should also view our policy efforts as experimental. We don't have much evidence to support any of the most prominently mentioned strategies, but this doesn't absolve the state of the obligation to get involved in helping educators improve teaching and learning in the Commonwealth's most challenged schools.
S. Paul Reville is president of the Rennie Center for Education Research and Policy and a lecturer at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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