October 2011 State Board of Education Review

Oct2011SBEReview

Why Advocacy and Market Forces Fail Education Reform

Some interesting findings from Truthout's review of the peer-reviewed literature on how school choice and business models do not result in fixes -- either quick nor long-term -- for what ails public schools...

Taken as a whole, these numbers indicate significant limits on the capacity of public school choice and parental involvement to improve school quality and student performance within MPS [Milwaukee Public Schools]. Parents simply do not appear sufficiently engaged in available choice opportunities or their children 's educational activities to ensure the desired outcomes.... Relying on public school choice and parental involvement to reclaim MPS may be a distraction from the hard work of fixing the district 's schools. Recognizing this, the question is whether the district, its schools, and its supporters in Madison are prepared to embrace more radical reforms. Given the high stakes involved, district parents should insist on nothing less.

The think-tank advocacy process is chilling but effective: make claims through the media and move fast to the next thing before anyone has time to consider the evidence. Yes, the media is complicit here, because we know that think tanks and advocacy receive disproportionately more coverage without scholarly scrutiny when compared to university-based and peer-reviewed studies.

And be leery of fantastic claims made by free-market advocacy institutions such as the John Locke Foundation:

Think-tank advocacy focusing on education has increased over the past two decades, and although the think tanks have developed a strategy that involves creating the appearance of scholarship and research, the reality is that think tanks remain ideology-driven, not evidence-based.

Go read the whole excellent article here.

How Billionaires Rule Our Schools

Bill & Melinda Gates

Christy, Jim, Alice, and S. Robson Walton of the Walton Family Foundation

Eli & Edith Broad

From Dissent magazine

Drilling students on sample questions for weeks before a state test will not improve their education. The truly excellent charter schools depend on foundation money and their prerogative to send low-performing students back to traditional public schools. They cannot be replicated to serve millions of low-income children. Yet the reform movement, led by Gates, Broad, and Walton, has convinced most Americans who have an opinion about education (including most liberals) that their agenda deserves support.

Given all this, I want to explore three questions: How do these foundations operate on the ground? How do they leverage their money into control over public policy? And how do they construct consensus? We know the array of tools used by the foundations for education reform: they fund programs to close down schools, set up charters, and experiment with data-collection software, testing regimes, and teacher evaluation plans; they give grants to research groups and think tanks to study all the programs, to evaluate all the studies, and to conduct surveys; they give grants to TV networks for programming and to news organizations for reporting; they spend hundreds of millions on advocacy outreach to the media, to government at every level, and to voters. Yet we don’t know much at all until we get down to specifics.

Read the rest here....

Life in Hell -- The World of 52 new Standardized Tests in Charlotte Mecklenburg Schools

One Teacher's View

"Here's the teacher's report, edited slightly for length and clarity:

*Tests did not arrive at school until Friday, April 1. School administration did not have time to train test administrators enough to feel confident about giving the test.

*Special area classes (music, art, PE, etc) and ESL classes are cancelled this week so that those teachers may assist with testing. This is to ensure that classroom instruction can continue. However, students will miss those special area classes. Most teachers at my school have some planning time during the special area class time. They will not have planning time this week.

*I have 50 kindergarten students to test this week. That is about 20-30 minutes per test, times 50 students. It's mentally exhausting for me. I am wondering how much time the final summative tests will be. We have to administer those next month. We are looking forward to having to cancel instruction for a week then as well. 10 days of instruction lost, out of 180 instructional days. That's a lot.

*The second-grade test has been taking more than 50 minutes. 50 minutes is supposed to be the upper limit of the test. This is only for one portion of the test (like, just math, or just social studies).

*I could write about 5 pages about how poorly constructed the test itself was but I'm not sure how much that would fall into breaking test security. I can say anecdotally that I have administered many different types of tests and this is about the worst test I have ever seen, as a "standardized" test. I don't know how much CMS spent just getting this field test version, but it appears to have been a complete waste of money, at the same time we are decreasing services and planning to lay off hundreds of teachers. The wording of the questions, the graphics that go along with the questions, the instructions for assessing the student's answers... It's not good. That is worrisome since these will (perhaps) eventually be used for Pay for Performance. How can we respect a PfP model if it is built on faulty testing data?

*I am giving the kindergarten science test. It is 34 pages long, so 17 sheets of paper. That times an average of 25 students per kindergarten class at my school. If each K-2 test is about that long: There are 21 K-2 classes in my school. So, 17 sheets of paper x 25 students x 21 classes x the number of elementary schools in CMS. That's a lot of paper. We usually have to ration paper to make copies at school. We would love to have that amount of paper to use to support instruction

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Read more: http://obsyourschools.blogspot.com/2011/04/cms-test-week-one-teachers-view.html#ixzz1KTBaXBR7

Let More Teachers Re-invent the Wheel

From Build Better Schools

Written by Joanne Yatvin

Many graduate students (and unfortunately, some of their professors) think that the Hawthorne anomaly illustrates the fact that human subjects who know they are part of a scientific experiment may sabotage the study in their eagerness to make it succeed. What it really shows is that, when people believe they are important in a project, anything works, and, conversely, when they don’t believe they are important, nothing works.

The second reason for championing greater creativity for all is that, through the process of inventing, people learn to understand what their inventions can and cannot do. They learn how to fine-tune them for optimum performance, and, maybe, figure out what changes are needed to produce even better models in the future. In short, they acquire the intimate knowledge of object, system, and use that makes an invention truly their own.

The third reason is simply that a big part of teaching is inventing. Good teachers invent successfully all day long, every day. They invent better ways to explain lessons, to entice reluctant learners, to bring unruly classes under control, and to fire children’s imaginations. When teachers won’t or can’t invent, believe me, the kids will–100 ways to shoot their teachers down. If we want good teaching at the bottom of the pyramid, we’ve got to let all teachers learn their craft.

Read the whole thing here.

Response to Vic Drummond

by John deVille, Macon County NCAE Vice-President

(published 4/21/2011 by Macon County News)

In April 8th edition of The Franklin Press, Vic Drummond charged both the Press itself, as well as North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), as co-conspirators in some nefarious plot to misinform the public as to North Carolina teacher salaries relative to those in the other 49 states.

Time for class Mr. Drummond.

You profess befuddlement at our contention that we have suffered an $1,800 a year cut and state that it just can't be. Consider the changes in our health care plan -- one of those benefits you believe to be understated. Take a look at Senate Bill 265 which at the time of the first Press article had passed both houses of the NC General Assembly. That bill, impacting all NC state employees health care plan called for the following increases: (1) a new premium on individuals going from what was $0 a year to $252 (2) an increase in annual premiums on the family health plan of $960. (3) An increase in annual deductibles of $133 (4) An increase in co-insurance maximums (sure to kick in with one one-night stay in a hospital) of $523.

Those four areas of increase total $1,868. Do they, taken together, constitute a pay cut? I guess you could call them a user fee, or a sickness tax...all we know is that the health care costs for us and our families are skyrocketing while our pay is frozen in place. Those numbers don't include other "user fees" contained in SB 265 -- increases in prescription co-pays, doctor visit co-pays, and so on. These numbers don't include the fact that our premiums for dependents shot up nine percent just two years ago before the current increases of 10.4% over the next two years....at least then our salaries weren't frozen.

The figure of $1,868 of increased health care costs doesn't include the impact of the frozen salaries. Yes, Mr. Drummond, we go "up the ladder" like we always have -- we just don't get paid for it anymore. With 15 years in service to public education with only a Bachelor's and no National Board Certification like so many of my colleagues, I should have made $40,690 this year before taxes and payment into my retirement plan. But I didn't. I'm still receiving what I made in 2008 - 2009 -- $39,670. So I lost $510 last year, will lose $1,020 this year, and will lose $1,550 next year when my step should be $41,220 instead of remaining at $39,670. Again, I don't know if you call those amounts "cuts" or what -- we call them breach of implicit contract at lunch.

In 1995-1996, North Carolina rolled out its ABCs of Public Education, one of many reform movements based on high-stakes standardized tests which eventually evolved into No Child Left Behind. The carrot in the ABCs for the teachers (other than the pleasure of being bullied out of the profession) were potential annual bonuses of $750 and $1,500. At Franklin High School we hit the big one at least once and we then tended hit growth targets netting the smaller bonus every other year. Now mind you, that's not $750 net, but after paying taxes and retirement we were left with about $480. Three years ago we hit the smaller target...and got half that amount from the state as we entered into recessionary darkness. And even though we still work as hard as we did since 1996 and hit the targets with the same frequency and level, the bonuses have disappeared.

Do the disappearing bonuses constitute cuts? Do the current proposals to do away with longevity pay, increased pay for Master's degrees and National Board Certification, to do away with the salary schedule all together and start from scratch -- will those be considered cuts by Mr. Drummond and his ilk? We feel like Charlie Brown, horizontal in the air, four feet off the ground, knowing that gravity will do its work, while the state plays all too well the role of Lucy taking away the promised football, sporting a Machiavellian grin. And you think we're making all this up? Do you truly believe, with all of this, that we are in the business, in your words, "to promote the premise that NC teachers are underpaid, in an attempt to grab more money from taxpayers for teacher salaries?"

Mr. Drummond states that he "believes national rankings based on average teacher salaries are dubious." Of course, he believes that -- reviewing and accepting a straightforward, apples to apples, state by state comparison of average teacher salaries doesn't support his narrative, a narrative which maintains North Carolina teachers are overpaid and "grabbing" for more. Let's take a look at his claims and numbers closely.

Mr. Drummond states that NEA/NCAE national comparisons don't include "retirement and healthcare plans, supplemental retirement plans, sick leave, vacations, bonuses, supplemental pay, days worked, and educational reimbursements." There are several reasons that neither the NEA nor any credible comparison includes those variables but they basically boil down to either that those particular "benefits" can't be accurately tabulated and thus fairly compared from state to state and/or the "benefits" aren't benefits or aren't current benefits.

How would Mr. Drummond have us calculate the health care plan as a benefit, especially as our out-of-pocket costs are going through the roof? Certainly it is a benefit and is worth something but as the co-pays, premiums, and everything else demand we pay more out of pocket, then certainly this benefit is worth substantially less than a few years ago. The specific amount less depends upon the individual, and as this is in a constant flux from person to person, state to state, plan to plan, no one can get anything approaching an accurate fix on relative value of these benefits. One certainly cannot perform the analysis at the level of precision required to delineate fully-loaded salary and benefit packages for the purposes of relative comparison. That is, unless one wants to use the John Locke Foundation method where providing statistical analysis and solid evidentiary data used to generate that analysis is optional.

Our retirement plans are not current benefits -- those benefits exist in the future, if we work that long, if we live that long. That's twelve more years as it stands for me, as I can then retire with full benefits at age 60 with 27 years of service. And where did the money in that fund come from? As it stands now, it all comes from our own paychecks, our own salaries. Does Mr. Drummond seriously claim monies deducted from our own paychecks to be held in retirement accounts are to be considered benefits in addition to our salaries? The state will indeed make a significant contribution to our contributions if we provide 25 - 30 years of service, but in any event that is a future benefit and is difficult to compare in real time, not unless you want to play John Locke Foundation games with the data.

Supplemental retirement plans are entirely funded by the individual teacher who elects to enroll -- no match; no state benefit. Sick leave is about the same from state to state; it has no monetary benefit in North Carolina but can be applied as days worked -- perhaps a teacher can retire after 29 years instead of 30. Vacations -- there aren't any paid vacations -- we work when the county tells us to work our 200 or so days. This coming year, our work year (not days actually worked) will be a week longer; summer will shrink from a little over 56 days to 44 this summer. Is that a cut? Summers, by the way, are frequently used for mandated professional development or to work a necessary second job -- is that a benefit?

I have no idea how Mr. Drummond construes "educational reimbursements" as benefits. We all pay for our graduate studies out of our own pockets. And even if there was a reimbursement, there would be a corresponding expense -- where's the benefit? I invite Mr. Drummond to actually take the time to talk to a classroom teacher and ask him or her about the purchase of classroom supplies which we pay for out of our own pockets which aren't reimbursed.

Mr. Drummond bemoans that the NEA/NCAE teacher salary comparisons don't take into account cost of living, age of teachers, and level of experience. Blending in cost of living data into average salaries on a state-wide basis and then comparing those figures to other states is a fool's errand at best. What is the cost of living in New York? Answer: it depends on where one lives in New York -- median prices of single family homes in 2005 were twelve times higher in Westchester County than they were in Allegany County.

We understand this dynamic quite well in Macon County. We had the second highest cost of living in NC in 1994 (the last year of published data I could find) out of 100 counties and even within one county, the cost of living varies dramatically from a house in Highlands to modest apartment in Franklin. Because the cost of living numbers are difficult to get at to begin with, because of their tremendous fluctuation within a state, because they make straightforward comparisons impossible, NEA/NCAE doesn't use them in their salary comparisons. For the same reason, in addition to the ones stated above, we don't include benefits, as they fluctuate wildly from district to district within states, as they are often negotiated at local levels. Organizations, such as the John Locke Foundation, include these stab-in-the-dark figures for their own purposes to arrive upon "adjusted average compensation" figures with the laughable conclusion that North Carolina teachers are paid $4,000 more than the national average. In our dreams, Mr. Drummond.

Finally, Mr. Drummond charges NCAE with duping the public and The Franklin Press by withholding data which he believes contradicts our position that we are currently 45th in average teacher salary by pointing to information from our parent association indicating that we are all the way at position #28 rather than at #45. The only problem with this argument is that the data underlying the position #45 analysis is the most recent available coming from the fall of 2010, which looks at the salaries for the 2010-2011 school year. The data from the NEA chart Mr. Drummond cites is clearly marked as coming from 2008 - 2009 -- two-year old data! -- the John Locke Foundation three card monte switcheroo once again.

So are we saying that we fell from 28th to 45th in only two years? Yep. That's what happens when North Carolina freezes salaries and other states like South Carolina increase pay. Salaries going down, health care costs skyrocketing, bonuses gone, supplemental pay on the chopping block, and we're accused of "grabbing." The accusation is as disgusting as it is ludicrous.

Unfortunately, Mr Drummond's inaccurate claims and my necessarily lengthy reply cloud the main issue -- in general, teachers aren't particularly well paid. In North Carolina, we were getting close to the national average, but Raleigh's commitment to us and our students has waned and then gone off the cliff with GOP majority control in both houses. As I write this, the budget bill which just passed the NC House has another 20,000 K-12 jobs on the chopping block.

Dismissed.

Minutes of 4/12 Meeting

At our AR and executive board meeting tonight, we had thorough discussions and deliberated over a number of issues. Below you will see the results of some of our decisions:

1. Let Rena know immediately, if you plan to go with us on May 3rd. We will reimburse the $50.00 needed to take personal leave for up to 9 MCAE members for the Rally in Raleigh. The bus is filling up quickly, so let Rena know ASAP or you may be without a ride from Asheville. (We will ride from Franklin to Asheville; the bus will leave Asheville at noon and then we will return after the rally.)

rena.sutton@macon.k12.nc.us

2. We will hold a meeting to inform members and non-members about what is happening in Raleigh on May 10. We are inviting leaders from our organization and the region to help us be prepared for the wave of change that is coming from Raleigh, as proposed today and as it develops. Public education and our jobs and the jobs of our peers are at risk. Consider the plights of others, even if you feel protected for some reason(s). Read tonight's DPB updates at www.ncae.org if you need further evidence; it is very sad.

Rena Sutton -- MCAE Secretary

The Art Pope File

From Chris Kromm, Institute of Southern Studies

Last November, the Republican tidal wave that washed Democrats out of North Carolina’s legislative leadership for the first time in more than a century caught many off guard—but perhaps no one was as baffled as state Sen. John Snow.

A quiet Democrat from the mountains, Snow made few enemies and largely avoided controversy during his three terms in office. Indeed, he was approvingly rated by the Civitas Institute, a conservative think tank, as one of the Legislature’s most right-leaning Democrats. His opponent, dentist Jim Davis, was a newcomer to state politics, and Snow felt good about his chances of being re-elected.

Then the money started pouring in. First the state GOP, smelling an upset, helped Davis amass a $534,000 campaign war chest—a lot of money for the small 50th Senate district, but Snow and the Democrats still thought they could keep pace.

But Snow was blindsided by a flurry of blistering attack ads and mailers that began popping up across the district, all coming from two little-known groups: Real Jobs NC and Civitas Action. By Election Day, the two organizations had unleashed $265,000 worth of ads benefiting Snow’s Republican opponent, according to state campaign finance records.

Read the whole thing here....

More on Art Pope here...

Rhee the Reformer

We Cannot Afford to Increase Class Sizes

By Rena Sutton; Macon County NCAE Secretary & Past President

Teachers across North Carolina hear how the budget might “require” lay-offs. One repercussion of lay-offs is larger class sizes. Teacher assistant positions, also under the chopping block, have dwindled in the elementary schools to the point of basic coverage in the primary grades. The teaching profession is in disbelief that our lawmakers will put larger numbers of children into already overcrowded classrooms. This is regressive and opposes research-modeled reform efforts calling for 15:1 student-teacher ratios. Ditto for the National Association of Elementary School Principals and NEA.

Today’s children are equal in value to the children in any previous generation, but they face more issues. Challenges include children whose parents are at war, more broken homes, single parents, poverty, homelessness, drugs and hopelessness. We have known and then proven that poverty is a major contributor to multiple factors which can place children at risk for learning and health. “For every talent that poverty has stimulated it has blighted a hundred.” (John W. Gardner)

Our profession has made strong strides toward more differentiation, which requires frequent diagnostic evaluations to test the effectiveness of our teaching. The adage: “Just because you teach it does not mean the child learns it!” is being taken seriously. Our profession is trying to illuminate each student’s needs as the central focus of a growth model. Some legislator voices threaten the tax support we had for this advanced reform model. Our educational gains could diminish.

At a recent interview at our school, teachers were asked what they would do with a larger class size added to their increasing responsibilities and numerous evaluations. There was a quiet, painful pause in the discussion. One teacher had analyzed using different evaluations and found she had a large group of high achievers and a large group of low achievers and only a few in the middle range at that grade level. She said, unfortunately, she would be forced to minimize individualization options. In other words, she would teach students in the middle as students lagging behind or needing to surge ahead would get slighted. Successful teachers need time to build relationships with each child.

Study after study tells us this about smaller class size: increased achievement, significant improvements of percentile rankings using smaller classes, narrowed gaps between economically disadvantaged groups, minority and majority groups. Additionally, studies noted better social adaptability, less dropouts, and the ability to take higher level math and other subjects.

A sincere, highly competent, young teacher expressed to me that she feels class size is a major contributor to her success as a teacher. Each additional student increases the range and types of needs. Discovering and then answering these needs cannot be taken lightly. The teacher feels burdened that legislators are considering reduction of public education funds and teachers. This in turn directly influences the successful education of each child.

A veteran, NBCT educator who has invested her life, career and her personal money laid it straight: “We educators put the children first, and we expect the legislators to do the same!” and then she left the room to make additional preparations to do what she does best: teach.

NCAE Calls for Boycott of Art Pope Businesses!

Since the beginning of the current session of the North Carolina General Assembly, educators around the state have been actively speaking out for education in the face of threats of cutting the state's education budget by as much as 15 percent. The Wear Red campaign has helped the movement gain visibility, and the North Carolina Association of Educators have vowed to continue the campaign until education funds are protected. The banner above, made by the local NCAE chapter has been circulating the district for weekly photo ops. On Feb. 14, teachers and staff at East Franklin showed their colors.

From the Macon County News:

The largest association of educators in the state is calling for a boycott of all businesses owned by Art Pope, a North Carolina business man and political insider who has contributed millions of dollars to conservative groups pressing for the elimination of caps on charter school funding. The decision to call for the boycott was made last week at the annual convention of the North Carolina Association of Educators.

Art Pope is the president of Variety Wholesalers, Inc., and a director of the conservative political advocacy group, Americans for Prosperity. Pope is also a major supporter of the Civitas Institute, and he holds a seat on the boards of directors for the John Locke Foundation, the Atlas Economic Research Foundation and the North Carolina Retail Merchants Association. Variety Wholesalers is the parent group to a number of popular stores in the state such as Roses, Maxway, Value Mart, Super 10 and Super Dollar (though not Dollar General), among others owned by Variety Wholesalers Inc.

Read the rest of the story here......