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Are the MCAS tests racist and classist? Two teachers disagree: a mother and her daughter.
By Phil Primack, Boston Globe

This Tuesday fourth-, seventh-, and 10th-grade students will take the Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System — MCAS — test in English language arts composition. Six years after the test system became mandatory, it remains as divisive as any issue facing schools. We asked a mother and her adult daughter who disagree on the test's merits to air their differences. Marcella Lang, an elementary school teacher since 1975 who now teaches English as a second language in Somerville, wants the MCAS abolished. Daughter Marina Lang thinks the tests have value; she taught elementary school for two years in California before enrolling at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she is pursuing a master's degree.

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Marcella I think of MCAS as a classist, racist test. It is unfair, and it contributes to leaving behind the very students it claims it wants to help. It doesn't take a genius to see that children from affluent communities and with educated parents do very well on the test. And who doesn't do well? Special-education kids. Trade-school kids. Minorities and underprivileged kids.

Do they do well because their parents are affluent or because they've learned the material. If it's because they've learned the material, what's unfair about that? Should we pass a law that prohibits learning outside of school?

And for the students who do poorly, do we leave them behind? Absolutely not. We give them extra help. Isn't that exactly what we should be doing? Would it be better to write dumbed-down tests that lets students pass and never give them the assistance needed to perform at the same level as other students?

Marina If you look at the actual test questions, they are not in themselves racist or classist. The test is not constructed poorly. It is very important to have standardized tests such as MCAS to ensure that all kids, no matter what their background, are striving to achieve the same level.

Marcella Many children are disadvantaged from the moment they are born. The idea that these children are to be given the same kind of test as kids who have come to school already so much more advanced is bogus.

But it's not bogus to give them easier tests?

Marina You're saying, well, kids come to school from different levels so they should be given different standards so we can say they've made enough progress. And you think that's OK? Isn't that just kind of an excuse for a teacher to say, well, this kid's parents can't read, so I have to set a lower standard? I agree that children come to school with different levels and learn at different rates. But when you graduate high school, you have to have a certain base level of skills, a base standard that everyone should have reached.

Marcella You cannot judge a kid based on only one test. Trade-school kids, for example, have a lot of wonderful skills. But they are not the same skills required for taking the MCAS test. Why do we leave them behind? Why do we tell them they're a failure? The assessment of children should be multifaceted. We know that resources are not as good in schools with underprivileged children. Money being diverted to MCAS should go to those schools.

Marina And I say that you can go to any school, and they say they need more money. To identify which schools are underperforming and need the extra resources, you have to have an accurate measure of which students are actually learning below standards. And for that, you need to have a standardized test. Some of the policy around MCAS, such as the graduation requirement, may be wrong, but it is a fair goal to ask a student to be proficient on a basic test.

Marcella I don't think so. We have always known which kids are at risk.

Marina Who is the "we" who have always known? Maybe the teachers know, but not the policymakers, not the business leaders, not the people who are making the decisions about school funding and MCAS. You need to be able to present stakeholders with objective data, and that's the purpose of MCAS.

Marcella But in the process, MCAS takes an awful lot of time from teaching. We spend hours and hours and hours — teachers and students — on MCAS. MCAS scores may improve because of that extra time, but are these kids more educated than before? I don't think so.

Are they less educated?

Marina It comes down to the question of where are these kids going to be when they are adults. Eventually, they are going to go into a world where people do speak and write at a college level, not a ninth-grade level.

Marcella I'm saying that a lot of kids have skills that MCAS does not test. And we consider those kids as failures because they don't pass MCAS? Can trade-school kids and underprivileged kids and other kids [who fail MCAS] read and write? Of course they can.

We don't consider the kids to be failures. We deem that they have not yet mastered certain skills and knowledge. What's wrong with that?

Marina Then why are they failing the MCAS?

Marcella Because the exam is worded in a way that loses a lot of kids and is designed in a way that is very difficult for a lot of kids to process. It's unfair to expect the same from kids who have been read to since they were born and children who have never seen a book, never been in a library. Marina was 6 months old, and I found her with a huge book in her infant seat. My husband said he wanted her to get a feel for what a book is. Children should have to pass MCAS only after all have had the same chances as my children and the governor's.

Why? These "chances" are not necessary for passing the MCAS exams. With or without the "chances," properly educated students should be able to demonstrate the knowledge and skills tested on state exams.

Should we also require all students to possess the same genes, traits, intelligence, health, self-discipline and self-esteem before giving all students the same tests?

This is an edited transcript.

Neal Peirce / Syndicated columnist

"Child-centric" is the name that developer William Gietema applies to the new elementary school being built in Hometown, a New Urbanist community northeast of Fort Worth.

The energy-conserving building will have many windows and be flooded with natural light, which research shows stimulates melatonin and in turn endorphins that make children happy — and thus ready to learn more rapidly. Air exchange will also be boosted to cycle carbon monoxide out and more oxygen in — another favor to the children.

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Set in a compact new town with 6-foot-wide sidewalks, trees along the streets and traffic-calming features, this school will be just across the road from the city recreation center, next to a performing-arts center and new city library.

And 8 acres of the 10-acre site, notes Gietema, will go for child use — classrooms, playground and a forested environmental-learning area, with just 2 acres given over to parking and bus areas — uses which normally gobble up half of most new school sites.

"Instead of a school designed around the drive-through," notes Gietema, "we designed the school first, then came up with a method to allow parents to deliver and pick up their children without damaging the school's design."

The green light for Hometown's innovative school design came from Stephen Waddell, superintendent of the Birdville School District. "We intend this school to be flexible for people working there today as well as 30 years from now," Waddell explains. "The design incorporates flexibility, allows different teaming opportunities for kids and teachers."

Plus, Waddell boasts, "this school is being built so that the community can use it after hours." Community and library rooms upfront, for example, are open to learning opportunities for adults after hours, even while other parts of the building are secured.

Futurist thinker-consultant Ian Jukes, director of the InfoSavvy Group, stoked the intellectual fires of the school officials, planners and architects (HKS of Dallas) when designing the Hometown school. Jukes argues the old formula of "Stand and Deliver" — a teacher before a class giving kids facts they'll be required to regurgitate — is hopelessly outdated. Teachers are no longer "masters," he suggests, when kids, from their desktops, have instant access to every library or museum on the planet.

Yet most schools, Jukes notes, look like they did in the 1860s, before telephones, telecommunications or the gas-powered motor. He dismisses the rigid standards approach of No Child Left Behind as "a rearview mirror of what education has to be all about." Instead, he'd aim to develop skills of independent, highly resourceful thinking to prepare children for lives in which they may experience a dozen or more careers "in jobs not yet invented, technologies not invented, problems not thought of yet."

This is what it means to educate The 21st Century Student.

So many new schools look alike, asserts Prakash Nair, international school-building consultant and architect, because we continue to "warehouse" children with too little thought to how the design will impact student learning. Every business/professional group, from construction to maintenance, transportation to curriculum to security, lays out requirements. But who's responsible for learning?

Nair suggests how smaller, learning-centered schools might be configured. For example: multipurpose "learning studios," where children can be engaged in flexible learning zones that replace traditional classrooms; atriums and other open areas, encouraging student interaction, in place of traditional corridors; wireless laptops and other Internet-connected digital communications devices available to students where and when they need them.

A big point of the reformers is that students, especially older ones, can gain immensely by spending big chunks of time learning outside the school, in libraries, parks, museums, community service and school-to-work programs.

Elliott Washor of the Big Picture Company, co-inventor of the precedent-shattering Met School in Providence, R.I., describes the ideal new school as "a welcoming space," accommodating multiple types of learning.

Most of the same old architects grinding out the same old, banal school structures are oblivious to these new cutting-edge ideas. Cleveland is using its $1.5-billion fund for new schools so unimaginatively that it's "on the verge of a major public architectural catastrophe," a member of the Cleveland Landmarks Commission (Theodore Sande) told Cleveland Plain Dealer architectural critic Steven Litt.

Litt asks: Couldn't the school district collaborate with Cleveland State University and Kent State to organize a national symposium on state-of-the-art architecture and community-related planning?

To me, that's a crackerjack idea. The school-design issues need to be hauled out of bureaucrats' offices, into the sunlight of spirited communitywide discussions. America's universities could serve their communities well by igniting the debate.

HEY, ALL YOU TRUSTING CITIZENS. MEET NEW YORK'S LUNATIC CHUTES AND LADDERS SYSTEM OF PAYING FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION.
A Buffalo News Editorial by editorial writer Kevin Walter
April 1, 2001



On the New York school budgeting process, see this NYSED webpage.

[In May], if you've got nothing better to do and you're up for spending a chunk of money and effort on a largely frivolous diversion, this is what you do: Get in your car, drive to your favorite polling place and cast a vote on your local school district budget. What it lacks in amusement it makes up in pointlessness.

That assumes, of course, that you don't live in a district like Cheektowaga-Sloan, where defeating school budgets is a kind of community sport and where students today are paying the price for New York's lunatic system of funding public education. Then it's not pointless, it's punitive.

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Mainly, though, New York's system for public voting on school budgets can be accurately described as nonsense on stilts -- a dubious idea made all the more unstable by its execution. Think about it: This is a process in which ballots are cast by too few people, who are too little informed about a complex and incomplete document -- one that, by simple virtue of its existence, acts as a lightning rod for public dissatisfaction. And usually without accomplishing a thing. But still costing a lot of money. Who thought this up?

For people who have never lived anywhere but New York, voting on the school budget may seem as normal as breathing, though with turnouts frequently under 10 percent of those eligible to vote, the analogy is strained. Better to call it the idea of voting on school budgets. It's been done that way here for generations, and most New Yorkers see it as one of the basic rights of democracy.

It's not. School budget voting is the exception to the rule in this country, and a mutation of the democratic principles we traditionally hold dear. It makes a bright, red target of New York's schools -- which is to say, its students -- and serves no purpose but to feed frustrated New Yorkers the illusion that they're actually influencing school spending. Or worse, on those rare occasions when budget votes actually do have an impact, they penalize students for a savings that can often be counted as pocket change. School budget votes are, in a word, idiotic.

In other states, elections are held on operating levies, where voters approve or defeat a tax rate to fund public schools. Typically, the tax rate remains in effect for 3 to 5 years before coming up for renewal. Voters are not asked whether the budget is acceptable, but whether the tax rate is. This system of voting of school funding works much better in controlling costs than NY's annual budget votes.

Fifteen Dollars a Year

This is a hard year in the Cheektowaga-Sloan school district, one of Erie County's smallest. Sports and other extracurricular activities were canceled after voters twice defeated budgets of around $18.4 million. Even though the law was reformed in 1997, allegedly protecting sports and other extracurriculars, students here were sandbagged, anyway. Blame it on New York's loony system of funding schools. It could happen in your district, too.

* * *

After the two defeats, the Cheektowaga-Sloan school board adopted a contingency budget of about $18 million, 2.5 percent lower than the first defeated budget. The difference amounts to around $15 per taxpayer per year, says Superintendent James P. Mazgajewski. That's 29 cents a week.

Here's the problem. Schools come back year after year after year demanding $15 more on top the $15 added in the last election. Over time, it has created the most expensive system of public education in the country. The only way voters can pressure schools to do better at controlling costs is to reduce taxes by $15 at a time! Over time, this can theoretically cause growth in education costs to slow, but it often doesn't. Before the pressure gets high enough to slow the growth in educator compensation--the most significant factor in rising education costs--schools cut sports and raise class sizes, which creates a community uproar, and funding is generally restored. Voters can't touch the main culprits of spending increases, which is entirely by design. Educators love the idea that it's absurd to defeat school budgets because so little can be saved. But how much can voting mean if the choice is between agreeing with the proposal or being absurd? No wonder people don't vote.

A System of Second Guesses

New York is one of only six states that require school districts to submit their budgets to a public vote, according to the Education Commission of the States, a Denver-based organization whose goal is to help state leaders develop education policies. The other states, interestingly, are also in the Northeast: Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Vermont.

New York, New Jersey and Connecticut lead the nation in spending on education. In part, it's because annual school budget votes are less effective at controlling rising education costs than taking operating levies to the voters every five or so years, as other states do.

* * *

[In]Pennsylvania * * * voters elect school boards, school boards adopt budgets and kids go to school. No public votes, no community angst, no student programs put at risk. If voters don't like how their schools are run, they retain the traditional, time-honored recourse of throwing the bums out and putting new ones in.

That's the way it works for other taxing entities in New York. In Kenmore, residents elect a village government, the government draws up a budget, allowing for public comment, and that's that. If voters disapprove, they know what to do. The same thing happens in the Town of Amherst, the City of Buffalo and the County of Erie.

The practice repeats itself at every level of government across the state and including the state, whose functionaries, please take note, are happy to require public votes on school budgets but who, strangely enough, prefer not to invite similar oversight for their own spending. Anyone wonder why?

But the schools are different. For reasons no one has adequately explained, schools in New York are denied the normal considerations of representative democracy. "It's the only case I know where a body elected at large has its decisions second-guessed by the same people who elected them in the first place," says Carl T. Hayden, the outspoken chancellor of the state Board of Regents.

If annual school budget votes were bad for education funding, they'd be eliminated. The fact is, they facilitate faster growth in spending than the systems used by other states. That is why we continue to have annual school budget votes, regardless of the reasons for them in the beginning.

That's more than a matter of curiosity, because the deviation from democratic standards puts schools directly in the line of fire. "Very often, budget defeats are expressions of voter unhappiness with the state of the world," Hayden says. Don't like your county taxes? Take it out on the school. Distressed about the check you just sent off to Washington? Take it out on the school. Mad at Albany? Take it out on the school.

The reality is 90% or more of school budgets pass. Whatever the angst of voters, it generally doesn't produce defeated school budgets.

Voters, by the way, have good reason to be mad at Albany, whose hypocrisy is not limited to mandating votes on school spending while exempting its own budget. It takes on a more overtly destructive role, as well. Because the state cannot bring itself to pass its own budget by the April 1 deadline, schools are left to estimate how much money they will receive in state aid.

It's a crucial gap, because the amount of state aid directly affects the local tax rate, believed by many school officials to be the No. 1 issue in determining the fate of a budget. Yet the state budget is usually not finished until after school budget voting is over.

So what you have is this: Albany, which requires school budget votes, turns around and sabotages them by denying districts information that is basic to budgeting.

* * *

A Newer, Even More Useless Budget Vote

Some might argue that, whatever its flaws, the budget vote at least provides voters some method for holding schools accountable. Sorry, but no.

For example, certain voters may come to the polls primed to send a message about teacher salaries. "I think some people who do vote no say 'We'll show them,' " says Zizzi, the Cheektowaga-Sloan teacher and bowling coach. But it doesn't work that way. Teacher salaries are locked in by contract. The fact is that, until the law was changed in 1997, public votes typically affected no more than 4 to 5 percent of the total budget. Now they affect even less.

Under the old law, if a budget was defeated and if the defeat stuck -- no sure thing at a time when schools could repeatedly put budgets up for a vote -- all that could be deleted were items such as equipment, public use of schools, transportation, sports and other extracurricular activities. Salaries, mandated programs like special education and most other budget lines were off limits.

In other words, students paid the price because a majority of voting adults, who may or may not have had children in the district, wanted to save what usually amounted to pocket change.

This is a self-serving interpretation. Perhaps voters are more interested in motivating schools to better control rising costs than they are in saving a few dollars. If a few dollars is all the rules of the game permit, then that's all the voters can save. However, the meager savings is no excuse for abandoning ballot-box pressure to improve cost controls.

The state revised that law four years ago, easing pressure on popular programs but rendering the budget vote more useless than ever. The new law -- in theory, at least -- protects sports, field trips and other extracurricular activities, including them in the "contingency budget" a school would have to adopt in the face of defeat. The leaves only the purchase of equipment and community use of schools as targets for voters' ire, or about 1 to 3 percent of a typical budget.

The state is currently considering revising the law again to exempt health insurance and pension contribution costs from the contingency cap. In effect, despite having the right to vote on the entire budget, all voters really have a say on is the difference in spending between the proposed budget and the contingency budget.

And let's be clear about this. The education lobby has worked relentlessly to see to it that voters have no right to slow the growth of school spending by voting "no" on school budgets. Contingency budgets permit all aspects of spending to grow at their contractual or market rates of growth with the exception of about 2% of spending, the growth of which is capped at 120% of the rate of inflation or 4%, whichever is less. So, school boards can enter into contracts with educators allowing for compensation increases well above the rate of inflation and taxpayers must pay those increases because they are outside the contingency cap.

In effect, voters have two choices in school budget votes: 1. vote "yes" to increase spending at the contingency budget level; 2. vote "yes" to increase spending above the contingency budget level. "No" votes are not permitted on school budgets.

Why does New York have the highest education costs in the country? Precisely because the system is designed (rigged?) to produce this result.

Even then, a school whose budget was defeated might not be able to buy computers for its students. Or projectors for its classrooms. Or sports equipment. Or even desks and chairs, as occurred in Cheektowaga-Sloan. The revised law tinkered with a broken system, but ultimately, left the apparatus in place. It still holds students hostage to an irrational system.

Exactly right. The system holds students hostage because the laws do not permit or require steps to be taken to reduce the growth of educator compensation. In effect, the law prohibits this action. Which means students must suffer. That's precisely what educators want. It gives them the greatest amount of leverage to push spending increases--including compensation--to higher levels at faster rates.

And there is an asterisk. Under the 1997 law, a contingency budget is capped. Its growth over the previous year's budget is limited to one of two rates of growth. The budget can be either 4 percent higher than the previous year's plan, or it can grow by 120 percent of the inflation rate, whichever is smaller.

Even though the new law was supposed to protect extra-curriculars, it did not work out that way in Cheektowaga-Sloan. The contingency budget had to come in under the cap, and the only way to do that was to cut programs, including sports and clubs. Some were spared, and others were eliminated. Students unlucky enough to belong to the abandoned sports and programs fell victim to the asterisk.

The Unavoidable Question

Budget votes afflict Western New York schools like lake-effect snow: They regularly sock certain districts, while generally leaving others alone. But the results are sufficiently unpredictable that all districts worry about them.

Cheektowaga-Sloan, for example, has won just four of its votes since 1990 and has lost the last four in a row. Meanwhile, the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda school district has not lost a single budget vote since 1990, though two recent capital spending proposals failed at the polls.

Further north, the Niagara Falls school district has won every vote since 1997, when the state's small-city districts were first cursed with the budget vote, having previously been exempted. In the same period, the North Tonawanda small-city district has lost three of the four votes.

But compare some numbers. Facing a public vote every year, Ken-Ton's school budget has grown 49 percent since 1990, rising from $69.3 million then to $103.3 million today. In Scranton, Pa., where there are no budget votes, the rate of growth was virtually identical, rising from $52.1 million in 1990 to $78.5 million today, or 50 percent. Cheektowaga-Sloan's budget, stoked by repair programs and a growing population of special education students, grew a substantial 77 percent. In the same period, for comparison's sake, the federal budget grew 42 percent, while the state budget rose by 55 percent.

Facing annual school budget votes increases funding for education faster, on average, than voting procedures used in other states.

The question is unavoidable: What difference does a budget vote make? It made no difference between Ken-Ton's rate of growth and Scranton's. It didn't prevent Cheektowaga-Sloan's from growing as fast as it did. So what's the point?

The Empty Center

These votes, themselves, add to a district's costs. A budget vote runs the Ken-Ton school district about $30,000, says its superintendent, David Paciencia. While some of those costs would be borne in a school board election, regardless, most of the expense is directly related to the budget vote. As a percentage of the total budget, $30,000 isn't much, but it's enough to pay the better part of a new teacher's salary, Paciencia says.

What's more, that expense is incurred to benefit a relative handful of voters. Paciencia, for example, was surprised to find that the thousands of residents who typically turn out for a budget vote represent only a tiny fraction of Ken-Ton's eligible voters. Last May, 5,291 residents cast ballots on the budget, but what seemed like a healthy turnout accounted for just 11 percent of the district's 46,680 potential voters.

So, who is voting? Information is sketchy, but an exit poll, utterly unscientific, suggests some possibilities at Cheektowaga-Sloan. Some 421 voters completed the poll last May, out of almost 1,500 people who voted in the election. Of those who responded:

The most common age category was 60 or over.

More people identified themselves as retired than as parents.

62 percent said they had no children attending school in the district.

It's unfair to conclude that all people over 60, or who are retired, or who have no children in school automatically vote against school budgets, but where are the rest of the parents and working people? Should state policy hold students accountable for the refusal of some voters to take the trouble?

There is also a question of what voters are really voting on. Niagara Falls Superintendent Carmen Granto attributes his district's success to a single factor: "We don't raise taxes," he says. Cheektowaga-Sloan's Mazgajewski also says taxes drive the issue.

But voters who focus only on the bottom line may not be considering -- indeed, probably don't even understand -- the intricacies of budgets that total, in the case of Niagara Falls, $105 million. "I work with them and I don't understand them," Granto says. "How can I expect voters to?"

Nevertheless, that has to be the standard. But what does the typical voter really know about how the costs of special education influence a budget? Or what impact health insurance has? One thing is sure, this year: They know about the costs of natural gas. Granto says the district's December heating bill topped $200,000, more than double the cost from a year ago. Will voters, recognizing that problem, cut the district some slack in next month's voting, or will they rebel, having been squeezed by the same forces themselves? Granto doesn't know, but he's worried.

In Ken-Ton, Paciencia has a different concern. Falling property values could trigger a noticeably larger tax increase before long, he says. Assessment challenges are becoming more common in the state's municipalities, including the Town of Tonawanda, where the Huntley power generating station recently won a 25 percent cut in its assessment.

The reduction will be phased in over five years, but it's going to be a big hit. Huntley's $9.5 million school tax bill accounts for 16 percent of Ken-Ton's local tax revenue. The loss of that money could fuel a budget defeat that undermines Ken-Ton students the same as Cheektowaga-Sloan's have been.

And for what? A difference of $15 a year, give or take? Most people don't have the time or patience -- or even the inclination, for that matter -- to really dig into a budget. That's why we elect surrogates -- so they can develop expertise and apply their best judgment. It's called representative democracy, and it works pretty well, certainly better than the chaotic system that has gripped Cheektowaga-Sloan by the neck.

Why not give our schools a crack at it? Albany will have a perfect chance to do just that as it responds to January's court ruling that New York's funding of downstate schools is unconstitutionally low. Assuming the decision holds up on appeal, Albany will be forced to rethink the entire system of school funding. It would be a propitious time to drop this ridiculous law.

The remarkable thing is that so many budgets typically pass. Although more than 30 percent were defeated in the politically convulsive year of 1994, only 13 percent went down last year and only 7 percent the year before that. That record could work against any serious effort to change the law, especially since so many New Yorkers perceive their budget vote as a thing of value, rather than the bauble it is. Lawmakers, who tend to be followers rather than leaders, will be in no hurry to act.

Certainly, worse things can happen to students than to be confronted with some hard truths about the world: that they may have to work hard for the things they want; that politics sometimes trumps fairness and common sense; that adults can be less than reliable. But they will learn those lessons eventually, anyway, and probably in less disruptive ways than seeing their school programs arbitrarily axed.

School budget voting has its defenders, of course, Sen. John R. Kuhl Jr. among them. Kuhl, R-Bath, is chairman of the Senate Education Committee, and he says that while the system may not be perfect, it arose and changed over the years in response to specific problems. Whatever its imperfections, he says, budget voting provides for public involvement and the chance to avoid unnecessary expenditures.

To be sure, school budgeting is no more perfect than village or county budgeting, with or without a public vote. Some districts may, indeed, spend unwisely, and school taxes in this state are undeniably high. But there are better ways to deal with that problem than to threaten each year to cut kids off at the knees.

I entirely agree, but they all reduce teacher and administrator power, and that's unacceptable to them.

Maybe if the budget vote made sense -- if it didn't unfairly single out students for social punishment, and if voters showed real interest in exercising it, and if the vote really affected school spending -- maybe then its defenders could make the case for it. But they can't. This thing is no good. Sure, taxpayers are frustrated; they have reason to be. But if New Yorkers need therapy, this cockamamie system doesn't do the job. It's a carrier, not a cure.

BY JASON WERMERS / RICHMOND (VA) TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

People who want to become teachers in Virginia have one less hurdle to clear - if they scored high enough on the SAT college-entrance exam.

The Virginia Board of Education unanimously, and with little discussion, approved using a minimum SAT score as a substitute for passing the Praxis I teacher-licensure exam.

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The board's vote yesterday also expanded on the measure introduced last month to make it easier for "career switchers" - those entering teaching from another profession - to get a teacher license.

Prospective teachers can skip the Praxis if they score at least 530 on the SAT's math and verbal sections, and a combined 1100, after April 1995.

I'd like a medical license please for the A I earned in high school biology.

Note: 1600 is a perfect SAT score.

For SAT exams taken before April 1995, minimums of 450 on the verbal section and 510 on math, and a combined score of 1000, exempt teacher candidates from Praxis. This change was in response to several people who asked why older SAT scores could not be considered.

The SAT's scoring scale was last revised in April 1995, which was why the board originally chose that as the cutoff year for SAT scores as a substitute for a Praxis score, said Linda Kelly, chairwoman of the Advisory Board on Teacher Education and Licensure.

* * *

Virginia has the nation's highest Praxis minimum passing scores - 178 in math, 178 in reading and 176 in writing, for a total of 532. Each test section is graded on a scale of 150 to 190 points, with 570 being the highest score. The maximum total SAT score is 1600.

The Praxis I exam can be passed by high schoolers, which is exactly why SAT scores are being deemed an acceptable substitute.

* * *

Jean Bankos, president of the Virginia Education Association, said after the meeting that using the SAT as a substitute for Praxis eliminates a step potential teachers would otherwise have to navigate to get a license.

"It's not lowering the standard," she said. "It's about providing another opportunity, another way into the profession."

I agree. It's simply not possible to go any lower. See, e.g., Teacher Certification Exams a Breeze and What does having a teacher certificate really mean?.

A vision of the tomorrow that should be today.

Abigail Daugette, 6, reads at the 21st Century Charter School. Tim Halcomb / Indianapolis Star staff photo See, also, Our Schools and Our Future

I'm going to make an attempt to describe what a 21st century education will, and actually already should, look like. I'm sure I'll make additions and modifications occasionally. Eventually, I'll add some structure to it.

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• "No child left behind" is replaced with "Provide every child with the opportunities needed to achieve to the best of his/her abilities." (The current law perpetuates the comfortable practice of teaching to the middle, if not to the bottom of the class). The focus changes from pace of teaching to the pace of each student's learning.
• To the extent practical, students receive instruction via computers, which can deliver exceptional instruction with consistency. Students who do not learn well on computers will be provided alternatives, such as traditional classroom instruction.
• Take every student from where (s)he is academically and provide at least a year's learning for a year's schooling.
• Within the same classroom, probably organized by age cohort, students may proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, which is monitored to ensure adequate progress. Students who need to take more time, take it. Students who "get it," can move on, taking extra time when they get "stuck." The teacher will have students at many different levels of the curriculum, probably working on materials from different grades. Far less time will be spent on instruction. The teachers' job will be to motivate students to consistently apply themselves and do their best, in addition to supplying brief motivating stories, exercises or discussions. (More like teacher as coach and monitor than as instructor.) See this article on how one student used a set-your-own-pace curriculum to finish high school by age 15.
• To progress through each lesson in the curriculum, students will have to perform with at least 85% proficiency, or some other level, possibly variable, depending on individual student abilities. Report cards will not have grades, but a number for each subject that indicates the student's progress through the curriculum. For example, a second grade student might receive a 3.4 in reading, indicating (s)he is 40% through the 3rd grade reading curriculum, or a 1.8, indicating the student is 80% through the 1st grade materials.
• Students will take state standards exams upon reaching established checkpoints. For example, upon completing 80% of the 4th grade English Language Arts Curriculum, the student would take the 4th grade ELA. Results would be known the same day of the test and remedial action (probably unnecessary since students arrive at the checkpoints at their own rates), of likely short duration, can be immediately commenced.
• Parents would be able to view student lesson materials and texts online before and after the student uses them. They would be able to see the results of exercises and drills. They would also be able to request specific additions or substitutions of materials within the curriculum. For example, a reading exercise to improve vocabulary might offer a story on ecology or a story on evolution. Usually, the student would be able to choose which story to use, but the parent could block certain choices.
• Parents would also be able to monitor, in real time, much of their children's studies and work. They could send instant messages of praise and encouragement, or even suggestions for improvement.
• Students will be able to choose online materials, videos, texts or readings among different viewpoints, instructors, presentation styles, subjects, their own learning style and other variables, depending on their interests and other variables. The teacher will assist students in exploring the approaches that work best. See, Educators shift focus to kids' learning styles.
• Every student will have Internet access at home, provided, or perhaps subsidized by the school. Students will be able to continue working at home during illnesses, snow days or other absences. Indeed, to keep class sizes really small, some or all students may work one day at home and the next day at school.
• Since students proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, the curriculum will be online and students will follow it sequentially in typical cases, but may also have the freedom to do related lessons at different grade levels if they wish to explore a topic in more depth while they are into it, provided they are making adequate progress through the curriculum.
• Since much of the curriculum will be provided via the computer when appropriate and effective, teacher absences filled in by substitute teachers will result in far less "down time."
• Since students may proceed through the curriculum at their own rate, some students may take 14 years for a traditional K-12 program and others may take 10. The reward for completing the curriculum in 10 years would be the opportunity to graduate from high school after 13 years with 2 years of college completed. College courses would be provided locally or via the Internet. The cost would be covered by the school as part of a minimum 13-years education (including kindergarten). This could save students and their families tens of thousands of dollars and be a highly motivating factor for students to work hard with rapid and effective progress. In other words, the system will reward hard work and self-discipline.
• Since the curriculum is online and all students have Internet access at home, students may elect to proceed through the curriculum on weekends and during breaks and vacations. In other words, disruptions to the learning process by system needs or schedules need not occur.
• Students would be able to receive help on lessons either from an online teacher, or the classroom teacher.
• Parent discussion of school work would be far more informed since students can show parents exactly what they covered from day to day. Alternatively, or in addition, the computer may create links to the students work for the past 10 days that parents can simply click and inspect.
• Most testing, including some essay exams, will be graded by the computer. Teachers will have online files of each student's work in each subject. The computer may scan across weeks or years of data to detect weaknesses in each student's learning or skills.
• Students will be able to take tests when they are ready. They will not have to wait for the rest of the class to be ready, nor will they be rushed into taking tests they aren't prepared for. Moreover, they will take only as much time as they need taking tests. They will not have to wait for the slowest student in the class to complete each test. Time saved in taking tests has the potential for adding almost a year's learning to the education of fast test-takers.
• Many lessons will provide additional information for parents about activities, books or websites that may be used to supplement the goals and materials for each lesson.
• Many lessons will provide links to related enrichment materials. For example, a science lesson may link to information on the history of science.
• For those concerned about social skills, peer interaction, class participation, recess, recreation, P.E., music, art, hands-on learning, etc., these will be interspersed throughout the day or week.
• Lessons in the curriculum will include optional "enrichment" readings or exercises, including information on story structure, critical thinking, theory of knowledge, exercises to broaden the scope of thinking or to improve synthesis and evaluation skills, and many other areas of academic import.
• The curriculum will be modernized, including instruction on life-long financial planning, critically evaluating media and information disseminated by public officials (especially how to hear what is not being said), greater emphasis on statistics, communication skills, ethics, conflict resolution, reasoning skills, etc.
• Elementary students will be able to learn a foreign language with side-by-side stories in different languages. They will be able to hear those stories read aloud or even read the stories to the computer, which may store recordings for teacher evaluation.
• Computer/Internet instruction will enable families to take vacations and breaks at their own convenience.
• Students would be able to watch classroom instruction via video streams from classrooms.
• There will be a far greater emphasis on independent learning skills. Learning how to become a learner will be a top priority. Students will prepare for state standards and regents exams not through the use of review books, but through the preparation and use of their own outlines and notes.
• In addition to increasing their knowledge and thinking skills, students will find, understand, document and model dynamic interactions and relationships within and among subjects using software like Inspiration, Stella, Powersim and Vensim. See clexchange.org and join a k-12 listserv or read archived messages. Also, see The Waters Foundation.
• It should be far easier to keep transient students on a constant path of learning, even to the point of maintaining the same curriculum while attending several schools during the same year.
• Students will be able to chose from among several online texts. If they have a problem with a concept or skill using one text, they can try another. Accessing different texts will automatically generate royalty payments to the owners. This should cost less than purchasing the same amount of materials in textbooks.
• Students who are capable and interested could complete their academics in 1/2 to 2/3 of a school day and spend the rest of their time, in or out of school, pursuing their interests, talents and passions, be it in art, music, science, government, dance, acting, sports, economics, healthcare, public service, mechanics, culinary arts, technology, social advocacy, animal care, or anything else their parents would support. In other words, it would be possible for many students to do what child actors do--become educated while being more productive.
• As students work through the curriculum, the computer will automatically generate a chronolgical and topical page of links to the materials used so students can quickly find and retrieve information previously accessed. The page(s) of links will stay with the student throughout elementary and secondary school, and perhaps for life!
• Homework becomes more like school work at home because the teacher is either available online or virtually within the lesson. Moreover, since the rest of the class does not have to be on a particular student or teacher's schedule, homework can be accomplished with greater flexibility. If Tuesday nights are busy, the student needn't stay up until midnight to squeeze in homework.

In short, education reform has not yet begun. The current model of education delivery today in most public schools still looks a lot more like the late 19th century model than the 21st century model. The teacher-at-the-head-of-the-class, teacher-as-primary-instructor, lock-step movement of the entire class through the curriculum, uniform texts and readings, classification of students by levels of learning ability and standardized test results, A to F report cards, grading, teacher-dependent learning rather independent learning, uniform breaks and vacations, 180-day teacher work-year, equalization of students by having them end 13 years with essentially the same amount of education, are all in their last days.

The only question is, "How long will NY's teachers and unions resist coming into the 21st century?" As this WSJ article says, "[E]ducators, while sincere, are among the most change-resistant workers on the planet."

Organizers want state to increase funding by 6% instead of a proposed 2%
By STACI HUPP / Des Moines Register Staff Writer

It had the makings of a school pep rally. But the cheers, chants and placards at North High School in Des Moines on Saturday came mostly from teachers and school administrators.

Their goal: more money for Iowa schools.

Why is this news?

The rally, one of several across the state, was designed to pressure lawmakers who approved a 2 percent budget increase for Iowa schools in the next two years.

About the rate of inflation. Pretty unreasonable, eh? I mean, it's just not fair.

The $109 million increase for schools will put teaching jobs, student health programs, school supplies and optional classes on the line while class sizes grow, supporters said. They are pushing for a 6 percent budget increase instead, but the clock is ticking. The legislative session ends in about three weeks.

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"It's about the kids, folks," said John Hieronymus, president of the Iowa State Education Association.

Every school budget decision is just as much about educator salaries as it is programs for students. Ever hear a unionist tell the whole truth? "It's about the kids, folks, and our paychecks." You have not heard that, except maybe in a bar after an educator had a few drinks. Just checkout these pictures from strikes over wages. Do you see anything in them about the money issue, the core issue of contention? You do not.





The statewide teachers union helped sponsor the rally, which drew more than 500 educators, lobbyists, union officials and parents to the auditorium, despite the first weekend of spring break.

Most of them wore "Fund Our Future" stickers on their shirts or held up yellow signs that said: "Put Kids First!" They also added signatures to a statewide petition that calls for raising taxes if necessary.

"Fund our Future." Are they talking about their retirement pensions or the children. The correct answer is "both."

"Put Kids First." I've seen a few teachers do that. See, e.g., Newbury teachers, staff say no thanks to raise, Mentor teachers OK givebacks, Oregon teachers agree to 10 unpaid work days with 1% raise, Highland district in Ulster County only NY school to eliminate raise to save jobs, programs & services, MIA teachers vote unanimously on pay cut to keep school open, and Cut my pay [by $20,000], not my class, teacher asks.

However, the bottom line for teachers unions is power and money. In the vast majority of school districts, educators demand more compensation than the district can afford in combination with funding the programs that put kids first. Inflation-busting pay increases come before kids.

Compare your salary to a teacher's

A Roosevelt High School junior who took the podium described old textbooks that require rubber bands to stay in place.

"I should not have to advocate for what should just be there," said Bridget Hall, whose speech inspired a standing ovation.

Teachers described art, music and other specialty classes that will disappear in the face of budget cuts. They spoke of digging into their wallets to pay for supplies.

"I'm tired of scraping by with less," said Beth Holt, who teaches at Jefferson High School in Cedar Rapids. "Iowa schools no longer want adequate funding. We need it."

The number of teachers in the Des Moines public schools has gone up by more than 14 percent in five years. Enrollment dropped slightly in the same period.

Doesn't that show an incredible commitment to education? Yet, the thanks given to taxpayers are demands for more money. Indeed, spending on education has more than doubled in constant dollars over the past 35 years. Yet educators like Georgia's Clarke Middle School principal Dr. Ken Sherman say? "School funding levels here and around the country are dangerously low." It's self-centered bullying.

Up to 240 schools will not receive any budget increases, school officials said, but lawmakers point out that their student enrollment has shrunk.

One Republican lawmaker tempered the pro-spending sentiment with some numbers of her own.

The $109 million for Iowa schools compares with $10 million for public safety and $18 million for Medicaid, said Rep. Jodi Tymeson of Winterset, who is chairwoman of the House Education Committee.

In other words, states perform other essential services in addition to education. The more spent on education, the less available for all the other functions of government, ceteris paribus.

A 6 percent spending increase probably would result in midyear budget cuts, she said.

Tymeson told the group that belt-tightening will make Iowa better off than other states when the economy turns around.

"There are a lot of priorities for Iowa, and we're trying to do the best we can to fund all of those," Tymeson said.

Tymeson's comments were met with sharp criticism.

"I think people should hear both sides of an issue and make their decisions based upon that information," she said.

A handful of Democratic lawmakers at the rally proposed other ways of finding money, such as borrowing money or raising taxes.

The teachers union unveiled a new radio advertising campaign that features the voice of children, including one that says: "Someday you are going to count on us. Right now we're counting on you. Please fund our future."

Ako Abdul-Samad, Des Moines school board member, rounded up about 40 children on stage and led the youngsters in a chant: "Without your help, we don't have a chance. So we want 6 percent, and we want it now."

What kind of ethics do teachers have to use children to promote their self-interests? These children don't have the first clue about how much taxes states should collect to spend in what amounts on what programs. They don't know if the problem is high educator compensation, low funding or something else. They are understandably uninformed and teachers are more than willing to take advantage of it.



Highly educated teachers should be capable of winning their points with persuasion and logic without resorting to the use of children.

Peter Berger / Gazette

Peter Berger teaches English in Weathersfield, Vt. Read more Peter Berger articles.

Rod Paige, the secretary of education, is the president's field commander in the flagging [fledgling?] campaign to sell and enforce No Child Left Behind, our fatally flawed education law. Mr. Paige recently met with the National Governors Association to discuss what Education Week described as bipartisan "rising discontent over the law."

Virginia's Republican-dominated legislature had just voted 98-1 to condemn the law. New Mexico's Democratic governor was predicting a revolt in the states. The governors' agenda included more flexibility in administering NCLB and amendments to the law itself.

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Midway through the proceedings, Paige referred to the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, as a "terrorist organization." The NEA and other education forces, who already didn't like Mr. Paige and the law he rode in on, responded by demanding his head on a mortarboard.

The secretary promptly apologized for his "insensitive" words. He "emphasized that his remarks were not aimed at teachers" but rather expressed his frustration with the "obstructionist scare tactics" employed by the NEA's Washington lobbyists.

The White House agreed that his statement was inappropriate. Nevertheless, the furor lingers on. An NEA television spot portrays the union as a victim of name-calling and bullying.

Bullying, properly understood, is aggression by the powerful against the powerless. The NEA is far from powerless.

Did I just hear a labor union complain about bullying?

Enough, already

Memo to the NEA and teachers everywhere: Get over it.

So he chose the wrong word. No, the NEA isn't a terrorist organization. On the other hand, labor unions, like their management counterparts, do use pressure to extort what they want. In this case the NEA doesn't want No Child Left Behind, and it's doing everything it can to get its way.

Besides calling the NEA a terrorist group is no more ridiculous than the NEA's own repeated declarations that advocates of vouchers are opponents of public schools whose true aim is to destroy public education.

I listened in on a few remarks from Secretary Paige last January. He began by identifying the "legacy of ideas passed from generation to generation as central to a school's mission.

This focus on content has been lost over the last few decades of school restructuring, so it was good to hear a secretary of education recognize that teaching information and skills ought to be at the heart of education.

He acknowledged that many students were succeeding, but he termed those cases "islands of excellence." He focused instead on the students for whom success is denied, those who "for whatever reason are left behind."

I wasn't shocked to hear the president's lieutenant plug the president's law [which was written by professional educators and passed with bipartisan support in the House and Senate]. The secretary NCLB as marking the end of an age of duress, darkness, and disdain." He declared that for the "first time data exists for parents and teachers to diagnose what kids don't know.

Silly assertion

This was a silly assertion, since the president and the secretary both took truckloads of diagnostic achievement tests as students on their way to Washington. It's also a tough claim to make with a straight face, given the assessment industry's serial inability to provide accurate, reliable data.

Two points. First, statewide standardized tests are a necessary evil brought to education by the professionals who abandoned academic excellence for social agendas and pop psychology. The are not good. They are simply the best that can be done on a national scale in an endeavor to improve the delivery of education services by government schools.

Second, not even the best data tells you what ought to be done or how it should be done. Good data merely improves understanding, which may be useful in selecting from among priorities and strategies. It may also detract from understanding, especially when traveling down the wrong path.

Paige correctly called for heightened emphasis on subject area mastery for both teachers and students. He also alluded to the failure of reading instruction methods like whole language, which have left so many students semiliterate.

On the other hand, he's a fan of "brain theory," academia's latest last word on how kids ought to be taught. We don't need another education bandwagon.

The secretary conceded that it's legal for states to withdraw from participation in No Child Left Behind. He charged, however, that any states that decide to opt out signal that they "want to leave some behind."

This didn't mark the first time the secretary equated criticism of NCLB with opposition to good schools. Early in his tenure he blasted anyone who opposes the law's specific testing requirements as "an apologist for a broken system of education."

There's more than one reason to reject NCLB's testing regimen.

Paige asserted that every child can learn. He then alleged that anyone who doesn't agree is "at peace with failure."

He's wrong on both counts. Doctors don't believe that all their patients can recover. That hardly means that doctors are at peace with suffering.

The question isn't whether every child can learn. We all know, quite sadly, there are children who suffer insurmountable disabilities. However, the question is whether having the attitude that all children can learn will better advance learning outcomes than having the attitude that some won't make it and giving up. Paige surely is wrong that all children can learn, but those who would separate the learners from the non learners would also make mistakes. It's simply better to mistakenly think a child can learn than to mistakenly believe s/he can't.

Paige insists that given the money we spend on education, it's "not too much to ask that every third-grader read at the third-grade level." Like any enterprise schools sometimes waste money, but even if we spent every last dime wisely, all students aren't ever going to read well.

Nearly all children can learn to read at a third-grade level. The mistake Paige is making, and Peter knows but has forgotten to mention, is that children learn different reading skills at different rates. It's impossible for all children to read at a third-grade level by third-grade unless the standard is set low enough for the slowest, least capable student to meet.

Learning to do third-grade reading by the end of third-grade is a system concern. It's not a student concern. The problem is our 18th century system of education delivery services belongs in a museum. Schools need to re-tool to educate The 21st Century Student.

Beyond control

That's because what a student learns isn't solely dependent on his teacher's attitude or skill. What he can learn rests on intellectual, social, and economic factors that will forever lie beyond the teacher's control.

Secretary Paige's worst mistake isn't his slip of the tongue. It's the platitude he shares with partisans on both sides of the NCLB debate.

Schools can't guarantee success.

Even the best teacher can't remediate life.

Yes, but teachers aren't really good at accurately predicting what a student can or cannot do. Moreover, it's in their self-interest to assume students are less capable rather than more capable. It makes their jobs easier.

By DAVID YEPSEN / Des Moines (Iowa) Register Political Columnist



Since 1999, there's been an increase in the number of teachers in the Des Moines public schools, according to school officials. That year, there were 2,384 teachers. As of the middle of this year, there are 2,731 - a 14.5 percent increase.

What?

Aren't the schools in Des Moines supposed to be going to pot? Don't we read every day about layoffs and cuts and how it's all a threat to our children and the future of the universe?

With apologies to Senator Clinton, this is hype that's perpetuated by a vast left-wing conspiracy. The education lobby, public-employee unions, special-interest spending groups and a largely uncritical media all would have us believe we are on the verge of Mississippidom in our schools.

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Alas, we should look beyond their manipulations to see a larger picture - and some good news coming out of this so-called budget "crisis."

In Des Moines, for example, that increase in teacher power also came at a time when enrollments were flat. In 1999, there were 32,193 students. Today there are 32,149. That means pupil-teacher ratios actually declined in the last four years. In 1999, there were 13.5 students per teacher. Today, there are 11.7. That's hardly overcrowding.

Also, Des Moines" school administrators constantly tell us there's been a $30.9 million cut in the regular program budget over the last four years. Wow. That's a lot of money, and their use of that figure is intended to scare us into supporting higher taxes and more spending.

But that amount was cut out of an estimated $604 million in regular program budgets over the same period. That's just 5 percent. While the cutting was difficult because it often came in the middle of a budget year, it's not a gutting of our schools.

Similar things are going on in other schools and local governments all across the state. Budgets are flat or being reduced by a few percentage points. It's painful, but necessary. Unlike businesses, governments have no profit incentive to become more efficient. So, it takes an occasional budget "crisis" to force them to do the right things, like assign priorities.

In the Des Moines schools, for example, during this same crisis, more staffers were put to work in reading programs while the numbers of administrators, custodial and clerical positions were reduced. Reading scores rose, and that's wonderful. It's hard to think of anything more important in a school than teaching kids to read. Other things are nice, but not so essential.

This year, Des Moines school officials say they'll have to reduce employment by 137 positions. That sounds bad until you realize it's only a 3.3 percent cut in the work force and less than half of it will be layoffs. (And it comes after a 12.4 percent increase in staff since 1999.) If enrollments continue to be flat or decline - they're down 319 students this year - then some adjustments are in order.

Despite those changes, Des Moines" school officials and many others around Iowa plan to increase property taxes next year. That's unfortunate. In Des Moines, property-tax increases simply exacerbate the exodus of people and businesses to the lower-tax suburbs. (Always remember that in Iowa, property-tax increases fall more and more heavily on business. That "soak the rich" philosophy worked when the tax code was written years ago because businesses then could easily pass taxes along to customers. Today, intense global competition makes that more difficult. The result is many businesses aren't locating or expanding in Iowa.)

Why do our friends on the left constantly insist on more public spending and, now, higher taxes? They are not evil people. It's quite the opposite. They are well-meaning folks who just believe in activist governments solving all our problems. They get into politics and public service to do great things, not cut budgets.

We now have too much of their good thing. For example, 25 of the 100 members of the Iowa House are current or retired public employees - teachers, troopers and social workers. (Think that's a representative cross section of Iowa?) On top of that, the Democratic governor is a trial lawyer while the Republican leader in the Senate is a gentleman farmer. The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee is a media consultant. They may be competent lawyers, squires or pumpkin growers, but they aren't comptrollers, CEOs or accountants.

As a result, they also make a miserable bunch of managers. The Republicans in the Legislature are proposing spending increases of about 3 percent. They do that by blowing what's left of the state's cash reserves. The Democratic governor wants 5.8 percent. He does that by breaking his promise not to raise taxes. (They'll compromise at about 4 percent.)

All this comes at a time when inflation is only about 1 percent. It's also a time when lots of Iowans aren't getting pay raises anywhere near 6, 4 or even 3 percent. And more than a few Iowa businesses have had to cut their work forces by a lot more than 3.3 percent.

District will investigate handling of hat incident
Dave Seibert / The Arizona Republic

SCOTTSDALE - Saguaro High School junior Marlon Morgan will be back in school today after Scottsdale school officials Monday night cut short his suspension.

The Scottsdale Unified School District is also planning to investigate whether school officials and a police officer acted appropriately when the 17-year-old was arrested at school after he refused to turn his baseball hat from the side to the front.

Listen up parents. Schools are applying the student dress code to adults when they are on campus. See, e.g., School Dislikes Parent's Hair Coloring. That means if you wear your hat sideways, you should be prepared to adjust it or be arrested!

"I think it's important that we look into this and find out what we need to know and move forward," district spokesman Tom Herrmann said.

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Morgan's original three-day suspension for the March 5 incident began Monday, the day students returned from spring break.

The teen's mother, Bobbie Morgan, said she talked to school principals early Monday in hopes of getting her son back in school immediately. She said she was told he could return but would have to spend half his lunch hour cleaning the cafeteria for 10 days.

She declined. "Hasn't he suffered enough?" she asked.

Exactly right. In fact, if it were my child, I'd tell the district he wouldn't be returning to school until two days after the suspension had run because he would be visiting a psychologist about his anguish over being suspended for 3 days for wearing his hat sideways!

Later Monday she, Morgan, Morgan's grandmother and another Saguaro parent and son met with top school officials in a closed two-hour meeting where the suspension was reduced.

Scottsdale police said they arrested the teen because the officer worried that the situation might escalate.

Morgan was jailed for several hours on suspicion of disorderly conduct, failure to obey a police officer, trespassing and interfering or disrupting an educational institution.

For wearing a hat sideways? A round of Alice's Restaurant, anyone? Good thing he wasn't littering.

Bobbie Morgan wants the school district to ask police not to pursue charges.

"I want them to stand in Marlon's corner, too," she said. "I placed him in their care."

School security guards asked Morgan to turn his hat around. It is against school policy to wear hats sideways. Morgan, who is Black, said the rule is selectively enforced. He refused to turn his hat and refused to go to the office.

Do schools really need mandatory rules about which direction to point the bill of a cap? This calls for the invention of caps with two bills. That way school officials won't know if they are coming or going, which will probably cause them to double the period of suspension.

Morgan said Monday that if he had to do it all over again, "I probably would have just went to the office and just settled it another way."

A Gazette Letter to the Editor

This is in response to Lana Lovett's Nov. 26 letter, in which she criticizes Schenectady city schools because her oldest son's progress is discouraging.

Parents are too quick to blame schools for their children's failure. Consider the fact that between birth and 12th grade, a child is in the school's care for about 10 percent of the time. So if the child is in the parent's environment for 90 percent of the time, who has more influence over his progress?

An accepted educational tenet cites five factors that influence a child's success (in no particular order): 1) the number of parents in the household; 2) the amount of time watching TV; 3) the amount and quality of books in the home; 4) the number of days absent from school; and 5) the amount of homework a child receives. Parents are the major influence for four of these factors.

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As an educator myself, I contend it would be wonderful to have all my students earn "A"s, but as in life itself, there is a wide range of capabilities.

I find the biggest disservice I can do for a parent is to gloss over their child's weaknesses, and cavalierly dole out "A"s.

I know that if I were running a for-profit school and were dependent on my constituents' happiness to keep my doors open, I might throw around a bunch of "A"s too.

ERIC ALMOND
Scotia

It appears that Mr. Almond is a master-degreed teacher at Van Corlaer Elementary School in Schenectady. While I acknowledge the difficulties of teaching in the city, and the positive impact parents can have, Mr. Almond is way off base to criticize Ms. Lovett's editorial (below) as she appears to be the kind of parent Mr. Almond wants and they appear to agree that giving out unearned grades is bad practice.

Mr. Almond ignores Ms. Lovett's point that her children are doing much better in the charter school--or rather, he suggests with no possible apparent source of evidence, she is being duped by the charter school--and sets out on a theme to indict the parents. If Ms. Lovett were solely to blame for her son's failure in the city school, nothing would have changed when she put him in the charter school.

To prove parents are too quick to blame schools for their children's poor performance, Mr. Almond first brings up the red herring that students are in school only 10% of the time between birth and age 18. What of it? About 50% of time is spent on personal hygiene, eating and sleeping. Another 20% is spent on non-TV recreation, sports, religion, travel, chores, work and family matters. During K-12, public schools take up about 60% of the remaining time, or about 20,000 hours, including homework (but not after school programs or sports), which Mr. Almond conveniently neglected to mention. That's enough time to produce excellence at the high school level of academic competence.

To answer Mr. Almond’s question, “Who has more influence over [a child's educational] progress,” the answer is THE SCHOOLS. It’s absurd to add sleeping time to the time available to parents to make a difference in academic performance outcomes. But I’m used to dealing with absurdities when it comes to professional educators.

Rather than fight with Mr. Almond over this point, though, I'd like to switch. How about this, Mr. Almond: Since I have my child for 90% of the time, and what I do, or don't do, impacts on my child's academic performance, how about giving me 90% of the money spent to educate my child and you can have the other 10% to do your job? You seem willing to accept 10% of the responsibility for education outcomes, you can have 10% of the money. Heck, I'll even use my numbers instead of yours. Give me 40% of the money and you keep 60%, and let’s see if parents can do a better job with that 40% than public schools do.

Mr. Almond lists five factors that influence student academic success, pointing out that parents have control over four of them. His purpose is to prove that not only do parents have more time with students, and hence more influence, but parents also control most of the important factors contributing to academic success. What a bunch of hooey.

What Mr. Almond does is write a list of things parents can do to improve academic outcomes, omitting a very important one—parental involvement with schools—and adding an irrelevant one—the amount of homework assigned by teachers—and comes up with a dazzling display of addition to imply that parents are more responsible for academic success than schools.

Obviously, academic success is not based simply on the five factors he lists. What about teacher certification and training, the curriculum, efficient use of class time, classroom instruction, class size, feedback on homework, pedagogy, classroom discipline, teacher absences, tutoring, after school programs, and on and on? Do these have less to do with academic outcomes than single-parent households with trash novels for kids to read while watching vampire slayer shows and skipping school occasionally? Give me a break. Mr. Almond needs to rewrite his equation before he does the addition. (BTW, a day’s worth of PBS programs is as good, if not better, than a day’s worth of school for many students.)

I agree that parents have influence over academic success, but let’s not get carried away and make insinuations and contrived arguments to make the point. Schools need to better utilize parents in ways they are interested in being involved.

Mr. Almond not only attacks parents but he insinuates that the charter school might be doling out unearned A's. He gives no evidence to back up this damning insinuation. What kind of educated person would do that? A professional teacher?

Actually, making up evidence to prove points seems to be a specialty of some educators. In the face of a true case of homework injustice related to the absence of a S-G Board member’s child, I saw and heard S-G Teacher Union President Patricia Johnson trump the injustice with pure speculation. She reported that one of her students (not the board member’s child) told her just before class that he had a doctor’s appointment and couldn’t attend. Pat said that when she came out of class 40 minutes later she saw the student in the hallway. She concluded the student lied to get out of class. Maybe, but it’s not that difficult to get in and out of a Scotia doctor’s office within 40 minutes. Rather than get the facts, too many educators are too willing to manufacture falsehoods or engage in suppositions to support their positions and beliefs. It’s highly unprofessional.

Mr. Almond says if he were running a charter school he might dole out unearned A's to keep parents happy. I think that says a lot more about Mr. Almond's character than it does about the practices at the charter school.

It may or may not be the case that the charter school is engaged in grade inflation, but I seriously doubt he has any evidence of that. On the other hand, there is evidence that public schools are engaged in grade inflation to bolster their images and budget support in the name of motivating students and avoiding conflicts with parents, and I doubt, though I have no evidence, that Schenectady City Schools have completely avoided this trend. Indeed, from Ms. Lovett's letter, it appears the city is willing to pass failing students.

Mr. Almond's editorial demonstrates some of the shortcomings of public schools, not the least of which are to be reasonable, to be accountable and to be truthful and not make up stuff about parents and charter schools.

It would be wonderful to give Mr. Almond an "A," but, as in life itself, there is a wide range of teacher editorial capabilities.

---

Children flourishing at charter school
A Gazette Letter to the Editor
11/26/02

In response to the article that appeared in the Nov. 20 issue regarding the charter school, I am very upset with the Schenectady school Superintendent, Dr. John Falco.

I have had a child in the Schenectady school system for the past six years and been practically begging the school for help for him, and to date, have been ignored. The Schenectady school system just pushes the kids through, whether or not they know the material that is being taught.

Previously, my child should have failed, but the school system would not hold him back because their belief is that it "hurts a child's self esteem." Does it make a child feel secure when he/she can't read, write or add?

Because the system is failing my oldest child, I decided to enroll my two younger children in the charter school. I couldn't be more delighted. When my second-grader was in the Schenectady school system, he wasn't taught how to read or sound out letters. Now, my second-grader has excelled as well as my kindergartner. My second-grader is a straight "A" student (on his own merit, thank you), and my kindergartner is beginning to read thanks to a fantastic program that the charter school has in place.

Dr. Falco, you have absolutely no right to criticize the best thing that has ever happened to Schenectady. By firsthand experience, I can say that Schenectady schools are failing our children, and so far, the charter school is living up to its promise. Give our future (which happens to be our children) a chance for a much better education than Schenectady's system could ever provide.

LANA LOVETT
Schenectady

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Charter school plans to grow
Portable rooms sought in Sch'dy
By MARY MARTIALAY / Gazette Reporter
11/20/02

SCHENECTADY - The International Charter School is planning for an expansion to 425 students next year, according to Director Lillian Turner.

On Friday, the charter school will apply for grant money to lease portable modular classrooms.

Turner said the units, which would go behind the current school building on Eleanor Street in Bellevue, are one possibility to accommodate the expansion. The charter school may also consider adding permanent space or expanding at another site.

About eight classrooms should be needed, said Robert Giordano, a business development director for SABIS Educational Systems Inc., the school's parent company.

Giordano said he did not know how much money the charter school would ask for, or how much money would be needed to lease the portable units.

City district Superintendent John Falco said he questions the charter school's ability to recruit enough children to reach maximum enrollment.

Falco also said any change to the school building, which the district leases to the charter school, must first be approved by Schenectady voters.

* * *

"We don't have room for any more classes, there's no room for a special ed classroom, conference rooms, we don't even have a teachers' lounge," said Turner.

As part of the lease agreement with the district, the charter school agreed to limit its enrollment during its first three years. This year's maximum was 300 children. Next year it will be 425.

"We're hoping to go right up to 425," said Turner. To do that, Turner said the charter will begin a recruitment campaign in June.

That campaign may employ all the methods of its original drive, including radio ads, billboards, and door-to-door fliers.

But Falco said he doubts the charter school can muster 175 more children, and he even questioned the current enrollment figures.

"Right now, we're paying for 230, and a good part of that is on good faith," he said. "They're lucky if they've attracted 130," from the city's public schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded, but privately run. Under state law, the school district had to set aside close to $2 million to pay for students to attend the charter school this year.

Falco said the charter has "a long way to go" before it can put the units behind the school building.

"This is very serious business," said Falco. "That property belongs to the city of Schenectady. It doesn't belong to a profit-making company from a foreign country." Sabis was founded in Lebanon as a school for Americans and others there.

It's clear that Falco dislikes the charter school. However, his raising of nationalistic prejudices over an issue of classroom space for students demonstrates his desperation and lack of good judgment. Rather than address the issue positively, as school insiders always insist parents and the community do for public school needs, he reaches into the bottom of the barrel for bias and prejudice. Dr. Falco is doing some great things in Schenectady, but this remark was illogical and callous.

Any changes to the building would have to be approved by voters during the district's budget vote in May, he said.

WTOC TV (Savannah, Georgia)

Has school drug enforcement gone too far? A Savannah mother thinks so after her 16-year-old son got suspended. Police say their drug dog smelled marijuana and cocaine on his backpack. It all started with a routine drug check at Jenkins High School yesterday morning. It ended with student Renard Powers getting suspended, based only on a smell. His mother says he is a victim of an overzealous school drug policy.

Renard is your typical 16-year-old. A "B" student, he's in school chorus, and spends most of his free time on his computer. When Jenkins High campus police called his name for a random drug check, he didn't think twice. "They searched our classroom, lined us up outside in the hallway, and had us empty our pockets," he recalled.

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Then, the police dog started sniffing his backpack. "They told me my bag smelled like marijuana and cocaine," Renard said.

"This was something that was just bogus," said Renard's mom, Lanore Smith. She says her son has never had a problem in school. "They can check his record. He is a good kid."

When police searched Renard's bag, they found some books and papers, all the normal stuff a kid who goes to school would have. They did not find any drugs but suspended Renard and charged him with passive participation. The school calls it part of its zero-tolerance policy. "Students and parents need to understand that," said school board spokesman James Harvey.

Whistling past the graveyard.

Harvey says the schools trust the judgment of the police and school administrators. "They are the professionals, doing this a long time," he said. "These are people we trust."

So why don't these trustworthy people realize that the backpack could have become contaminated with scent of drugs, if accurately detected by the dog, entirely innocently? The student's backpack wasn't continuously under his control. Another student, or even an administrator could have accidentally or intentionally exposed the backpack to the scent of drugs. Or the scent may have been picked up at an out-of-school event. Who knows?

"They're professionals," agreed Smith, "but I've seen those dogs screw up, lots of times."

She and Renard hope the school will reevaluate its decision. "I don't want it following him," she said. "He wants to go to college. He wants to do things."

"I'm just confused, cause I'm getting accused of something I didn't do," said Renard.

That's because system needs trump student needs. If the district lets you off then it will have to fight over whether other students should be let off, too. It doesn't have time for justice or fairness. It's exactly this kind of thing that makes students think about getting revenge.

The first thing Renard says he will be doing is getting a new backpack. His mom plans on fighting the suspension, even if it means getting a lawyer. She hopes to meet with school officials today to clear Renard's name and record.

Principles for a New Century
Frederick M. Hess
Resident Scholar
American Enterprise Institute

Frederick M. Hess is a Resident Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. His books include Bringing the Social Sciences Alive (Allyn-Bacon 1999), Revolution at the Margins (Brookings 2002), and the forthcoming Common Sense School Reform (Palgrave). His work has appeared in scholarly journals including Social Science Quarterly, American Politics Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, and Teachers College Record. He is a former high school social studies teacher.



The author would like to thank Andrew Kelly and Brett Friedman for their invaluable assistance.

The phrase “public schooling” has become more a rhetorical device than a useful guide to policy. As our world evolves, so too must our conception of what “public” means. James Coleman eloquently made this point more than two decades ago, implying a responsibility to periodically reappraise our assumptions as to what constitutes “public schooling.”¹ In a world where charter schooling, distance education, tuition tax credits, and other recent developments no longer fit neatly into our conventional mental boxes, it is clearly time for such an effort. Nonetheless, rather than receiving the requisite consideration, “public schooling” has served as a flag around which critics of these various reforms can rally. It is because the phrase resonates so powerfully that critics of proposals like charter schooling, voucher programs, and rethinking teacher licensure have at times abandoned substantive debate in order to attack such measures as “anti-public schooling.”²

Indeed, the term “public school” is treated with the same veneration in the context of education as marriage is (or was) treated in the context of relationships. All schools are public schools.

Those of us committed to the promise of public education are obliged to see that the ideal does not become a tool of vested interests. The perception that public schooling has strayed from its purpose and been captured by self-interested parties has fueled lacerating critiques in recent years. Such critics as Andrew Coulson and Douglas Dewey find a growing audience when they suggest that the ideal of public schooling itself is nothing more than a call to publicly subsidize the private agendas of bureaucrats, education school professors, union officials, and leftist activists.³ While I believe such attacks are misguided, answering them effectively demands that we discern what it is that makes schooling public and accept diverse arrangements that are consistent with those tenets. Otherwise, growing numbers of reformers may come to regard public schooling as a politicized obstacle rather than a shared ideal.

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While I do not aim to provide a precise answer as to what public schooling should mean in the early 21st century, I will argue that public schools are broadly defined by their commitment to preparing students to be productive members of a social order, aware of their societal responsibilities, and respectful of constitutional strictures; that such schools cannot deny access to students for reasons unrelated to their educational focus; and that the system of public schools available in any community provide an appropriate placement for each student. In short, I suggest that it is appropriate to adopt a much more expansive notion of public schooling than the one the education community holds today.

What Isn’t Public?

Traditionally, “public schools” are deemed to be those directly accountable to elected officials or funded by tax dollars.⁴ As a practical matter, such definitions are not very useful, largely because there are conventional “public” schools that do not fit within these definitions, while there are “private” providers that do.

Moreover, a major objective of teachers unions has been to diminish oversight by elected officials and transfer decision-making power to the professionals accountable to no one and only loosely accountable to the nebulous and optional standards of the profession. In practice, government teachers and administrators now have veto power over elected officials. If the teachers and administrators don’t agree with a change or initiative, they can stop it. So, the question arises, “Just how accountable can public schools be to elected officials—or parents or the community, for that matter—when the employees have veto power?”

We generally regard as “public schools” those in which policy making and oversight are the responsibility of governmental bodies, such as a local school board. Nongovernmental providers of educational services, such as independent schools or educational management organizations (EMOs), are labeled “nonpublic.” The distinction is whether a formal political body is in charge, since these officials are accountable by election or appointment to the larger voting “public.”

The vast economic resources of teacher unions, plus their ready access to the names, addresses and telephone numbers of parents with students, which are confidential to the rest of us, means they can choose who they want to be elected. Consistent with the goal to diminish oversight by elected officials, they naturally prefer candidates whose main objective is to raise more money for schools while leaving policy, practice and procedure to teachers. In other words, the employees of government schools use the political system to undermine the public role of school boards.

There are two particular problems here. First, how “hands on” must the government be for us to regard a service as publicly provided? The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Department of Education, and most other state, federal, and local government agencies contract with for-profit firms to support, to provide services, and to evaluate service delivery. Yet we tend to regard the services as “public” because they were initiated in response to a public directive and are monitored by public officials. It is not clear when government-directed activity ceases to be public. For instance, if a for-profit company manages a district school, is the school less public than it was when it purchased its texts from a for-profit textbook publisher and its professional development from a private consultant?

The most important point to make here is that since teacher unions have undermined the power of public school boards, there is no difference between a “public school” run by professionals and a “private school” run by professionals. Indeed, the boards of “private schools” may have far more oversight power than the boards of public schools. The private-public dichotomy has been seriously eroded by teacher union initiatives.

A second approach to defining “public” focuses on inputs. By this metric, any activity that involves government funds is public because it involves the expenditure of tax dollars. However, this distinction is more nebulous than we sometimes suppose. For instance, schools in the Milwaukee voucher program receive Wisconsin tax dollars. Does this mean that voucher schools ought to be regarded as de facto public schools? Similarly, Wisconsin dairy farmers receive federal subsidies. Does this make their farms public enterprises?

A particular complication is that many traditional public schools charge families money. For instance, during 2002-03, the families of more than 2,300 Indiana students are paying tuition of as much as $6,000 to enroll their children in a public school in another district. Public schools routinely charge fees to families that participate in inter-district public choice plans, and they frequently charge families fees if a child participates in extracurricular activities. Would proponents of a revenue-based definition suggest that such practices mean that these schools are no longer “public”?

Public schools are also charging fees for pre-k and kindergarten programs, plus fees for bus transportation.

A third approach, famously advanced by John Dewey, the esteemed champion of “public” education, recognizes that private institutions may serve public ends and that public institutions may fail to do so.⁵ Such a recognition suggests that public schools are those that serve public ends, regardless of the monitoring arrangements or revenue sources. This approach is ultimately problematic, however, because we do not have clear agreement on appropriate public purposes. I’ll have more to say on this point shortly.

What Is Public Schooling?

Previously, I have posed five questions to guide our efforts to bring more precision to our understanding of “public schooling”.⁶ Here, I offer these questions as a way to sketch principles that may help shape a contemporary conception of “public schooling.”

What are the purposes of public schooling? Schooling entails both public and private purposes, though we often fail to note the degree to which the private benefits may serve the public interest. In particular, academic learning serves the individual and also the needs of the state. Successful democratic communities require a high level of literacy and numeracy and are anchored by the knowledge and the good sense of the population. Citizens who lack these skills are less likely to contribute effectively to the well-being of their communities and more likely to be a drain on public resources. Therefore, in a real sense, any school that helps children master reading, writing, mathematics, and other essential content is already advancing some significant public purposes.⁷ It is troubling that prominent educational thinkers, including Frank Smith, Susan Ohanian, Deborah Meier, and Alfie Kohn, have rejected this fundamental premise and encouraged “public schools” to promote preferred social values even at the expense of basic academic mastery.⁸

Kimberly Swygert, of Number 2 Pencil opines:

Nice to see Master Crackpot Alfie Kohn singled out for opprobrium here. Deborah Meier I've discussed before, but at least she argues against testing with reason and experience, rather than hysterical hyperbole (a more recent article about her is here). Susan Ohanian is a Bush-hater who apparently considers urban vouchers plans to be "atrocities." Frank Smith writes books about how the "drill and kill" method is destructive to children (I find it interesting that one of his books was published in 1998 but has only one review on Amazon.com).

More fundamentally, there are two distinct ways to comprehend the larger public purposes of education. One suggests that schools serve a public interest that transcends the needs of individuals. This line of thought, understood by Rousseau as the “general will,” can be traced to Plato’s conviction that nations need a far-sighted leader to determine their true interests, despite the shortsighted preferences of the mob. A second way of thinking about the public purposes of education accepts the classically “liberal” understanding of the public interest as the sum of the interests of individual citizens and rejects the idea of a transcendent general will. This pragmatic stance helped shape American public institutions that protect citizens from tyrannical majorities and overreaching public officials.

Kimberly Swygert: Isn't "overreaching public officials" a redundant statement?

While neither perspective is necessarily “correct”, our government of limited powers and separate branches leans heavily toward the more modest dictates of liberalism. Despite our tendency to suffuse education with the sweeping rhetoric of a disembodied national interest, our freedoms are secured by a system designed to resist such imperial visions.

In other words, the more government schools strive to “domesticate” (or condition, train or indoctrinate) students in a fixed and particular way—which as a happy coincidence happens to be entirely consistent with educator expectations of student ideas and behavior in public schools—the less freedom our nation will enjoy. I note it is more than likely that the ideas and behaviors needed for success outside of school are not precisely the same ones needed inside schools. This presents a dilemma.

The “public” components of schooling include the responsibility for teaching the principles, habits, and obligations of citizenship. While schools of education typically interpret this to mean that educators should preach “tolerance” or affirm “diversity,” a firmer foundation for citizenship education would focus on respect for law, process, and individual rights. The problem with phrases like “tolerance” and “diversity” is that they are umbrella terms with multiple interpretations. When we try to define them more precisely — in policy or practice — it becomes clear that we must privilege some values at the expense of others. For instance, one can plausibly argue that tolerant citizens should respectfully hear out a radical Muslim calling for jihad against the U.S. or that tolerance extends only to legalistic protection and leaves one free to express social opprobrium. If educators promote the former, as their professional community generally advises, they have adopted a particular normative view that is at odds with that held by a large segment of the public.

The above paragraph states a fundamental truth. Tolerance is never free from intolerance. Diversity is never free of exclusivity or segregation. And most importantly, the bringing together of people with different values, ideas, backgrounds and perspectives guarantees someone will be offended by something. It has only been in the past few years of human history that some people have taken to believing the right not to be offended trumps the right of free speech. This is not freedom, but orthodoxy.

Promoting one particular conception of tolerance does not make schools more “public.” In a liberal society, uniformly teaching students to accept teen pregnancy or homosexuality as normal and morally unobjectionable represents a jarring absolutism amidst profound moral disagreement.

An observation consistent with Chapter II of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty.

Nonetheless, many traditional “public” schools (such as members of the Coalition of Essential Schools) today explicitly promote a particular worldview and endorse a particular social ethos. In advancing “meaningful questions”, for instance, faculty members at these schools often promote partisan attitudes towards American foreign policy, the propriety of affirmative action, or the morality of redistributive social policies. Faculty members in these schools can protest that they have no agenda other than cultivating critical inquiry, but observation of classrooms or perusal of curricular materials makes clear that most of these schools are not neutral on the larger substantive questions. This poses an ethical problem in a pluralist society where the parents of many students may reject the public educators’ beliefs and where the educators have never been clearly empowered to stamp out “improper” thoughts.

Public schools should teach children the essential skills and knowledge that make for productive citizens, teach them to respect our constitutional order, and instruct them in the framework of rights and obligations that secure our democracy and protect our liberty. Any school that does so should be regarded as serving public purposes.

How should we apportion responsibility between families and public schools? The notion that schools can or should serve as a “corrective” against the family was first promulgated in the early 19th century by reformers who viewed the influx of immigrants as a threat to democratic processes and American norms. In the years since, encouraged by such thinkers as George Counts, Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, Peter McLaren, and Amy Gutmann, educational thinkers have unapologetically called for schooling to free students from the yoke of their family’s provincial understandings.


The problem is that this conception of “public interest” rests uneasily alongside America’s pluralist traditions. American political thought dating back to Madison’s pragmatic embrace of “faction,” has presumed that our various prejudices and biases can constructively counter one another, so long as the larger constitutional order and its attendant protections check our worst impulses.

In other words, prejudices and biases should be worked on in political processes, not through education. Education, properly understood, demands the inquiry into multiple views of values, ideas and cultures. It is the student who, after thoughtful consideration of multiple viewpoints, must individually decide on the best balance of social attributes most likely to lead to a fulfilling life. The best teachers do not indoctrinate, but question. They do not hard sell particular viewpoints, but hard sell all viewpoints.

The notion that schools are more “public” when they work harder to stamp out familial views and impress children with socially approved beliefs is one that ought to give pause to any civil libertarian or pluralist. Such schools are more attuned to the public purposes of a totalitarian regime than those of a democratic one. While a democratic nation can reasonably settle upon a range of state/family relationships, there is no reason to imagine that a regime that more heavily privileges the state is more “public.” The relative “publicness” of education is not enhanced by having schools intrude more forcefully into the familial sphere.

Who should be permitted to provide public schooling? Given publicly determined purposes, it is not clear that public schooling needs to impose restrictions on who may provide schooling. There is no reason why for-profit or religious providers, in particular, ought to be regarded as suspect.

While traditional public schools have always dealt with for-profit providers of textbooks, teaching supplies, professional development, and so on, profit-seeking ventures have emerged as increasingly significant players in reform efforts. For instance, the for-profit, publicly held company Edison Schools is today managing scores of traditional district schools across the nation. Yet these are still regarded as “public” schools. In fact, Edison is managing the summer school programs, including curricula and personnel, for more than 70 public school districts. Yet those communities continue to regard summer school as public schooling.

Such arrangements seem to run afoul of our conventional use of the term “public,” but the conflict is readily resolved when we recognize that all public agencies, including public hospitals and public transit systems, routinely harness the services of for-profit firms. Just as a public university is not thought to lose their public status merely because portions of it enter into for-profit ventures with regards to patents or athletics, so the entry of for-profit providers into a K-12 public school does not necessarily change the institution’s fundamental nature. What matters in public higher education is whether the for-profit unit is controlled and overseen by those entrusted with the university’s larger public mission. What matters in public schooling is whether profit-seekers are hired to serve public ends and are monitored by public officials.

The monitoring most consistent with freedom and democratic principles is the monitoring that comes from students and parents who are free to choose which schools they will support with their attendance.

The status of religious providers has raised great concern, among such groups as People for the American Way and the Center for Education Policy. However, the nation’s early efforts to provide public education relied heavily upon local church officials to manage public funds, provide a school facility, and arrange the logistics of local schooling. It was not until the anti-Catholic fervor of the mid- and late-19th century that states distanced themselves from religious schooling. It was not until the mid-20th century that advocacy groups like the American Civil Liberties Union pushed the remnants of religion out of state-run schools.

Isn’t that interesting? It was intolerance and prejudice, not tolerance and diversity, that were instrumental in shaping our current delivery system of education services. Fascinating.

In recent decades, the U.S. Supreme Court has made clear that the push for a “wall of separation” had overreached and run afoul of First Amendment language protecting the “free exercise” of religion. Moreover, contemporary America has continued to evolve since the anti-Catholic zeal of the 19th century and the anti-religious intellectualism of the mid-20th century. Those conflicts were of a particular time and place. Today, church officials have less local sway and lack the unquestioned authority they once held, while they are more integrated into secular society. Just as some one-time opponents of single-sex schools can now, because of changes in the larger social order, imagine such schools serving the public interest, so too we should not reflexively shrink from viewing religious schools in a similar light. In most industrial democracies, including nations like Canada, France, and the Netherlands, religious schools operate as part of the public system and are funded and regulated accordingly.

What obligations should public schools have to ensure opportunity to all students? We have never imagined that providing opportunity to all students means treating all students identically. The existence of magnet schools, special education, gifted classes, and exam schools makes it clear that we deem it appropriate for schools to select some children and exclude others in order to provide desirable academic environments. Our traditional school districts have never sought to ensure that every school or classroom should serve a random cross-section of children, only that systems as a whole should appropriately serve all children.

Given the tension between families who want their child schooled in an optimal environment and public officials who must construct systems that address competing needs, the principle that individual schools can exclude children but that systems cannot is both sensible and morally sound. That said, this principle does mean that some children will not attend school with the peers their parents might prefer.

The dilemma this presents is that no solitary good school can serve all the children who might wish to attend and that randomly admitting students may impede a school’s effectiveness. Demanding that a science magnet school accept students with minimal science accomplishments or that any traditional school accept a habitually violent student threatens the ability of each school to accomplish its basic purposes. This is clearly not in the public interest. The same is true when a constructivist school is required to admit students from families who staunchly prefer back-to-basics instruction and will agitate for the curricula and pedagogy they prefer. In such cases, allowing schools to selectively admit students is consistent with the public interest—so long as the process furthers a legitimate educational purpose and the student has access to an appropriate alternative setting. Such publicly acceptable exclusion must be pursued for some reasonable educational purpose, and this creates a gray area that needs to be monitored. However, the need to patrol this area does not require that the practice to be preemptively prohibited.

Bingo. No single system of public schools can meet the needs of all students equally.

Moreover, self-selected or homogeneous communities are not necessarily less public than others. For instance, no one suggests that the University of Wyoming is less public than the University of Texas, though it is less geographically and ethnically representative of the nation. It has never been suggested that elections in San Francisco or Gopher Springs, West Virginia, would be more public if the communities included more residents who had not chosen to live there or whose views better reflected national norms. Nor has it been suggested that selective public institutions, such as the University of Michigan, are less public than are community colleges, even though they are selective about whom they admit. Moreover, there is always greater homogeneity in self-selected communities, such as magnet schools, as they attract educators and families who share certain views. None of this has been thought to undermine their essential “publicness.”

Even champions of “public education,” such as Deborah Meier and Ted Sizer, argue that this shared sense of commitment helps cultivate a participatory and democratic ethos in self-selected schools. In other words, heightened familial involvement tends to make self-selected schools more participatory and democratic. Kneeling before the false gods of heterogeneity or non-selectivity undermines our ability to forge participatory or effective schools, and does so without making them commensurately more “public.”

Nowhere, after all, does the availability of a “public service” imply that we get to choose our fellow users. In every field—whether public medicine, public transportation, or public higher education—the term “public” implies our right to a service, not our right to have buses serve a particular route or to have a university cohort configured to our preferences. Even though such considerations influence the quality of the service, the need for public providers to juggle the requirements of all the individuals they must serve necessarily means that each member of the public cannot necessarily receive the service in the manner he or she would ultimately prefer. “Public schooling” implies an obligation to ensure that all students are appropriately served, not that every school is open to all comers.

What parts of public schooling are public? Debates about publicness focus on the classroom teaching and learning that is central to all schools. Maintenance, accounting, payroll, and food services are quite removed from the public purposes of education discussed above. Even though these peripheral services may take place in the same facility as teaching and learning, their execution does not meaningfully impact the “publicness” of schooling. Rather, we understand that it is sufficient to have ancillary services provided in a manner that is consistent with the wishes of a public education provider. For example, federal courts and state legislatures are indisputably public institutions, yet they frequently procure supplies, services, and personnel from privately run, for-profit enterprises. We properly regard these institutions as public because of their core purposes, not because of the manner in which they arrange their logistics.

Today’s “Public” Schools Often Aren’t

Given the haphazard notion of public schooling that predominates today, it comes as little surprise that we offer contemporary educators little guidance in serving the public interest. This poses obvious problems, given that employment as an educator doesn’t necessarily grant enhanced moral wisdom or personal virtue. If schools are to serve as places where educators advance purposes and cultivate virtues that they happen to prefer, it is not clear in what sense schools are serving “public purposes.”

Blindly hoping that educators have internalized shared public purposes, we empower individuals to proselytize under the banner of “public schooling.” This state of affairs has long been endorsed by influential educational theorists like George Counts, Paulo Freire, Henry Giroux, and Nel Noddings, who argue that teachers have a charge to use classrooms to promote personal visions of social change, regardless of the broader public’s beliefs. For these thinkers, “public schooling” ironically implies a community obligation to support schools for the private purposes of educators. The problem is that public institutions are not personal playthings. Just as it is unethical for a judge to disregard the law and instead rule on the basis of personal whimsy, so it is inappropriate for public school teachers to use their office to impose personal views upon a captive audience.

One appropriate public response is to specify public purposes and to demand that teachers reflect them, though we are reasonably cautious about adopting such an intrusive course. To the extent that explicit direction is absent, however, educators are left to their own devices. In such a case, our liberal tradition would recommend that we not subject children to the views of educators at an assigned school but allow families to avail themselves of a range of schools with diverse perspectives, so long as each teaches respect for our democratic and liberal tradition.

Conclusion

Today, our system of “public schooling” does little to ensure that these schools serve public purposes, while permitting some educators to use a publicly provided forum to promote personal beliefs. Meanwhile, hiding behind the phrase’s hallowed skirts are partisans who furiously attack any innovation that threaten their interests or beliefs.

There are many ways to provide legitimate public education. A restrictive state might tightly regulate school assignment, operations, and content, while another state might impose little regulation. However, there is no reason to regard the schools in one state as more “public” than those in the other. The “publicness” of a school does not depend on class size, the use of certified teachers, rules governing employee termination, or the rest of the procedural apparatus that ensnares traditional district schools. The fact that public officials have the right to require public schools to comply with certain standards does not mean that schools subjected to more intrusive standards are somehow more public. The inclusion of religious schools in European systems, for instance, has been accompanied by intensive regulation of curricula and policy. Regulation on that order is not desirable, nor is it necessary for schools to operate as part of a public system; it is merely an operational choice made by officials in these relatively bureaucratic nations.
As opportunities to deliver, structure, and practice education evolve, it is periodically necessary to revisit assumptions about what constitutes public schooling. The ideology and institutional self-interest that infuse the dominant current conception have fueled withering attacks on the very legitimacy of public schooling itself. Failure to address this impoverished status quo will increasingly offer critics cause to challenge the purpose and justification of public education. Maintaining and strengthening our commitment to public schooling requires that we rededicate ourselves to essential principles of opportunity, liberal democracy, and public benefit while freeing ourselves from the political demands and historic happenstance.

On opportunities to re-form the structure and delivery of education services, see The 21st Century Student.

In an age when social and technological change make possible new approaches to teaching and learning, pinched renderings of “public schooling” have grown untenable and counterproductive. They stifle creative efforts, confuse debates, and divert attention from more useful questions. A more expansive conception is truer to our traditions, more likely to foster shared values, and better suited to the challenges of the new century.

_____________________________

1 James Coleman, “Public Schools, Private Schools, and the Public Interest,” Public Interest, Summer 1981, pp. 19-30. See also idem, “Quality and Equality in American Education,” Phi Delta Kappan, November 1981, pp. 159-164.

2 For the best empirical examination of the scope and nature of the “public school ideology,” see Terry Moe Schools, Vouchers, and the American Public (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2001).

3 See Andrew Coulson, Market Education: The Unknown History (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1999); or Douglas Dewey, “An Echo, Not a Choice: School Vouchers Repeat the Error of Public Education,” Policy Review, November/December 1996, www.policyreview.org/nov96/backup/dewey.html.

4 See Frederick M. Hess, “Making Sense of the “Public” in Public Education,” unpublished paper, Progressive Policy Institute, Washington D.C., 2002.

5 John Dewey, The Public and Its Problems (1927; reprint, Athens: Ohio University Press, 1954).

6 See Frederick M. Hess, “What Is ‘Public’ About Public Education?” Education Week, 8 January 2003, p. 56.

7 Paul Hill has provided an extended discussion of this point. See Paul T. Hill, “What Is Public about Public Education?,” in Terry Moe, ed., A Primer on America’s Schools (Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution, 2001), pp. 285-316.

8 Frank Smith, “Overselling Literacy,” Phi Delta Kappan, January 1989, pp. 353-59; Alfie Kohn, No Contest: The Case Against Competition (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1986); Susan Ohanian, “Capitalism, Calculus, and Conscience,” Phi Delta Kappan, June 2003, pp. 736-47; and Deborah Meier, “Educating a Democracy” in idem, ed., Will Standards Save Public Education? (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000).

My Turn: The wheels are about to come off the school bus
By MAX MERTZ, local CPA and the Juneau School District's auditor, Juneau Empire

See, also, Teachers pump up pressure on district and A Primer on Teacher Contracts.

I happened to see the teachers picketing the school board the other night. They were out in force to make their point and to right what they perceive is an injustice. More power to them. I believe that Juneau is fortunate to have a lot of caring teachers and, incidentally, administrators and support staff, who work hard to give our kids a quality education. But there is a problem coming that teachers' desire for more money seems to be at odds with.

Here we have an example of how to say you wish someone could have something, and top it with accolades of desert, while at the same time (below) presenting the facts that suggest they can't have it. Anytime it's impossible for someone to have what they want, it's always good politics to say you'd like them to have it and they deserve it. Such statements are almost always made more for the benefit of the bearer of bad news than the recipient of it, which makes judging their genuineness problematic.

Because of poor market performance, bad actuarial assumptions and other causes, the twin retirement systems that most government employees in Alaska are participating in, PERS and TRS, are going to have to substantially increase the contributions that the school district makes on employees' behalf in fiscal 2005 (the year that begins on July 1, 2004). The increases will be from the current 12 percent of salary to 16 percent for teachers, who are in TRS, and from about 8 percent to about 13 percent for other employees, who participate in PERS. Calculate it out and this means that the district will have to pay about $1,150,000 more in benefits for district employees next fiscal year over the current fiscal year. This benefit increase doesn't even take into account likely increases in health insurance costs that are currently not known.

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In addition, scheduled salary scale step increases for teachers and other district employees are projected at about $850,000 next year. On top of these two huge cost increases is the fact that the current budget (fiscal 2004) for the district is projected to use a little over $900,000 of the district's fund balance to balance the books this year. Guess what - that's pretty much the entire fund balance of the district. This means that the district won't be able to use fund balance again next year.

Add all this up and you get a budget hole of about $2,900,000 for fiscal 2005. Where's this going to come from? Additional CBJ (City and Borough of Juneau) contribution? Not likely - the Assembly already funds the district at the maximum amount allowed by state law (the "cap"). In fact, our Assembly is already using creative means to fund district activities outside of the cap where permitted by state law. Local taxes? Nope, due to legal equity issues - as local residents we are not even allowed to additionally tax ourselves to cover a district shortfall. The state Legislature? Possibly, but that would require the use of some permanent fund earnings, additional income or sales taxes or the like. So far, they've proven unwilling to use any of these means to increase revenue. And remember, they've got to balance the state budget before they increase the amount provided to school districts and other local governments.

Nope, this most likely means the district's financial hole will be filled by some combination of laying off a lot of teachers and other staff, cutting or eliminating programs, or even potentially more drastic measures like closing schools (certainly closing an elementary school would save some money?).

These are some tough issues, but the fact of the matter is, they are on the horizon. The current school board members as well as the successful board candidates (there are 12 candidates running for five seats) are going to face these as they prepare next year's budget. I'm all for teacher's getting paid more on top of their step increases. Certainly they deserve to be paid well for their hard work. But I want to be sure that we don't have to lay off a bunch of teachers or take even more drastic measurers in the process, something the board is likely going to have to do anyway.

Between this article and this prior story, Juneau residents have a complete, no-spin, factual picture of school district finances. I commend the school, the authors of the stories and the newspaper for doing this. In New York, all we get are school district press releases that distort the truth, especially by reporting a tiny teacher sacrifice as if it completely offsets compensation increases that are reported in ways to make them look as small as possible. (See, e.g., Carl Strock's [Saratoga Springs] teachers' raises more than billed.)

Now that we have all the facts of the Juneau teacher pay situation, let's see what it is. (This scenario is typical for schools across the nation, as well as for Scotia-Glenville).

Table 1. Current Total Compensation

Step	Base Pay	Add-ons1.	Health Ins2.	Pension3.	Total
Bottom	33,591	2,000	6,600	4,031	$46,222
Top	64,694	2,000	6,600	7,763	$81,057

1. Add-ons are estimated at modest levels and include extra pay for college credits and the like.
2. This is the amount the district contributes toward teacher health insurance premiums.
3. This is the amount the district contributes to the Teacher Retirement System. It is currently 12% and will rise to 16%. I calculated this amount by using base pay only.

Here we learn that salaries reported as ranging from $33,591 to $64,694 actually result in earnings or total compensation of between $46,222 and $81,057 per year. That means the public hears teachers are paid between 25% and 38% less than they actually earn! Pension and health insurance contributions aren't just given away because teachers are good people. They are part of the pay. Based on a survey from Education Week, this means that these teachers are earning between $28.39 and $49.79 per hour based on total compensation and time spent on school work outside the normal school day. (Yet, at these hourly rates, teachers routinely complain they aren't paid for work done outside the normal school day. See, e.g., Teachers threaten new tack).

I note that Juneau teachers contribute 31% of the cost of their health insurance (from this article)), and 8.65% of their salary toward their pension costs (from the TRS website). Still, Juneau teacher benefits amount to between 25 and 38% of teacher salaries.

(New York teachers contribute less than 1% of their pay towards their pensions--3% of their salary for the first 10 years. Based on the current pay scale, S-G teachers will contribute 7/10ths of 1% of their salaries toward their pensions. New York teachers also contribute far less to the cost of their health insurance, with S-G teachers contributing about 12%).

Table 2. What the Teachers Want

Step	Base Pay	Add-ons	Health Ins	Pension	Total
Bottom	34,263	2,000	7,620	5,482	$49,365
Top	65,988	2,000	7,620	10,558	$86,166

Teachers want a 2% increase in base pay, an $85 a month increase in health insurance contributions and the increased contribution required from the pension system.

Table 3. How much does it cost?

Step	Current Compensation	Desired Compensation	$ Increase	% Increase
Bottom	46,222	49,365	3,143	6.8
Top	81,057	86,166	5,109	6.3

The raises teachers want will add between $3,143 and $5,109 to the cost of employing each teacher. That amounts to a percentage increase of between 6.3 and 6.8%. Inflation is running under 2%.

Based on the teachers' desires and total compensation, the new hourly rate for teachers would be between $30.32 and $52.93.

Table 4. What's the School Board Offering?

Step	Base Pay	Add-ons	Health Ins	Pension	Total
Bottom	33,591	2,000	7,620	5,375	$48,586
Top	64,694	2,000	7,620	10,351	$84,665

The school board is offering an $85 a month increase in health insurance contributions plus it will have to fund the increased pension costs.

Table 5. What Will the Board's Offer Cost?

Step	Current Compensation	Offered Compensation	$ Increase	% Increase
Bottom	46,222	48,586	2,364	5.1
Top	81,057	84,665	3,608	4.5

The school board is offering to increase teacher compensation by $2,364 to $3,608 per teacher, which is between $779 and $1,501 less per year than the teachers want.

The percentage increase being offered is between 4.5 and 5.1%, or about 2.5 times the current rate of inflation.

But hold your polar bears!
Teachers want a step increase. The school board has agreed to give it. I don't know how much a step increase is worth in Juneau--it depends on how many steps are in the salary schedule--but here's the Fairbanks (Alaska) North Star Borough School District's salary schedule. As you can see, its bottom and top salaries are very close to Juneau's. On this salary schedule, a step amounts to an average 3.1% per year. (In Scotia-Glenville a step averages 3.5%). 3.1% step increases are way above what most workers and many teachers receive. (See, Florida lawmakers consider paying teachers $100,000).

So, based on the school district's offer, which includes a step increase for all but the top-step teachers, the total percentage increase in compensation being offered to teachers ranges from 4.5 to 8.2%! The teachers want a compensation increase of between 6.3 and 9.9%! You see how a modest request for a 2% increase in salary really translates into a huge 9.9% pay raise? Teachers are no dummies when it comes to concealing the true amount of their compensation increases and school board members play along to save their political hides. Under the teacher's plan, a first year teacher last year would see an hourly increase in compensation of $2.81 an hour to $31.20 from $28.39. A teacher on the top step would receive an increase of $3.14 an hour to $52.93 from $49.79.

Now, exactly why does the school board, or the teachers, think teacher raises should exceed the rate of inflation? Will teachers become more productive? In this case, the opposite is true because teachers want 100 minutes a week more planning time in the elementary schools.

Will teachers produce better outcomes? Maybe, but why not offer the raise on condition of the improvements?

In my opinion, it is fiscal malfeasance during times of economic difficulty to offer public servants increases in compensation that exceed the rate of inflation unless the residents of the school district can afford it or the employees offer something of equal value in return for the increase above the rate of inflation. By "afford it" I mean at a minimum the roads are fixed, the elderly and poor have adequate food, housing and medical care and the schools are properly supplied with teachers, technology, books, libraries and classroom space. If any of these are lacking, the tax money should go to these before giving employees inflation-busting raises.

With median household income, when adjusted for inflation, falling 1.1 percent to $42,409 last year and inflation running under 2%, the teachers' demands and the school board's offer are a disrespectful "slap in the face" to students and taxpayers.

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quote:

The least-educated Americans are the most exploited people in our society. In many instances, the most educated Americans exploit the less educated Americans to acquire great wealth.
--E. Maner, Augusta, Georgia, Educator, from this editorial.
Any educator want to give minimum wage workers a 6.3 to 9.9% raise? The last time the $5.15 federal minimum wage was raised was in 1997. The inflation-adjusted value of today's minimum wage is $5.42, which is 35% below the peak value of $8.35 in 1968 (in 2003 dollars). See, also, more articles on the minimum wage.

---

So, how is it that school boards offer, and teachers demand, compensation increases far exceeding the rate of inflation? It's simple. First, the public believes teacher compensation is much lower than it really is. Second, the public is misled by reportedly small increases in salary that mask huge increases in compensation. Third, teachers hold the power to strike and the ability to leverage parental inconvenience with resultant childcare costs into higher salaries, and/or they hold the power to compel mandatory arbitration before hearing officers that routinely require school districts to compensate teachers at rates much higher than inflation.

The right to strike or to compel mandatory arbitration for total compensation increases in excess of the rate of inflation on salaries exceeding the national average by more than 1%, adjusted for local living costs, must be terminated for all government workers, including educators. If public employers and school boards want to offer more, it's their choice. Moreover, increases in compensation should not be stated in terms of fixed percentages, but in terms of annualized inflation rates. In all cases, increases in compensation above the rate of inflation must be earned, not given away.

Note: I have telescoped the pension increase into the current year in this example, however, I do not believe it is a distortion of the truth. Next year, when the pension payment increases are required, teachers will want a cost of living increase plus additional contributions to their health insurance premiums, which are likely to rise about as much as they rose this year. Moreover, contracts often cover three or more years. Finally, even without counting the increase in pension costs in the current year, the teachers are seeking raises of between 3.6% (for top-scale teachers) and 8.1% (for the rest), including the step and health insurance increase.

A note to New Yorkers on teacher pensions
Most have heard about the need for schools to contribute more toward the funding of teacher pensions in New York. See, e.g. Pension costs to affect budget, Districts face small hike in pension costs and Pension costs up as stocks take dive.

It has been universally reported that the poor stock market performance is creating the need to increase school and government contributions to pensions. From auditor Mertz's article, we can reasonably infer that Comptroller Hevesi is not giving us the whole story, which should surprise no one. The causes of increased contributions are likely related to:

• Poor stock market performance
• A change in actuarial tables (people are living longer)
• Salaries increasing at rates far exceeding inflation (causing increases in future pension obligations)
• Automatic cost-of-living increases for pensioners enacted in 2000
• Other factors, both positive and negative

When it comes to bad news, NY government and schools always seek cover. In this case, they blame the stock market for increased pension costs knowing everyone understands the market has fallen and they aren't responsible for that. What you rarely hear about is the part they are responsible for--salaries rising faster than inflation and automatic cost-of-living increases. And while people are living longer, that doesn't mean the increased pension costs can't be passed on to the teachers rather than the public. As noted above, Alaska teachers contribute 8.65% of their salaries toward their pensions. New York teachers pay 3% of their salaries for their first 10 years towards their government pensions and nothing after that.

Teachers pump up pressure on district
Arbitrator for faculty contracts to meet with teachers and district officials on Oct. 1
By ERIC FRY / Juneau Empire

The right to strike or to compel mandatory arbitration for total compensation increases in excess of the rate of inflation on salaries exceeding the national average by more than 1%, adjusted for local living costs, must be terminated for all government workers, including educators. If public employers and school boards want to offer more, it's their choice. Moreover, increases in compensation should not be stated in terms of fixed percentages, but in terms of annualized inflation rates. In all cases, increases in compensation above the rate of inflation must be earned, not given away.

See, also, Part 2 -- A Primer on Teacher Contracts.

Juneau's teachers, working without a contract so far this school year, are stepping up public pressure on the school district.

Nonbinding arbitration is scheduled for Oct. 1 to resolve the contract dispute. The teachers' two-year contract ended June 30. Teachers make from $33,591 to $64,694 a year.

Please take note, S-G. The cost of living in Alaska is 28.2% above the national average compared to NY's 19.6%, which is inflated because of NYC. Schenectady's cost of living is about 10% above the national average due exclusively to high taxes which are primarily driven by the high salaries and benefits of government employees, including teachers.

S-G teachers earn between $34,000 and $70,194 per year, excluding add-ons, and pay about 11% of the cost of their health insurance. They contribute about $11,500 toward pensions that will pay in excess of $1.3 million to each teacher (excluding future state-mandated annual cost of living pension increases) free of state income tax, assuming a 30-year career and 30-year retirement.

If both parties don't accept the arbitrator's decision, the district and the teachers are obligated to meet at least once to resolve the dispute. If they can't reach an agreement, the district is entitled to impose its last, best offer, and the teachers can strike.

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* * *

Teachers, in their final offer during negotiations in May, asked for 2 percent increases in the salary schedule's rates, an increase in the district's contribution toward health-insurance premiums from $550 a month per person to $635, and an increase in elementary teachers' preparation time from at least 150 minutes a week to 250 minutes.

Here's a school board that's done something right. Rather than pay a percentage of the health insurance costs, it contributes a flat sum. If the cost of health insurance goes up, the teachers pay it.

Notice the teachers want a 15% increase in the district's health insurance contributions. That's about what teachers have been getting in places, like NY, where districts pay a percentage of health insurance costs rather than a fixed amount.

Notice, too, how much a seemingly small amount--an $85 per month increase--really costs the district. There are 350 teachers, librarians and counselors covered by the contract. $85 per month x 350 teachers x 12 months costs $357,000. Small numbers add up to large expenditures.

Notice, too, that $85 per month is $1,020 more per year. (Health insurance is paid over 12 months). For the highest paid teacher ($64,964 + $6,600 for health insurance) that amounts to a 1.4% increase in compensation which is equivalent to last year's rate of inflation. For the lowest paid teacher ($33,591 + $6,600 for health insurance) it amounts to a 2.5% increase in compensation.

Yet, Juneau teachers (and teachers everywhere) want a 2% increase in salary on top of a 15% increase in contributions toward health insurance. That would give teachers a compensation increase of between 3.4% and 4.5%, excluding step increases, with inflation running under 2%. It would also cost the school district another $343,000.

So, just to keep doing what they are already doing, Juneau teachers want to take $700,000 more per year out of the local economy, excluding the cost of step increases in salary, and distribute it to themselves. The same scenario is played out in S-G, only with larger increases for fewer teachers.

By the way, please notice that the compensation of Juneau teachers is not $33,591 to $64,694 a year but $40,191 to $71,294, including health insurance but excluding pension benefits.

Two last points. Notice the decline in productivity the teachers want. An increase in elementary preparation time to 250 minutes per week from the current 150. In other words, teachers want to spend 5% less time in the classroom and earn 3.4% to 4.5% higher salaries!

Final point. Health insurance is frequently paid by employers because of incentives created by the tax laws. Teachers, and too often school boards, too, see health insurance as a non-pecuniary, in-kind benefit. They believe the right is to a defined benefit rather than the money needed to purchase the benefit.

What employers and employees have agreed to do in their mutual self interests is to have employees accept part of their salaries in the form of health insurance. Employers could, for example, include the $6,600 Juneau pays for its teachers' health insurance, directly in the paychecks of employees. But, the employees would have to pay tax on it plus purchase their own health insurance at far higher costs. By accepting health insurance rather than cash, employees effectively increase the value of their salaries.

Health insurance is salary paid in-kind. What the Juneau teachers want is a 2% increase on part of their salaries ($33,591 to $64,694 a year) and a 15% increase on the other part of their salaries ($6,600 a year). It's clearly absurd.

When school boards discuss pay increases for teachers they should talk about only one percentage--the total percentage increase based on the total compensation package. That percentage increase should not exceed the rate of inflation without getting something of equivalent value from the teachers. After the school and the teachers agree on the percentage increase, then the teachers can decide how to divvy up the increase between salary and health insurance.

Teachers now pay the equivalent of $243 a month toward health-insurance premiums of $793, said Anderson of NEA-Alaska.

Here we learn that Juneau teachers are paying 31% of the $9,516 cost of their health insurance. S-G residents take note. Not only do Juneau teachers earn less in a state with higher living costs than Schenectady County's, they contribute about $156 more per month toward health insurance than S-G's teachers.

The district has said it's willing to pay $85 more a month for the premiums.

The School Board also recently authorized teachers to move up what are called the steps and columns of the salary schedule this school year, even without a new contract. The previous contract, negotiated in 2001, was intended to free up money to allow for movement up the schedule without it being negotiated with each contract.

How about that, whether or not teachers moved up on steps was previously a matter of contract negotiations. In S-G, it's automatic.

The schedule pays eligible teachers more money for added years of experience and further college credits. Union officials said this spring that about 30 percent of teachers have reached the top point of the schedule. Those teachers would make more money only if the salary schedule's pay rates are raised, or if new steps are added to top end of the schedule.

S-G did both in its last contract. But wait! The Juneau board has agreed to pay $85 more per month toward health insurance. As pointed out earlier, that's a minimum 1.4% increase in compensation. The highest paid teachers would take home $85 more a month than they do now.

But notice how the union outright lies about it. It says, "[Teachers at the top of the pay scale] would make more money only if the salary schedule's pay rates are raised, or if new steps are added to top end of the schedule."

It's simply an utter falsehood, as demonstrated, above. However, teachers unions universally lie about teacher compensation.

"They haven't offered anything except step and column," teacher negotiator Sara Hannan said Tuesday of movement up the schedule. "Our step and column funds itself."

This is another lie teachers tell. How does an enterprise that earns no income and no profits fund its own step increases? It can't, but I'll tell you the fairy tale used to back up that statement.

As teachers retire, new teachers are hired at lower costs and rather than rebating the savings to the public or using the money for textbooks, technology, new programs, maintenance, supplies or other needs or improvements, teachers hang onto the money to "fund" their step increases. It works like this: A teacher retires from a $65,000 job and a new teacher is hired at $35,000. The $30,000 in savings is used to pay the cost of bumping several teachers up a step on the pay scale. On average, in Juneau, enough teachers retire each year to cover the cost of moving teachers up a step. Thus the fiction of a perpetual motion machine that uses no energy--the self-funding step increase.

What the teachers have done is said that any money currently being paid to teachers belongs to the teachers both now and in the future. It cannot be used for other purposes. As teachers retire, the money they earned goes back into the teacher salary pot to increase the salaries of the remaining teachers.

The concept of self-funded steps implicitly includes the concept that total teacher pay should remain unchanged as average experience decreases. When senior teachers retire, new teachers are hired, thus lowering average experience. Yet, the total salary paid to teachers remains the same despite lower average experience. It's a pretty neat trick that would bankrupt most businesses.

Of course the theory of self-funded steps is a lot better on paper than in practice because of the rule "All funds currently paid to teachers belong to the teachers, both now and in the future."

What happens when more teachers retire than are needed to fund step increases, like is happening now? Teachers expect that money to be used to sweeten cost of living increases.

Most people expect salaries to increase at the rate of inflation. So teachers ask for an increase at the rate of inflation, plus some extra based on the "savings" from retiring teachers in excess of the amount needed to fund the step increases, arguing that it costs the district "nothing" because the money was already being paid to teachers.

But what happens in years when fewer teachers retire than needed to fund step increases? Well, everybody still expects salaries to go up at the rate of inflation. So teachers ask for, and generally get, a salary increase of at least the rate of inflation. But now, there's not enough to fund the step increase, so the district has to increase taxes some more to fund some of the cost of the step increases, too.

Here's the fallacy of the whole set of assumptions. There is not teachers' money and other money. There is just money and needs. The money should be distributed in a way that optimizes the meeting of the needs. The teachers unions, and the school boards that play along, say teacher needs come first. Teachers do not have to compete with the remaining needs of the district or students.

The consequence of all this is school spending increases that run two to three times the rate of inflation. Salaries go up at the rate of inflation. So do other costs, except energy and health insurance, which exceed the rate of inflation. Teachers and school boards pretend that the funding of health insurance is not a pecuniary part of teacher compensation but an in-kind benefit, so this disproportionately increases costs. Schools have been reducing teacher productivity (reducing class sizes) plus adding technology. Security, counseling services, after school programs and sports programs have all been expanded or converted from volunteers to paid staff. School boards also find themselves maintaining older buildings at greater costs. Consequently, spending on K-12 education has dramatically outpaced inflation. Under circumstances such as these, the fictional concepts of self-funded steps and health insurance as a non-pecuniary benefit have to end. Schools need to be applying the "savings" from retiring teachers to needs other than just increasing the compensation of teachers.

The United States spent 7 percent of its gross domestic product -- the country's total output of goods and services -- on education in 2000.

The school district's new one-year contracts with administrators - such as principals - and support staff - such as custodians and instructional assistants - included movement up the salary schedule and $85 more a month toward health-insurance premiums.

A step with a 15% increase in district contributions toward health insurance. That's unarguably generous.

Cowan said the district is interested in equity among the collective bargaining units, and has budgeted for higher district payments for health-insurance premiums for the teachers.

Kevin Hamrick, a teachers union negotiator, addressed the School Board on Tuesday, saying he was speaking as a parent and community member. He said there are ways to save money without cutting teachers and services. He cited the money the district is spending on a consultant during teacher negotiations.

Just because money can be saved does not mean it ought to go to the teachers first. There are other needs.

Increases in compensation in excess of the rate of inflation must be earned, not given away. Schools boards owe it to the public to get something in exchange for increasing teacher compensation beyond the rate of inflation.

"Every time we talk about budget cuts, it's how many teachers are we going to cut," Hamrick said.

It's a consequence of the cost structure teachers and arbitrators have imposed on school districts. Teachers always have the option of saying, "You know, we've been getting compensation increases well in excess of the rate of inflation. How about we skip the step increase or the cost of living increase this year to save some teacher jobs? We'll do it for the students."

In other places, even high-school-degreed janitors have been willing to give up raises to save jobs. It makes for easier work and cleaner schools. If our highly educated and far better paid teachers had the same sense as our janitors, it would make for easier teaching and better learning.

The district reduced about $1.74 million from this school year's budget to balance it. The district, in a budget document, listed movement up the salary schedule and increased health-insurance premiums for all employees as major cost increases.

HEY! I thought movement up the salary schedule was "self-funded"!

Among the cuts were the equivalent of about six teaching positions, early afternoon kindergarten buses, after-school activity buses, and delays in buying textbooks.

Hint: It's not the students as the title might suggest.

America's lazy students just don't stack up Hans Zeiger / Seattle Times See, also, Obstacles to Education Quality.

'All men by nature desire to know," said Aristotle.

From Metaphysics - Book 1. I recommend reading it.

Either Aristotle was wrong, or public education is failing to awaken the academic desires of American students.

According to a new Manhattan Institute for Policy Research study funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, only 32 percent of recent high-school graduates were qualified to attend a four-year college.

Further, the report showed that the high-school graduation rate remains depressingly low at only 70 percent.

For years, American education experts have been alarmed at the growing inability of public-school students and graduates to compete academically with peers in other industrialized democratic countries.

As Charles Sykes wrote in his revolutionary 1990s book "Dumbing Down our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good about Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add":

"When the very best American students — the top 1 percent — are measured against the best students of other countries, America's best and brightest finished at the bottom."

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And, according to a study by the Program for International Student Assessment, of students in 32 developed countries, 14 countries score higher than the U.S. in reading, 13 have better results in science, and 17 score above America in mathematics.

It isn't as though American students aren't scoring first-places anymore. A survey by the Princeton Testing Service shows that American students rank highest among industrialized democracies for amount of time spent watching videos in class.

See, Movies, Videos & TV in School Talk. It's not just that they watch more videos, it's that they watch Disney cartoons in 8th grade English class!

And William Moloney, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Education Leaders Council, writes that American students feel better about their math skills than any other country in the free world — while Korean students, who feel worst about their math skills, outscore everyone else in math.

American students are famously confident in their ignorance. See, e.g., this reply to an S-G AP social studies student wherein it was claimed that Thomas Jefferson was guilty of adultery. Since schools respect all opinions as being equal--except opinions which are forbidden--American students believe all they need is an opinion. Student: "My opinion is that 2+2=5." Teacher: "Good enough!" Fuzzy math is a nod to the opinion-is-education crowd.

More than 40 percent of recent Washington high-school graduates attending community college enrolled in remedial courses to prepare them for college-level work, according to the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a conservative research group in Olympia.

A public-school system that transfers responsibility for learning basic knowledge to higher education isn't giving taxpayers and parents a return for their money.

More damaging, the failure of schools to prepare students for their future hurts America economically, socially and intellectually.

Over the past century, public education has devolved from the classical approach of character plus basics (reading, writing, arithmetic, respect and responsibility), to skills, to psychological-social engineering.

See, generally, Social/Cultural Agendas in Public Schools. See, also, Bullying and Social Engineering.

Sadly, the experts have been too preoccupied with experimental education, diversity training, evolution instruction and sex education to realize that 68 percent of students are unprepared for a baccalaureate program.

Last year, for example, the Seattle Public Schools required hundreds of middle-school students to participate in a costly three-day-long "Challenge Day," which featured sensitivity seminars at which crying was encouraged and self-esteem was preached. One student called the seminars a "psycho cry-fest."

"More money!" the educrats scream from their offices in Olympia and Washington, D.C.

Yet, as long as money for experimental education is viewed as the only answer to failing students, schools will continue to disappoint.

Public education is an experiment. Like the space shuttle program, public educators have thought the system to be pretty good because we've gotten by. But the system isn't that good, it's just been enough--in the past. It's wholly inadequate for the present task of educating The 21st Century Student. Consider the applicability to public education of these statements from the Columbia Accident Investigation Board:

The Board recognized early on that the accident was probably not an anomalous, random event, but rather likely rooted to some degree in NASA's history and the human space flight program's culture. Accordingly, the Board broadened its mandate at the outset to include an investigation of a wide range of historical and organizational issues, including political and budgetary considerations, compromises, and changing priorities over the life of the Space Shuttle Program.

To understand the cause of the Columbia accident is to understand how a program promising reliability and cost efficiency resulted instead in a developmental vehicle that never achieved the fully operational status NASA and the nation accorded to it.

Although management treated the Shuttle as operational, it was in reality an experimental vehicle.

In our view, the NASA organizational culture had as much to do with this accident as the foam. Organizational culture refers to the basic values, norms, beliefs, and practices that characterize the functioning of an institution. At the most basic level, organizational culture defines the assumptions that employees make as they carry out their work. It is a powerful
force that can persist through reorganizations and the change of key personnel. It can be a positive or a negative force.

Cultural traits and organizational practices detrimental to safety and reliability were allowed to develop, including: reliance on past success as a substitute for sound engineering practices (such as testing to understand why systems were not performing in accordance with requirements/specifications); organizational barriers which prevented effective communication of critical safety information and stifled professional differences of opinion; lack of integrated management across program elements; and the evolution of an informal chain of command and decision-making processes that operated outside the organization's rules.

That, my friends, is as good an analogy to the problems with public schools as you will find.

Aristotle was correct: Students can learn and in fact want to learn. According to Moloney, "All children can learn because all children can work. No learning occurs without work, and no work occurs without learning."

The problem is that the public schools have minimized the value of work and maximized the tolerance of laziness.

That's true, but it doesn't go far enough. A core problem of public schools is that working hard and doing your best doesn't get you anywhere. There's no reward for the student, who sits in the same class, going at the same pace regardless of whether s/he is ready to move on. The public school system teaches kids to be lazy because they learn, sooner or later, that putting forth a minimum effort reaps all the rewards of putting forth maximum effort except for the absence of your name on the elitist honor roll.

Why should students work hard? It doesn't matter in the school environment. In fact, students who don't work hard are rewarded with tutoring, additional teachers and more attention. Students who come to school prepared to work and ready to move on are praised as "good students" but ignored! After a while, praise as a motivator diminishes. The only permanent motivators are self-discipline, responsibility, integrity and genuine accomplishment.

You want students to work hard? You have to give them a reason. And the best reason I can think of is, "The harder and faster you work, the more college you'll be able to finish before leaving high school." And then you have to let the students plow through the curriculum at a rate that demonstrates 85-90% competency on each and every element. Many students will finish the K-12 portion of their education in 8 to 10 years. Others will take 14 or 15 years. It really doesn't matter. What matters is that each student be given the opportunity to succeed to his/her fullest potential.

Controversy arose in the 1990s when the Bellevue, Federal Way and Everett school districts decided to abandon traditional report cards for "student-friendly course grading."

According to Dorothy Mollise and Charlotte Matthews, developmental-studies researchers at the University of Southern Alabama, student-friendly grading is good for grade-point averages and self-esteem, but it doesn't equate to better academics. Academic accountability is not enhanced when the incentive for students to work hard is destroyed.

Getting good grades has some impact on motivation, but not nearly enough. For more on grading policies, see Grades and Grading Policy.

The decline of the work ethic and character of students is the country's most significant academic plague.

I totally agree. A+ for arriving at the right answer. But, the answer, alone, is not good enough. You have to know why the answer is right.

Many scapegoat the culture, drugs, parents, sports, computers and entertainment alternatives. There is some impact from these but nothing that can't be compensated for within schools.

The biggest single factor contributing to the decline of the work ethic in public schools comes directly from the organizational culture and structure of public schools. The system creates laziness and bad habits as much if not more than it provides incentives for hard work and rigorous academic study. Just like NASA, the cause of poor academic outcomes is as much a function of the cultural traits of schools, organizational practices and reliance on past success as a substitute for rigorous academics as it is a function of the personal failures of students to have the traits of responsibility, self-discipline, integrity and strong work ethics.

Which leads me to make another observation about a current fad being sold as a means for improving education--parent involvement.

While it's true that students with involved parents tend to do better in school, parental involvement in schools is not the cause. The parents who are involved in schools tend to be those who value responsibility, self-discipline, integrity and a strong work ethic. It's the transmission of these values to their children that makes the difference, not their involvement in schools. Students with these kinds of parents would do well in school regardless of whether the parents chose to be involved with the schools or not. And that means increasing parental involvement in public schools will have no substantial impact on academic outcomes because involving parents who lack the personal traits or values that cause academic success does little more than add to their already busy schedules. The only kind of parental involvement that has a chance for improving academic outcomes is the kind that comes from making a choice in deciding which charter or private school to send their children to. Then parents have a vested interest in seeing that their decisions actually improve student learning. It's the motivation that comes from a desire to avoid failure.

A 2002 report by the Josephson Institute of Ethics, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit ethics-research organization, reveals that "cheating, stealing and lying by high-school students have continued their alarming, decade-long upward spiral." Seventy-four percent of students admitted to cheating on an exam in the past year and 63 percent admitted to lying to teachers at least twice in the past year.

See, Plagiarism & Cheating.

Students without character have no need for intellect. After all, if there are other ways to make the grade or complete the assignment without actually learning, why not take the shortcuts?

It is a school system managed largely on the rejection of character and academic basics that fails to produce world-class graduates.

Right. Right. Right.

Maintaining America's position as leader of the free world requires us to restore the work ethic and demand moral and educational excellence in our schools.

Not quite right. Schools must retool to create an environment in which a strong work ethic and academic excellence can germinate and thrive. Some schools are already doing it. See, e.g., High Standards, High Scores. Bottom line: Public schools produce exactly the kind of outcomes the system is designed to produce.

Hans Zeiger is a freshman at Hillsdale College in Michigan, an '03 Puyallup High School graduate and a freelancer for The Seattle Times NEXT page.

STUDENTS CONTRIBUTE IN BUDGET CRUNCH
By Nicole C. Wong / San Jose Mercury News found via Joanne Jacobs

Another brilliant idea from the professionals who invent education.

Palo Alto High's budget is so tight that Sonia Ferrandiz-Bodoff's German teacher offers three extra credit points to any student who brings a box of tissues to class. In Cupertino, science teacher Katheryn McElwee gives her Monta Vista High students five points for a roll of paper towels.

Even English teachers at Harker, a private school in San Jose that charges up to $21,000 a year tuition, have resorted to awarding extra points for school supplies.

``The teachers are pretty desperate, and so are we,'' said Sonia, a freshman.

With school budgets shriveling across the state, teachers are enticing students to help stock the supply shelves in exchange for extra credit. In some cases, the tissue-box bonus can bump a B-plus to an A-minus, but other teachers say it has almost no impact on a student's final grade. Either way, some education leaders say any credit for Kleenex undermines the grading system.

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``It's absurd,'' said Buzz Bartlett, president of the Council for Basic Education, a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group that advocates for high academic standards in public schools. It sends the message that ``grades are not a reflection of the quality of your schoolwork.''

The California Department of Education does not provide guidelines on awarding extra credit. And principals often don't know what teachers are rewarding with bonus points.

Some teachers add a point to a student's participation grade for bringing supplies. Others tack on five points to the final exam score. Many set limits on how much extra credit a student can earn. Teachers offer different explanations on how the extra credit can impact a student's final grade.

``If they are on the border, it might help them out,'' said Elizabeth Brimhall, a Palo Alto High science teacher who awards a maximum of five points extra credit for one box of tissue.

But Palo Alto High math teacher Ellie Slack said the five points she offers for tissue -- equivalent to one homework assignment in a class that rolls out about 90 assignments each semester -- is less than 0.5 percent of a student's grade. ``Basically,'' she said, ``you count it as zero.''

So, how ethical is it to entice students to give supplies to schools for something that appears to be something but is really nothing? If it really is nothing, then why offer it? If it is really something, then how ethical is it to increase grades for something having nothing to do with academic performance?

Teachers who offer the incentive say it's the easiest way to stock up on often overlooked school necessities -- items that teachers regularly whip out their own wallets to buy. One South Bay teacher says colleagues who don't offer extra points for supplies sometimes swipe tissue boxes from those who do.

Justice, at last! Those who refuse to manipulate students steal from those who do.

Having a steady supply of tissue on hand for students -- especially during the allergy and cold seasons -- is smart from an academic standpoint, teachers say.

``Then you don't have to excuse them from the room to get toilet paper from the bathroom,'' which could mean missing 10 minutes of class, said Slack, whose classes empty two tissue boxes a week.

Tissue has become so coveted at Palo Alto High that several teachers stash their stockpiles in locked cabinets. Students are just as protective. The side of each box displays the name and class period of the tissue-box donor -- written in large letters so the teacher remembers who deserves credit.

Tissue isn't the only item in short supply. But it often gets short shrift when a science department, for example, puts lab supplies at the top of its shopping list.

This year, Harker English teacher Mark Mitchell went with the extra-credit option for tissue. Before that, he resorted to another creative tactic.

``I used to steal them from the office,'' Mitchell admitted, thinking back a few years to when he taught at The King's Academy, a Sunnyvale private school.

Students often clamor for extra credit, so offering points for ponying up a box of Kleenex or Puffs is a simple way to quiet them down.

``In the honors classes, they fly in'' because those students chase after every single point, Palo Alto's Slack said.

And nobody thinks this is a problem, right?

I think I've just discovered the answer to NCLB. Low performing students just have to donate 100 boxes of tissues, more or less, and then all our public schools will shine! Every child will then have the test scores to prove s/he has not been left behind.

Honors student Kristy Iyama, a senior at Campbell's Westmont High School, jumps at every chance to bump her grades up a bit by bringing in tissue boxes.

``When you get the opportunity,'' said Kristy, 18, ``you definitely go for it.''

Kristy realized this arrangement can put poorer students at a disadvantage -- especially when teachers award more extra credit for expensive items, like markers for overhead projectors and dry-erase boards.

No problem. We'll just have the government create a food-stamp-like program for parents to purchase supplies for government schools. It makes perfect sense.

Monta Vista teacher McElwee, who often needs additional supplies for animal dissections in her biology and physiology classes, awards five extra-credit points for tissue and up to 15 extra-credit points for a box of latex gloves, which costs more.

But she also invites students to earn extra credit by writing two paragraphs on the importance of safety during a science experiment, ``in case there are kids who want the extra credit but don't have the money,'' she said.

``In six years of teaching, I've got to tell you I think I've read two to three of those papers -- total,'' McElwee said. It's probably easier for students to ``just raid their mom's pantry.''

Duh! You think? A major problem with public schools is that teachers have been working overtime thinking of ways to make it easier for students to do well. See, e.g., To Read or Not To Read: New Shakespeare translations are the question.

By Denise Dub, Boston Globe Correspondent

• More Flags of the Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Community

Some Bedford parents are seeing red over a rainbow flag at the John Glenn Middle School and submitted a petition Tuesday to the superintendent to have it removed. School administrators are refusing, saying the flag is a symbol of tolerance. A symbol of tolerance? I hardly think so. Does the flag represent tolerance of pedophilia, bigamy, bigotry, racism, slavery, polyandry, polygyny, obscenity, offensive speech, bullying, religious fanaticism, intelligent design or intolerance of zero-tolerance? Not at all. "Tolerance" is little more than a euphemism for gay-rights.

In November the school administration sent a letter to parents about a Day of Respect at the school on Nov. 24, saying the event was ''designed to foster a deeper understanding of differences in our community, our country, and our world." The letter said the school would hang flags representing the countries that students and their ancestors came from and asked for donations to pay for the flags.

In January the rainbow flag, which represents gay pride, was hung among 64 others. Now some parents object to the fact that the letter never mentioned any flags other than those representing countries or ethnicities.

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''What country is that?" Pam Clare said she asked at a Feb. 25 middle school council meeting, speaking of the rainbow flag.

She said she and others are annoyed by the process, the lack of communication, and the flag's connection to the controversy over same-sex marriage.

''There is no separating it from a political agenda," Clare said. ''This is a flag that is promoting a sexual orientation or that stands for homosexual, bisexual, transgender lifestyle."

About 200 residents have signed the petition that parents Gail Valbona and Lynne Hickox started circulating last week, Valbona said.

Parents and educators are divided over the flag's meaning and whether it is appropriate for middle school children.

''All of a sudden we've got something up that is about sexual orientation," said Clare.

Superintendent Maureen LaCroix disagrees.

''It's about the kids," she said. ''This flag is there as a symbol of tolerance and respect for children who are or believe they might be gay.

Would the school permit the flying of a flag as a symbol of tolerance and respect for children who are or believe they might become pedophiles? Will people from every category or classification of unpopular behavior or status be permitted to fly flags to promote tolerance of their causes? I don't think so. By permitting the flag to be flown without permitting all similar flags to be flown, the school is making a political statement of approval for gay-rights.

''At this age children question their identity," LaCroix said of the ongoing diversity program. ''We have to be clear to them they are OK as they go through this questioning process."

Oh. And flying a flag helps them to get clear. Right.

For LaCroix and others, the flag also represents safety. According to the town's Youth Risk Survey, released a few months ago, 10 percent of seventh-graders attempted suicide over the last year. Students who think they may be gay or bisexual are five times more likely to attempt suicide, according to the report and Bedford's Youth and Family Services prevention coordinator, Maureen Richichi.

Flying the gay-pride flag reduces suicide. Right.

I note the Youth Risk Survey does not inquire about one's sexual orientation.

Clare wonders how an 11-year-old would question his or her sexuality. ''They claim there are a few," she said, but ''this is a minute minority."

Timothy Dugan, a child psychologist in Lexington, said the flag's presence is ''indicative of an open, questioning environment."

Middle-school students are thinking about sex, said Dugan, a senior consultant in education at Cambridge Hospital's adolescent psychiatry division and a Harvard professor. ''At that age they might not be expressing it, but they are certainly contemplating and thinking about whether they would have a family or not."

I'm glad this issue has been raised. Many times schools say they have to teach kids the right behavior. Think character education. But, apparently when it comes to sex, it's more important to be open and questioning rather than prescriptive.

Who made that rule? Is it right? Why is it right?

In my opinion, a proper education requires the objective examination and evaluation of multiple viewpoints. However, gay-pride is as much about censoring some viewpoints as it is an examination of an alternative viewpoint.

Want to say gayness is more about choice than genetics? That as a choice, it is abnormal if not unnatural? That it's an illness that should be treated, not a lifestyle that should be promoted? That gay feelings should be resisted, not validated. That only heterosexuals should be married? Good luck! These thoughts are inappropriate and their expression will result in punishment. Neither gay-pride nor gay-pride flags symbolize an "open, questioning environment." It's hooey. What they do symbolize is intolerance for those who disagree with them.

* * *

''There is this notion that flag doesn't belong in the school. They keep saying this is around sexuality," Waldron said. ''This is about children who are already struggling within themselves. If there is one small thing that can validate what they are feeling, even if they don't understand it completely, then I think we absolutely have to have the symbol there."

Where's the flag for fat kids. And kids who feel they have a right to super-sized fries? Shouldn't their feelings be validated?

How about ugly kids? There's a lot more ugly kids than there are gay kids. Where's the flag for ugliness?

And while I'm thinking about it, being beautiful isn't always a cakewalk either. Where's the flag for the beautiful? After all, people can't help the way they look.

And one more thing. How about a flag for the heterosexuals? Surely they must feel their sexual orientation is somehow less worthy of validation.

How many flags is this school going to fly for all the feelings that need validating?

Valbona said she is not judging anyone's preferences.

''They claim there are 20 students in that school who say they are gay," she said. ''Twenty out of 600 [enrolled]. Is that truly the number one issue? Is this an effective way to teach tolerance by hanging a flag?"

Clare and Valbona say they wish the school had thought to notify them before hanging the flag and say parents had a right to know.

''They assume if you are complaining, you are not open," she said. ''I don't care if people are gay. I believe everyone's sexuality is a private issue."

Absolutely right! As if government schools are doing such a great job with reading, writing, math, science and social studies that they have the time to delve into issues of sexual orientation in middle school.

She also believes it is an issue best discussed at home, where each family maintains its own belief system.

''Do I want the school promoting something that I don't even know they are ready for? If it's not the way I teach it, then it's in direct conflict," Valbona said.

Valbona approached Assistant Superintendent Vicki Simms with her concerns and was told the flag represented the oppressed.

''Who's oppressed in Sweden?" Valbona said. ''Who is representing the kids who are fat, the learning disabled? Where are the other repressed groups?"

She and others suggested compromises, including using the Bedford Diversity sign that also sports a small rainbow and hangs at places around town.

Middle school principal Thomas Campbell has already made three compromises after hearing complaints. The flag, donated by one of the teachers, was much larger than the others and was reduced to match their size. It has been moved from the entrance to another location, and the plaque, which originally read ''Gay Pride" now says simply ''Freedom."

''We really did try to listen," Campbell said of the changes. ''My position is we are not teaching sexuality. We are not supporting homosexuality. We are saying our school needs to be safe place for everybody."

That's not what you're saying and you know it. You're saying that schools can't be unsafe for gays and other groups, classifications or categories of students of which you approve. For those of which you don't approve--religion, for example--statements or behavior are either censored, labeled as disruptive to the learning environment, or removed from the school environment. See, e.g., A dissenting student hounded for his views.

Munson Elementary changing tactics on proficiency tests
By TONYA SHIPLEY / Zanesville (OH) Times Recorder Staff Writer

This is an excellent overview of what is happening in education--and what's wrong with it.

ZANESVILLE -- There is a positive belief in the halls of Munson Elementary School that this year will be different.

The students, teachers and the administration believe this year their school will do better on the proficiency tests.

First problem: The goal is to improve learning, skills and knowledge. Those improvements should show up in properly written proficiency tests as higher scores. But educators are short circuiting the process, as demonstrated below, by going for improvements in scores.

Example: The goal of an unborn chick is to get out of the egg. The chick pecks away at the egg, getting stronger in the process. If someone decides to help the chick by breaking the shell open so the chick can get out sooner without doing the work needed to build strength, the chick dies soon after birth. It's not just accomplishing the objective that matters, it's also the process and the journey--like taking the scenic route instead of an interstate highway. You have to have theories of learning, learning styles and motivational styles, with a strong curriculum incorporating core learning standands, and follow that route. (See, also, Funderstanding).

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Testing began Wednesday and will continue until the final test is given on Tuesday, March 18. This year the whole school has become more targeted on the tests since the school, along with McKinley Elementary School, was among 161 Ohio schools which failed to meet federal achievement requirements based on the No Child Left Behind Act.

Second problem: Test preparation. If there is one thing students are experts at, it's taking tests. They take hundreds of them. Some school districts spend a month or more preparing for state tests. It's inconsistent with sound teaching practices. Tests measure educational progress, they don't create it.

"It's been a real intensive effort to get ready for the test," Principal Bob Grayson said.

The process by which the school prepares students for testing has changed in an effort to improve scores.

Some of the changes are:

• Developing a list of students ranking them into groups of who passed the tests, those who almost passed the test, and those who did very poorly.
Grayson said a students who were in the group of almost passing, were highly targeted to get them over the margin into passing, while intervention tactics were used with the group which tested poorly.

Third problem: Teachers are using standards not to raise all boats, but to concentrate on marginal students. Students who "naturally" score in the passing range are essentially ignored. Minimal, if any effort, is expended in moving them into the "exceeds standards" range. There's no payoff for teachers or school districts. This is not the widely derided practice of teaching to the middle, this is teaching to the bottom.

Scotia-Glenville is solidly in this mode. At the December 16 S-G Board meeting, BOCES Data Analyst Kathleen Maxwell told the staff to focus on the "almost passing" students.

"We don't care if [students] get a high pass. If they're just at the cutoff, that's all we care about," Kathleen said.

From the school's perspective and goal of creating politically acceptable results on state tests, even if it is on a bogus performance index, Kathleen is right. But what about academic excellence? Shouldn't schools be just as concerned with moving students from passing to exceptional performance?

They aren't. If students pass state tests, that's the standard, regardless of their potential to do better, and regardless of the consequences for later learning, notably, the lowering of effort, doing enough to get by, and the failure to adopt and exercise a focused academic discipline to excel. It's all being lost because the students can sense, if they don't know it already, there is almost no reward for doing the work to get into the "high pass" category of exceptional performance. It is not unlikely that this approach to learning and concentration on the marginal students makes it more difficult for students to pass state exams.

• The school does off-year testing in grades first, second, third and fifth to assist them in listing the students.

Scotia-Glenville does this, too, with Terra Nova testing. The idea is to detect weaknesses in student learning and fix them before state exams. The Terra Nova closely tracks NY's state exams.

This is the Fourth Problem: No single test can tell you what the problems or weaknesses are with a particular student's learning. From listening to teachers, they tend to over-specify the learning problems based on the most recent test result. It doesn't work. Tests like the Terra Nova, although labeled as student assessments, are really teacher and curriculum assessments. The most valid use of these tests is the cumulative average of the students in a class or school to discover gaps in the curriculum or teacher effectiveness. Former S-G Director of Curriculum had it exactly backwards when she said, "Terra Novas should never be used as a measure of Scotia-Glenville--they are diagnostic tests for students."

Even BOCES analyst Kathleen Maxwell implicitly acknowledged the problems of using test results to evaluate student weaknesses when she said that state exams are like taking a student's temperature on one day. You can't take a patient's temperature on one day and know what treatment to pursue for the rest of the year.

Why not? Part of the reason is the Terra Nova and state exams aren't that precise because they often ask only one question pertaining to a skill or specific learning standard. You can't know from one or two questions whether a student needs to spend a little, a lot, or no additional time in mastering the standard. The student may have missed the question because of vocabulary, a reading problem, carelessness, confusion with an earlier question, a temporary distraction, fatigue, or any number of other problems that would make it foolish to take off on a course of remediation based on the content or standard the question purportedly measured.

Despite Kathleen's statement that you can't know what you should do to help a student based on a single test result, the S-G school board repeatedly complained that teachers do not provide parents with enough specific information about how their children are performing on Terra Novas so they can know how to help them. Board member Margaret Smith, a teacher by training, seemed least capable of all of understanding what Kathleen told them. She repeatedly asked questions that demonstrated she believed that if she knew what questions her children missed she would know how to help them. It's not that easy.

In general, when using the Terra Nova test, the most a parent or educator can hope to learn from a series of three or more tests is something about strengths and weaknesses in broad subject or skill areas, and the student's rate of learning, both compared to the student's past rate of learning and compared to students nationally. Beyond that, the attempt to extract more specific information is just as likely to detract a student from more profitable learning experiences as it is to fix a problem.

It's true, I relied on IOWA scores to detect and fix problems with my daughter's math performance. But, I used a series of data over 3 to 6 years, not to diagnose specific math problems, but to evaluate the rate of her general progress in math relative to her demonstrated ability to achieve, both in math and English, and relative to the achievement of other students, nationally. I did not teach to the test. I used comprehensive math texts from Saxon Publishers, and I taught all the material, cover to cover--about 40 hours per text, including "homework" and tests. (Public schools take at least 120 hours in class plus homework to cover between 70 and 85% of a year's math). In other words, I taught to the standards that are rich and challenging, and I let the tests take care of themselves.

Moreover, I did not analyze the test or specific problems. It was unnecessary. I could tell from her performance on practice problems and unit tests where she needed help. Which brings up an important point--the results on standardized practice and state exams don't reveal anything about the student's weaknesses that the classroom teacher shouldn't already know from grading the student's homework and tests, provided the teacher has integrated the content and skills of state standards into the curriculum.

• The school purchased several published programs which are aligned with the proficiency test outcomes and state standards.

Ditto, S-G. I call it teaching by the numbers, like painting by the numbers. At the end, you get a picture, but students are no better educated by the process than they are better artists. Take away the numbers and the outline and students are lost, in both education and art.

• Downloaded several of the previous proficiency tests and used those as practice tests.

Drill and kill. This is not education. The time would be more productively spent working through a rich and challenging curriculum.

• The Ohio Department of Education provided practice books.

NY recently released access to multiple choice questions from prior exams. Doubtless, scores will increase, especially if the content and format of questions does not substantially change from year to year, but I doubt learning will.

• Extended day program and summer school.

One of the problems students had with the tests were the extended answer questions. These types of questions aren't just asking for an answer, but for the process the students went through to get the answer.

These questions offer multiple points depending on how much of the question a student completed correctly, but Grayson said students didn't know how to go through the logic steps to answer them. Now the teachers are working on working the steps of problems with the students.

This kind of work should be integrated with the curriculum. What I've seen happening at S-G is that teachers pretty much teach the way they always have, making the same kinds of assignments and tests, and then spending a couple of weeks on the special skills needed for state exams. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The DBQs, structured answers, and other skills and content need to be sprinkled in throughout the course to provide repeated practice over a long period. Cramming for the exam is not only bad and ineffective practice, it also teaches students they can succeed by adopting this bad habit.

The way the school thinks about the tests is changing, too.

"We feel that to improve scores in our building it's a K-6 responsibility," Grayson said.

That much is true. It's consistent with learning theories. Avoiding problems achieving excellence in the 6th grade requires the execution of a plan that starts in kindergarten.

By doing the off-year testing all students are taking tests at the same time.

Mark Burrier, a sixth grade teacher, noticed a change in attitude among the students and the school. He said the students are given two and half hours to do each test and most of the students use all that time, often checking their work to make sure they are doing it right.

"These kids are working their hearts out. They want to do their best," Burrier said.

So far the students feel good about their tests.

"It's kind of easy. It's really simple if you think about the questions," said Kymm Chandler, 12, a sixth grader.

Out of the mouths of babes. . . The truth is the learning standards aren't that tough. They can't be and have everyone pass them. For example, S-G's special education students are scoring as "almost passing"--high level 2--even though, by definition, they are at least 1.5 years behind general education students. State exams and learning standards are only capable of preventing schools from graduating students with the deplorable reading, writing and math skills of the '80s and '90s. They are not capable of producing academic excellence. None-the-less, they are a necessary evil in today's professional-controlled public schools. At least all students graduate knowing something, being capable of performing at a moderate degree of competence. But academic excellence is now governed more by game theory, and the pursuit of passing scores, than by sound education practices. In my opinion, that's because a majority of today's teachers weren't all that good at learning when they were in school and college.

Education is still a long way away from being able to teach The 21st Century Student.

* * * *

By Walter F. Naedele and Susan Snyder / Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writers

The superintendent of the Quakertown Community School District, [James R. Scanlon], told a Senate hearing in Washington yesterday that the 2002 No Child Left Behind Act had been "destructive" to the children of Pennsylvania.

* * *

Scanlon told the subcommittee yesterday that he was speaking for his 137 colleagues; together, they represent more than a fourth of the state's 500 districts, with more than a third of the state's 1.8 million students.

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At their meeting in Norristown, the educators said the federal law costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to implement, places too much priority on testing, and sets unrealistic goals for students to meet. They called for better funding and asked that special-education students be exempt from taking the mandated tests and that testing of students with limited English skills be delayed.

The law doesn't place too much emphasis on testing. Educators do. The tests are a proxy for the quality of the curriculum, the quality of teaching and student mastery of core skills without which becoming a well-educated person is highly unlikely.

When doctors treat patients, they don't ask themselves, "What treatment strategy will produce the best lab results?" They ask, "What approach, within the context of the patient's abilities and desires, will optimize the patient's goals for feeling better?" The lab tests provide objective data to evaluate the patient's condition and the effectiveness of the treatment undertaken. They also help doctors to avoid the creation of conditions detrimental to the patient's health. Tests aren't the goal. They provide important information relative to reaching the goal.

The complaint about having unrealistic goals is nothing more than whining. It is clearly unrealistic to expect to win every football game. That doesn't prevent teams taking the field with the intention and goal of winning each game.

The goal of being able to walk after a serious accident may be unrealistic, but having a positive attitude and striving to reach the goal may produce better results than never trying at all.

NCLB's goal of having every child pass state-set standards exams by 2014 may or may not be unrealistic depending on how high the bar is set by states. Assuming the bar is set high enough to be meaningful, making it impossible for some students to reach it, having the goal is essential to create a level of angst sufficient to overcome Shangri-La complacency, bionic orthodoxy and Cerberean defiance of change by government school workers.

Moreover, educators have broad discretion to interpret, define and disseminate rules, regulations, data and results. Ever mindful of public image and their noble cause, many are prone to sanitize any process or information that may reflect badly on themselves or public schools. The more unrealistic the goal, the more difficult it is for educators to control all the factors necessary to create an illusion of success and avoid accountability through public and political pressure. And even that is not enough because the system is so amorphous that educators can take diametrically opposed goals--No Child Left Behind and Every Child Left Behind--, change nothing and create the appearance that both goals are being equally and successfully achieved!

Quite predictably, Scanlon and his friends are more interested in reducing angst by changing the law rather than by working to achieve the goals. Economic theory suggests people should engage in the practices where they have a competitive advantage. Relative to improving academic outcomes, the competitive advantage of educators lies in political power rather than education power. It's simply easier--more efficient and effective--to change the law than work toward the desired results.

In effect, Scanlon is saying, "We'll do better. You need to trust us, assume you will get what you want and eliminate the pressure. It accomplishes nothing."

Ironically, Scanlon is right for two reasons--one minor and the other compelling. Educators have chosen to let NCLB divert their attention from education to politics. It consumes time and resources in ways having no benefits for students. That's minor.

The compelling truth, however, is that the public school system of delivering education services produces precisely the kind of outcomes it is designed to produce. NCLB is an endeavor to make the current education delivery system produce significantly better results. It's futile. No matter how much you beat, feed, pamper or genetically enhance a horse, it can never improve crop production with a 10th of the effectiveness of a tractor. The biggest impediment to improving education is the system and a passionate devotion to our warm, loyal and faithful horse. The powerful tractor of educating The 21st Century Student simply isn't as cute or lovable. It redefines what it means to be a teacher in ways most educators fail to appreciate, if not fear and despise.

* * *

After hearing the testimony, Specter said the law was sound but needed modifications. Special-education students and students with limited English proficiency should not be held to the same standards. "We need more flexibility," he said.

The hearing comes as the subcommittee considers the proposed 2004-05 budget funding for No Child Left Behind. The Bush administration has asked for $24.7 billion, an increase of 1.9 percent, or $463 million.

Specter said he thought the increase was reasonable.

James R. Weaver, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, testified yesterday that No Child Left Behind was "fundamentally flawed and fundamentally wrong."

Weaver told the subcommittee, in prepared remarks: "I have had teachers tell me the pressure on schools to meet Adequate Yearly Progress [a No Child Left Behind requirement] in math and reading is so strong that they are forced to abandon teaching anything other than what is to be tested."

But Paul Vallas, chief executive officer of the Philadelphia School District, testified that the law rightly aims at closing the achievement gap between majority and minority groups.

And, he said, it sets high expectations for all students.

"Sure, it's not perfect," Vallas said after testifying. But "we've been crying for a larger role from the federal government in education.

"Now we've got it. Let's make it work."

* * * *

Resource: Evaluating Schools: Verbal Judo Section

The following article appears at Education Week. It is a perfect example of how some educators use language as a defensive weapon. The game is all about delay. Teachers and administrators know if they can just get to the next grading period, or the next break, or the next vacation, 99% of the issues die because it's too late to do anything about it.

It can take weeks to get to the truth of even simple issues. (See, e.g., On Drug Dogs and getting the truth from administrators). By that time, your 30-day time limit to appeal to the Education Commissioner has expired.

Can you imagine going to a professional, say a dentist, with a tooth ache, and having to listen to the dentist tell you not to suck on ice or chew gum or eat sweets, all while (s)he withholds the remedy to fix the problem?

There are some straight shooters in education. For others, you need to know how educators use language to disrespect parents. It may not sound disrespectful, but answers that are less than fully truthful and accurate, and answers that are evasive, are disrespectful no matter how polite they may sound.

Add, "You're not being balanced" to the list.

Edu-Speak
By Daniel Wolff

In the constantly shifting, highly verbal world of public education, parents are at a distinct disadvantage. As soon as your child enters kindergarten, you recognize that the people in the school buildings speak a different language. By your first teacher's conference, you may recognize that they're talking about your child, but, between the abbreviations (CAT tests) and the technical terms ("decoding skills"), you begin to doubt your ... well, your own decoding skills.

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For the last decade, I've been involved in a grassroots community group in New York state, Nyack Partners in Education, or PIE, organized as an alternative to the local PTA. We've raised issues the traditional parent groups have avoided— from racial inequities in the school system to questionable hiring practices to ineffective reading instruction. Over the years, we've learned that the only way to discuss educational issues is first to translate them out of edu-speak into English (and, in our district, Haitian, Creole, and Spanish).

What follows is a brief overview of some common edu-speak phrases: what they mean and when you'll hear them. Universal as these may be, demographics do affect the specifics, so let me briefly say that ours is a well-funded suburban district with a diverse student population. Around 35 percent of our students are of color—African-American, Haitian-American, Hispanic, and Asian—and district parents range from multimillionaire investment bankers to single mothers in subsidized housing. But everyone has heard the following expressions:

"All children can learn."

School board candidates, superintendents, education reformers, visiting politicians: Who doesn't use this one? Its most common application is as a soothing verbal ointment, as in: "Our dedicated administration believes that all children can learn." Note what it does not say—that all children may learn. That permission is considerably harder to come by, especially in a system that separates children by perceived ability, tracking them into what edu-speak sometimes calls "less advanced classes." As a parent, when you hear "All children can learn," you can safely assume that some children aren't—with explanations to follow.

"Parents are welcome in the building."

Variations on this phrase include "Parents must be involved in quality education" and "Community outreach is essential." Building principals often use this one. On a day-to-day basis, you'll soon learn that it really means: "Some parents are welcome in some buildings some of the time." For example, parents are welcome in the building to Xerox worksheets for teachers. And parents are welcome in the building for the traditional cookie- bake fund-raiser. But when PIE, our Nyack group, organized 30 volunteers to read aloud to children, they were not welcome. The program was arranged with the principal and teachers through the shared-decisionmaking team. But once district employees realized this meant parents would be inside—with a chance to see how the school worked—the program was nixed. I don't believe ours is the only district with a tendency to see parents as spies. In another case, a parent volunteered three days a week to work with 1st graders. But after half a year, someone filed a grievance with the superintendent on the grounds that this practice might potentially threaten a teaching assistant's job. Parents are welcome in the building—but not for too long.

I note that in other states, schools really do let parents and the community visit classrooms, even without prior appointments! When they say, "Come in any time," they mean it. Of course, they have nothing to hide.

"We know how children learn."

This one mostly comes from academics and education reformers. Often, it's followed by, "as the literature shows," or "best practices prove." The "literature" is what's printed in trade and academic journals; "best practices" are what that literature says are working. Almost no parents get to read this information (or could understand it if they did).

The implication is that teaching is neither a craft nor an art, but a science—comprehensible to experts only. Ten years ago, "we knew" that children learned to read by using whole language. Our district, for example, declared that if children were surrounded with good books and were read to regularly, they would learn to decipher. But when PIE offered a writing workshop to underachieving 8th graders, we discovered that most of these students (1) could barely read and (2) were from low-income families. Which left us wondering if whole language only worked with children from the district's wealthier, better-educated families. Now, as the pendulum swings, "we know" that some children need the old sound-out-the-words, learn-the-rules approach. The conclusions may vary, but the meaning stays the same: "We know" and you, as a parent, don't.

"Change comes from the top."

This phrase is used as common currency within the school system, where blame tends to be shifted constantly upward with the dazzling speed of Jack's beanstalk. Say you discover, as we did, that the plan for shared decisionmaking so weighted the committee toward district employees and so limited what the committee could discuss that it was, by definition, a waste of time. First, you go to the principal, who explains that he agrees with you, but that he's just doing what the assistant superintendent told him to do. The assistant superintendent says she agrees with you and refers you to her boss, who sends you to a school board meeting. There, your elected representatives explain that they, too, agree with you, but this is how the state designed the plan. As a dutiful (if weary) parent, you write the state commissioner of education, sending a copy to the school administration. This earns you a blistering letter from the assistant superintendent: How dare you expose the district's dirty linen? A few months later, you get a very sympathetic response from the commissioner. He agrees with you. When you call his office to ask what you should do, an assistant tells you to talk with your school board and adds, "Let's face it, change comes from the top." (As parents, we now translate "shared decisionmaking" as "We, the administration will make the decision and then share it with you.")

A list of edu-speak phrases could, of course, go on a very long time. "We have to improve our communication skills" is a favorite among administrators. When it turns out there's no publicity for a meeting on how children get into advanced classes—or when the $5,000 raise for the director of special education is passed in private—the district will say it has to improve its communications skills. A good rule of thumb for parents is to assume that when you hear this phrase, you've stumbled on a secret.

"The key is teacher training" means that there's nothing anyone can do about tenure: The district is stuck with a certain amount of tired educators. Even when training is implemented, it often isn't the "key." For example, after a lengthy and bitter public debate about the achievement gap between white children and children of color, our district instituted anti-racism workshops. Staff members, parents, and others from the community attended, and the training was first-rate. The trouble was that there were no follow-ups on how to implement what had been learned—or even scheduled times for discussion groups. If this training was the "key," it was never tried in the lock.

Then there's "individualized learning," which means each child ought to be taught in the way he or she learns best. This is a "best practice," but no teacher with 20 or 30 children in class can realistically implement such an approach.

"The solution to public education is simple: money." That translates into: "Pay for small class size, and I'll give you individualized instruction." (Or, "We're doing the right thing; we just need to do it more intensely.") In our district, we spend an astonishing $14,000 per student; our teachers' average salary is $70,000; and our middle school test scores were so low the state demanded an improvement plan.

Finally, there's "We agree with your goals but not your methods." PIE has heard this one a lot, especially after the district's racial achievement gap appeared in a front-page story in The New York Times. The district responded by agreeing that all children can learn. If it had given any other impression, it had to improve its communications skills. What's more, with enough money put into teacher training, the district could start the kind of top-down change that would provide individualized training. Which is, we know, how children learn. Oh, and the district welcomed parents to help work on this solution.

So, what was wrong with our methods? After years of frustration, we had gone public with issues about public education. We had, literally, spoken out of school—instead of sticking to the private language of edu-speak.

Daniel Wolff is a parent of two and has been involved in educational reform for more than a decade. He lives in Nyack, N.Y.