Friday, May 28, 2004

NY Teacher Salaries #1: Exceed national average by 34%  

NEA 2004 Annual Report
NEA PRESS RELEASE

The NEA has issued its annual report on teacher salaries and other school-related statistics.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Teachers' Unions & Salaries
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Among its findings:

National

State


First: THE TRUTH ABOUT NY TEACHER SALARIES


The data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics can be found here.

AVERAGE TEACHER SALARIES: TOP 5 STATES
State NEA Avg. 2002-03 Salary NEA Rank Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2003 BLS Rank
California $56,283 1 $55,500 3
Connecticu $55,367 2 $55,030 4
New Jersey $54,158 3 $56,560 2
Michigan $53,563 4 $50,510 5
New York $53,017 5 $61,420 1

The BLS number is the highest average salary earned
by teachers in one of four groups: kindergarten, elementary,
middle school or high school.

Now, I ask you, who are you going to believe is accurately reporting New York's average teacher salaries, the NEA or the BLS?

The use of NY's median teacher salary rather than the average is an outright, intentional deception by the NEA designed to perpetuate the myth of the poor teachers in NY.

Compared to the $45,891 national average teacher salary reported by the NEA, according to BLS data, NY teachers earn average salaries (excluding benefits) that exceed the national average by $15,500 or 33.8%!

Second: Students per teacher


New York has an average of 12.6 students per teacher. Only two states have a lower student/teacher ratio. The national average is 15.7.

So, with more teachers for students than almost every other state, the highest teacher salaries and the highest spending per pupil, how does New York do on The Nation's Report Card? About average. Money is not NY's problem, despite what the Court of Appeals & CFE says. This state is being bullied by institutionalized bandits.

What are we getting for our money? The only thing we are getting for certain is more powerful teachers unions who want more money for their members. See, e.g., TEACHERS UNION COURTS ALBANY $$.

Third: The NEA Press Release


Before leaving this topic, consider what the NEA said in its press release.
Investments in public schools are not keeping pace with the needs of our children, according to an education funding report released today by the National Education Association (NEA).

[A]nnual school revenues and spending are stagnant.

That's what it said. Did you see the numbers, above? Per-pupil spending is up 4.6% for 2002-03 and 3.6% for 2003-04. That's what the NEA calls "stagnant."

These people simply can't be trusted. Yet, the national media will mindlessly quote from the NEA report despite its biased self-interests. It's ridiculous.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 2:14 AM

Thursday, May 27, 2004

Good Teachers + Small Classes = Quality Education  

By MICHAEL WINERIP / New York Times

The secret to quality public education has never been a big mystery. You need good teachers and you need small enough classes so those teachers can do their work. Period.

Period. Good teachers and small enough classes are sufficient to produce the education quality required for 19th and 20th century jobs. They are wholly inadequate for meeting the needs of 21st century jobs and The 21st Century Student. It is simply impossible to replicate 3 million teachers like those currently performing in the top 5%. It can't be done. And even if it could be done, lots of time is wasted in classrooms, from teacher-initiated distractions, to student-initiated distractions. Lots of time is wasted repeating materials for slower students and waiting on slower students to finish tests. Lots of time of slower students is wasted in repeating grades and attending summer school. See, also, The root cause of education mediocrity and A contributing cause of education mediocrity.

The whole system is a horse. Getting the best horse you can will only get you so far. The major obstacle to dramatically improved education outcomes is the system itself. The system produces precisely the results it is designed to produce and doubling our investment in it has produced only trivial improvements in outcomes. See, e.g., Industrial-age assumptions about schools.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Class Size
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

After that, everything seems to pale, including the testing accountability programs, technology, building conditions. Even curriculum seems secondary, as our best public colleges demonstrate. We have West Point and we have Berkeley, and the question isn't which has the correct curriculum; the question is which curriculum is the best fit for the student and teacher.

Wrong, again. The question is which curriculum is the best fit for the student. Period. With computer-delivered instruction, the curriculum can be offered in many equivalent varieties. Working with a teacher-as-coach-and-counselor, students can find the lessons that work best for them.

Notice the impossibility of the the author's suggestion. Once the curriculum has to fit both the teacher and each student in the class, it is obvious that it will fit no one!

Parents get this. Joe Gipson, a black parent from Sacramento who feels that black students are too often shortchanged, told me the best thing that happened to his children's school was the California law capping class size at 20 through third grade. You can still have incompetent teachers, he said, but with small classes you can spot them faster and weed them out.

Reduced class sizes is an extremely expensive feel-good initiative that produces moderate improvements in learning for some kinds of kids while doing extremely little, if anything, to improve the learning of the majority of kids. The only guaranteed benefit of smaller classes is reduced teacher workload. Consequently, smaller class sizes is more a teacher quality of worklife issue than it is an academic issue. See, e.g., The Truth About Class Size and Reform Blockers.

Good teachers and small classes. Those were the two main factors New York's highest court cited last year when it ruled that the state had financially shortchanged New York City schools.

Garbage in. Garbage out. That's why the court made the findings it did. The only evidence introduced was that the earth is flat. Consequently, the court found the earth to be flat.

The state must provide more money, the court ruled, so the city can afford to attract more good teachers and improve classroom conditions, particularly reducing class size.

Michael Rebell, the lead lawyer for the Campaign for Fiscal Equity, which brought the suit on behalf of the city's poor children, says that research has shown it's hard to attract the best teachers until you have good working conditions. And the crucial element for good working conditions? "Small class size," he says.

See. It's a teacher quality of worklife issue.

The answer to this endeavor to create leisurely jobs for teachers is to end classroom instruction except for the students who thrive by it and except where necessary, like for science labs, art classes, music classes, etc. Let Britney Spears deliver teacher-designed lessons over the Internet.

What should teachers be doing?

The should be writing lessons from a variety of approaches using psychological and learning theories. Their lessons would be delivered via computer to students. Teachers would monitor things like time needed to learn the materials and memory retention. In a circle of rewriting and monitoring, teachers would fine tune lessons to produce maximum learning in the minimal time with the greatest memory retention.

In addition, teachers would be running one or two small-group discussions or seminars daily. They would also be responsible for coaching and counseling a group of students to make sure they stay on track. Students would be able to contact a teacher 18 hours a day via audio/video link or instant message when they need assistance. Teachers would work year-round. Most grading would be done by computer, providing students with instantaneous feedback.

Teachers would not be preparing daily lesson plans. They would not be wasting time with classroom management or filling out report cards. They would actually be professionals.

Grades would be extinct because quality would be a constant. Every student must master each lesson before moving on to the next lesson. Rather than grades, students would see how much progress they have made relative to checkpoints roughly equivalent to grade levels. For example, a student might be at level 3.5 in English, 4.2 in math and 2.7 in science.

In the original 2001 trial court opinion, Judge Leland DeGrasse put it succinctly: "The advantages of small classes are clear. A teacher in a small class has more time to spend with each student. Fewer students mean fewer administrative tasks for each teacher. Student discipline and student engagement in the learning process improve in smaller classes."

Garbage in. Garbage out. The judge states the theory, but the practice is quite different, for a variety of reasons well-known to teachers.

There were 72 witnesses and 4,300 exhibits for the trial, but as Leonie Haimson, a parent advocate, says, the most important piece of evidence may have been a single table showing how much larger classes are in New York City than the rest of the state. In middle school - when so many children are lost - city classes averaged 28 versus 21 statewide.

Class size really doesn't matter for high performing students--those in the top half of the class. They can learn the material in class sizes of 10 or 50. Reducing class sizes for all students for the benefit of about one-third of them is a terrible solution. The practical effect is to force better learners to consume education resources in ways that don't benefit them. It deprives them of the courses and opportunities they need because all the money is spent reducing class sizes. No right-thinking educator would force students to make these kind of trade-offs but for the self-serving benefit of having less work to do.

Academic studies show small class size carries many benefits, even mitigating racial problems that interfere with learning. A recent study by Tom Dee, a Swarthmore professor, in "The Review of Economics and Statistics" concluded that both white and black children achieved more when they were taught by teachers of their own race. This is bad news for black children since the vast majority of teachers, even in big cities, are white and the vast majority of urban children - 85 percent in New York City - are minority.

Did you see that! Read the paragraph again. The topic sentence is about the benefits of smaller class sizes. Without any amplification, the author completely shifts the topic and talks about a study concerning the race of teachers! That ought to be a huge red flag to readers that perhaps class size reduction isn't all it's trumped up to be. See, e.g., The costly myth of small classes.

But there is a hopeful exception. If classes are small, Dr. Dee found, black children do equally well with a white or black teacher. "It may be because there's more personal interaction, less chance for stereotyping," Dr. Dee said.

To make this point the author should have created a topic sentence something like, "Small class sizes appear to improve learning between students and teachers of different races."

I take the "hopeful" part to mean "more study is needed."

Market forces tell us that small class size is worth a lot. Well-to-do parents pay for private schools with good teachers and small classes. At Horace Mann in the Bronx, a leading private school, tuition is $25,000 and class size averages 15 in the middle grades, or half of what it is in nearby public middle schools.

Parents seem to like small class sizes for reasons having nothing to do with academics, and for the mistaken belief perpetuated by educationists that smaller classes are needed to improve learning. It's based on the notion that more personal contact with the teacher is what improves learning. It's a false notion. What improves learning is weaning students off teachers so they become independent learners capable of thinking on their own.

So what's the obstacle to small class size? Money, of course. New York's top court did not specify how much was needed and the politicians have spent the last year creating committees that have concluded that city schools need $2 billion to $6 billion more a year in operating funds. Similar cases in other states have dragged on for years. The New York case took 10 years to get through the courts, with Gov. George E. Pataki fighting it every step of the way.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is losing patience, as well he should. Having made his own billions in the private sector, he understands that quality costs. He estimates city schools need $5.3 billion from the state in extra yearly operating funds and $6.5 billion more in construction aid. Smaller class size requires more classrooms, and many city schools are overcrowded.

Which raises the question: Are we as a people willing to pay the price - are we willing to sign the social contract - to give city children more good teachers and small classes?

NO! Investing more in a system that impedes learning as much as it fosters it is foolish. Stand-and-deliver teaching belongs in a museum. For less than the cost of the war in Iraq, the nation could re-engineer public education in less than a decade and start producing high school graduating classes where a third or more of students have completed an average of two years of college! Where no student had to repeat a grade or go to summer school. Where learning constantly progresses from where the student is at. Where students learn at the pace that is good for them, not good for the teacher. Where students learn from lessons and materials that are good for them, not good for the teacher. Where a highly structured curriculum can be delivered with infinite flexibility. Why on earth would anyone want to keep pouring more money into a Model-T education system? We need Ferraris!

* * *

Blaming public schools, their principals and teachers for losing the education war feels a lot like blaming the ground troops for losing the Vietnam War. Are we committed to an education war? Do we have the will? I fear that the late Walt Kelly, creator of the comic strip Pogo, had it right: We have met the enemy and he is us.

Indeed, the enemy is you, Mr. Winerip. Your solution to the war on education is to hire a bigger army. The military's solution to Vietnam was to get a smaller but smarter army heavily invested in technology. Thank God the military wasn't unionized, else we'd still be fighting wars with hand-to-hand combat. Mr. Winerip solution is nothing more than a perpetuation of an anachronistic system designed to solve Industrial Age problems. It cannot succeed in the 21st century.

Can you imagine a farmer testifying before Congress that he could grow better crops if only he could hoe a smaller field? My God, man, it's time to throw away the hoe!

Public education is on life support. No greater evidence of that could be clearer than the huge increase in investment we've made for almost no improvement in the patient. Pouring more money into the system as configured is just as ridiculous as hooking up the old grey mare to IVs and a respirator to keep her plowing.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 12:14 AM

Wednesday, May 26, 2004

Teachers union lawsuit is dismissed 

ASSOCIATED PRESS

A judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit against the Department of Education over an online learning program.

The teachers union Education Minnesota had contended that the department's approval of the Minnesota Virtual Academy, operated by the small southeastern Minnesota school district of Houston, violated state law because the academy relies on parents instead of teachers to do day-to-day instruction.

The suit was based on a part of the state's online school law, which requires that licensed teachers "must assemble and deliver instruction" to students. It was filed on behalf of two school districts that said money that went to the academy could have gone to their own online programs.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Computers, Technology & the Internet
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Ramsey County District Judge John Finley said the union didn't prove its case. He noted that licensed teachers do deliver the instruction materials in the program, even if the ultimate training comes via computers. He also questioned whether the case was filed in the proper venue.

Britney Spears Right. As long as the lessons are prepared by teachers, any means of delivery that faithfully delivers the content of the lesson is legitimate. Even Britney Spears could deliver the lesson. In fact, some students might learn more by watching her teach a lesson over the Internet than they would from certified teachers in the classroom. The medium is the message.

In a statement, Deputy Education Commissioner Chas Anderson called the decision a victory for online learning.

An Education Minnesota attorney, Harley Ogata, said the union will appeal the decision.

Of course. The issue isn't quality education, it's teacher jobs.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 1:44 AM

Tuesday, May 25, 2004

Part Three: A Primer on Teacher Contracts 

Teacher contracts contribute to layoffs
James Walsh and Ron Nixon, Minneapolis Star Tribune

• PART ONE and PART TWO

Peter Maxwell came to teaching in Minneapolis as a second career four years ago. He's been laid off every spring since.

To save his job, he has agreed to cut his hours and his pay. He has split his days teaching physical education and health between an elementary school in the mornings and a high school in the afternoons. Now, his afternoon job has been cut. If he can't find another assignment by fall, Maxwell said he will leave.

Thousands of younger, less experienced teachers in Minnesota are finding it nearly impossible to find and retain jobs. Declining enrollments and stagnant state funding play a role.

But a Star Tribune analysis of teachers' contracts and school finances has found that teachers' contracts themselves -- with automatic raises based on education and experience and job security based on seniority -- contribute to layoffs. Because districts have to lay off their least experienced teachers first -- and those teachers cost much less -- schools end up cutting even more teachers to balance their budgets.

What do you know? The press has finally figured it out.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Teachers' Unions & Salaries
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

At a time when schools and teachers' unions insist that hiring good new teachers is critical to education, schools must instead choose between the connection young teachers often have with students or the skills and experience of older teachers. Because state law requires districts to cut newer teachers first, there is really no choice. Young teachers lose.

* * *

Projections show statewide enrollment -- and the money that comes with those students -- falling over the next several years. Still, school districts keep paying teachers more. As a result, the Star Tribune has found, many districts appear to be slashing budgets to pay for those raises.

• Minneapolis schools expect to cut $20 million before fall. For the two-year contract before that, Minneapolis teachers' pay increased a total of $17.5 million.

• St. Paul expects a $12 million deficit next school year; its teachers' contract for 2001-03 increased total pay by $13.2 million.

• Eden Prairie must pare $1.5 million from its spending this coming school year; its teachers received $2.7 million more in pay in 2001-03.

• Brooklyn Center's 2004-05 deficit is $500,000; its salary increase for 2001-03 was $601,809.

Looks like the work of someone with a college degree--mathematically challenged plus an inability to plan and forecast consequences.

In 53 of the 153 districts that provided information to the Minnesota School Boards Association, pay increases for 2004-05 equaled or exceeded what they have to cut. In 97 districts, pay increases equaled at least half of their expected deficits.

Yet, except for a few pilot projects, nobody is seriously pitching a different way to pay teachers. The influence of public employee unions -- and the threat of teachers strikes -- make that unlikely, said Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But he said he thinks change must come.

Does anyone see a beanstalk growing out of control?

"Nothing should be on autopilot," he said of the current system of paying teachers. "The Big Kahuna in this whole debate is salaries and benefits. And if you don't have an opportunity to control those costs, when enrollment is going down, you can't manage your budget."

* * *

And for most schools, teachers are the biggest operating expense.

Up to 85 percent of a district's total operating costs go to salaries and benefits for all employees. And more than half that total goes to teachers in contracts negotiated every two years. Almost all of those contracts -- including salary, health insurance and retirement benefits -- cost more every year.

Total teacher pay in Minnesota often goes up, even if the number of kids and teachers drops. From 1998-99 through 2002-03, 129 school districts lost students yet increased total teacher pay faster than inflation. Over that same time, 92 school districts lost teachers, yet increased total teacher pay over inflation.

To afford those raises, districts often have to cut jobs later, said Michael Podgurgsky, a professor at the University of Missouri and an expert in teacher compensation.

"The one you can zero in on immediately is the salary schedule," he said. "I was just struck and continue to be struck by what an anachronism this is. There are no other professionals that are paid under such a rigid system. If you're alive another year, or if you accumulate graduate credits that may or may not have anything to do with what a school needs, that's where it goes."

Contract math

Even a contract calling for no raise can give millions in raises.

It's designed that way to mislead the public and make it feel sorry for the poor teachers.

These raises, called "steps and lanes," reward teachers for gaining experience and obtaining additional education. They can also drive up a district's contract costs 2 to 3 percent a year. Chris Richardson, Osseo's outgoing superintendent, said his district gave teachers a zero percent average increase for 2002-03. But after health insurance increases and steps and lanes paid to teachers, total teacher compensation went up 8 percent over two years.

What have I been saying?

Individual raises can be much bigger than that.

Under the current Robbinsdale schools contract, a teacher in the sixth year with a bachelor's degree and some additional graduate school credit made $39,829 in 2003-04. In 2004-05, the contract calls for that teacher to make $42,267 for going up to the seventh step -- a 6 percent increase. Now, if that teacher goes to school this summer and moves over another "lane" in education credits (which the teacher pays for), he or she will make $43,077 next school year -- an 8.2 percent increase. And, if the teacher adds education credits every year over the next three years, his or her salary would go from $39,829 to $53,298 -- a 34 percent raise over three years.

* * *

Out of the 1,400 to 1,500 teachers in the Osseo schools, 700 are at the top of the pay scale and the rest are moving up through steps and lanes. Few young teachers in their first three years remain. As a result, Richardson said, contracts cost more as more teachers hit top pay. From 1998-99 through 2002-03, total teacher pay in Osseo rose 22 percent, after adjusting for inflation, even though it had 52 fewer teachers.

"You end up cutting a lot of promising young teachers you'd like to see make this a career," Richardson said.

Minneapolis interim Superintendent David Jennings said he's tried to persuade the teachers' union to freeze steps and lanes to save the jobs of younger teachers and preserve smaller class sizes. Other school employee unions have accepted freezes, he said. But the Minneapolis Federation of Teachers won't bite.

Yes. All reasonable suggestions like this get you labeled as a union buster, as I've learned. Actually, I've never called for a freeze, just a rule limiting increases in compensation to the rate of inflation when property taxes go up faster than the rate of inflation.

"It was very hard to sell jobs over raises," he said. "Why? I suspect it's because many teachers are not overpaid for what they do."

Aren't they? Have you since the high school gym teacher outside during class? What is s/he doing to earn $461 a 7-hour-day in salary and benefits?

Lots of teachers are overpaid. As pointed out in an earlier article on this site, the salary scale is driven by the pay it takes to attract mathematicians and scientists. The rest couldn't earn near their compensation in the private sector.

* * *

While educators say that losing newer teachers is pushing up class sizes -- about half the districts in Minnesota have seen class sizes increase since 1998 -- it also severs the closer connection that young teachers can have to students.

* * *

Statistics show that one out of five teachers bails out of the profession in the first five years. Union folks cite poor starting pay as the reason. But Nashwauk-Keewatin Superintendent John Klarich said layoffs and the seniority system play a role. For now, Nashwauk is able to pay its teachers well because the district is gaining students -- and revenue -- through open enrollment. But if that changes, Klarich admits, that higher pay will mean a lot of younger teachers will lose jobs. Teachers, however, will still want their raises, he said.

"When it comes to teachers and their salaries," he said. "They eat their young."

The union view

When times get tough, school leaders often try to shove the burden onto teachers, says Sundin. In reality, she said, transportation, health services, social services and other expenses are taking more and more school funding.

"When we negotiate, we negotiate with the overall understanding that teachers need to be fairly compensated for their work. They aren't now," Sundin said. "Our meager settlements have not broken the bank. We're just trying to hold our own."

That's just an outright lie. Holding your own means seeing compensation increases level with inflation. The purpose of unions is to gain more wealth for their members. The most powerful powerful unionists in the world aren't "just trying to hold their own."

Jewell Gould, a lead researcher with the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), called blaming teachers' contracts for layoffs "unbelievable."

According to the AFT, the average salary for teachers falls well below the average wages of other white-collar occupations. In 2002, the average teacher salary was $44,367, up 2.7 percent from the previous year. But that compared with $54,503 for midlevel accountants, $74,534 for computer system analysts and $76,298 for engineers.

Want to know what's wrong with using average salaries for teachers? First, the reported averages don't include all the pay "add-ons" teachers get. Second, the average doesn't include fringe benefits. Teachers typically pay little toward their pensions and health insurance costs. Third, the average doesn't allow for income earned during summers and after retirement while most workers are still at their jobs. Fourth, the average doesn't account for the savings in child care realized by teachers who are off work during breaks and summers when their children are. Fifth, the average doesn't account for the added hours private sector workers spend at work. Sixth, the average doesn't account for quality of worklife issues.

A typical private sector worker has to earn 50% more in salary to have a compensation package equivalent to that of a public school teacher when accounting for all the variables. Don't believe me? Use the Lifetime Earnings Calculator and see for yourself.

So, the average teacher teacher salary is equivalent to $66,500. And the vast majority of them couldn't earn near that average in the private sector with the skills they have. As pointed out in this article, "Your most in-demand teachers drive the salary guide. You have to pay them enough to stay, and the teachers less in demand all benefit."

Even if teachers worked a 12-month year, their pay would fall short, the AFT said. Adding another 35 days of work would increase the average teacher salary to $52,541.

But, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, teacher pay ranks high among other professionals -- when comparing their 180-plus-day work year with those of others who work 250 days or more. Using an hourly average, teachers in the Twin Cities area make more than registered nurses, writers, accountants and auditors and even some management positions, bureau statistics show.

Thank you, Star Tribune! In New York, teachers make more than some physicians on an hourly basis. See, e.g., Teachers' pay on hourly basis tops many professions, study finds and The Hourly Wages of Public School Teachers.

Teachers have sacrificed to help their districts in the past, union leaders say. They've accepted contracts that froze steps and lanes; they've taken less to save jobs.

Some have, but even when "taking less," teacher compensation climbs faster than inflation.

The St. Paul Federation of Teachers recently agreed to a contract that provided a 2.5 percent average increase in 2003-04 and no increase in 2004-05, in part to save the jobs of newer teachers, union president Barbara Wencl said.

* * *

Solutions scarce

Some officials insist that this cycle of layoffs, then hiring, then layoffs, will continue unless public employee laws are changed and seniority rules are eased.

Exactly right.

What if, instead of lopping off the bottom in terms of experience, schools could lop off the bottom in terms of job evaluations? suggested Richard Kreyer, who was head of human resources for the St. Paul schools until March. If districts could lay off underperforming teachers, they would certainly include some more expensive teachers, Kreyer said.

"And, maybe then, you don't need to cut as many people," he said.

"There just isn't the will in the Legislature to do that," said Rep. Alice Seagren, R-Bloomington. "The union strength in this state is such that people are just very afraid to open that issue. And I am just very afraid that even if we had major reform, we would end up with the same problems."

Nothing can be done. Our fate is sealed. How did we become so helpless?

Instead, she said, the state needs to begin paying teachers for how well they teach, rather than how long they've taught.

No. Education needs to be re-engineered to teach The 21st Century Student. Stand-and-deliver classroom instruction is a relic with limited exceptions.

Carolyn Kelley, a University of Wisconsin professor of Educational Administration, proposes just that in her book "Paying Teachers for What They Know and Do." But such a system would cost more -- not less -- than current contracts. That's a tough sell when budgets are tight. However, if people were convinced that the best teachers were getting the highest pay, the public might be willing to increase funding, she said.

But teachers themselves may be hard to convince.

Robbinsdale proposed a radical shift in how to pay its teachers in 1997, when the union put forward a system that would do away with most steps and lanes and instead pay teachers more for earning "points."

Tom Walerius, business manager for the Robbinsdale schools, was president of the district's teachers' union then. He said the idea was to strengthen the teacher ranks and raise pay more quickly by rewarding ability over longevity.

It never happened.

Some teachers liked the idea. But many teachers are wary of moving to a system in which their pay would be set by someone's evaluation.

Performance evaluations are too subjective, said Sundin of the MFT. "Then, keeping your job would depend on whose butt you kissed."

Spoken like a teacher.

Judy Schaubach, president of Education Minnesota, the state teachers' union, suspects that school districts, freed of seniority rules, would go to the other extreme and lay off teachers who make the most money.

Schaubach said she has a better idea: Make state funding more predictable by building in an annual inflation adjustment. Then more jobs will survive, she said.

* * * *
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 12:54 AM

Monday, May 24, 2004

School Pulls Plug on Commencement Speech  

Associated Press

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - School officials pulled the plug on a senior class president's commencement speech shortly after he referred to his high school as a prison.

Nicholas Noel's microphone was cut off immediately after he described the Grand Rapids Union High School as "the Union High prison system." School officials also refused to give Noel his diploma, saying he will get it later.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Assistant principal Ken Larsen said school policy requires prior approval of commencement speeches and Noel had changed his script.

Noel, who plans to attend Grand Valley State University in the fall, told The Grand Rapids Press he made the comment because students were expected to act alike at the school. The message of his speech was that high school offers "a picture of life that is incomplete," he said.

He said the rest of his speech would have been positive had he been allowed to complete it. A copy of his written speech, however, went on to call the school a "foul institution" and a "horribly irresponsible and depraved place to learn these life lessons."

Strong words. Too bad people don't want to hear them. Not at graduation. Not at school board meetings. Not anywhere.

The truth is schools do have attributes similar to prisons and slavery. With surveillance cameras, locked doors, drug dogs, searches, zero-tolerance and disciplinary rule books thicker than those issued to prison inmates, public schools look and feel more like prisons than people are willing to admit.

As I have repeatedly pointed out, schools run by the government are fundamentally inconsistent with the First Amendment. They are exceptionally poor places to learn about and exercise free speech, as Mr. Noel has learned within minutes of escaping the institution.

From the viewpoint of administrators and school boards, there is no appropriate time to publicly criticize government education. Most know that those who choose to do so will be punished in some way. Students and parents know that criticizing the quality of education or the services provided by educators is an invitation to retaliation either by making life more difficult or by withholding benefits.

During my campaigns for school board, I've listened to many horror stories from parents and students who have never said anything publicly because they have more to gain by staying silent. It's no wonder school boards and administrators can nearly always claim, "No one else has complained," to the rare parent who demands high quality services.

As long as government schools avoid the transformation needed to educate The 21st Century Student, they will continue to be more like prisons and "depraved" places for learning life's lessons than they should be.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 12:05 AM

Friday, May 14, 2004

Advanced English 

A Salt Lake Tribune Editorial

Ah, the English language. The subtlety of its infinite words and phrasings, the nuances and meanings that change over time. Beautiful as our mother tongue is, it can be very difficult to explain in a high school setting.

And not just to the students.

Which is why the students at Midvale's Hillcrest High School should cut their administrators a little slack whenever the oldsters trip over the meaning of the modern broadside, the 21st century pamphlet, the troubadour of our time, the humble T-shirt. Remember, there is no Cliff's Notes, no current teenager/authority-figure phrase book, that the vice principals of the world can run to when they are stumped by the almost daily pop quizzes that life throws at them.

This is not to say that the people who are in charge of Hillcrest didn't earn a zero on the latest test -- diagramming the anti-smoking T-shirt that says, with commendable wit and brevity, "Queers Kick Ash."

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Students' Rights
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

At least four Hillcrest students have been suspended for wearing the T-shirt to class, and the administration has been so unwilling to view this as a teaching opportunity that the ACLU has chimed in.

The school has rules against wearing clothing with messages that are vulgar or promote tobacco. The fact that the T-shirts are only vulgar to a tiny mind and bore a serious and heartfelt anti-tobacco message was apparently lost on the officials.

Also whizzing by the responsible adults was the fact that the term "queer" is now in vogue, even a point of pride among gays and lesbians. But that's the part that is the hardest for older folks to keep up with.

Still, instead of spending their time, and annihilating their credibility, by harassing a few students over a T-shirt, administrators should be worrying that not only do gays and lesbians have a higher rate of tobacco use than do their straight peers, they are also the target of new cigarette company marketing campaigns.

Given that open homosexuality implies a certain amount of rebelliousness, it makes sense that Big Tobacco would try to graft the old James Dean image of a carelessly held cigarette onto the out lifestyle. So the Utah Gay Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Community Club has set about the worthy -- and publicly funded -- task of trying to fight cool with cool (if that's not a hopelessly out-of-date expression) with the offending T-shirts.

It would be one thing if Hillcrest were one of those schools that required uniforms or simply banned all message T-shirts. But it isn't.

Administrators there allow other messages on students' clothing, and so they have opened the same Pandora's box their elementary colleagues did when they taught these kids to read in the first place.

Were I not an unabashed promoter of free speech, I'd side with the school district on this one.

The fact that "queer" is "in vogue" doesn't mean some gays aren't offended by its use. And even if the T-shirts were plastered with anti-smoking messages, the phrase "Queers kick ash" could be read as having nothing to do with tobacco and everything to do with power. It's likely the phrase is intended to have a double meaning.

What would the Tribune say about a T-shirt plastered with anti-smoking messages that says "Straights kick fags"?

As you may know, "fag" is a slang term for both cigarettes and homosexuals.

Or how about this one: "Queers lick fags"? Even though a slang meaning of "to lick" is "to defeat," the double entendre present in this phrase is too glaring to ignore.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 12:05 AM

Thursday, May 13, 2004

A CONTRIBUTING CAUSE TO EDUCATION MEDIOCRITY 

Survey: Unruly pupils take toll on class, teachers

See, also, THE ROOT CAUSE OF EDUCATION MEDIOCRITY

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The way teachers see it, today's classroom environment often deserves a D -- as in disrespectful, distracting and disheartening enough to drive many of them away.

Right.

Small point: It's the teacher's responsibility to maintain order in the classroom.

Big point: Classroom disruptions are a major impediment to improved learning. Paying teachers more won't fix the problem. "The best and the brightest" won't stay in a profession--no matter how high the pay is--where the biggest part of the job is commanding attention and refereeing arguments.

Bigger Point: Classroom instruction works best in a culture where children are raised to be seen and not heard. It works best where the rod is not spared. It works best where children spend years in church for hours at a time sitting quietly. That's not most children.

Most children are used to being at the center of their own universes. They don't know how to share because in our materialistic and wealthy culture with small families they've never had to share. They don't know how to wait their turn, either.

Today's children come in two primary flavors: those who have had and expect individual attention from adults and those who have essentially raised themselves in permissive conditions or in the absence of adults or in the presence of adults too stressed out from their jobs to confront the bad behavior of their children.

If the medium is the message, the classroom medium is increasingly a message children don't want and don't relate to. Educators can keep spending billions of dollars to try to make it work with personal teacher assistants, alternative schools, special education classes and a book of rules bigger than some of their texts and excessive punishments, or they can admit what every sane person already knows--classroom instruction isn't working because it's inconsistent with the way kids are and the way they relate to their environment. You might as well expect fish to breath on land as to expect better academic outcomes from classroom instruction.

Rather than expending huge amounts of energy and resources fighting against the nature of today's kids, professional educators need to take a page from the martial arts and learn better how to use the force of their opponents to achieve academic goals. And that means:

Biggest Point: Re-engineering schools to educate The 21st Century Student. (Regular readers knew that was coming). Kids are comfortable interacting with technology. We need to take advantage of that.

Most teachers in middle and high schools say misbehavior by a handful of children is such a disruptive, pervasive force that a majority of students suffer for it, a study released Tuesday said.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Discipline Issues
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Although schools have become better at responding to serious offenses, such as guns and drugs on campus, the cumulative problem of routine unruly behavior is undermining academic achievement, says the report by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research group. Most teachers say they contend with students who disrespect them, cheat, show up late and harass others.

Why would any sane parent put their child in such an environment to get an education?

"If you start totaling up the hours that teachers could be teaching and students could be learning, it's just staggering," said Public Agenda president Ruth Wooden. "We've got lots of programs on things like accountability and testing and parent involvement, but we haven't been nearly as successful at this daily distraction that takes teachers off-task."

Some teachers are as good as students, if not better, at getting off task and seeking pleasure from movies, discussions (cafeteria feelings fests), gossip and much more. It's simply easier than teaching. I can't tell you how many days my daughter has come home reporting that nothing substantive happened in one or more of her classes. If it's not gay issues, it's Thomas Jefferson's sex life. It's not just students who lack the self-discipline to stay on-task; it's the teachers, too. And sometimes it's especially the teachers.

More than three in four teachers said they could do their job more effectively if not for discipline problems; more than eight in 10 said most students suffer because of a few troublemakers. Nevertheless, the time spent on crowd control is not the kind of problem that generates public attention or outrage among policy-makers, the study said.

Breaking up the crowd is a major component of the 21st Century School. The big-picture solution to this problem isn't confrontation; it's reducing the conditions, circumstances and situations which make confrontation necessary.

It is a struggle, however, that gives teachers second thoughts about their choice of careers.

About a third of teachers have considered quitting because of student indiscipline, according to the study, which surveyed both teachers and parents. About one-third also said they know colleagues who quit or were forced out over student misbehavior.

The laws covering school discipline have essentially created only one option for teachers--they have to obtain obedience by manipulation, trickery or bribery. It takes a lot more time to establish order using these than it takes with a swat to the behind.

Moreover, it simply sets a bad example. It's poor character education to teach kids that the way to get other people to do what you want is to manipulate them.

Court interventions and laws governing discipline are part of the reason why classroom learning is on the way out. Who can keep track of all the laws? Who wants to risk their license to become more effective in establishing order?

Tina Dove, a teacher of six years, used to head home drained with frustration after dealing with disruptive students and hearing about their often troubled conditions at home. A no-nonsense disciplinarian, as she put it, Dove still lost patience with the classroom struggle and took time off this year. At 32, she's hoping to return to teaching.

"If you have a child in your classroom who is difficult to work with, and they are setting a tone, you can have anything from a five-minute distraction to the loss of half a class period," said Dove, who lives in Alexandria, Va. "If you try to deal with that child in a way that's going to have the least impact on everyone else ... that can take up an amazingly large period of your class. Before you know what happened, you're behind."

The challenge, the study said, is otherwise complicated: education colleges don't prepare teachers to deal with rowdy students; children in special education are treated too lightly even when their misbehavior has nothing to do with their disabilities; schools back down from discipline when parents threaten lawsuits.

Setting a firm discipline policy and following it consistently is a solid strategy for success, said Julie Underwood, general counsel for the National School Boards Association. Still, she said, "parents are much more willing than they were 20 years ago to lawyer up and fight."

These people are fools. The key isn't more teacher training and tougher policies. It's elimination of the conditions in which misbehavior disrupts the learning of others. That's the only effective solution to the problem.

The biggest cause of student behavior problems, according to both teachers and parents, is that too many parents fail to teach their kids discipline.

Let's assume that's right. What can schools or government do about that? Not a thing. But teachers would rather fight than switch. They'd rather take courses with pop psychology ideas on how to better manage classrooms than deliver education services to students in ways that make sense for them.

No amount of training, policy or lawful punishment can win this "war." Reliance on classroom instruction as the primary method for educating students cannot succeed in our culture. Period.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 12:29 AM

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Oral sex lessons to cut rates of teenage pregnancy 

Mark Townsend / The Observer (UK)

Encouraging schoolchildren to experiment with oral sex could prove the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates, a government study has found.

Pupils under 16 who were taught to consider other forms of 'intimacy' such as oral sex were significantly less likely to engage in full intercourse, it was revealed.

Exactly how many milliseconds do you think it will take for this idea to start catching on among American health teachers? One thing's for certain, if public schools start teaching oral sex, look for a huge boom in private and charter schools and homeschooling.

Britain's teenage pregnancy rate is the highest in Europe. In 2002 there were 39,286 teen pregnancies recorded. The government has spent more than £60 million to tackle the problem but so far failed to halt the rise.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

A sex education course developed by Exeter University trains teachers to talk to teenagers about 'stopping points' before full sex.

Now an unpublished government-backed report reveals that a trial of the course has been a success. Schoolchildren, particularly girls, who received such training developed a 'more mature' response to sex.

The study by the National Foundation for Educational Research found youngsters were 'less likely to be sexually active' than peers who received traditional forms of sex education, dispelling the fears of family campaigners who believe such methods actually arouse the sexual interest of teenagers.

Now the government will recommend the scheme, called A Pause, to schools throughout England and Wales following the success of the trial in 104 schools where sexual intercourse among 16-year-olds fell by up to 20 per cent, according to Dr John Tripp of the Department of Child Health at the University of Exeter, who helped to design the course.

Teachers who sign up to the course are primed to deal with queries from pupils on all kinds of sexual experience. Those behind the course stress the scheme does not suggest teenagers experiment with oral sex. Instead they say A Pause promotes the message that other forms of physical intimacy are safer than full intercourse.

Next time you talk with safe-sex or abstinence-plus advocates, ask them if they favor teaching oral sex in public schools. These people call abstinence-only education a "dangerous and unproven method of sex education." See, e.g. Comprehensive approach best for teen sex.

'It teaches people assertiveness skills and that they should be only as intimate as they feel comfortable with,' said Tripp.

A Department for Education and Skills spokesman said the report's verdict would be made available to all schools. 'All teachers respect peer-reviewed material, and this will help influence their decision,' he said.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 11:51 PM

Monday, May 10, 2004

School board to decide if sexual orientation an appropriate topic 

Some parents want subject out of classrooms
By Amy Bounds, Daily Camera (Boulder, Colorado) Staff Writer

Discussing sexual orientation in Boulder Valley School District health classes is proving to be a divisive issue.

People who passionately support or disagree with the idea of schools covering the topic are flooding the district with letters and speaking at school board meetings as educators revamp a health curriculum that is almost a quarter-century old.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual & Transgender Issues
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

* * *

While sexual orientation has been part of the curriculum for years, the proposed changes would add specifics, such as discussing how the media portray gays and how students could advocate for a school environment free of discrimination based on sexual orientation.

* * *

Boulder Valley health education coordinator Katy Fleming said the district's goal is to provide good information and to create a safe environment for all students.

"We're trying to dispel ignorance about issues," she said. "Ignorance can lead to fear, and fear can lead to hateful things. The gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered kids exist in our schools and have a right to be there."

The first reference to sexual orientation is proposed for fifth grade, when students would be expected to identify "inappropriate teasing and bullying on the basis of gender, race or ethnicity, body size or shape, disability, sexual orientation, religion, etc."

More details would be added as students move up through middle and high school.

In 10th grade, students would be expected to demonstrate "an understanding of core concepts related to gender and sexual orientation," including discussing ramifications of stereotypes and reviewing the periods throughout life that gender expression and sexual orientation develop.

High school students also would be expected to demonstrate "an understanding of how to advocate for individuals of all sexual orientations."

Education permits an examination of all legitimate viewpoints. It does not indoctrinate or require students to adopt a single attitude, belief, value or philosophy.

Consider this question: Gayness is a genetic condition, true or false?

Scientists doesn't know the answer to that question. In some cases it may be a lifestyle choice and in others it may have a genetic component. If it's a choice, in a free country people ought to be allowed to criticize it.

Free and open discussion of differing viewpoints and ideas is the hallmark of education.

Students should be permitted to opt-out of materials on sexual orientation if they choose. However, that's almost impossible since gay issues frequently pop up even though it's not on the day's agenda.

If schools were set up to educate The 21st Century Student, this wouldn't be an issue. Parents would simply uncheck the optional parts of the health curriculum they don't want their children to see and their children would never see the lessons. They'd move on to the next lesson and not be typed as outcasts and sent to study halls to waste time for declining to indulge themselves with views and values they don't accept.

Kim Middaugh, a Broomfield parent of two high school students, complained about the curriculum to State Rep. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield, earlier this year.

Mitchell initially proposed a bill that would have prevented teachers from discussing homosexuality, but the bill was changed to require school districts to follow "opt-out" policies similar to the one Boulder Valley already uses. Parents can opt children out of any part of the curriculum.

But Middaugh said the opt-out provision isn't enough. She criticized the curriculum as "confusing and potentially harmful."

"Plenty of middle school students have no interest in the opposite sex," she said. "Some of these children will hear this curriculum and falsely label themselves as gay. Just because a child thinks he's gay doesn't mean he is."

It's possible. Discussion of the topic could confuse many more kids than it helps.

Middaugh said she doesn't buy the district's assertion that discussing sexual orientation in health classes is necessary to reduce harassment of gay students.

"Students are protected from all forms of harassment by school policy and state law," she said.

Broomfield resident Tom Mezzacapo, who has children in Lafayette schools, said he's concerned that health teachers will contradict what his children are taught at home.

"Parents, not teachers, should decide what's right," he said. "If it conflicts with what the parent teaches them, they're going to be torn. It's a really heavy agenda to bring down on kids."

Some parents have asked the district to include "reparative therapy" — therapy to help homosexuals become straight — in the curriculum.

That's very interesting. Some former homosexuals support this kind of therapy.

But Fleming said that's not an option because the scientific community, including the American Medical Association, says "it's ineffective and potentially harmful."

Other parents, community members and Boulder County Public Health support the changes.

"We just see (homosexuality) as a normal part of human development," said Christina Suarez, incoming president of the Boulder County Board of Health. "It needs to be normalized so children receive healthy messages about who they are."

Holli Berman, a Boulder parent and a leader at Congregation Har HaShem, said that, as a lesbian, she doesn't want her children taught "that there's something wrong with their parents."

"The reality is that there are gay and lesbian families," she said.

Dr. Michael Catalano of Boulder said he struggled to accept that he was gay growing up and doesn't want today's students to go through a similar experience.

"Students don't need us to tell them who they are," he said. "They need us to respect their unalienable right to figure it out for themselves."

Students in a Boulder High School health class generally supported including sexual orientation in class discussions, as well.

Junior Leslie Vedder said students want the facts about everything from sexual orientation to drugs so they can "make up their own minds."

Absolutely right. However, schools expect students to make up their minds in only one way and making up your mind in another way could get you suspended or expelled if your thoughts don't match the schools' and you choose to express them.

Sophomore Colin Gerber said he's glad that teachers are addressing the topic.

"If you don't talk about it, you're isolating people from main society and pretending that they don't exist," he said. "It's acting as if you don't care about the lives of gay and lesbian students."

Not a tenth of what's worth knowing is taught in public schools. We don't teach everything worth knowing about health or sex. We have free libraries and the Internet. Is there some reason why students who want to know more about gays or other topics can't use these on their own? People seem to think if the school doesn't teach it, it can't be learned.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 9:23 PM

Friday, May 07, 2004

Teacher suspended over alleged online attempt to lure young girl 

BY MAUDLYNE IHEJIRIKA Chicago Sun-Times Staff Reporter

A teacher at Stagg High School in Palos Hills was suspended Wednesday for investigation of postings on a controversial Web site that uses vigilante tactics to ensnare alleged Internet pedophiles.

The teacher, who has taught at Stagg for 26 years, was suspended after the school district became aware of "a transcript and response posted on an Internet Web site alleging to involve him in an inappropriate online conversation with an individual posing as a minor," a district spokesman said. He was suspended without pay for up to 10 days.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Sex Abuse & Other Teacher Misconduct
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Police in Orland Park, where the teacher lives, said they investigated in October, after a transcript of an online chat -- allegedly between the teacher and a supposed 13-year-old girl -- appeared on the Perverted-Justice.com site, along with the teacher's half-nude photo.

If you visit these links, be prepared to read extremely crude and disgusting conversations. It is really beyond belief. I've had teachers tell me they work so many hours they don't have time for a personal life. If you read the transcript of this teacher's conversation with a supposed 13-year-old, you'll see that some teachers have too much spare time.

I prosecuted all the child sex offenses in the jurisdiction where I worked, so, much to my displeasure, I became used to reading police reports of stories like this one. However, I recommend against reading it unless you really want to know what could happen to your children in chatrooms.

Many parents have questioned why the teacher remained in a classroom. But police say no charges can be filed.

No action was taken by the district until a second posting popped up.

Perverted-Justice.com vigilantes troll chat rooms posing as young girls. When bait is taken, vigilantes engage targets in conversation until they provide photos, phone numbers and other identifying information. The alleged pedophiles then get their information posted.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 1:25 AM

Thursday, May 06, 2004

My Prepared Remarks for Meet the Candidates Night 

OPENING STATEMENT

My name is Jerry Moore. I run the most comprehensive private website on education issues in the United States at myshortpencil.com. From academic coaches for teachers to zero-tolerance, from Maine to Hawaii and around the world, from recycled ideas to creative innovations, the emerging message for Scotia-Glenville is unsettling: we are rapidly falling behind.

As the school board struggles with reduced programs and services to produce budgets and taxes growing at more than twice the rate of inflation, other school districts around the country are providing laptops for teachers and students. They are developing new courses in forensic science, genetics, technology, engineering and system dynamics. They have preschools, virtual schools, e-libraries, International Baccalaureate programs, art and music labs, recording studios and practical skills courses such as aircraft and auto mechanics. They have partnerships with NASA, Cisco, Oracle, Microsoft and others. Their students are graduating with dual diplomas, both high school and technical, associate or paraprofessional.
Sidebar

After hearing the candidates tonight, I've decided that Joseph Crisafulli has the qualifications needed to move the district forward and fill seat remaining after mine. Joseph has a degree in public administration and promised to use data-driven decisionmaking on the board.

Whether I win or not, this much is certain: the nature of board decisionmaking is about to change from doing things that feel good to doing things that produce results. The feel-good alliance of Magruder, Bradley, Smith and Carbone has just lost its majority.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on S-G School Board Elections 2004
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Our trend of diminishing basic education services is inconsistent with the trend of offering students more choices, more opportunities and greater challenges.

Why is this happening? Costs are rising faster than the wealth that generates school revenues.

Community support for education is exceptionally generous. Our property tax is nearly double that found in places with booming real estate markets and thriving economies. The capacity of the tax base to create new school revenues is minimal, especially considering growing tax pressures in the county for a new courthouse, a tax rebate owed to G.E., the expired contract with county workers and the near bankruptcy of the City of Schenectady. On top of that, Scotia needs a firehouse solution and the school district is contemplating a referendum to spend millions on its facilities.

Prying new money from state and federal sources is equally difficult. We have neither the political muscle nor enough impoverished students to open the vaults of special government funding.

Many communities have established private foundations to supplement school funding. They pay for sports and music programs, teacher salaries for smaller class sizes and technology. However, our small size and high taxes decrease the likelihood that a community foundation could annually supplement the school budget with the millions of dollars the district could easily use.

Our best hope for increasing school funding is, unfortunately, the most difficult—generating ideas that will entice government, education foundations and businesses to invest in us. Later, I will use two of my minutes to outline a vision for creating a 21st Century School, where interactive, high quality, personalized learning will occur as frequently on computers as in classrooms.

WHY DO YOU WANT TO BE ON THE BOARD OF EDUCATION?

Our choice is clear. Either we continue scraping by with large tax increases for fewer student opportunities or we change. We have the pool of highly skilled and talented educators and professionals in our community needed to plan and create a 21st Century School where every student will move through the curriculum at a pace that ensures mastery of each lesson, being neither rushed nor held back by other students.

We must begin now to create the exploratory committees needed to maximize our opportunities for a timely and steady transition to delivering more of the core curriculum through computer-accessed video instruction and interactive lessons that accommodate and broaden the learning styles of students.

Imagine a school where the hard work and ambition of students is rewarded with the opportunity to complete as much vocational, technical or college instruction as possible before graduating. Where symposiums, small-group discussions, assemblies, movies, lectures and career seminars run throughout the day with students choosing the ones to attend without missing any instruction. Imagine a highly structured curriculum delivered with consistent and exceptional quality and infinite flexibility, allowing students to make year-round progress while providing free time for sports, religion, travel and vacations on a schedule that makes sense for them and their families.

Imagine the increase in parental involvement when lessons, progress reports and staff assistance are available through home Internet access 18 hours a day, seven days a week. Imagine teachers spending less energy and time managing classrooms and more time diagnosing and correcting difficulties in learning and the effective delivery of instruction. While classroom instruction must be maintained for the courses where it makes sense and for the students who thrive by it, we cannot delay the student-centered re-engineering of education without sacrificing the future our children deserve.

WHAT MAKES YOU A STRONG CANDIDATE FOR A POSITION ON THE SCHOOL BOARD?
• My personal information and résumé

School board members need clarity of vision, undeterred persistence, commitment to education and a comprehensive set of skills for increasing student opportunities within the economic realities of our school district. The better board members understand the complex interactions among state and federal education laws, labor laws, and the political and economic environment, the higher the likelihood their decisions will produce the outcomes desired. My background includes law, economics, statistics, academic research, design and evaluation, technology, teaching and systems and cost-benefit analysis. These are all important skills and perspectives for setting policy, avoiding mistakes and finding ways to improve our ability to compete with other school districts for the resources we need for our faculty and students.

I firmly believe that parent and community involvement are essential for progress. There is more than enough work to do for those willing to help. As hard as setting budgets and adopting wise policies are, the hardest work of board members is in motivating more volunteers to do more work on a broader range of issues and keeping them all satisfied.

I also believe students have a lot to contribute in evaluating their education needs and finding solutions for improving education services. Last year the governor signed a law that allows school boards to have one non-voting student board member, typically the high school student body president. I strongly favor the inclusion of a student representative on the Board of Education.

Whatever we lack in money or resources, we are more than capable of compensating for it with organization, work, involvement, creativity and passion. These are the miracles we have. They are inside each of us.

WHAT DO YOU THINK MAKES SCOTIA-GLENVILLE SCHOOLS THRIVE AND HOW DO YOU INTEND ON MAINTAINING AND/OR IMPROVING THE LEVEL OF EXCELLENCE?

Cathy David, a principal in Virginia, recently said:
There's no child who wakes up in the morning and says, "I want to fail in everything I do today and annoy everyone in school." Kids do want to succeed. Our job is to show them how.

The Scotia-Glenville teachers who do their best everyday to show our children how to succeed are the primary source of academic excellence in the district. These are the teachers who spend hours making comments and suggestions for improvement on every student assignment. These are the teachers who put student learning before personal convenience, who call parents at the inception of evolving problems, who encourage students to meet with them after school, who constantly think of ways for parents to encourage their children to do well.

These teachers see their profession as a calling. They miss few opportunities to inspire and assist students in being all they can be. They instill self-confidence and high self-esteem with high expectations and by guiding students to increasing levels of genuine accomplishment and achievement. They teach students their greatest competitor is not in the classroom, but inside themselves. They lead by example, showing students that the integration of knowledge, skills, compassion, self-discipline, persistence, honesty, industry, humor, ethical conduct and continuous learning lead to happy, rewarding and fulfilling lives.

With the assistance and cooperation of the teachers’ union, we can find new ways to encourage and reward the teachers who exemplify the highest and best practices of their profession. We can create better teacher development resources and training. And we can give new teachers a fighting chance to quickly achieve excellence by reducing their teaching loads during their first two years and giving them more time to prepare lessons and take teacher development courses, and more opportunities to co-teach with experienced teachers.

SUMMATION

It is not enough to leave no child behind. Every student deserves all the opportunities she or he needs to achieve to the best of her or his abilities. Our challenge is great but it cannot be impossible. Creating 21st Century Schools of infinite opportunity is the undiscovered country. It is the new frontier. If we let comfort, familiarity and complacency control our destiny then we cannot succeed. Our best hope for improving the education of all our children is to create the kind of first-rate, world-class school that raises property values and stimulates economic growth by attracting professionals and their families into our community. Continuing our present course will mean increasing numbers of high-cost special education students as families with more capable students seek out better opportunities in places like Niskayuna and Saratoga Springs.

If we do this right, our high school graduates will think thoughts, make connections and develop insights that are beyond our ability to conceive because the power of learning is in the young, alert and developing minds of students. If we do this right, we can increase revenues by attracting home-schooled students into our programs and capturing the state aid that comes with them. If we do this right, we could become a state-approved virtual school and bring in state revenues from students living outside the district. If we do this right, we could even become the first national center for education research and development in the use of technology in education and attract engineers and researchers from the best companies and universities in the world to work in federally funded jobs in spaces rented from our school district.

To try and fail involves no risk. To fail to try . . . to fail to try, that would indeed be failure. I am willing to try.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 1:00 AM

Tuesday, May 04, 2004

A blueprint for education reform NOT 

A Times Union Letter to the Editor
By FRANK G. ZARB

The state Commission on Education Reform was established by Gov. George Pataki to develop specific proposals to reform and improve public education throughout New York. The commission included a diverse array of smart, independent people from across the state who reached consensus on an important blueprint for improving the quality of New York's public education system.

The commission recently issued a report that proposes a sweeping overhaul of New York's complex school funding formula, measures to help ensure that every school district has the resources to provide a quality education, and extensive reforms designed to increase accountability and performance in our schools.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Education Reform & Learning Standards
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Since the report was issued, several criticisms have arisen that deserve a response. For example, some have charged that the commission's recommendation for a new accountability system is punitive. I wholeheartedly reject this criticism.

Following extensive analysis and deliberations, the commission determined that while resources will play a role in the effort to improve our education system, dollars are not enough. In fact, it has become very clear that while funding is vitally important, it's also possible to add billions of dollars into the existing system, only to have the overall quality of education continue to get worse. This helps to explain why establishing a new accountability system was one of the key requirements set forth in the Court of Appeals' decision in the Campaign for Fiscal Equity case.

The bottom line is that the critical link between funding and student performance is accountability. The recommendations in our report would strengthen that link by advancing a framework of accountability with appropriate standards, sanctions and remedies to be applied if the desired performance and progress are not achieved. Specific recommendations include:
Every single one of these ideas from "smart, independent people" is a recycled idea that has not and cannot substantially improve academic outcomes.

When public education began in the US, it was ahead of the curve in serving the needs of business and the economy. Now it is behind the curve because advances in these have far outpaced advances in education. While reading and math served the needs of industrializing agrarian society, the subject-matter and thinking and learning skills currently taught are inadequate for the needs of the evolving bio-technical age.

What are the big problems in education? Here are two:

1. Education is too much push and not enough pull. Ever have to push a kid through an amusement park? How about a computer game? Both use strategies to pull kids along rather than push them.

Think about museums. In some, you have to drag your children through. In others, you can't get them to stop. The best museums use strategies to pull visitors through.

Teachers use a mix of push and pull, to be sure, but it is dominated by push (which recently has been amplified by the drive to have all students pass standards tests). "Push education" raises frustration, creates resistance and generates misbehavior. Even when teachers get the curiosity and motivation of students fired up to actively pursue learning, the system cannot accommodate the fire. It is doused by demanding attention to the next matter on the agenda. Over time, repeated exposure to pushes and enticed but ungratified cravings produces students who learn to do the minimum needed to get by. They see little benefit or reward for committing their curiosity, motivation and imagination to greater learning only to have their efforts ignored or rebuffed. Students become emotionally detached from learning. They seek out more promising and gratifying avenues for emotional satisfaction. This makes it increasingly difficult to stimulate an emotional commitment to learning as students advance through school. Educators complain about this, often scapegoating parents and students, without giving the slightest hint of awareness that it is they who are causing students to emotionally drop out of learning and abandon desires to soar academically.

What must be done? The two metaphors suggest two reforms. First, rather than douse sparks of learning educators need to fuel them. That means educators must create multiple pathways to learning the core curriculum because the fire can start in any part of the forest of knowledge. An English, science, math, history, art or music lesson may ignite the flame. Educators must develop more flame-fanning strategies and minimize the conditions invoking the need for fire prevention. See, The root cause of education mediocrity.

Second, teachers must develop alternative curricula that pulls students through rather than pushes them. Like a well-designed computer game, when a student gets to one level, s/he should feel a pressing need to begin and conquer the next level.

In most cases, effective learning will vacillate between the needs for pushing and pulling. Consequently, teachers will need access to both a push-curriculum and a pull-curriculum so they can employ the strategy that works best for the student at any given time in any given subject. It may be that push-curriculum is offered in a classroom setting while pull-curriculum is offered via computers employing a wide array of a/v and interactive strategies.

2. Stand-and-deliver classroom instruction is inefficient. With behavior disruptions, emergencies, external interruptions, students with different needs performing at widely different levels, unprepared substitute teachers, absent students and much more that make managing classroom learning an act of juggling bowling balls with feathers, it's no surprise that student learning is severely constrained by the environment in which it takes place.

Students ready to move on must wait while absent students or slower learners try to catch up. Those who can't catch up are forced to move faster than is good for optimal learning so teachers can cover the materials assigned for the year. It's a bumble bee that shouldn't be able to fly. And it doesn't.

In teaching my daughter math for three summers, I learned she could master a year's worth of elementary math in 40 hours of instruction, practice and testing using books from Saxon Publishers. That's one-third the time public schools spend on math.

I also learned from conversations with her that she has spent a lot of down time waiting on other students to finish their tests. I estimate she could have acquired an additional full academic year's worth of instruction had she been able to move on after finishing her tests.

For reference, I estimate her academic abilities to be matched or exceeded by at least 1.5 million other public school students, who likewise are likely experiencing lots of downtime in classrooms. Moreover, if she could do a year's worth of math in 40 hours, how many more students can do it in 60 or 100 hours and have time left over to advance their mathematics learning even further or to spend more time on topics and subjects they find especially challenging?

Dramatic improvements in the quantity and quality of learning can only be obtained by re-engineering schools from the perspective of student learning, not from the perspectives of teaching or of the system. The 21st Century Student will:
  • Have 24-hour-a-day, year-round access to high quality, personalized instruction.
  • Begin each day's learning exactly where s/he left off the day before.
  • Move forward at a pace that ensures mastery of each lesson, being neither rushed nor held back by other students' progress.
  • Take no state exam before s/he has successfully completed all the requisite materials.
  • Be rewarded for hard work and ambition with the opportunity to complete as much vocational, technical or college instruction as possible before graduating.
  • With the guidance of teachers, customize learning to include the skills and knowledge s/he finds most stimulating and useful.
  • Have education enriched with courses like financial, investment and credit management, conflict resolution, systems thinking and business and science ethics.

The report also contains an array of specific proposals to reform, simplify and improve the school funding formula, while targeting additional support to high-needs districts. We recommend reducing the current number of aid categories from 37 to 11, and have advanced other suggestions to help make the overall formula more fair, flexible and understandable.

Questions also have been raised about the commission's process of performing its costing-out study and other recommendations made.

To help our state's policymakers make fully informed decisions about potential changes to the school aid formula, we engaged the internationally respected financial services firm of Standard & Poor's to perform a costing-out study. The experts at S&P did tremendous work, and provided four highly detailed scenarios for costing out a sound basic education. To encourage greater public access to this vital information, S&P also provided an online calculator (www.sp-ses.com/) that allows policymakers and educators to more closely examine various cost factors on a district-by-district basis.

To ensure that our recommendations adequately reflect the true additional cost of providing a quality education to students living in poverty and those with limited English proficiency, S&P chose to use a weighting of 35 percent for students in poverty and 20 percent for students with limited English skills.

The commission has also proposed steps to help ensure that the resources are available to address the special needs of these students, and of all students attending high-needs districts across the state.

Specifically, we have recommended the creation of a dedicated fund to address the cost of providing a sound basic education, as well as a new Supplemental Needs Aid funding that will target additional aid to high needs districts.

If enacted together, the sweeping school funding and accountability reforms proposed will not only meet the requirements of the court order, but will also establish a strong and comprehensive system that provides every child attending public school in New York state with the opportunity to obtain a quality education.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 12:19 AM

Monday, May 03, 2004

A Tale of Two Stillwater Teacher Contracts  

One in Minnesota and the other in New York

US Census Data
• Saratoga County, NY
• Washington County, MN

How extraordinary can it be that both these contracts were reported the same day and both districts had been in extended contract negotiations and working under expired contracts?

Item Stillwater MN Stillwater NY
New Contract Expires 2005 2007
Raise 1.375% a year 3.925% a year
Health Ins. Concession $50 a month None
Increase in Compensation 4% a year over 7% a year


Do you see why NY is #1 in taxes and #1 in spending per pupil?


According to the Minnesota State Auditor, Minn. teacher salaries have not been keeping up with inflation since 1989. In 1999, salaries were about 4% lower than in 1989 (in 1999 dollars). The average beginning pay for a Minn. teacher in 1999 was $26,000. The average 1999 top salary for a Master's Degree + 60 credits was $56,000. Stillwater MN teachers earn salaries above the state average.

Earning salary increases slightly below the rate of inflation is appropriate for two reasons: 1. Health insurance costs have been rising faster than inflation; and 2. Salaries in the private sector have not been keeping up with inflation in many locations. Neither of these considerations seem to matter when increasing NY teacher salaries.

It's important to note that Stillwater MN isn't skimping on education spending. It's doing what school districts around the country are doing when they don't spend all their money to increase teacher salaries--increasing spending on students. Starting this fall, every Stillwater MN junior high student will have a laptop computer to use at home and at school. You won't find that in Stillwater NY.

I couldn't find a pay scale for Stillwater NY teachers. By a conservative estimate, they earn salaries and benefits 20% higher than their counterparts in MN. Yet, household income and home costs are higher in Washington County, MN.

TODAY'S BEST OF MYSHORTPENCIL.COM
• SEE A LIST OF THIS WEEK'S COMMENTARIES
• More Stories on Teachers' Unions & Salaries
• Compare your salary to any teacher's

Stillwater teachers contract set
BY MEGAN BOLDT / St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press

After about 11 months of sometimes-intense negotiations, teachers in the Stillwater Area School District have a new two-year contract.

The district's approximately 500 teachers accepted the contract earlier in the week and school board members lent their approval Thursday night. Union and district officials reached the tentative agreement about two weeks ago.

* * *

"I think it's a win-win for both teams," he said. "I've been on both sides and I think it's fair."

The two-year pact includes a 1.25 percent salary increase for teachers in the 2003-04 school year and a 1.5 percent increase during 2004-05. The deal translates into an additional $3 million for teacher salary and benefits. The total cost of the contract is almost $38.9 million.

According to an earlier story, the $3 million spending increase amounts to an 8% increase in salary and benefits (compensation), or 4% a year.

Stillwater instructors will have to start contributing toward their health insurance plan. The district used to pay 100 percent of the teachers insurance premiums. But in the second year of the contract, teachers with family coverage will pay $50 a month in insurance premiums.

$50 a month amounts to paying for 5 to 6% of the cost of health insurance.

The changes in the health insurance plan will save the district about $450,000 over the length of the contract.

* * * *

Stillwater teachers' pact has big raises
By Eli Fanning / Schenectady (NY) Gazette Reporter

STILLWATER - More than two years of negotiations concluded this week when the Board of Education agreed to a five-year contract with the Stillwater Teachers Association.

The contract calls for a 4 percent raise this year, and 11.7 percent spread over three years ending with the 2006-07 school year.

The Stillwater budget calls for an 8% increase in taxes and a 6% increase in spending. The reason is obvious. If you have a memory like an elephant, you'll recall this story from September 2001: Stillwater School Board considers 5-year plan with no tax increase. I guess an 8% tax increase is Plan B.

In 2001, the average salary for a Stillwater teacher was $43,936. However, Stillwater teachers likely had less experience than other area schools, on average, because of the lower salary scale.

* * *

In October the union picketed in front of the school before parents arrived for an open house, in an effort to publicize the unfinished contract negotiations. The union cited state Department of Education statistics from 2002 that placed the median annual salary in the district at $39,968, about $11,000 below the median salary across Saratoga County school districts.

The last teachers' contract ended on June 30, 2002, and was agreed on in 1998 after seven years of negotiations. During the last two years, the two sides met several times with state mediators to help reach an agreement.

* * *

The new teachers' contract also creates grade-level and department coordinators throughout the district, which holds about 1,310 student. The "department heads," as Frank termed them, will get stipends and be allowed to have a reduced class load. Frank said the new position will manage curriculum in departments and across grade levels.

The new contract includes a bonus that will be paid to all teachers for the 2002-03 school year when they worked without an agreement. Leadbetter said the majority of union members voted in favor of the contract at a meeting last Wednesday.
// posted by Jerry Moore @ 1:21 AM

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?