Oh, Liv

It was a single parent, which is a tad embarrassing since Stand for Children had put out an all-call for people to come down and testify, and when Stand's own lead guy (Dave Powell) couldn't be arsed to testify on behalf of the bill, and when even rock-solid reformers like Rep. Magendanz are asking tough questions about the bill, the bill's a dead parrot.

Read more here, if any.

Poor Form, Liv

No, I'm not talking about the wonderful planted article in the Washington State Wire where they didn't note that you had applied for the Charter Commission and not been selected, which seems like it would have been a relevant fact to know about someone who was then slagging on people who had been selected.

Nor am I talking about this one where you yourself failed to mention that, like me, you weren't selected for the Charter School Commission.

I'm just rather surprised that someone who dislikes teacher unionism wouldn't have picked up on the fact that Springdale/Mary Walker is one of the largest unorganized locals in all of Eastern Washington.  There is no WEA presence there.  Hasn't been in quite some time.  Springdale also has this beautifully incestuous relationship with Valley through their Padeia High School co-op, and Valley has been exploiting every fucking loophole in the book one of the leaders in on-line education for years now.  They're also mostly unorganized.

I think you're raging against your own people.

Read more here, if any.

FREEEEEDOM! Except for state employees, they can go screw.

I don't understand this point of view, at all.

A couple of years ago my District went to the employees with an idea to change dental plans.  I thought that, all things considered, it was a fairly moderate proposal.  They met with everyone in my building, certificated and classified, and presented.

They left running with their asses firmly held in their hands, because any time you talk about changing benefits people get really, really antsy.

That was a good 8 years ago.  Last year there was the proposal to move all school employees into one pool, an idea which only passed in the dead of night at the last day of the session, embarrassing the PSE of Washington in the process, which was the single best organizing tool that the WEA has ever been handed since I've been involved.

Point is, people get really, really touchy about their health benefits.  They should.  They're a big deal.  The notion that Senator Tom is putting out with this bill, that these new programs should be pushed down from administrators onto their underlings because it's the administrators who know best, is ridiculous.

There is nothing that will make employee wellness programs fail faster than leaving out the employees when you design them.

Read more here, if any.

She's Not the One Who Jumps Out at Me

The Freedom Foundation is concerned that a former union leader is applying for a school board seat in Issaquah that was vacated by friend of Ed Reform Chad Magendanz when he left to serve in the legislature.

Me, I look at the bio of the applicant who proudly lists her time with the Issaquah PTA and the League of Education Voters and get just as much of a pause.  Some of the worst ideas that the PTA has dealt with in recent years have started in Issaquah.

If you'll excuse me, I need to go meddle in a school board election in Vader now.

Read more here, if any.

Personal and Confidential to Shannon Campion: When You Can't Even Bring Yourself to Say "F Schools", the Bill Stinks

Post update:  You can watch the video here.  King5, your embedding stinks.

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I still miss Up Front with Robert Mak, but these segments that King5 has been putting out are pretty good so far.

This week the lead interview is with Shannon Campion, the executive director of Stand for Children, who doesn't do a good job.  First, when talking about Litzow's school grading bill she talks about "getting extra support to C and D schools", but can't bring herself to go all the way to the bottom of the scale, which proves to my satisfaction that even though Stand has been bleating on their Facebook page all weekend about how this is a bi-partisan proposal, they know that those grades are stigmatizing.  She also gets noticeably flustered when she gets asked about the oversight role that OSPI could have when it comes to Charter Schools, which makes one think that Superintendent Dorn just might have a point.

In the second half Austin Jenkins did a nice job with the differences between the House and Senate right now.  It's good video.

Read more here, if any.

This Week in Olympia: You Can Watch Committee Hearings Live While You Eat Your Dinner!

It's going to be a busy week as policy committees work to pass out bills before the arbitrary deadline to get them to the budget committees.  Most every day has a 5:00, 5:30, or 6:00 hearing scheduled, meaning that the Brotherhood will be busy later than usual.

Monday:  There are no 8:00 committee hearings, probably to give west side legislators a chance to drive down after a holiday weekend at home, and only the Senate has a slate of morning meetings with nothing that jumps out as related to education.

At 1:30 the Senate K-12 Committee is meeting to discuss a bill to allow private schools to also offer on-line programs, and an idea for Required Action Districts that is co-sponsored by 4 of the 5 Democrats on the committee and none of the Republicans.  The 3:30 Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting has been cancelled, but over in House Appropriations they'll be hearing a bill about voters pamphlets for primary elections, and at 6:00 the Senate Governmental Operations Committee will be having a late executive session where the chair will hopefully apologize to Sheriff Knezovich for the dumb, dumb things she said.

Anyhooo.....

Tuesday:  8:00 brings a House Higher Education meeting which could be interesting because they're hearing a state version of the DREAM Act.  Expect Sound Politics and The Reagan Wing to be fully fired up.  The Senate Higher Education Committee meets in the afternoon to hear a differential tuition bill, but that one is sponsored by the Democrats so expect this proposal listed on the committee webpage to move instead.  The House Education Committee will be hearing a 23 page bill to implement the recommendations of the Achievement Opportunity Gap Commission.  It's prime sponsored by the chair of the committee hearing it, so I'd think it'd have a shot.

At 3:30 the fiscal committees start meeting; in House Appropriations they're hearing some bills that have come out of committee, including one sponsored by Rep. Magendanz about student truancy.  Tonight's late meeting at 6:00 is the House Finance Committee, where they'll be hearing the bill to impose a tax on gas refineries that has been suggested as one way to pay for the McCleary decision.  I have three different fart jokes I'd like to tell here, but this is a family blog.

Wednesday:  Nothing in the morning.  In the afternoon Senate K-12 will be hearing a good little bill to suspend some of the various programs that have been thrust down on the schools in recent years (so long, Student Learning Plans), but it would also take away the requirement that school board members join WSSDA, which has come up before and been pushed back at hard.  That could be an interesting hearing.  I also rather like this bill which cuts down on the number of fire drills, from 6 to 4, but adds to the number of lockdown drills, from 1 to 4.  That's a net loss of instructional time.

The House Higher Ed Committee also meets at 1:30.  At 3:30, the Senate Ways and Means Committee will be passing out Senator Dammeier's "Flunk ALL the 3rd Graders!" bill, as well as having a hearing on Senator Litzow's school reform proposal.  In the House, the Education Appropriations Subcommittee has a full agenda, and at 5:30 the House Education Committee is meeting with an agenda that looks a little light at this point but is guaranteed to fill up as the week goes along.

Thursday:  House Education at 8:00 with an empty agenda.  House Higher Education with a single bill to hear at 10:00.  An interesting one will happen in the Senate Governmental Operations Committee at 10:00 when they hear a bill to allow a simple majority vote for school bond issues, which would be huge.  At 1:30 the Senate Higher Ed has a bunch of appointments they're working through.

A bit of an oddity for the Senate Ways and Means Committee meeting at 3:30:  a bill that would exclude "Employee Wellness Programs" from those things that can be bargained; essentially, making them off-limits to the unions.  This is an issue that was just covered in the Labor Notes newsletter I read (highly recommended for anyone who cares about unions) here and here, and apparently Senator Tom is also a subscriber because he's the prime sponsor.  The sunset meeting at 5:30 is the K-12 Education Committee, and there are two bills related to gun safety in the schools that could bring out some crowds.

Friday:  Senate K-12 is meeting first thing with a blank agenda, as is House Education at 1:30.  That's pretty much it for the day.

Read more here, if any.

MoneyGrabber!

One of the Big Idea school reform bills to get attention early in the session was Senate Bill 5237, prime sponsored by Senator Bruce Dammeier of Puyallup.  He said that it was all about "the critical juncture" between 3rd and 4th grade.  He said it was about dropout prevention and improving the graduation rate.  He said it was about closing the achievement gap and putting kids on a successful path for life.  He had an ally in Stand for Children, who had to commit a classic Lie of Omission to justify their support, but Stand has proven this year more than any other that they don't really care what the reform does, as long as it's something they can call reform.

Everyone else said that this bill was absolute nonsense.  That making the MSP a high stakes test, when we're getting ready to roll out new standards related to the Common Core and the new tests that will follow, was the absolute antithesis of what kids need.  That retaining a kid who was struggling in reading, but OK in every other subject, was pedagogically unsound, and that retention in general is linked to higher drop-out rates.  The bill summary gives a nice, tidy overview of both sides of the discussion.

The result was a complete re-do, which you can see in the substitute bill that was heard in the Ways and Means Committee.  The retention piece was moved from the 3rd grade test to the 4th grade test, which isn't any better, but there's also a lot of pieces about intervention and professional development, which looked great until the financial guys came back with an $80 million dollar price tag that had the Ways and Means Committee clutching their pearls at the shock of actually having to fund stuff.

A similar bout of apoplexy occurred in the Senate K-12 Committee on Friday morning during a hearing on Senate Bill 5242, which would provide 10% bonuses for math and science teachers.....

(Secondary math and science teachers, who have at least 50% of their day as math and science, and who are deemed excellent under criteria that hasn't been written yet by the Professional Educator Standards Board.  So if you're a 5th grade science teacher, or only teach two periods a day of math, or don't meet whatever standard the PESB comes up with--sucks for you!)


....when the GOP members of the committee didn't like the cost estimate that OSPI came up with for what those bonuses would cost ($70m every two years).  Crosscut did a short story on the meeting as well.

So the Senate K-12 Committee, the new Gang that Couldn't Shoot Straight, with Crazy Stevie as the chair, not only can't pass the ideas that they do like (grading schools!), they can't find the money to pay for the bonus program they want either, and those bills that do make it over to the House will be given the mercy of a quick death unless they have some sort of blessing from Sen. McAuliffe.

I've said before that Senator Litzow may not be good at his job, but I take it back--for guys like me who want to snark about education politics, he's an answered prayer.

Read more here, if any.

An Interesting Moment from the House Education Committee: Stonier and Dahlquist Co-Author an Amendment, Stonier Speaks Against Amendment, Amendment Fails

House Bill 1252 would create some on-line professional development modules that would be accessible to staff.  It's a decent idea that would be a welcome dose of fresh air into a system of clock hours and certificate renewal that is broken in ways that never seem to get addressed.

Anyhow, Monica Stonier is a classroom teacher who was elected out of Vancouver to fill the seat that Tim Probst vacated to run against Don Benton.  She's a Democrat who was one of the WEA's priority candidates in the 2012 elections.  Cathy Dahlquist is a Republican former school board member from Enumclaw, also endorsed by the WEA, so when you hear it said that they worked on an amendment to the bill together it makes you go, "Hey, bipartisanship!"

....and then Rep. Stonier urges a no vote.  On her amendment.  And then it failed.  The bill still passed 12-8.

It's also good to hear Rep. Magendanz (R-Issaquah) acknowledging some of the issues around on-line learning.

This week is cut-off week, where bills have to pass out of their committee of origin.  That means a lot less than you'd think it would.

Read more here, if any.

This Week in Olympia: Punching Teachers is Bad

Monday:  The Senate K-12 Committee will be hearing SB5497, which makes it a case of 3rd Degree Assault to punch a teacher.  Bus drivers and their supervisors are already covered, which would be an interesting piece of legislative history to see where that came from, but this creates equal footing.  It's law that I hope isn't used often.

At the same time over in the House the Capital Budget committee will be hearing a pair of bills related to school district construction, and Reuven Carlyle's Flaming Liberal Finance Committee will be having a work session on the Joint Task Force on Education Funding.

Tuesday:  I'd guess that the House Higher Education committee will start getting more interesting as the session goes along and they'd have to take legislative action on things like differential tuition, but for now their 8:00 meeting covers non-controversial topics like letting veterans register for classes early.

At 1:30 both the Early Learning and Education Committees are meeting; I'm rather interested in the farm apprenticeship program (HB1276), which could be good for several schools here in Eastern Washington.  On the Senate side the Higher Education committee is scheduled to hear a draft bill on efficiency, which is in draft form on the committee website now.

The day ends with the House Appropriations Committee hearing a bill on differential tuition, while the Senate Ways and Means gets the first crack at one of the dumb bills that Senator Litzow got out of the K-12 Education Committee.

(Aside:  How dumb?  The fiscal note for the bill points out that the State can't direct how Title funds are spent, the way that the bill did, so expect to see amended out something that shouldn't have ever been there in the first place)

(Aside to the aside:  The Democrats did the exact same thing with federal stimulus funds two years back, so there's that)

The most important thing today is the school bonds and levies that will be voted on around the state.  Good luck to you if you have one up!

Wednesday:  One of the keynote bills of the WEA, regarding collective bargaining for Community College employees, gets a hearing in the House Labor and Workforce Development Committee at 8:00.

At 1:30 the Senate K-12 Committee will be hearing a bill to change the testing requirements and codify a lot of the Common Core work that has gone on.  At the same time the House Higher Education Committee will be hearing a pair of efficiencies bills, including the companion to the bill heard in the Senate on Tuesday.

The meeting I'll be paying the most attention to is at 3:30, when the Senate W&M Committee is holding a hearing on what the potential impact of the sequestration at the federal level could be on the state.  For a district like mine, where federal aid is a huge percentage of our budget, it would be devastating.

At the same time, the House Appropriations has a meeting scheduled to pass the differential tuition bill they're hearing on Tuesday.

Thursday:  Happy Valentine's Day!

At 8:00 the House Education committee will be hearing a bill related to on-line learning; expect one of the lobbyists from Valley to be there.  A different bill would yank your license if you lie about your WEST-B or E scores, which was legislation done by request of the Professional Educator Standards Board if memory serves me.

At 10:00 the House Higher Education committee is having a work session on "Postsecondary affordability", lead by the Economic Opportunity Institute.  They're also set to pass a bill authorizing a couple of new educational specialist degrees at Western and Central.

In the afternoon, starting at 1:30, you've got Senate Higher Education, then at 3:30 the Senate Ways and Means committee will be hearing a bill prime sponsored by Rosemary McAuliffe that would raise more money to pay for the McCleary decision.  It has no sponsors from the Majority Coalition, though, so I can't see a path for it to move forward.

Also at 3:30 the House Education Appropriations subcommittee will be holding a session on the importance of school counselors.  We lost mine at our school this year, and the absence has certainly been felt.

Friday:  In the morning Litz and the Tantrums will be playing over on the Senate side at 8:00; the most interesting bill on the agenda is their proposal to pay math and science teachers more.  They'll have to be deemed "expert" by the PESB, a group that isn't exactly known for the brevity of their work, so if this bill were law I wouldn't worry about it until well after 2020.

In the afternoon the House Education committee will be hearing an idea, prime sponsored by Brad Klippert, to make it easier for districts to look at going to a four day school week.  It's mildly interesting to see Eric Pettigrew signed on as a co-sponsor--Seattle would never, ever do this--and also look for the PSE of Washington to be out in force, because while teachers are protected from the impact of a four day week because of the salary schedule, it's devastating to bus drivers, custodians, and cafeteria workers who lose 20% of their salary.

Read more here, if any.

On the Six Hour School Day Bill: We Did This To Ourselves

Over the weekend my email box went kaboom over the coming of Senate Bill 5588, which is getting special attention because of this particular language:

 "School day" means a minimum of six instructional hours as defined in RCW 28A.150.205 each day of the school year on which pupils enrolled in the common schools of a school district are engaged in academic and career and technical instruction planned by and under the direction of the school. Late start, early release of students, or partial days resulting in less than six instructional hours is prohibited unless the release is for a full school day.

Let's start with the dumb unintended consequence first:  this bill would take away the ability for a school district to do a 2 hour late start in the event of inclement weather.  That would be a stupid loss of local control, and I'm fairly certain that's not the intent even if that's what the clear language would mean.  I expect that to be amended for clarity.

This should be a moment for a bit of introspection, though, because I think we all know how bills like this happen.  The parents of our current public school student didn't grow up with every Friday afternoon being cancelled, or every Wednesday being a late start for professional development, and they resent it when they have to pay for child care or change their schedule.  We in the system try to cover it up with platitudes about "That's a great time for parents to schedule dentist appointments!" or "The families get used to it!", but they still resent it.  I live near the intersection of three school districts, two of which run late start or early release, so I've heard the complaining first hand.

Some blame also goes to the legislature and OSPI.  When the LID days were cut, there went dedicated time for professional development.  Getting angry at school districts for trying to fill that void is a dodge of responsibility.  Similarly, when OSPI used to host their Summer Institutes around the state during the summer that was a great opportunity for school teams to get together and work on things; that was lost to budget cuts early on in this financial crisis.

The correct thing to do would be to fund the 10 LID days proposal that the State Board of Education is asking for, because that would actually solve the problem.  This bill, which is another slap at local control from people who should know better, is not the way.

Read more here, if any.

If You're Not Prepared for Power, You End Up Like Steve Litzow

....because he's had a bad week, and it's going to get worse.

On Wednesday he held a hearing about making the reading test in 3rd grade a pass/fail proposition; this, at the exact same time that we're changing both the standards and the testing to meet the demands of the Common Core.  It's a bad idea that was copied from Florida, exactly like another one of his bills, and this did not go unnoticed by the Senate Democrats.

What Litzow has done, essentially, is picked up the gavel, pulled down his pants, and showed his butt for all the world to see, and as the  Democrats line up to kick it with aplomb you'll see those "reform" bills that do pass out of the committee be on strictly 6-5 party line votes, and I'm not sure what'll happen when Jerome Delvin leaves to go be a County Commissioner back home.  The members of the Majority Coalition will then be asked to make some absolutely terrible votes where they'll get zero Democratic support on the floor, and then those bills will die in the House.  If Washington really is an education reform backwater, the way that Senator Tom is fond of saying, it's only because Litzow's committee is working hard to set ed reform back 20 years.  Well done!

Other reading:

The Bush Foundation is reading out to the states
Corporate Interests Pay to Play

Read more here, if any.

Rep. Norma Smith Nails It, Unintentionally

When you travel in my district, and when you sit with job creators that are hanging on by a thread....they're worried.  When consumers don't know what tomorrow holds, in terms of what's coming down from us, they worry.  It impacts decisions in families. -- Rep. Norma Smith

I agree with the good representative from the 10th Legislative District, and I would encourage her and everyone else involved in governance to understand that teachers feel that uncertainty, too.  When the Senate is looking to throw on more, new accountability, to change an evaluation system that was just changed last year after being introduced in 2010, when they want to make the new 3rd grade Common Core-aligned test a high-stakes test where one bad hour for a kid could mean one year of their life--that's uncertainty.

Read more here, if any.

Steve Litzow: Tool of the Ed Reformers

Senate Bill 5328, the one that would give most every public school a grade?

It's copied pretty much whole cloth from this legislation in Florida.

And similar wording also shows up in this bill from New York State.

For example, this wording from 5238 (page 2 line 7):

(b) An alternative school may choose to receive a school or a school improvement rating

(ibid, by the way--it's an absolutely terrible cut and paste job)

 ....look like this in the Florida legislation:

2.  An alternative school may choose to receive a school grade under this section or a school improvement rating under s. 1008.341. 

 ....and makes an awful lot more sense, given that there really isn't a context for the idea of a "school improvement rating" for Washington State schools.  My guess is that when Senator Litzow had the bill written for him, he didn't bother to make sure it was really written to match what we do here.

One can't help but detect the hand of ALEC in all this.

Read more here, if any.

Accountability for Thee, But Not for Me! Charter School Edition.

First, let's review:

• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Washington Policy Center
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Yes on 1240 Fact Sheet
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Lisa McFarlane in a Ballard News Editorial
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Mary Lou Evans in the Everett Herald
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Liv Finne
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Bellingham Herald
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- Partnership for Learning
• "Charter schools are public schools." -- The Olympian

....and numerous other editorials, letters, Facebook posts, and pretty much everywhere else you looked.

Contrast that with this language from Senate Bill 5328, prime sponsored by Steve Litzow and co-sponsored by 7 others.  The effect of the bill would be to give every school a letter grade from A to F, of course based off of test scores.  Actually, not every school:

(3) Each school that has students who are tested using the assessments administered statewide in reading, writing, mathematics, and science required under RCW 28A.655.061, 28A.655.066, and 28A.655.070 shall earn a school grade, except as follows:
(a) To protect the privacy of students, schools, and district testing fewer than ten students in a grade level;
(b) An alternative school may choose to receive a school or a school improvement rating;
(c) Charter schools, unless the charter school governing board chooses to earn a school grade;

 There is absolutely no legitimate excuse for this.

"They're new, it's not fair to grade them!"  High turnover schools are practically new every year.
"They work with high-need populations!"  So do all of our alternative high schools.
"They have their own accountability!"  So does my public school, through the State Board of Education's Achievement Index.

This is what those who were against I1240 were talking about when they worried that the initiative would create a two track system of public schools that were accountable and charter schools that are not.  In the coming years, when the test scores tank because of the switch to the Common Core State Standards, this bill would create a reality where most every real public school had a scarlet F attached to them while the "public" charter schools could opt out and avoid the consequences.

There are other problem with the bill--the incentive piece is simply insulting, and this would be another layer of accountability bureaucracy on top of what the Board of Education is already doing--and I can't imagine it would pass the House.  It's simply sad to see just how little Senator Litzow and the rest of the Majority Coalition Caucus think of public schools.

Read more here, if any.

One Last Research Thought to Close the Day....

When I was trying to take care of some link rot in the last post, I noticed that the link to the CRPE report on the Master's bump needed to be changed, so I found the new one. Finding that, in turn, lead me to an updated version of the report put out by the Center for American Progress, here, and that lead to this interesting finding:

 In the July 2009 report, the average Masters bump for Washington State was reported to be $10,777 dollars.

Three years later, that number had been revised to an even $5,000.

Oops.

Read more here, if any.

Repost: How a Lie Becomes a Law

I'm working on another post regarding Marguerite Roza's testimony to the Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee earlier this week, but I thought I might bring back this oldie from late 2010 regarding when she was wrong about teacher salaries.

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Last Friday, November 19th, Bill Gates was in Kentucky giving a speech on education. The PI had the AP summary the next day:

On Friday, billionaire Bill Gates took aim at school budgets and the master's degree bonus.

"My own state of Washington has an average salary bump of nearly $11,000 for a master's degree - and more than half of our teachers get it. That's more than $300 million every year that doesn't help kids," he said.

"And that's one state," said Gates, the co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, at a speech Friday in Louisville to the Council of Chief State School Officers. Gates also took aim at pensions and seniority.

Also picking up the lede were KOMO TV in Seattle, along with the Seattle Times.

Today, the WashACE blog picked up on the story, calling Gates' comments "perceptive insights" in the broader context of how to handle the state budget crisis.

Bill Gates says it, the media repeats it, it becomes the groupthink of the ed reform class, and merrily we go on our way.

The trouble is, what Gates is saying is flat-out wrong. You can see for yourself by going to the OSPI website and looking at this year's salary schedule. Look at the column for BA+0, then look in the same row at the column for MA+0. The result? A $6,800 difference. Move down to the row for 8 years of experience, and you'll get to about a $7,000 difference. Neither is the $11,000 difference that Gates cited.

How was the lie born? Gates didn't just pull those numbers out of the ether; instead, he's quoting a study done by the Center on Reinventing Public Education (CRPE) at our own University of Washington. The lead researcher is my old friend Marguerite Roza, and the germ of the lie can be found in the appendix:

This analysis used data from two sources. The 2003-­‐04 Schools and Staffing Survey from the National Center for Education Statistics provided state-by-­state figures for both the percentage of teachers with masters degrees, and the average salary of teachers at each degree level—bachelor’s or below, master’s, to name a few—for given years of longevity. This analysis used these data to compute the average percentage salary increase awarded for education credits earned beyond a bachelor’s degree. The analysis then applied the percentage increases to the more recent state-­by-­state average salary figures and total number of teachers from the National Educators Association’s 2008-­‐09 Salary Survey, in order to compute the dollar value of the master’s bump in each state.

(Personal aside: National Educators Association? You're an expert on reforming public schools, and you can't even get the name of the frackin' teacher's union right?)

Look at the process here: using data from 2003, published in 2004, then refracted again through the lens of a different study from 2008, this final product was made. Common sense tells us that the more you play with any set of numbers the farther away from their original meaning they're going to get, and that's exactly what you're seeing here. Instead of using the salary schedule--the simplest, clearest data--Dr. Roza decided to do data gymnastics instead. It calls her results into question.

Things get worse. Quite a bit worse, to my mind. The 2003-2004 Schools and Staffing Survey that the report mentions is available online, and one of the tables that you'll find is the pithily named "Percentage of public school districts and private schools that had salary schedules for teachers and among those that had salary schedules, the average yearly base teacher salary, by various levels of degrees and experience and selected public school district and private school characteristics: 2003–04." Their numbers?

In 2003-2004, the average salary for a teacher with a bachelor's degree and no experience: $29,100
In 2003-2004, the average salary for a teacher with a master's degree and no experience: $31,900.

That's a difference of only $2,800.

So let's look at this lie again: the numbers had to be processed more than the "meat" that makes the average hotdog, and there was a perfectly good data set in the report that was ignored in the process of making the larger point. There were two easy ways to get to the heart of the question, and the CRPE ignored both of them. That's either driven by an agenda or rank laziness; neither is particularly appealing.

So Bill tells this lie. He may even believe the lie, but it's a lie in spirit and in fact because of the absolute crap job that the CRPE did in getting those numbers. The real pisser, if you're Bill Gates and have been made into a liar by this "research", is found on the very last page of the report:

Funding for this work was provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Money well spent, Bill.

Why let the truth get in the way of a good lie, though? It's much easier to just repeat what Bill said. He's got a foundation, after all, and he talks a lot about education, not to mention the whole billionaire thing, so he must be right. Just watch--in the coming months you'll hear this lie repeated with vigor by people who heard the soundbyte and nothing else and figured "Hell, Gates said it, and there's real University-backed research, so it must be true!"

And that, my friends, is how a lie becomes a law.

Read more here, if any.

Congratulations to Senator Rodney Tom on Breaking the World Record Time for Shitting the Bed After Taking Power

I'm not even talking about all the nonsense with Pam Roach, although that is a fun side story that gives the press corp something to do in this week where every committee meeting begins with 30 minutes of "I'm Representative Jones, I love kids, and my district is awesome!"

Remember last month, when the Majority Coalition Caucus came into being in the Washington State Senate and released their five governing principles?

We, the members of the Coalition Caucus, come together behind the principles of:

• budget sustainability and living within our means;
• creating an economic environment where jobs are plentiful and small businesses thrive;
• providing a world-class education system through reforms and enhancements;
• governing collaboratively to protect our most vulnerable while prioritizing the needs of middle-class Washingtonians;
• and setting priorities for state government and holding it accountable.

How do you reconcile those principles, then, with Senator Tom's insistence on destroying the Guaranteed Education Tuition (GET) Program, our pre-paid tuition program here in Washington State? Those families that buy the GET credits are budgeting for the future and making sure that their kids are taken care of. They're doing their best to help their children access a world-class education system without having to start their adult lives $50,000 or more in the hole. They're prioritizing education by accessing a program that's great for middle-class Washingtonians. The families using GET are doing the exact right thing.

In return Senator Tom, who worries about the middle class in the same way that a hawk worries about the number of mice in a field, calls GET a Ponzi scheme (horseshit--the money is always there for those who pay into it) and tries to argue that GET is somehow driving tuition costs when it's the legislature and the directives that they've given to the colleges that's making that happen, not GET. Senator Tom is the former chair of the Senate Higher Education Committee--he knows full well why tuition has become what it has become. I mean, really:  

Tom said it's unclear exactly who the GET program helps.

It's clear as day, unless you really don't want to see.  It helps middle class families, like mine.  Someone who literally lives off of a trust fund may not get that, but our reality is different than his.  It is heartening to see that the House Republicans, most notably Gary Alexander, have already come out against eliminating GET, and I applaud them for it.

It only took five days, out of 105 in the session, for Senator Tom to have his first several screw-ups.  Here's to more of the same next week.

Other reading:

• Senator Rodney Tom: The Politics of Two-Faced Divisiveness by Joel Connelly at the Seattle PI
• Senator Rodney Tom: Give College Savings Program the Budget Ax by John Stang at Crosscut
• Axing College Savings Program: The Jury Is Out, ibid
• Money From Nothing?, by the only media outlet in the state that would praise Senator Tom for this.

Read more here, if any.

Highlights From Today's Appropriations Committee Meeting

Every bit of testimony boiled down to "We know the Governor's budget doesn't look anything like what you'll be passing in April, but damn it's good!" Worth watching for the WSSDA defense of levy equalization--always good to hear it spoken for--and to hear the 4-year institutions making their case to be protected in this year's budget. Also, Ross Hunter knows how to keep a meeting moving, and Timm Ormsby has low tolerance for bad handwriting.

Read more here, if any.

Inside Olympia with Rodney Tom (Abridged Version)

 With Austin Jenkins, Rodney Tom, and Mark Schoesler

AJ:  I'm joined by a Republican and a Democrat, I guess.  Is Ed Murray done hating you yet?

RT:  I'm so fucking bipartisan it hurts, and I don't understand why the Democrats over there won't take me up on my generous offer.

AJ:  Will you negotiate with them at all on the committees or the structure?

RT:  Fuck that, I'm a winner!  Right, Mark?  I'm giving them no strings attached chairs!

AJ:  What will day one look like?

MS:  I will bathe in the blood of the Democrats, and my God will it ever be glorious.

AJ:  Ed Murray read a history book, and he says that you're both so full of shit that you cry brown tears?

RT:  My constituents really want this.  Last year, we passed the budget 44-2!

AJ:  Wasn't that mainly Ed Murray's budget?

RT:  Oh, fuck off.  There are serious issues, and I'm a serious man!

AJ:  Kevin Ranker also says that this notion of power sharing is a total crock under a cloak of bipartisanship and that this is more to the right than it is the middle.

MS:  FUSE is the Washington version of ACORN.  Transportation, Higher Education, and Environment are all really, really neat committees that anyone would want to chair!

RT:  I chaired Higher Ed last year.  It was great.
RT:  I can't believe Kevin Ranker would say such a horrible thing, because me and Mark basically copied all of that off of Jay Inslee's website.  Me and Mark are just like Jay Inslee!

MS:  Easy, Tiger.

RT:  I don't want us to be like DC, so that's why I'm just like Joe Lieberman.

AJ:  So, social issues?

MS:  Jobs, education, and budget.  Period!  That's what people are concerned about.

AJ:  So, no social issues?

MS:  Didn't say that.

AJ:  But Steve Hobbes wants insurance providers to have to pay for abortions, and Republican Steve Litzow agrees.  Does that bill have a chance?

RT:  I totally support that legislation, but that witch Lisa Brown didn't pass it last year when she was the majority leader.  People hate those political games!

AJ:  So you'll pass it this year, since you're the majority leader?

RT:  Oh hell no.  Val Stevens would kill me.  We're going to have a laser focus, absolutely!

AJ:  Do you think you have control, or is that tenuous?

MS:  In 1963 Big Daddy Day did things.

RT:  But we haven't put a lock on any ideas.  Legislation will be introduced, and if I have to give Janea Holmquist Right to Work in order to get her vote for my Screw All the Teachers Bill, I'll do it.

AJ:  So what will you guy do when you have different opinions?

RT:  (looks at MS)

MS:  That's all you need to know, right there.

RT:  I'm thoughtful!

AJ:  Senator Schoesler, how dead is gun control?

MS:  BWAHAHAHAHAHA!  Oh so fucking dead.

AJ:  The Associated Press said this week that Pam Roach is still beating staff.  Is she a reliable vote?

MS:  I never got to see that report that said she's nuts.  I mean, I spend a lot of time with her in meetings, but I dunno.  Also, we're all going to have training.  Training is the cure, here!  And I can find one staffer who she hasn't abused yet, so really I think everything is just swell.

AJ:  But are there any restriction on her?

RT:  Jesus, no.  I need her like oxygen.

MS:  I really need a committee meeting so that I can know what's going on.

AJ:  McCleary will cost eleventy bazillion dollars.  What do?

RT:  The internet sales tax will make everything better.

AJ:  I thought you said you were against raising taxes?

RT:  Shut up.  I'm going to fund the classroom of the future, where the teachers are terrified and have no health insurance.

AJ:  But reform isn't money, and local school districts are having to make up the difference with local levies.  Why am I having to patiently explain the McCleary decision to you?

RT:  I want STEM to emphasize science, technology, engineering, and math.

AJ:  What?

RT:  A PE teacher and a math teacher make the same amount of money.  Who fucking needs PE teachers, anyways?

AJ:  Fat kids?

RT:  Microsoft can go out and hire a great math and science teacher for a lot more than someone who is a great PE teacher can get another job.  I'm going to attract the best and brightest by calling a lot of teacher slugs.

AJ:  So no more money?

RT:  Oh, eventually, after everything else I want is done.

AJ:  Senator Hewitt was kind of, "Yeah, taxes, maybe?"

MS:  We can't just throw money at the problem.  Our think tank said so!

RT:  I love output measures.  They can be used to make teachers look bad.

AJ:  I'm still hearing "no taxes", yes?

MS:  Ask me after the March revenue and caseload forecasts.  Progress might be anywhere between $0 and a billion.

RT:  I really hate all day kindergarten.

AJ:  Have Governor Inslee and Speaker Chopp told you to go to hell yet?

MS:  Well, they've talked to me......

AJ:  Please come back soon!

Read more here, if any.

What's Going On in Olympia This Week?

I write these things more for me than anyone else, so that I can know when to turn on TVW, but just in case there's someone else in the state who would find it interesting.....

You'll note that the Senate committees don't start until Wednesday, which I'd guess is a side effect of all the nonsense around the new Majority Caucus.

Monday:

The fun will be in the morning, when we see if any Democrats took Dear Leader Tom's offer to allow them to chair a committee or two.  The Senate is scheduled to convene at 12:00, and it could be one of the funnest thing you've ever seen.

At 1:30 Reuven Carlyle's new House Finance committee meets for the first time, which is immediately followed by....

At 3:30 the House Appropriations Committee will have their first hearing of the year to take a look at the Governor's budget proposal.  Her budget is fairly meaningless, but it's the beginning of the discussion, and it will be interesting to see how splitting the single Ways and Means Committee into Appropriations (chaired by Rep. Hunter) and Finance (chaired by Rep. Carlyle) changes the dynamic.

Tuesday:

The House Higher Education Committee is up at 8:00, followed by a work session of the Early Learning Committee at 1:30, the Education Committee talking about the Quality Education Council report at 1:30, and the Appropriations Committee discussing the education section of Governor Gregoire's budget at 3:30.

At 10:30 Governor Gregoire will give her last State of the State address.

Wednesday:

At 10:30 Jay Inslee gets sworn in, followed by the other new statewide elected officials.

The Senate Early Learning and K-12 Education Committee has their first meeting at 1:30, to talk about McCleary and an interesting agenda item called "Staring at a decade of budget gaps: How can state finance policy drive productivity gains in education?"  The fun will be when old committee chair Rosemary McAuliffe interacts with new committee chair Steve Litzow and it's very literally the WEA Avatar vs. the Stand for Children stand-in.

At the same time the House Higher Education Committee will be meeting in a work session to talk about their policy priorities for 2013.  The unions are on the agenda, so solidarity!

Meeting of the day might be at 3:30, when the Senate Ways and Means Committee meets for the first time.  Two of the big power players, Joe Zarelli and Lisa Brown, are gone, previous committee chair Ed Murray no longer has the gavel, and Republican Senator Andy Hill has the power.  I believe this is the year that the Senate goes first in presenting a budget, and it'll be interesting to see how bipartisan or not their proposal is.

Thursday:

The House Education Committee has a joint meeting at 8:00 with the Early Learning and Human Services Committee to talk about the WaKids kindergarten assessment,  then a regular meeting at 9:00 to have more discussion about data.  Early Learning will also be having a 9:00 work session to get an overview of early learning programs, which are meetings that I've always found interesting for the 10,000 foot overview of what's going on in the state.

Higher Education has another work session to talk about policy at 10:00.

At 3:30 House Appropriations is talking about pensions, and planning for the rest of the session.

Friday:

The Finance Committee has their second meeting at 8:00.  The Early Learning and Education Committees are both meeting at 1:30 (I'm personally interested in something that's being said about military kids during the Education Committee meeting).  That's pretty much it for the day as they break for the MLK Jr. Day Weekend.

Here on day 1 the probability of a special session is 20%, and I'll raise that number up or down as things go along.  It's going to be fun!

Read more here, if any.

The Abridged Version of the Freedom Foundation Christmas Letter

Dear Ryan,

This state sucks, and it's because the WEA personally molested a young girl in Morton.  They are scum, and we wish death upon them all.

Merry Christmas!  Step back, relax, and spend some memorable time with family and friends.

For Freedom,

Jonathan Bechtle, Chief Executive Officer

P.S.  STOP THE GOD DAMNED TEACHERS BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Read more here, if any.

If We Want Them to Finish College, We Have to Make It Realistic To Do So

From the November 23rd, 2012 edition of The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Powered by Tableau

This is from a study called "Completing College: A National View of Student Attainment Rates" by the National Student Clearinghouse, and the stats get to what I think are two absolute truths about teaching today:

1)  Raising tuitions might make budgetary sense, but it does absolutely nothing to further the goals we have around completion and workforce readiness.  The number speak for themselves, explicitly--if you want college students to graduate, which is the best proxy we have for success, then we need to give them the chance to be full time students.

2)  Making it harder to become a teacher is intended to create a stronger beginning teacher workforce, but I'd suggest that variables like the ProTeach Portfolio and WEST-E testing are doing more harm than good.  It's not bureaucratic mandates that are going to make the profession more attractive.

Read more here, if any.

One More Thing on the Achievement Gap.....

A solution that the PESB looks primed to try and move through the legislature is to allow suitable SAT scores to serve as a proxy for the WEST-B; e.g., if your SAT scores were acceptable, you wouldn't have to bother with the WEST.

My one question would be: if the SAT is a good enough correlation with the WEST-B, then why do we even bother with the WEST at all?

Read more here, if any.

The Achievement Gap Before the Achievement Gap

Courtesy of the packet for the September Professional Educator Standards Board meeting, this is a graph that compares the passing rate on the WEST-B test of African-American students in teacher prep programs, to the passing rate of all students.  So not only are there less African-American students going into teaching, barely half of them are getting over this first bar.

A later slide says that of the 4,587 students who passed the WEST-B in 2010-2011, 75 of them were African American.

It's your classic chicken/egg question; if we had more teachers of color to inspire our students of color, more of them might go on to close the circle and become, themselves, teachers.  The question is how to get there, which is something the state has been struggling with for as long as I've been in teaching, and a societal issue that goes back to the sixties.

For more reading, try this article from the Huffington Post.

Read more here, if any.

We Must Remain Vigilant on Levy Equalization

Sure, it's just a throwaway comment in a larger article about school funding on Crosscut, but anytime that I read something like this:

One big potential cut could be $605 million by eliminating the state's education levy equalization program, an idea has never gained traction in the Legislatures. The program helps districts with lower property tax revenues; those districts are often in struggling communities.

 .....I get nervous, especially with the profile that the local levy swap idea gained towards the end of the Gubernatorial election.

Read more here, if any.

McKenna Conceded, So Let's Start Looking at 2016

I'm still rather shocked that Rob McKenna lost.

He'd won statewide races before; Inslee hadn't.  Inslee's campaign was a bit of a shambles early on, until he won the August primary and never looked back.  McKenna had been priming for this run since arguably his days on the King County Council, had the state GOP as confident as they've ever been, and still--it didn't happen.

We've known arguably for 5 years that Rob McKenna would be the GOP candidate in 2012.  Rossi had to get another swing at the pinata after coming so close in 2004, but McKenna was clearly next in line.  Who's next in line after Rob McKenna?

Let's set aside, first, the most recent GOP candidates for US Senator.  Dino Rossi (2010) has already had two tries, and Michael Baumgartner (2012) may not poll above 40%.  Conceivably Clint Didier, who lost to Rossi in the 2010 primary (and this year for Lands Commissioner) could try to step up to a run for Governor, but he's also a two-time loser.

What about the GOP Congressional delegation?  Certainly not Doc Hastings.  Dave Reichert is an interesting possibility, given his King County connections, and the state just elected a Representative to be their Governor, but the rumors about his health could dog him, and running for statewide office is a different proposition than winning the 8th CD.  Cathy McMorris-Rogers could eventually be Speaker of the House, would have to give up her House seat to run for Governor, and has a sinecure in her CD that is nearly unmatched, so I don't think she'd try.

Jamie Herrera-Beutler would be interesting.  She's an attractive candidate and a good public speaker, but has been dogged by stories that she doesn't have town hall meetings because she can't handle them, and as Craig Pridemore sadly discovered coming out of Southwest Washington to win a statewide office isn't an easy thing to do.

What about other recent Republican losers for statewide office?  We've already talked about Didier.  James Watkins wasn't able to take out Troy Kelley after smearing him like mad.  Reagan Dunn just tripped over his stepping stone when he lost the Attorney General contest to Bob Ferguson, and on this line you can't get from point A to point C if you're not able to touch point B first.  John Adams and Sharon Haunek aren't viable.

From the legislative ranks, then?  When you look at the Senate Republican Caucus there really isn't anyone who jumps out.  Steve Litzow had a good win on Tuesday in a competitive district, and in the next four years there is a shot he could raise his profile enough to stand out, but he's also a pro-choice Republican which is something that just begs for a challenge from the right.  Mark Schoesler is a solid conservative who has chaired JLARC and knows the budget as well as anyone, but I can't imagine him doing well at all on the west side.

It's much the same story in the House Republican Caucus.  I could see Matt Shea trying it, but Clint Didier's losses pretty much show you the ceiling that the Tea Party/Liberty candidates have in this state.  He's also pretty damaged after his most recent campaign, and while those scandals may not have been enough to cost him the 4th LD they would be absolutely fatal in a statewide election.  Richard DeBolt is an interesting notion.  I'd love to see Joel Kretz run, since he's in my LD, but I don't know why the hell he'd leave God's country up in Ferry County to spend all his time in Olympia.

Stupid ideas?  Rodney Tom switches parties (again!).  Kirby Wilbur.  Nansen Malin.  Mac Strong.  Jason Mercier.

It'll be an interesting four years.

Read more here, if any.