I Thought a Think

Kelly Munn, Casual Stereotyper

2012-01-16T14:39:00.000-08:00

From an email that I received a bit ago from the League of Education Voters, signed by their field director Kelly Munn:

We have to use every resource possible to give all of our kids the education and opportunities they deserve. High-performing public charter schools are helping these kids in 41 other states. Only Washington, Kentucky, Alabama and a handful of others don't give parents this valuable education option.

It's no accident that Ms. Munn chose those two states to compare Washington to, because she wants you to get a very specific image in your mind when she brings up Kentucky and Alabama:

Other states that don't have charter laws? North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Montana, Nebraska, and Maine. The two examples that Kelly went with are the only two states in the south that don't have charter school laws, and we can either attribute that to a 2-in-56 chance that she picked those two at random, or she picked those two purposefully to move a part of the LEV agenda forward because Lord knows we wouldn't want to be like those folks.

A Quick Thought Upon Watching Several Episodes of Beyond Scared Straight

2012-01-16T13:16:00.001-08:00

All those kids need is a Charter school, then everything will be OK!

From the "We Shan't Overcome" Beat

2012-01-16T11:46:00.000-08:00

"Sit-ins in state lawmakers’ offices, which activists had planned to mark Martin Luther King Jr. Day and protest budget cuts, have been canceled because of the snowy, icy weather."

Everything Comes From Somewhere

2012-01-15T19:43:00.000-08:00

One of the dumber arguments that people try is the whole "Teachers unions are funded by taxpayer's dollars!" canard, which you can see on display here at Education Next.

Just don't do it.

I'm Sure It's Just a Coincidence

2012-01-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

A particular line from the charter schools bill that was introduced to the Washington State legislature yesterday, related to an extension of the time that it would take a charter to start serving students:

"The authorizer may grant or deny the extension depending on the school's circumstances."

From the charter school law in Maine:

The authorizer may grant or deny the extension depending on the particular public charter school's circumstances.

How about Montana?

The authorizer may grant or deny the extension depending on the particular school's circumstances.

Heading down south, to Alabama:

The authorizer may grant or deny the extension, depending on the particular circumstances of the charter school.

...and Mississippi:

The authorizer may grant or deny the extension depending on the school's circumstances.

When you hear folks like Rep. Anderson complaining about the powerful teacher's union just remember that it isn't a plucky group of passionate advocates that came out of nowhere on the other side; the movement in support of charters is quite well funded and organized nationally, and this fight in Washington is just another battle that they've already fought before.

Mitt v. Newt

2011-12-21T22:45:00.000-08:00

The humorous thing about Mitt saying that Newt "Can't take the heat" is that Mitt has sputtered pretty hard in the debates when he's actually been challenged head-on. Perry got under his skin a few weeks back, and Newt got him in the last one with the line about Ted Kennedy.

If Mitt Romney can't handle softball attacks from his fellow Republicans, how can anyone really think that he'll be able to handle Obama?

Bad Trend is Bad

2011-12-20T15:36:00.000-08:00

On Monday OSPI released their list of the 57 lowest performing schools in Washington State. Here's some of them, with a little demographic information from the state report card website thrown in:

Inchelium Elementary School: 77% Native American
Inchelium Middle School: 65.9% Native American
Wellpinit Elementary School: 93.8% Native American
Wellpinit Middle Schools: 93.1% Native American
Harrah Elementary School (Mount Adams SD): 57.8% Native American
Mount Adams Middle School: 58.5% Native American
White Swan High School (Mount Adams SD): 48.9% Native American
Nespelem Elementary: 98.7% Native American (as of 09-10; no demographic data for 10-11)
Oakville High School: 49.6% Native American
Tulalip Elementary (Marysville): 59% Native American
Taholah Elementary/Middle School: 69.1% Native American

That's 11 out of the 57 schools where either the majority of the students are Native American, or Native Americans are the largest demographic group in the school. If I wandered through the list again looking at schools that were majority Hispanic, I could probably pull that many schools or better.

I'd submit to you that shortening the school year and firing the teachers probably isn't going to eliminate generational poverty.

Today's Fake News From Olympia, Holiday Edition

2011-12-18T11:43:00.000-08:00

"I've never seen a tax cut put out a fire." -- Barney Frank, This Week With Christiane Amanpour, December 18th 2011

HEROIC TAX CUT TURNS AROUND LOW PERFORMING SCHOOL
Anthropomophized Reduction in Business and Occupation Tax Challenges Kids, Solves Poverty, Erases Achievement Gap

Giddy officials in the Spokane Public Schools announced today that HR509 Section 2148 Regarding Certain Deductions to Capital Investments, recently hired to teach math at Rogers High School as part of the School Improvement Grant process, had completely changed the lives of all the kids lucky enough to be in his/her class.

"We were a little reluctant, frankly, to hire a tax cut to teach, but by God it worked!" said Spokane Schools Superintendent Nancy Stowell. "I look forward to many more tax cuts coming in and making all our schools better, forever."

Future moves suggested by Stowell include having a funding cut restore the art program, and starving the beast to make the school lunch program run in the black.

UNION HATING DEMOCRATS RUSH TO DEFEND THEIR VACATION TIME

With their traditional 3 week Christmas vacation being threatened by Governor Gregoire's special session, a long series of Senate Democrats with absolutely no sense of irony or labor history took to the floor to complain.

"We have a God given right to our vacation time!" thundered Senator Rodney Tom (D-Medina). "The very idea of having to work on a holiday is inhumane, and I am clearly the first person to ever think that!"

"The Gentleman from Medina is correct!" shouted an approving Steve Hobbs. "Not only is this unpaid overtime during what historically would be a break, but I submit to you all--has any worker in history ever been asked to put in so much time during the Holiday season for so little recompense?"

Happily, the electrical supply for all of Snohomish County will now be provided by attaching generators to the bodies of those killed in the Everett Massacre as they roll over in their graves.

RYAN'S POPULARITY IN WEA REACHES AMAZING NEW HEIGHTS
Sets a New Personal Best By Going Three Days Without Being Offensive, Condescending Prick

NOBODY BOTHERS TO TELL PAM ROACH THAT LEGISLATURE ADJOURNED
Confused Senator Only One to Show Up For Cancelled Committee Hearing

"I...I guess I kind of figured that Joe (Zarelli) or Mike (Hewitt) would tell her," said Senator Dan Swecker of Rochester. "I mean, things can kind of get by Pam sometimes, but we were all packing our boxes and talking about driving home...it was sort of understood, right?"

Members of the Olympia Press Corp later found Senator Roach sitting alone in a hearing room in the Cherburg Building holding a passionate debate with herself about the rights of adoptive and foster parents.

TEACHERS ANNOUNCE NEW FOUR TIER RATING SYSTEM FOR GOVERNOR GREGOIRE
"It will be clear. Oh yes, it will be clear," say Enthused Educators

A committee of Washington State teachers today rolled out a new 4 tier evaluation system for Governor Gregoire, a logical accompaniment to the Governor's proposal for teachers.

"We embrace what the Governor is proposing for us, and we hope that she'll feel the same way about what we propose for her," said Joseph Hill, a 3rd grade teacher in the Kent School District. "The purpose of the evaluation system is to improve governing. That's the focus of the evaluation system."

The four proposed ratings for the Governor run the gamut from a high of "Hasn't actively screwed up the state today" down to the lowest rating, "Couldn't find her ass with both hands and a map."

"Currently we've got the Governor at our second lowest rating, "Mike Lowry with TBI". Hopefully, these rigorous new measures will help her improve on up to "Comparisons to Bill Plummer coaching the Mariners are mostly unfair."

Trent England Said Something Silly Again

2011-12-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

Emphasis his:

I remember, as a kid, looking with my dad at a new school being built in our town. My dad knows construction; that's what he does. And he would point out the different components of the new building--the windows, the roofing, the glass blocks--that were the absolute most expensive materials available.

There are large school construction projects going on all around me, and this notion that we're going to the taxpayers and gouging them for Taj Maschools is silly on the face of it. There are committees made of people in the community, an elected school board to oversee the project, and construction bonds still have to pass with a 60% supermajority to become a reality. If you're looking for ways to save money, you're looking in the wrong place.

Today's Fake News From Olympia

2011-12-08T23:12:00.000-08:00

Hilarious Redistricting Mishap Moves Senator Rodney Tom to Eastern Washington

"I do not like this, and will be writing a strongly worded letter to the commission," said Senator Tom. "It is very cold over there, and I do not like trees. Plus, an old gypsy woman cursed that I will spontaneously combust if I ever set fit in a school district that receives levy equalization."

Funding for Arena Bail Out Secured by Redirecting Seattle Deep Bore Tunnel Through Wenatchee

Department of Transportation officials estimate the average commute up the waterfront will take 7 hours, and the new re-designed project will require the state to issue $3.8 trillion dollars of construction bonds.

New John L. O'Brien Building Wolf Pack Being Met With Mixed Reviews By Legislators

The pack, which like the Lookout, Smackout, and Diamond packs was named after the geographical area where it has taken up residence, has caused some level of consternation among legislators and staff members who work in the JLOB building.

"We haven't seen (Representative) Luis Moscoso's legislative assistant, Peter, in nearly a week, and we had to cancel the last JLARC meeting because of all the howling coming from Hearing Room 2," explained Rep. Dave Upthegrove, chair of the Environment Committee. "I fully support the right of these majestic creatures to exist, but I'll confess to being slightly miffed."

Jay Inslee Calls for Extended Special Session to Run Through Election Day 2012

"This has absolutely nothing to do with the fundraising freeze that Attorney General McKenna has to live under while the legislature is in session, and everything to do with....something else," said Representative Inslee from a fundraiser in Seattle. "Given all the issues facing Washington today, it's better for them to stay in session. Yeah, that's the ticket."

Randy Dorn Announces Candidacy for Superintendent of Public Instruction, Promises to Bring Competence, Integrity Back to the Office

Former teacher, school administrator, and legislator Randy Dorn announced today that he would be seeking the office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, making him the titular head of schools in Washington State at a critical juncture in the education reform movement.

"For too long now the Superintendent of Public Instruction has been an empty suit, completely useless, ignored by legislators and teachers alike. The Governor even proposed eliminating the position, which shows you how feckless the leadership over there in the Old Capital Building has been. Today I promise you that I, Randy Dorn, will bring competence back to the OSPI!"

Dorn, who has been out of the public eye in recent years, criticized the current Superintendent of Public Instruction (name unknown) for being "a bystander instead of a leader" as the debate over school reform has become the most heated, and further characterized the incumbent as "a money-grubbing jackass who seems more interested in boosting his retirement payout than actually improving schools."

Calls to OSPI had not been returned as of press time.

In The Cold Light of Day...

2011-12-03T13:19:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had a visceral reaction to Rob McKenna bowing out of a meeting with the WEA at the last minute, but here's a more rational view:

What Rob has done is effectively give control of the education narrative to the WEA. If he had filled out the questionnaire in his own words, he would have made the product; instead, he's left a giant cypher where his own opinions could have been. If he had done the interview he could have responded to criticism directly; instead, he'll make time for Excellent Schools Now, whose one-page list of priorities is some of the most generic pablum in the ed reform community today.

He's worked hard to differentiate himself from governors like Kasich and Walker, but something like this just feeds into the narrative that is being set up. When even Frank Luntz is acknowledging that Occupy Wall Street is making inroads in the public consciousness, and then the AG deliberately tweaks the nose of a union like this.....the attack ad will write itself.

This was an unforced error that you'll be hearing about for the next 11 months.

An Open Letter to Rob McKenna

2011-12-02T22:11:00.000-08:00

Hi Rob,

You're right. You're absolutely right. You probably weren't going to get the WEA endorsement. You did sue the organization pretty gleefully, after all, and you've got some obvious antagonism towards unions in general. I was going to give you credit for even showing up to face down what would have been a group programmed to not like you. That would have been, well, courageous.

But you're not going to show up, Rob. You couldn't make it on November 11th, so the WEA rescheduled the interviews just for you. 60 members from around the state are getting together in Federal Way tomorrow to do the gubernatorial interviews, and now it's only going to be Jay Inslee because you cancelled.

Rob, that's chickenshit. From a conservative standpoint, how are you going to face down the WEA as Governor if you don't even have the courage to do it as the candidate? From a moderate standpoint, if this is how you're going to treat the teachers before you're elected, why would anyone expect better after you're elected? You're supposed to be a mainstreamer, but this doesn't feel like bipartisanship.

I get to criticize. I'm one of the people in the WEA who has tried to build relationships with Republicans, and I've taken some shit for it. In 2010 I pushed to have us endorse folks like Joel Kretz, who is one of the best on levy equalization, and Susan Fagan, who has stepped in to the Education Committee every bit as effectively as Rep. Cox used to serve in the position. Joe Schmick, Kevin Parker, Shelly Short. I've been in every one of their offices, I've had dinner with more than a few of them, I've steered PAC money towards them, and even though we don't always agree we at least have a relationship that I value and appreciate.

You had a chance to start relationship building, Rob, and you blew it off, and I don't really understand why. If you believe in your education platform, go to Federal Way and speak truth to power. What you would have gotten out of it is the chance to say, "Yes, I did meet with the teacher's union, and yes, I told them what I believe," but now you've completely given up control of the narrative.

Courage would have been remarkable. This will still be remarked on, but for different reasons.

One more story: I really hated Eric Oemig. The things that he said about the small school districts I work with were beyond the pale, I didn't like where he was on levy equalization, and in general he bugged me. When we were going through our 2010 endorsement process it was clear that Oemig would get the endorsement over Andy Hill, and Hill was making that pretty easy because he didn't fill out his WEA-PAC survey.

So I sent Andy Hill an email, he called me, and we talked. I encouraged him--please, turn in the survey. We were certain to disagree, but don't just give it away. Hell, you might just find we agree on some things. I want to engage with you, please meet me half way and engage with us.

He never did return that survey. Message received.

Good luck going forward.

One Wonders If the Bill Will Say "By Request of the Attorney General"

2011-11-28T21:37:00.000-08:00

Bill Hinkle Introduces Campaign Financing Fairness Act.

Odds on it passing: 10%.

The Worst Education Analyst In the State Strikes Again!

2011-11-16T23:38:00.000-08:00

So Liv Finne wandered over to the LEAP website looking for info, and she used it to turn out yet another one of her talking points:
In 2010-11, schools added an additional 235 employees to school payrolls, increasing from 101,675 employees in 2009-10 to 101,910 employees in 2010-11.
"See, there's more employees! Funding's great! Ignore all those lying assholes who actually work in the schools, they don't know how to use the internet the way I do!"

But there's two things Liv isn't telling you, and I'm not really sure that she understands either of them:

1) That same LEAP website shows that enrollment in the state went up by about 6,000 students; in tight financial times this makes sense, as parents can't afford private tuition any longer and pull their kids into the public schools instead.

The state funds high schools at a ratio of 1 teacher for every 28.7 students; in grades K-3, it's 25.23:1. Even if you use the higher number--hell, let's round it to 29 for fun--you would still have an increase of about 207 FTE, and that's only the teachers. If I played around with the formulas for bus drivers, paraprofessionals, etc., I'm willing to bet I'd get pretty close to 235.

The point: when Liv makes a deal out of there being more employees without noting that there are also more kids, it's a lie of omission.

2) The most important thing on the LEAP webpage is the little disclaimer at the top of the far righthand column: "District Budgeted". The figures that she's playing with are from the district BUDGETS for 2010-2011 (the F195 form) and not the ACTUAL for 2010-2011 (the F196 forms, which will start rolling out soon enough).

What's the difference? Most all of those budgets were built with $200+ millions dollars of stimulus act jobs money figured in, money which was later clawed back by the state to plug last year's worst budget hole ever. Take out that money--hey, the state did--and spending is just about the same.

I'll fisk the rest of her column a different day. Right now, it's time to go do report cards for my 28 students.

C'mon, Chris

2011-11-15T15:17:00.000-08:00

This is just silly:

After passing the Families and Education Levy, and managing to re-elect three of the four incumbents running for school board, the Emerald City rudely cast out School Board President, Steve Sundquist. In an upset, Seattle elected a retired substitute math teacher – a result that has some casting about for answers and left to wonder, what happened? Teachers’ union contributions happened. And likely a whole lot of other stuff. But without the benefit of exit polling, we’ll likely never know, exactly.

That's from Chris Korsmo of the League of Education Voters, and while she's already being beaten up pretty good in the comments section (+1 for transparency), it bears repeating:

The incumbent who got tossed out, Steve Sundquist, raised about $50,600 according to the PDC website. The winner, Marty McLaren, totaled about $27,000, or roughly half what Director Sundquist did.
About $9,000 of McLaren's money, a third, came from the WEA.
Director Sundquist had 11 donors who gave more than $1,000. McLaren only had 5, including three from the WEA.
Sundquist's top donor is the head of the Gates Foundation, along with his wife, in together for a total of $5,000, so there were motives to be found on both sides of the ledger.

When the LEV points out the union money as something of note without talking about the other money at the same time, it's pretty easy to think that there's an agenda. That "whole lot of other stuff" includes a dilly of a financial scandal, a fired superintendent, and a technically legal land deal that still had a stink to it in the newspapers.

It's funny when people who are very good at playing politics, like the LEV, complain about politics not breaking their way.

Shorter Washington Policy Center

2011-10-30T04:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Kemper,

Send $ soon.

Yours,

Mike Ennis

I've Got to Say....

2011-10-24T13:02:00.001-07:00

.....this would make my life a little less hectic.

Meh

2011-10-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

Every time I read a post like this on Sound Politics, I really miss Eric Earling.

Remember When Rodney Tom Was Good on Education?

2011-10-13T12:33:00.000-07:00

Reading through an old Association of Washington School Principals magazine, he got their Torch of Leadership Award back in 2009.

Since then, he's used that torch to burn down the public schools every chance he gets.

Yay, leadership.

Yet More Evidence That Online Schools Aren't All That Great

2011-10-12T12:31:00.000-07:00

Courtesy of Education Week, with coverage of some online schools not getting the job done in Colorado.

Yet Another Reason Why Average Daily Attendance Funding is a Really Lousy Idea

2011-10-11T12:30:00.001-07:00

Are you listening, Senator McAuliffe?

What, You Want Us to Stay at the Holiday Inn?

2011-10-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

The Washington Association of School Administrators--essentially, the superintendents and other district level staff--is having their fall workshop starting today in beautiful Grand Mound, Washington.

Where the hell is Grand Mound? It's exit 88 off of I-5, about equidistant between Olympia and Centralia. There's a Dairy Queen and a mobile home dealership, a couple of gas stations, and you may have driven through it on your way to the Lucky Eagle Casino.

Why have the workshop in Grand Mound? Because it's also where you'll find the Great Wolf Lodge Resort, where the cheapest rooms begin at $200 a night and easily stretch up to $500+ a night for some of their other facilities.

I'm sure that WASA got some kind of a deal. I hope so, anyhow. There is something to be said, though, about the optics of meeting at a Resort when we live in an environment of all cuts, all the time.

Bad PR, admins.

When the Attack Ads Are True

2011-10-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

They said he was a carpetbagger. He said nope, I'm from here, went to school here, and I am coming back to make a difference for Spokane.

A year later, he's on Seattle TV announcing his run for US Senate.

They said he was using the state legislature as a stepping stone. He said nope, Chris Marr is just projecting, and I'm here to make a difference for the 6th LD.

A year later, he's running for Senate against Maria Cantwell.

The thing about having the most expensive legislative race in history in 2010 is that it creates a ton of cannon fodder, and when you announce that you're pursuing a different office in 2011--not even a year later--the bodies in the closet haven't even had a chance to decompose into the skeletons in the closet.

So now the Washington State GOP is going to end up running a candidate who will be hamstrung by fundraising rules (he can't raise money during the legislative session, I believe, or during any special session), who has words not even a year old that are going to come back to haunt him, who has no statewide profile, and whose major issue in a federal race is going to be wars that have absolutely no support.

If you want to guess what the spread of Baumgartner vs. Cantwell will be, start with the spread for Cantwell vs. McGavick and then add 5 points.

Trent England: I don't care if online schools aren't effective, it's all about breaking the unions

2011-09-25T12:04:00.000-07:00

From the Freedom Foundations email newsletter:

As both a parent and a taxpayer, I'm excited about the potential for online education. The Freedom Foundation's iLearn Project advances online learning because of its promise to help students, but also because it will help break down union control over schools and school districts. Information technology makes it easier to measure actual student learning, makes seat time and location less important, and can allow teachers to compete worldwide. iLearn is a key to unlocking the union's control over Washington schools.

Yet more explicit messaging from the Freedom Foundation that it doesn't matter how generally poor the online schools are, it's all about trying to find a way to break the WEA.

If the good Mr. England had to choose between sending his kids to a bad charter or a good public school that happened to have union employees, one wonders which option he'd take.

Liv Finne: Knows All, Sees All

2011-09-24T16:32:00.000-07:00

I really wanted to call this post "Liv Finne: Knows ~~Fuck-~~All, Sees ~~Fuck-~~All", but blogger doesn't like the strike tag in the header of a post. Which is kind of ironic, considering the topic.

The Tacoma Education Association ended their strike this week (yes, the one I was wrong about), and that gave Liv some brief cause for joy:

The final agreement represents an important victory for students. By gaining flexibility in work assignments district officials will be better able to place the best teachers in the classroom, not just the ones with the most seniority. But the entire conflict could have been avoided.

Note that this was posted on Thursday at about 5:30 in the morning, according to the tagging on Google Reader. Later that day The News Tribune offered that they didn't have any details to share yet, meaning that the paper of record for Tacoma was either scooped by Liv Finne or that Liv was talking out of her ass.

Later on Thursday the teachers of Tacoma voted to ratify the contract by a margin of 1,683 yes to 15 no, so either 99%+ of the members of the TEA voted for a contract that isn't in their best interests, or Liv was talking out of her ass.

King 5 TV provided the final piece of the puzzle Thursday evening:

The way the district reassigns teachers, which was the main point of contention for many teachers, will not change in the current school year. But starting this year a committee of teachers and school district officials will look at potential changes for next year. The union originally wanted to maintain the current system based on a teacher’s seniority. Under the contract, any changes in the policy would need a two-thirds majority.

So that flexibility, that important victory? It's in a committee that needs a super-super-majority to effect change. Liv's post makes no sense, unless you look at it through the lens of "Anything to make teachers look bad".

This isn't a first for Liv. It was about this time last year that we talked about her being lead around by the nose by the since-disgraced Maria Goodloe-Johnson during the negotiations between the Seattle Schools and their teachers. Liv loves her administrators; the teachers in the classrooms, not so much.

How Did the On-Line Schools Do This Year?

2011-09-18T14:48:00.000-07:00

Long-time readers have seen a lot from me about on-line schools here in Washington State, including a comparison of test scores that I did last fall. The whole series can be found here.

What's changed in the last year? Not much. If anything, on-line schools are doing worse than ever when compared to their brick and mortar counterparts. You can see a spreadsheet that I made here; the general upshot is:

Out of 111 tested areas, on-line schools were better than the state average 12 times.
On-line highschools fared extremely poorly--in 29 attempts, they didn't beat the state average a single time. It's the same for 5th grade (0 for 12).
The brightest spots were 6th grade math (2 school out of 5 beat the state average) and the third grade tests (3 of 8).

In the interim since I worked on this year's spreadsheet and got around to finally putting it up on the blog I also received the September edition of the Freedom Foundation's Living Liberty newsletter. Within there's a column from their lead education analyst Diana Moore where she once again overstates the case for on-line schools. For example:

Like the mythical king Sisyphus, reformers seemed doomed to roll a heavy rock up a hill for eternity. Yet online learning might just be the lever to heave that rock to the other side.

That lever was better than the existing system about 11% of the time. In some cases those lever schools had scores less than half those of the state average. On-line schools aren't excelling.
The groundswell of online learning is growing. If this continues at the same pace, it will be hard for status quo protectors to stop.
Not really--you'll just have to look at the results and say, "Wow, those schools have problems."With online learning, we have the historic ability to reclaim the mission of public education from the statists and interest groups who have perverted it. It is possible to offer access to a world class education to every child. Every child.
And this is when I get pissy.Those statists that Diana slags on here are beating the online schools regularly and thoroughly. This call that she makes here, to some bygone era where learning was somehow better, doesn't match up with the data owned by the schools that she's pushing. For certain kids online education may well be a better option, but instead of focusing on the micro aspect she tries to take it into a macro argument about the school system in general, and she's a lesser person for it.We should have online programs, but let's make sure the conversation about them stays honest. What I get thrown back at me fairly regularly is "But Ryan, the mission of the on-line schools is different!", and that may well be true, but consider--if I made that argument about a public school like Wellpinit, or a program from downtown Seattle, Spokane, or Tacoma, if I showed you a "failing" public school and said to you "But those kids are different!", do you think that those in the ed reform movement would grant the point or accuse me of embracing the soft bigotry of low expectations and giving up on kids?When the data is this overwhelming you have to ask yourself what the Freedom Foundation gets out of it, and they've made that clear: the important thing is to screw the WEA. This isn't about freedom, the free market, or conservative principles--it's about the agenda, and that agenda has absolutely nothing to do with students.

A new year begins. Online schools have been poor for two consecutive years. Is there any reason to believe that will change?

It's On the Internet, So It Must Be True

2011-09-17T15:35:00.000-07:00

Area Liquor Store Manager Always Knows When It's Revenue Forecast Week

(Olympia) Fred Graves, the manager of the liquor store located at 417 Plum Street here in the state's capital, reported record profits today as another depressed revenue forecast was released showing a $1.4 billion dollar hole in the state budget.

"Every time Arun Raha has one of those presentations, my sales spike higher than Mount Rainier!" shared a visibly giddy Graves, who has worked at the state-run liqor store since 1988. "If the money keeps flowing in like this, I just might solve the projected deficit all by myself."

Continued the shopkeeper, "After they release the forecast, I can count on the legislators coming in like clockwork. Craig Pridemore heads right for the hard stuff--that rut in the floor you see in front of the scotch? Alex Wood made that, years ago--and I can always count on Joe Zarelli to get a couple bottles of champaign to celebrate."

"Then there's the Governor. Usually sends Mike in for the foo-foo mixes for Daquiris, stuff like that. Back in 2004 she was a teetotaler. Been a hard couple years on her."

When reached for further comment, the Comedy Writers of America said, "The joke you want to tell about Tomiko-Santos? Just don't."

Members of Roadkill Caucus Meet and Congratulate Selves Over Hilarious "Sure, We Might Raise Revenue" Gag They Played on Sen. Ed Murray

(Secret Headquarters, Olympia Brewing Company) The Roadkill Caucus, a group of moderate Democrats in Olympia that exercised near-total control over the Senate last session, held their bi-monthly secret meeting recently in a festive mood as they celebrated the success of their "Revenue Could Be the Answer!" prank pulled on Senator Ed Murray, the chair of the Senate Ways and Means Committee.

"Did you see the look on his face when Craig (Pridemore) was talking about how sad cuts to school funding made him?" chortled Sen. Steve Hobbs, also a candidate for Congress in the seat being vacated by Jay Inslee. "I knew I couldn't make eye contact with Brian (Hatfield), or we'd both lose our shit."

Murray was apparently so excited over a vote count showing the potential to raise revenue that he issued a press release, further adding to the sense of glee in the room.

"God, this is going to be great!" added Sen. Rodney Tom. "I'll allow some stupid loophole worth $50 million to be closed, and in return I'll get right to work laws, charter schools, and merit pay for teachers, and I'll still get to be called a moderate. Hot damn, happy days are here again!"

Senate Majority Leader Lisa Brown of Spokane could not be reached for comment, as a year-long problem with electricity has left her powerless.

Rich Semler Drinks Coffee, Reads Newspaper, Enjoys Quiet Day At Home

Rich Semler, a former Superintendent in the Richland School District who was forced to withdraw from the race for Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2008 after a family illness, had a nice day yesterday according to sources close to the Semler family.

"He got up early and took a little walk around the neighborhood, then went home and read the new George R.R. Martin book instead of struggling in vain to try and find a way to preserve levy equalization," reported the source. "Around noon he and Mrs. Semler went out to lunch at a little Mexican place in Pasco instead of attending an Education Appropriations subcommittee meeting, and then they stopped for a dessert at the Cold Stone Creamery instead of giving a minute's worth of thought to the Common Core standards."

"Then last night, instead of getting reamed on a conference call about the achievement gap, he played around on Reddit for a while before going to bed early, since they're driving over to Redmond tomorrow to see their grandkids instead of to Olympia for an emergency cabinet meeting about the revenue forecast."

"Randy Dorn is doing an excellent job," offered Doctor Semler from his easy chair. "I wish him all the success in the world. Job's all yours, Randy!"

Let's Gamble, Liv

2011-08-26T15:30:00.000-07:00

You say Tacoma is going on strike. I say they aren't, and I'm willing to bet $50 to the charity of your choosing that they won't.

If I win, $50 from you to the WEA Fund for Children, which provides for kids who are experiencing a crisis.

Deal?

Because I Haven't Updated, and the Bulk Emails Are So Damned Easy to Just Cut and Paste

2011-08-09T07:38:00.001-07:00

10 Teachers Who Made History

Cathy McMorris' Path to Speaker of the House

2011-07-27T07:39:00.000-07:00

As I've watched with dread this debt ceiling debate, it occurs to me that neither John Boehner or Eric Cantor are really looking all that great right now. If Cantor thinks he can pivot off of the Tea Party into the speakership he's dreaming; similarly, I have my doubts that Boehner can tame the Tea tiger for very much longer when he's been aligned as closely with Obama as he has been these past few weeks.

If McMorris can hang on and not become a target, there's no reason to think that she couldn't rise to the top of the House Republicans in the next few years.

I Kinda Suspected

2011-07-25T07:58:00.000-07:00

From the August 1st edition of The Nation Magazine, in an article titled Starving Public Schools:

ALEC's real motivation for dismantling the public education system is ideological--creating a system where schools do not provide for everyone--and profit-driven. The corporate members on its education task force include the Friedman Foundation, Goldwater Institute, Washington Policy Center, National Association of Charter School Authorizers and corporations providing education services, such as Sylvan Learning and the Connections Academy.

Liv's got a posse, and they're both well funded and in the game for their own purposes.

A Fable for Our Times

2011-07-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

Item: NEA Endorses Obama's Re-Election Bid
My friends, I have had an epiphany. Last night in a dream Four Horsemen appeared to me. The first, called Testing, was an old grey nag who promptly lifted her tail and shat on my sandals, and her rider was moneyed purveyor of standardized assessments.

The second, called Evaluation, was a fearsome beast who charged and kicked the children around me, then said it was my fault that the kids were hurt. On his back rode an opulently-dressed CEO carrying twin swords called Foundation Cash and Purchased Research.

The third horse, called Funding, was dead, the only sign of life a buzzard called Austerity picking at the corpse and yelling, "There's plenty here for everyone!"

And on the last horse was a fellow in a cowboy hat. He clearly had some authority over Testing, Evaluation, and Funding, but didn't choose to do an awful lot about it. And when he said to follow him, despite the horseshit and the abuse, I kissed his boots and went along, because it was clear to all: he was going to have a lot more power to change me than I ever would to change him.

Then seven trumpets sounded, seven plagues came, and public education was no more.

A Thought on the Early Obama Endorsement

2011-07-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

I've worked really, really hard to get the Washington Education Association to endorse Republicans. I've worked to steer some of our Politial Action Committee funds to Republicans. I believe completely that there are Republicans in this state who are better on public education than many of the Democrats are, and I could give a shit what political party you stand for--if you're a friend of the schools, you're a friend of mine.

That's why I can't for the life of me understand why the NEA is considering an early endorsement of President Obama. Race to the Top didn't help the schools. When every teacher at Central Falls High School in Rhode Island was fired, Obama pointed to that and called it accountability. The new pre-school version of RttT is going to introduce the testing regime to preschoolers. They need a nap, he's giving them the NAEP. It's pathetic.

What this reeks of is the kind of education politics I truly hate--the reflexive endorsement of the party over the person--and when we're racing ahead of every other union to give Obama a reacharound after being thrashed by his own Department of Education for the past 2.5 years, it's only right to ask what the hell our NEA leadership is thinking.

NEA President Dennis Van Roekel was stupid to bring this to the Representative Assembly, and I sincerely hope the delegates see it that way. This one's not just a no--it's a hell no.

Infographic: How Technology is Facilitating Education | Masters in Education.org

2011-07-03T14:02:00.000-07:00

Infographic: How Technology is Facilitating Education | Masters in Education.org

Personal and Confidential to OSPI

2011-06-30T21:51:00.000-07:00

You know the "strong passwords" that you require to access the EDS portal? They're ass. They're absolute ass. They're not protecting anything--the only thing passwords with 5 different requirements do is cause the end user to click the ol' "Did you forget your password?" button and have a temporary password sent.

Electronic recertification is a good thing, but cripes do you ever do it in the worst way possible.

Your friend,

Ryan

A Small Bit of Advice for the Rob McKenna Campaign

2011-06-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

When you go around saying that it's a shame that Washington placed so low in the Race to the Top competition, the statement assumes that Race to the Top was worth winning. When you say Yes to RttT, you're also saying yes to:

--Giving away state control of the curriculum
--Creating a reliance on impermanent federal dollars
--Embracing reform models that are anything but proven to work

If Rob McKenna thinks that Race to the Top is the model to go off of, he's a far distance away from someone we want leading the schools.

If This Meets Your Definition of "It's Working!", Then We Define Working in Completely Different Ways

2011-06-22T22:54:00.000-07:00

So the Freedom Foundation has an interview posted that they did with a teacher over in Pennsylvania who teachers on-line kindergarten. No, seriously--kindergarten over the computer. This is a thing.

It's a nice enough interview, sure, but is the program that houses this on-line kindergarten worth a damn? Judging by the test scores, not so much: in 20 tested areas, they were below the state average every single time.

If this is the reinvention of public education, we're all screwed.

Legislative Session Winners and Losers, Sine Die Edition

2011-05-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

After 135 days of blood, toil, sweat, and tears.....this.

This was the toughest education budget on record. Sure, a lot of the $2,000,000,000 in cuts were delays in planned increases, like the COLA for teachers and fully funding I-728, but there's also some very real harm that has been dropped on the system via pay cuts, increased class size, and higher tuition. Who are the winners and losers?

Winner: Neal Kirby and Levy Equalization The two legislative sessions prior to this one levy equalization, the program that allows poorer school districts to keep up with the Joneses, was slated for elimination in each of Governor Gregoire's budgets before being saved by the legislature. This year the Governor didn't propose to eliminate LEA, instead floating an idea from the levy workgroup for a prorated system, but it didn't get anywhere, either.

One of the Republican senators who I visit with said one of the highlights of the session for him was having both the WEA and PSE lobbyists say that preserving levy equalization was their number one priority, and that commitment showed all session long. Neal Kirby isn't just a prolific emailer--he's also a one-man shop who's managed to make LEA one of the top school funding issues, and I think you saw the work of 20 years really pay off these last few months.

Loser: State Representative Ross Hunter Oh, this frackin guy.

I'll give Rep. Hunter some credit first, because the House budget was pretty good on the education front, and that's thanks to him guiding the process along. My beef is with regards to SB5846, a good little bill prime sponsored by Senator Lisa Brown of Spokane that offered an early retirement incentive for members of the oldest teachers retirement plan (and, by extension, the oldest teachers). The Senate projected that it would save the state about $3,000,000, and it would have opened up about 1,000 spots to help the layoff crisis.

Where things went wrong, though, was on the second to last day of the session in Rep. Hunter's Ways and Means Committee. They gave it a hearing--a hearing where the bill seemed to be pretty well received by members from both parties--but then late that night Rep. Hunter introduces an amendment to the bill that completely ruins the damn thing. It still manages to pass out of the House (with bi-partisan support!), but the Senate refused to concur, the House insisted, and because of Rep. Hunter's amendment, the bill didn't make it to the Governor.

I don't know what Rep. Hunter was thinking--I haven't pulled up that video on TVW yet, though I intend to--but this was a pro-teacher bill that saved the state money, and he trashed it. Shame on him.

Winner: School Districts that Passed Bonds The reason that those who care about education should also pay attention to the Capital Budget is that is where you'll find the Construction Matching Grant program, which provides money from the state to school districts to help them with their new school projects. This piece of the financing is what makes many of these projects possible, and without the Capital Budget going through they very well could have been stopped in their tracks.

Even after unemployment insurance, worker's comp, and the operating budget were settled, it was the capital budget that was threatening to put a spanner in the works. Had they adjourned without one they still could have funded some projects on a cash basis (and you know, maybe they should), but that would have cut the money available for schools approximately in half. By passing and agreeing to the changes to the debt limit, everything can go on as it should. That's a relief.

Loser: Sen. Rodney Tom and Stand for Children Sen. Tom first showed up on the radar this year when he and Sen. Hatfield went walkabout from a key Senate Ways and Means committee meeting, effectively ruining a good bill on community colleges and putting an almost fatal delay to the retirement bill mentioned above. This was followed by his absolute travesty of a school reform bill, which would have cost senior teachers $20,000 a pop to fund some of the most poorly thought out merit schemes that have ever been seen, and then a misguided attempt to get his way by ruining a House bill with an amendment.

The thing is, for all the attention he got from Publicola and The Washington Policy Center, the proposal still didn't get out of the legislature, and Tom revealed just how little thought he put into the whole enterprise. He can kvetch all he wants about that one study from a bought-and-paid-for professor that denigrates Masters degrees, but the inescapable truth is that was a promise made to generations of teachers. If the state is not now willing to keep that promise, why would any teacher trust the follow-up promise he's making about merit pay and redistributing the money?

If Senator Tom was sincere about school reform he'd be talking to teachers, and not just the ones who agree with him.

Winner: Small and Rural School Districts Not only was levy equalization left whole, but changes to bus depreciation that would have nailed small schools were left out of the final budget, and the K-4 enhancement money which was lost doesn't mean a whole lot to a place like Odessa where it only provides for an additional .25 FTE teachers. Further, Rep. Hunt's bill regarding school district consolidation went nowhere yet again, with a big reason being the work of Jim Kowalkowski of Davenport and the other members of the Rural Education Center out of WSU.

One wonders if the wins (well, lack of losses) for small schools can't be partially attributed to Sen. Eric Oemig losing his re-election campaign against Andy Hill. Oemig was fond of pointing out how much it costs to educate students per capita in a place like Benge compared to Seattle or Bellevue. It's a stat that's absolutely correct while also being absolutely meaningless at the same time. Remember, too, that early in the session you had a lot of chatter about disparities in state funding by county, pushed by David Goldstein and Reuven Carlyle, but the facts and figures didn't get much more than a cursory glance during the session.

Loser: College Kids Every one of our 4-year state institutions is looking at double-digit tuition increases each of the next two years, ranging from 12% at Eastern Washington to 16% at the UW, WSU, and Western. The community college system is also staring 12% rate increases in the face, this in a time of 10% unemployment and people desparate for the job training they need to get back to work.

Washington is very quickly moving towards a model where the only state support is via financial aid, and that's why it's so damned tempting for the universities (particularly the UW) to go after those out-of-state students who pay full freight. This is a fundamental change in what we envision our schools to be, and I'm not sure we went there for the right reasons. Time will tell.

Winner: Representative Susan Fagan (9th LD--Pullman) When Rep. Don Cox retired it was a sad day for a lot of us in Eastern Washington, because there was no one better and making the rural case for our schools. Rep. Cox was knowledgeable, passionate, and able to make legislators see the long-term impact for schools on the decisions they made.

Rep. Cox retired two years ago, followed closely by Rep. Skip Priest of Federal Way, another Republican education leader on the House Education Committee. In their wake Rep. Bruce Dammeier stepped up to be the Ranking Minority Member, but the person to keep an eye on in the future is Rep. Fagan.

She's on the House Education, Education Appropriations, and Higher Education committees, and in my judgment she's one of the most inquisitive, thoughtful people to be found. She seems to truly relish the visits that she makes to schools in the 9th LD, and I admire any Eastern Washington legislator who makes that many trips over the mountains during the session. She's a person who can really lead on education issues in a way that a "democrat" like Rodney Tim never will be able to, and that's to her credit.

This year Eastern Washington had Andy Billig, Susan Fagan, and Joel Kretz all serving on the Education Committee. That's a pretty neat thing to see after Rep. Cox having to carry the load for so many years, and it'll be an interesting dynamic to follow into the future.

Loser: Governor Christine Gregoire Remember when we were going to consolidate all the education agencies into one superagency, headed by a Gubernatorial appointee?

Neither did the legislature.

I suppose I can't put all the blame on the Governor for this one, because debates over unemployment insurance, worker's comp, and the budgets seemed to take up most of the space in the session, but it's a little hard to look at her talking them down from a 3% pay cut to a 1.9% pay cut as a big win when the House budget proposal didn't have any pay cut in it at all. I get that we're in a better position than teachers in Wisconsin or Indiana, but in Washington State shouldn't we be able to put better praise on our Governor than to say, "Hey, she's not Scott Walker!"

Loser: The Washington State PTA The danger in putting out a legislative agenda is that when you don't get that agenda done it can be a rather unfortunate position to be in, and that's where the PTA finds themselves.

Tying layoff to teacher evaluation? Nope.
Making compensation depend on test scores? Didn't happen.
Funding education first? Well, we were some of the first cuts, if that counts.
More education reform bills? The big one was HB2111, to move forward the recommendations of the Quality Education Council, and it got stuck in the Senate.

The two exceedingly modest proposals they did get behind were for elementary mathematics specialists and WaKIDS, but in the larger scheme of things they were every bit as frustrated as all the other education interest groups.

What's next? The Revenue Forecast on June 16th will give us a good peek at where things might go in the next year. There will be a couple of special elections in November, for the seats held by Jim Jacks, Bob McCaslin, and Phil Rockefeller. The ESEA reauthorization might start getting some attention, as will the Race to the Top grants focused on early childhood education, where Washington really has a shot.

The beat goes on.

Like a Puppy!

2011-05-24T10:22:00.000-07:00

The Freedom Foundation is sort of adorable when they think they've found something interesting, the latest example being the Drudgian "UNION TAX BREAK HYPOCRISY!" story that they're running with.

The trick is, as pointed out by the conservative Washington State Wire, is that there isn't a tax preference on the books that anyone can point to for repeal. From the article:Jeff Johnson, president of the Washington State Labor Council, makes the obvious argument. If the Department of Revenue has made a decision that unions shouldn’t be taxed, can you really call it a tax break?

“I don’t see the relevance, since most of what we do is not considered taxable,” he said.

But the tax exemptions that show up on the official books – Johnson says those are different and fair game for criticism.
So, there is no "there" there, beyond taking another swipe at organized labor, but it gives the new guy something to do, so why not?

The Power

2011-05-22T18:43:00.000-07:00

Some people might say that the structured settlement agreement in the legislature makes big labor a loser, but consider--the two issues that they've been out the longest on are worker's comp and the state debt limit, which is a big deal for all the trades unions. They've been talking about reaming the schools for months without batting an eye.

Best Thing of the Day

2011-05-22T10:20:00.001-07:00

see more Gifs

Mike Hewitt: I Personally Saw Frank Chopp Gay Mary Labor Council President

2011-05-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

People are getting a little testy.

The Company You Keep

2011-05-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

It's a triple kick to the jimmy from the Freedom Foundation today; first, an episode of Radio Free Washington with terrible person James O'Keefe and "incredibly successful" New York City ed reform star Eva Moskowitz, who is so incredibly successful that she found a way to pay herself almost $400,000 for running her charter schools. Nice work if you can get it.

Strike Three is inviting Dick Morris to speak at an event in Spokane, and it's a bummer both because of the trail of slime that Morris leaves wherever he goes, and because he's sharing the card with decent person and all-time great Seahawks fullback Mack Strong. You deserve better, Mack.

Dick Morris. For *ucks sake, guys--DICK MORRIS.

The Freedom Foundation Gets Honest

2011-05-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

From this month's Freedom Foundation newsletter:

"Finally, while online programs are required to have state certified teachers, they are not required to hire unionized teachers. Some do, but others don't. This is a development that we hope to encourage."

See? It doesn't matter that on-line schools are poor in general; if it's a way to throw barbs at the WEA, then it's something to support.

That's your Freedom Foundation--wasting tax dollars is OK when it's waste that we support.

Dear Nikki Haley

2011-05-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

You're a woman, and a family values conservative. Every time you speak up on behalf of Newt Gingrich, you lessen both of those aspects of yourself.

A New Casino on the West Plains

2011-05-07T10:33:00.000-07:00

This past Tuesday I went to the Spoko Fuel Station in Airway Heights where the Spokane Tribe was holding a rally to help promote their effort to build a new casino. It would be the second casino in the community, following the Kalispel's Northern Quest Casino on the other side of town.

They put on a good presentation, which you can see on their website. I'm happy to see more construction jobs, I guess, even if I have some deep concerns about the traffic and the effect on the community. I'm struggling a bit with the economics of the thing--it feels like the two casinos would be splitting the same market, not adding. It also bugged me more than a little to hear about the pitiful graduation rate on the reservation when they bussed kids from the high school down to hold signs and gather signatures.

It'll be an interesting thing to watch.

What She Meant to Say

2011-05-03T09:17:00.000-07:00

"I will not put state employees at risk. By which I mean, this state employee, and by at risk, I mean future employment at the Federal level. The rest of you can go suck opiates."

A leadership moment that she failed miserably on, and shame on WFSE too.

Today In Regrettable Facebook Postings

2011-05-01T21:57:00.000-07:00

Steve Beren, candidate for Congress here in Washington in 2008. From a posting dated April 19th.

Oops.

An Education. It's a Recent Movie. Just Sayin'.

2011-04-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

One More Thing About the 3%

2011-04-15T22:49:00.000-07:00

No administrator is fully funded by the state. Last I looked the state kicked in about $60,000 per principal and superintendent, with the rest being made up by local or levy dollars.

Why does this matter? The 3% cut that the state senate proposes only touches that state funding. A superintendent that makes $120,000 a year is only going to lose 3% of the state allotment (3% of $60k, or $1,800), leaving them with $118,200. In reality, that's only 1.5% of their salary. The teacher who makes $40,000 a year would lose $1,200, a real 3%

More fun with numbers--using the examples above, the teacher who makes 1/3 of what the superintendent makes would lose 2/3 of the amount that the superintendent would.

Joe Zarelli's Bad Week

2011-04-15T22:37:00.000-07:00

Budget expert? Not this week.

I'm watching the Senate Ways and Means Committee testimony from Wednesday, and the gyrations that Sen. Zarelli is going through to defend crappy, crappy proposals like average daily attendance (ADA) and a 3% cut to salaries is absolutely fascinating.

Why is ADA a loser? Look just east to Idaho, where a study reported that ADA "may occasionally create unexpected and inequitable results in funding for smaller districts and charters." If you're Benge with 6 kids, and one has an unexcused absence, you're screwed in a way that the Seattle School District never will be. On top of that, imagine the next swine flu epidemic and what a legion amount of unexcused absences could do.

The 3% pay cut was blasted by everyone from the Governor to the Superintendent on down. It looks like some of the blame for this falls on the shoulders of Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, who needs better researchers. It's chicken to say that the local districts can figure out how to make that cut work--if you want to cut salaries 3%, do it in the salary schedule.

But you know you can't, because that's a cut to basic education. I'll give them praise for a bipartisan budget, as well as to the House GOP for turning out a budget as well and helping the conversation along, but at the end of the day Murray and Zarelli screwed up to the tune of $350 million dollars, and that doesn't reflect well on either of them.

Senator Morton

2011-04-05T15:05:00.000-07:00

....has had a great legislative session. He looks 30 years younger!

The Budget Delay Explained

2011-04-03T10:39:00.000-07:00

It's clearly a case of pooformance anxiety. When you're getting ready to crap all over your constituencies, it's awfully hard to relax the sphincter.

The House budget comes out tomorrow, with a presser at 12:00-ish and a hearing at 3:30. Hopefully the Capital Budget will also release this week, and then the ball is in the Senate's court.

It's going to be an interesting three weeks.

The Late Budget is Going to Mean Mass Teacher Layoffs

2011-03-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

I shat my pants:

Among the highlights from their AWB Lobby Lunch address Thursday:

•The House plans to unveil its budget proposal first, and the Senate will follow about a week later.
•Don't expect the House to release its budget on a Friday - more like a Monday or Tuesday. (But probably not this coming Monday or Tuesday.)

Those comments are from Ross Hunter and Ed Murray, the lead budget writers in the House and Senate respectively. That could mean, if you take them at their word, that we wouldn't see a budget until April 11th. If the Senate followed a week later, on the 18th, that would give them about a week to resolve all their differences and get on the same page before adjournment on Easter Sunday.

That's not just unlikely, it's impossible. What gets quite interesting is if the budget is delayed past May 15th, which is the deadline in the RCWs for school districts to notify teachers if they're at risk of layoff. If there's not a state budget, many school districts will go right to the worst case scenario and RIF deeeeeeeeeeeep up the seniority list. In my school district of 125 certificated staff, I wouldn't be surprised to see 25 get notified. Imagine those ratios in a place like Seattle, Spokane, or Kent.

It's going to be a bloody spring.

Values: They're Totally Flexible!

2011-03-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

Bret Davis of the Freedom Foundation:

"Of course, leaving the state is far worse than a so-called “procedural shenanigan” and more akin to running away like spoiled children who weren’t getting their way. And this guy Miller has the chutzpah to whine about Republicans cleverly revising the law so that it no longer required a quorum and passed it through the Senate?"

That "clever revision" you're praising, Brett? It pretty clearly violated the open meeting laws in Wisconsin. You know, the kind of laws that the Freedom Foundation was praising three days before your post.

Criticism of the Wisconsin 14 may be warranted, but this was a really silly line of attack to use.

The WEST-E and Teacher Quality

2011-03-20T11:25:00.000-07:00

A couple of years back Washington State decided to make passing the WEST-E test a requirement for initial certification. It was done in the spirit of raising the bar, making sure teachers are highly qualified, and verifying content area knowledge.

But has it worked?

On Eastern's website they have a list put together by the education department of WEST-E passing rates for the students in the program. It's worth a close look because of what it says about both Eastern and the state writ large:

Eastern's Middle Level Math program is doing pretty good things; 15 students passed the WEST-E out of 15 students tested.
Eastern's Social Studies program has a problem; 28 of 52 students passed the test (53.9%), significantly below the average state passing rate of 82.94%.
There's still people studying how to teach French. No, really!

What I found even more interesting that the stats for the alma mater, though, were the statewide passing rates. For choral music, for example, the passing rate is 100%--63 for 63. In English and Language Arts the passing rate is 96.7%, 557 out of 576--19 failures. The worst subject statewide is Middle Level Science, where barely 50% of the candidates (112 out of 221) passed the certification test.

You could argue that if you want the test to be a filter then it's serving that purpose in Middle Level Science, but certainly not in choral music. On the other hand, if the test is designed to have the kids demonstrate their mastery then we have great choral music programs, but our middle level science programs at the University level are lagging behind.

The deeper question, though, is whether the time and effort put into the WEST-E is really strengthening the teaching profession. I can't say that I've seen it--most of the kids look at it as just one more thing--but perhaps there's evidence to the contrary.

It's great for testing contractors, at least.

When the Left Hand Flips Off the Right Hand

2011-03-19T20:38:00.000-07:00

Here's a blog post from Bill Lyne of Western Washington University talking about Western Governors University, and not in the most flattering of terms. Bill's a good guy who does a lot of work on four year colleges with the WEA.

Here's the NEA talking about their shiny partnership with Western Governors University.

That's an oops.

Spot the Humor

2011-03-06T13:38:00.000-08:00

"These are organized interests that are lobbying in the capital. Meanwhile, the rest of us across the state who are busy with our ordinary lives, we don't have time to come to the capital and argue against tax increases."
Paul Guppy, Washington Policy Center, who really does have time to go to the capital and argue against tax increases.

(via)

Here's an Example of What's Wrong With OSPI

2011-03-06T10:17:00.000-08:00

Last week they put out a press release touting an agreement with a company called ESRI to make a license for their product available to every school in the state.

I don't know their software--it looks nice enough based on the website, I suppose--but what I do know is that if OSPI is buying shiny toys during the worst economic downturn that most of us have ever seen, that's a problem.

I've been teaching long enough to see how this goes. Somebody with distance from the classroom falls in love with a program, and the next thing we know there's a site license and a training on how to use the thing. Some teachers, though, opt out. Eventually the whole thing peters out. The money is wasted.

Essentially, it's a local control argument, and this press release shows that OSPI doesn't get it. If school districts want this, then let school districts get it. Buying this thing for everyone from Selkirk to Seattle is a waste, because even if 90% use it you've tossed away the money on the 10% who won't. Here you have OSPI not only making the purchase but touting it as an effort that is worth their time, and that's a pretty good insight into the thinking of the Dorn administration.

I've put in an email to find out what the contract was worth. That'll be an interesting number.

Dear Trent England

2011-03-04T23:47:00.000-08:00

Here's Brad Shannon using left-of-center.

Here's two examples of the phrase left leaning.

Here's one where he calls the National Education Association left-leaning.

Google gives 1,850,000 results for the phrase "hard left" and 4,680,000 for "hard right".

Do you still want to stick with "imbalance in the political monikers employed by Shannon and the Olympian"?

How It Is

2011-02-27T17:35:00.000-08:00

A unionized public employee, a taxpayer, and a CEO are sitting at a table. In the middle of the table there is a plate with a dozen cookies on it. The CEO reaches across and takes 11 cookies, then turns to the taxpayer and says, "Look out for that union guy, he wants a piece of your cookie!"

(via)

Look, It's a Northwest Professional Educators Sighting!

2011-02-26T11:13:00.000-08:00

I guess they really do still exist.

Cindy Omlin of the Northwest Professional Educators popped up in the Spokesma-Review this morning with one of the sillier letters she's done over the years. It's worth parsing the whole thing:

Not all teachers agree with the Idaho Education Association’s position on the education reform bills, but you’d never know it. Many teachers are afraid to speak out for fear of harassment.

I've talked with IEA staffers about the very vivid and livid arguments that have gone on involving policy. What Cindy is doing here is accusing teachers of cowardice, which isn't exactly a very good way to push your agenda.

Exclusive bargaining by IEA has transformed schools from the “free marketplace of ideas” to Big Labor’s pulpit and collection basket. Idaho’s students and educators are suffering for it.

Idaho? Big Labor? Jiminy Cricket, Cindy, have you ever even been to Idaho? Taking brickbats to the IEA, which has done they best they can in a deep red right to work state, is similar using a flamethrower to get a haircut. It's what people like Cindy do to raise money--pretend there's a monster in the closet. Be afraid!

Often, union representatives intimidate teachers to join. If they don’t, they make nonjoiners out to be selfish freeloaders. They tell them their views are harmful, offensive and anti-education. They denigrate nonunion teachers in fliers, articles and emails. They prevent nonunion teachers from communicating in school mailboxes, on bulletin boards and in school meetings about their professional association. They threaten administrators who might inform nonunion teachers of their rights and options for professional support. This unchecked bullying by teacher union representatives has solidified the NEA’s monopolistic control over public education.

Shorter: "It's bad that the selfish, arrogant, child-hating union says things I don't like. Why won't those jerks stop with the namecalling?"

The fact that Cindy uses Idaho to make her case is especially funny. Tom Luna, blatant political hack who got the Superintendents job despite never having done jack-all in education, thinks that trading teachers for laptops is perfectly sound educational policy. It's a paradise where being 50th in the nation in per-pupil funding is still too high; where being 39th in average teacher salary is a sign to go lower; where being dead last in the nation for the number of doctors means that you should slash the funding that would education, well, doctors.

Everything that is wrong about eduation reform can be seen on display in what Cindy is praising Idaho for doing. It's a concentration of power into the hands of a very powerful few who get to be above it all and sneer at those in the trenches who try to make it all work.
Our members have a variety of views on the education bills. I can assure you, however, that not all teachers agree with the teacher union’s point of view as was clearly evident in our member survey.
I see member surveys, too. As president of my local, I get it from all sides on the big issues of the day. This is part of the attack strategy, though--pretend that the teacher's union is a monolith. It's makes the denigration work much better.

I Was Kindly Invited to the Freedom Foundation Rally

2011-02-21T22:34:00.000-08:00

So this Wednesday the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is holding a rally in support of Wisconsin governor Scott Walker. The email announcement brings the funny:

This rally is not an attack on the individual public employees who are our friends, neighbors and fellow taxpayers. It is about the unhealthy relationship between union leaders and state lawmakers that is forcing our state into bankruptcy.

Maybe they missed the announcement about the DIME PAC, two years ago, when a big labor bill was killed under the dumbest of circumstances because Governor Gregoire and Speaker Chopp didn't want to bring it forward. That's old news, I suppose, but this notion that labor gets what they want to the exclusion of every other interest in Olympia is rather absurd.

We condemn the labor policies where the State has given unbalanced power to one special interest group.

It was awesome when I totally bounced in and imposed the contract I wanted on the management team. High five!

We need to see courageous leadership regarding this issue from our elected officials now, before the situation becomes much worse and there is a meltdown similar to what is currently taking place in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin is going through all of this over about $100,000,000; our hole is 50 times that. What's causing this "meltdown" is Governor Walker's attack on organized labor, which is exactly what you're proposing a rally in support of. Good work, guys.

Make signs – We need to have signs that spread our message. Please avoid any hateful or harmful language that will misconstrue the positive steps we are trying to take.

Examples:

Oh, this'll be good.

Taxpayers treated like 2nd class citizens Remember up above, when we said to remember that union members were also tax payers? Just kidding!

Stop leeching, start teaching Teachers have lost three days of pay because of the Learning Improvement Days going away, they're about to lose three more days of pay when the calendar reduction goes through for next year, the salary schedule freeze is finally going through so that there will be no more raises, and the state might save millions on the back of National Board Certified teachers by not giving them their promised bonuses. You're right, F those guys.

Even FDR opposed public unions Read the quote a little closer. He specifically mentions collective bargaining, which is an element of unionism but not the entire picture. And really, the EFF is going to praise Roosevelt?

Our kids can't afford your pensions anymore Therefore, we should show our kids that contracts mean nothing by ripping them up. Trying to make something as complex as pension policy fit on a sign is a fool's errand.

Hey public unions: You can't bully your way into a pay raise! Hey, idiot think tank: there's a long, long, long list of unions around this state that have made concessions in the last year. The ones in Wisconsin are, too.

I can barely afford my rent, but my taxes are going up to pay for your pension! And if you want your sign to be really good, cite the bill that would do this!

I look forward to seeing the crowds.

Shorter Scott Walker

2011-02-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

We have to eliminate collective bargaining so that the idiot managers who negotiated those terrible agreements in the first place can have more power.

Confidential to the Freedom Foundation

2011-02-19T14:59:00.003-08:00

If you're not going to use RSS on Liberty Live any more, then I'm not going to be able to follow Liberty Live.

In the Year 5399....If Kids Are Doing Fine....and the LEV is Over the Line.....You May Find.....

2011-02-06T15:07:00.000-08:00

The first big education kerfuffle of the legislative session is regarding SB5399, proposed by Senator Rodney Tom, which would mandate that those teachers with the lowest evaluations were the first laid off, and order that the principal must agree before any teacher can be transferred into the building. You can read most of the obvious objections to the bill in this comment thread over at Publicola, but there are a couple of other pieces of media that deserve to be highlighted too:

On The Conversation on KUOW last week they had a segment with Mike Ragan, Vice President of the WEA, and Shannon Campion of Stand for Children, an advocacy group that has poured tens of thousands of dollars into supporting senators like Tom who will bring forward their bills. The money quote from Campion comes at the 15 minute mark, after a comment about how the bill will get in the way of teacher collaboration.

Shannon Campion: "Teachers won't get ranked in the school. The evaluation....that's not really connected to what this bill is all about. There's no public ranking or listing of teachers."

Shannon apparently didn't read the bill her group wrote, because that's exactly the entire purpose of what they're trying to do here: rank the teachers, and get rid of the ones on the bottom when the whim strikes. There's a math formula embedded within the bill that averages evaluations and comes up with a number for each teacher, fer chrissakes. To pretend that this isn't a ranking system is intellectually dishonest.

Then there's Chris Korsmo of the League of "Education" Voters:

Publicola covered the opposition to the bill which seemed a little ill-informed. The opposition, that is – ill informed. The bill includes a “mutual agreement” provision requiring the school principal and teacher to agree on the teacher’s placement. This legislation would be a great next step in the work to change the way we assess and value our teachers.

No comments on why the opposition is ill-informed, no sign of her participating in the debate over at Publicola, and no rebuttal of the very real objections that have been raised. Way to raise the debate, Chris.

My belief, on which I will not yield, is that RIF should be about economics and non-renewal should be about performance, and never the two should meet. Building a system where a principal has every incentive to give higher-paid employees worse evaluations so that they can put more money into their own budgets isn't in anyone's interest, but that's what this bill does. Elevating the principal above the contract, the superintendent, and the school board might make sense to some (hi, Liv), but to everyone else that's lunacy.

This is a bad bill. It won't make things better. It should go no farther.

No E, Just FF

2011-02-03T22:29:00.000-08:00

So the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is dropping some syllables and choosing to just become The Freedom Foundation. Why?

Turns out, our name and brand didn’t help us make an accurate first impression. People either thought we were an environmental group, or were simply confused. So over the past three years we’ve been making changes to ensure we present a more accurate image of who we are that makes sense to the people we need to reach. Because the Internet has become the most important point of introduction for people, we knew that it had to be a major part of our rebranding effort.

Gotta say, don't like it.

Evergreen means Washington. We are the Evergreen State, after all--we used the nickname on one of the public universities, fer chrissakes. Cutting loose the association with Washington sort of makes them look like just another think tank (Heritage Foundation! Gates Foundation! Hewlett Foundation!), and I really can't see how that branding helps.

The name confusion that I've noticed is between them and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which does a ton of work on censorship and net neutrality, but that raises the obvious question of what a Google search for "Freedom Foundation" will bring up. How about:

Some charity in Selma, Alabama.
The US Freedom Foundation, which hasn't updated their front page since 2009.
The American Freedom Foundation, the Progress and Freedom Foundation, and the Future of Freedom Foundation. Kindred spirits, I suppose.

One wonders about their long term health. Bob Williams and Lynn Harsh have both recently left day-to-day involvement for other opportunities, their hire for CEO doesn't exactly fit the mold, and we've yet to see another run of the school report card project they started in 2009. On the other hand, the Liberty Live blog is still quite active, and their Supreme Court coverage is second to none in the state, but still.....is there enough space for both the EFF and the Washington Policy Center?

Something to watch.

One Wonders

2011-01-29T13:10:00.001-08:00

When Rob McKenna gets the GOP nomination for Governor in 2012, how are the folks at The Reagan Wing going to react?

Today's Fake News from Olympia

2011-01-26T19:17:00.000-08:00

Governor Gregoire Blames Her Budget on Giant Invisible Rabbit

(Gregoire, Right, and Harvey, Left)

Reiterating today that she "hates her budget", Governor Gregoire today moved from blaming her budget on voters and the economy to instead placing the blame squarely on the hirsute shoulders of Harvey, a six-foot 3.5-inch tall invisible rabbit who follows the Governor everywhere she goes.

"My friends, I've wrestled with reality for over 35 years, and I'm happy to say I finally won over it," said the Governor at a press conference today. "Harvey wrote this budget, Harvey made me do these things, and that's the way it is."

Efforts to obtain comment from Harvey were unsuccessful.

Lazy Assholes Lining Up to Run for Superintendent of Public Instruction

When Governor Christine Gregoire announced last month her plan to reorganize all the separate boards that oversee the education system in Washington State into one department that would be responsible to a governor-appointed Secretary of Education, some saw it as a takeover of the education system. Other perceived a needed reform that would make a difference for students.

Others, however, smelled opportunity.

"*uck yes I'm running for Superintendent of Public Instruction!" eagerly announced Ryan Grant, an overweight blogger from outside Spokane. "It'll be the easiest job in Olympia!"

Under the Governor's proposal, all power and decision making authority would be removed from the Superintendent and vested in the new Secretary of Education. The State Constitution, however, mandates that there be a Superintendent of Public Instruction, a legislative accident that has those looking for the very stereotype of a government job lining up around the block.

"$100,000 a year plus, and basically all I have to do is show up? Score!" exclaimed poitical hanger-on Prophet Atlantis, a perennial candidate. "With my name recognition, this could be a slam dunk!"

As of this writing there are roughly 3,000 announced lazy bastards in search of the sinecure.

Two Places At Once

2011-01-19T13:42:00.000-08:00

The Great Northern School District is located west of Spokane, nestled between the Spokane School District and the northern edge of the Cheney School District. It's a short drive away from the Northern Quest Casino in Airway Heights. Great Northern is what is known as a non-high district, in that they only serve about 41 kids in grades K-6.

The Steptoe School District is 50 miles to the south, in Whitman County. It's about an equal distance away from St. John, Garfield, and Colfax. It's a K-8 building that serves an average of 30 kids. Steptoe Butte is a beautiful place in the summer.

Different schools, different configurations, separated by 50 miles, a county line, and a couple different highways.

One thing they do share: a superintendent. Mr. Kay Frizzell, who's probably most associated lately with the work that he does for his consulting business.

No one likes to talk about school district consolidation. Washington is littered with the ghosts of spots that used to be places, places that used to have schools. Places like Tyler, or Espanola. Places that you wouldn't know if you didn't live within 5 miles of them, because there's no reason to. Not anymore.

But when you have entire school districts, separate administrative units, that can be run at distance by someone who also happens to have a consulting business on the side? When that's the system we have, then systemic change isn't just a good idea, it's a bloody necessity.

Why What the State is Doing Isn't Just Unethical, It's Illegal, Too

2010-12-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

From the Tacoma News-Tribune comes the discussion about whether the state really can take the Education Jobs Fund money and use it to plug the budget hole.

I say no. Not just because of the well-known intent of the Jobs Bill law, but because the stimulus funds act (which is still in effect, as far as I know) makes it clear:

Under the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund (Stabilization) program, a State must maintain State support for elementary and secondary education, in each of fiscal years (FYs) 2009, 2010, 2011, at least at the level that the State provided in FY 2006.

What the state is doing is a shell game where the general apportionment to the schools will be lowered by an amount equal to the jobs bill funding, but that clearly is also a lowering of state support.

ProTip

2010-12-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

Anytime an administrator says, "Morale is pretty good, all things considered!", that's a pretty good indicator that morale is completely in the shitter.

The Budget Proposals and Education

2010-12-06T10:38:00.000-08:00

The fun thing to watch last week was the rollout of the budget proposals from the 5 corners (House and Senate Democrats, House and Senate Republicans, plus the Governor) as efforts to deal with the current $1.1 billon dollar budget shortfall start to ramp up. With Legislative Assembly Days going on this week there's going to be a ton of discussion, and maybe a special session if things can get settled; what could that mean for the schools?

The Governor's Budget Proposal

Governor Gregoire rolled out her ideas a couple of weeks ago, which is appropriate in her position as chief executive. The school implications, and they aren't pretty:

Her proposal take the federal teacher jobs money that was passed in August and directs it into more of a general-fund role. This puts her in good company nationally, sure, but as even the Evergreen Freedom Foundation is pointing out, that's not what that money was for. That said, it's $208 million dollars, so I understand the temptation.
$51 million dollars in cuts to higher education, including $26.4 million dollars in cuts to the already overflowing community college system. This, sadly, is only a preview of what's likely to come in the next legislative session.
An $18 million dollar mid-year cut to levy equalization. This is money that school districts have already budgeted; arguably, it's already spent.
Eliminating the K-4 class size enhancement, another retroactive hit that saves the state $81.5 million by blowing giant holes in school district budgets.
Eliminating highly capable funding to save $7 million.
And finally, something that's not really a cut but is the kind of budget sophistry that drives people nuts, the June K-12 apportionment (basically, the money paid out to the school districts) would be moved from June 30th to July 1st. What that does is take it off the books for the 2010-2011 fiscal year (which ends June 30th) and moves it into the 2011-2013 budget, so there's no real savings here--it's simply a matter of where the hole will be. Publicola wrote more about it here.

Senate Republicans Lead by Sen. Joe Zarelli of Ridgefield, the Senate Republicans list is nicely color-coded and differs from the Governor in some interesting ways:

They also would use the EdJobs money to fill the hole.
Last year there was a bit of a stink on the Senate floor when a proposal came to use WEA health care money for state purposes. I don't know nearly enough about this to be able to speak to it, but the figure being tossed around is $100 million dollars.
An item that really jumps out is the proposal to lower the levy equalization percentage from 14% to 12%. It just went up this past year as part of a compromise to raise the levy lid, and now Sen. Zarelli's proposal would undo that gain. This would save the state $21 million immediately and $113 million going forward into the next budget. Even Sen. Zarelli admits this is a tough sell, but these are tough times, especially for LEA.
The Senate Republicans budget also eliminates funding for all-day kindergarten IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SCHOOL YEAR in order to save $22.6 million dollars. The note with the suggested cut says that there's "very little value to all-day K"; I guess it depends on the research you look at.

The Senate Republicans also concur with many of the other program cuts that the Governor proposed to OSPI, but they raise a point about maintenance of effort that could be troubling.

House Republicans This'll be editorializing on my part, but I have to say that I'm pretty disappointed in what the House Republicans released for their contribution. Where the Senate Repbulicans had four pages with numbers and projections, and the House Democrats (see below) had more detail than anyone, the House Republicans have....a letter from Rep. Gary Alexander that barely gets to two pages. He agrees with suspending "certain K-4 enhancements", and echoes the Senate Republicans in eliminating full-day kindergarten. That's pretty much it. I was disappointed in them last year for not releasing their own budget proposal, and I'm disappointed in them this time around for not really seeming to be engaged. It's troubling, especially when you get down to....

The House Democrats This is what a proposal looks like, and some of it looks oddly familiar. The House Democrats basically when through the entire budget and took the axe to a ton of categorical programs; highlights from an education perspective:

Their budget makes a much steeper reduction to the State Need Grant, saving a total of $33 million.
Their version also spares the State Deaf and State Blind schools from the Governor's proposed 6.3% across the board reductions, about an $800,000 difference.
The Department of Early Learning is also spared, a $1.3 million dollar addition to what the Governor proposed.
They also take the EdJobs money, which is common to every budget proposal so far.
In a good news/bad news deal, the House Democrats wouldn't make any cuts to levy equalization. Instead, they completely eliminate the K-4 enhancement money. That may be fairer--a cut to LEA only hurts certain districts, while a cut to K-4 gets everyone--but it's also a bigger pill to swallow.
They also propose a cut to the salary bonuses for National Board Certified teachers, which is particularly painful when they invest an awful lot of money into the process to begin with. By their math, it saves the state $9,000,000.

The Senate Democrats have yet to release their ideas. That's disappointing, too. The trouble with all this legislatively is that while cutting small programs might be easy enough, the real savings comes from the very toughest choices (all-day K, levy equalization) that I don't know they could get done in a special session. The Governor says she doesn't want to call them in if there's not an agreement (a challenge that WashACE says she should accept), but I can't say I blame her--the special session earlier this year took the full 30 days, and I can't see why this one would be any different.

Unions may well have their problems...

2010-12-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

....but if it's a forced choice between an organization I have some day in or a person like Chris Christie, I'll throw in with the union every time.

A Fail by the State Board of Education

2010-12-04T09:16:00.000-08:00

No, not Core 24--this time, it's their Facebook Page:

Earlier this week whoever maintains their page posted a link to the Tacoma News-Tribune editorial about the Masters pay bump along with the question, "Do we need to change the way we pay teachers?" They didn't question the source material, they didn't stand up for the teachers--they just passed along the big lie without question.

Right now, the State Board is far more interested in reform than they are in education, and it's annoying.

An Out of Context Quote from Jay Greene That Still Pretty Much Sums Up Jay Greene

2010-12-01T07:05:00.000-08:00

Right here:

"But just because there could be bad tests or mis-uses of tests in teacher evaluations doesn’t mean that the use of tests for that purpose is inherently flawed."

Actually, if you use a bad test, or you mis-use that test, it does pretty much mean that the process is inherently flawed. Let's try changing a few words:

Just because there could be BAD FLOUR or ROTTEN EGGS in THE MAKING OF WAFFLES doesn't mean that the use of BAD FLOUR AND ROTTEN EGGS for MAKING WAFFLES in inherently flawed.

or,Just because there could be RAGING ALCOHOLICS or THE CLINICALLY DEAD in THE COCKPIT OF YOUR AIRPLANE doesn't mean that the use of RAGING ALCOHOLICS AND THE CLINICALLY DEAD for FLYING AIRPLANES in inherently flawed.
All that said, a Jay Greene/Diane Ravitch slapfight could be fun to watch for a month or so.

Why People Are Annoyed By Retire/Rehire

2010-11-30T13:02:00.000-08:00

Back in August the Okanogan School District hired an athletic director. The best I can do to share the story with you is this picture from the Omak Chronicle website, but I think the first couple paragraphs of the article will give you the gist:The Okanogan School District opted to bring back recently retired Steve Chamberlin as athletic driector rather than go in several other directions that might have saved the school money.

Chamberlin officialyy retired July 1 after making $39,736.50 last year. He was rehired July 27 by the school board, on the recommendation of an eight-member interview committee, at $30,000 to work part time.

....

Chamberlin retired under the state's Teacher Retirement System Plan 1, which requires a 30-day wait unitl you can return to work under a program called Retire-Rehire enacted Jan. 31, 2003. The program initially was designed for retention of teachers.

....

"The retire-rehire is a process that the legislature made legal and encouraged so all government entities can hire the candidate they think is best for the job," Okanogan school district superintendent Richard Johnson said.

"This is a common practice," Johnson said. "You find it in administrators, teachers, classfieid, armed service men and women, politicians. In Okanogan County alone, you are looking at literally hundreds of people that have retired from a school district, county, state, or federal job and have gone back to work for a school district, county, state or federal governments. I think it is always critical that school districts and other public and private businesses be allowed to hire the best candidate. If we can't do that, then America really is in trouble."
They know what from cattle in Okanogan County, so I'm guessing that the superintendent knew this was a load of bullshit the minute he said it.

#1 is the obvious fact that Retire/Rehire from the state pension system is a, y'know, state program. Federal employees wouldn't be covered at all.

#2 is that if there are "literally hundreds" of people in Okanogan County who have done retire/rehire, I'll post video to the blog of me eating a hat.

#3 This is exactly the kind of abuse that has people like Ross Hunter talking about eliminating the program entirely. There's no reason that Okanogan had to hire back their AD at that cost--IF HE WANTED TO KEEP WORKING, HE SHOULD HAVE KEPT THE JOB IN THE FIRST PLACE.

And seriously, Dr. Johnson, couching your unethical hire in "It's for America!" terms is just pathetic.

How pathetic? Later on the article gives us these facts:

Johnson said the lower salary was due to cutbacks in the extra-curricular area. The school has cut golf, boy's soccer and cheerleading.

....

Records show that (Malcolm) Townsend worked two hours a day as Bridgeport's AD on a coaching stipend of $4,000.

So Okanogan is cutting sports opportunities for kids at the same time they're making a conscious choice to overpay for a retire/rehire athletic director. They're giving more than 7x what Bridgeport, a comparable district, pays. That's not OK.

Back in 2003 the Association of Washington Business said:Waiving state law so high school students can have an algebra teacher is one thing, but allowing bureaucrats and administrators to use the law to score a whopping pay raise is inexcusable.
This example from Okanogan shows that the problem is still out there.

The Weekly Liv

2010-11-29T05:54:00.000-08:00

Some more ed reform groupthink, courtesy of the echo chamber that is Liv Finne:

Last week Bill Gates and Arne Duncan, Obama's Secretary of Education, spoke in favor of re-examining the extra bump in salary states give to teachers who hold a masters degree. This bump amounts to $11,000 per teacher in Washington, totaling $330 million. The University of Washington's Center for Reinventing Public Education has convincingly shown that these masters degrees (90% of which are masters in education)confer no benefit on student learning. See Stretching the School Dollar, edited by Frederick Hess and Eric Osberg.

Oddly enough, I've read the book. It's a rehash of everything that's been said about education reform in the past few years, but let's go right to the section that Liv is talking about.

It's in Chapter 3, on page 90. It was written by Marguerite Roza, who interestingly also wrote the report about Masters degrees that Liv cites. To bolster the study, she sends you to read a chapter from a book written by the same person who wrote the study. Later on, the Roza study is cited again (chapter 5, page 145) and again in chapter 10 (page 273).

So cite the study, then cite the book that cites the study, then refer to a newspaper article that cites the study, too. Echo....echo....echo....

For good measure later on, Liv does her usual and takes things a bridge too far:I wonder how many great teachers have left public education for private schools because of this demeaning and disrespectful pay scale.

Public school teachers deserve better treatment. They should get what private school teachers take for granted: pay based on their ability to increase student learning, as judged by someone who knows them best ---their school principal.
Yes, Liv, I'm sure that the private schools are rife with former public school teachers who just got so damned sick of the disrespect heaped on them by the salary schedule. By the way, what are those average salaries again?AVERAGE TEACHER BASE SALARY:

Public School: $49,630
Private School: $39,690
(source)
That darn salary schedule is really holding the public school teachers down, innit?

What Are They Saying About Levy Equalization This Week?

2010-11-28T08:22:00.000-08:00

Further cuts for this year's budget must be made as well as the cuts for the next biennium 2011-13. When asked where this year's $385 million in near-term cuts will come from, director of the office of Financial Management, Marty Brown, said, "We're going to be talking about Basic Health soon, Disability Lifeline soon, levy equalization. School districts are going to get nailed."

State Sen. Brian Hatfield, D- Raymond, acknowledged that schools could get hit hard. "Levy equalization is another large ticket item that could be on the chopping block," he said.
--The Chinook-Observer, November 24th
Among the possible additional measures outlined in a memo to lawmakers:

Using $208 million in federal “edujobs” money to backfill the budget.
Reducing levy equalization to property-tax poor districts by $18 million.
Eliminating extra school funding for kindergarten through fourth grade to save $81.5 million.
The Olympian, November 25th

And, to wrap up, a great story from the Spokesman-Review on a small school district doing good.

Shorter

2010-11-27T21:50:00.000-08:00

Shorter Robert Wechsler: if teachers want to contribute, they should do it in such a way that school boards don't have to listen to them.

Shorter Rick Hess: We can solve the pension crisis by screwing new teachers, even though it's the legacy plans that cost the most. No, seriously, the math works!

Shorter Las Vegas Review-Journal: We believe Bill Gates lies, too!

Quote Week #5

2010-11-26T12:01:00.000-08:00

"Don't complain. The people who will listen can't do anything about it, while the people who can do something about it won't listen."
--John M. Hebert

Dear TVW

2010-11-26T11:52:00.000-08:00

I love you TV Washington, I truly do. C-Span for the Evergreen State political set, committee hearings at my fingers, and great public affairs programming.

Here's the thing. While I'm glad to see Inside Olympia and The Impact getting onto the public broadcasting stations around the state, since Dish and DirecTV don't carry TVW, a reality of new media is that if you're available through ITunes, you're not doing your job to max efficiency.

I get it--you think if it's on your website, that's enough. Trick is that ITunes will search out the program and let me know when a new episode is available in a way that your website doesn't, and that's a problem. Once it's in my ITunes player I can do quite a bit more with it, which may be a reason that you don't podcast the show, but it's a poor, poor reason.

For Washington's public affairs network to not be making the best use of the new media possibilities is unacceptable. Catch up, guys--you'll be better for it.

Your friend,

--Ryan--

What He Said v. What He Meant

2010-11-25T15:38:00.000-08:00

Sen. Zarelli, the Republican state budget expert out of Ridgefield, has been releasing a good series of videos on the state budget crisis. A section from the most recent video (above) that caught my ear:

I believe that we ought to make some change in this area. I believe that it ought to be that the contract that is in place, once declared by the Governor or by the legislature of this particular (time of) financial hardship, that that contract in all its forms ought to become moot and the contract off the table which would then demand and require that the two parties go back and reach an agreement that works within the framework of what we can afford to do given the scenario that we find ourselves in.
One could read that to mean that Sen. Zarelli thinks that, in the event of a financial emergency, the state could tear up any existing agreements and go renegotiate new ones. Not just on compensation--everything would be in play. Later a slide in the video clarifies:Upon declaration of "significant revenue shortfall", financial provisions of existing agreement are null and void.
....which is a narrower scope, but still worrisome.

Why worry? Look east, to Idaho, where numerous school districts, abetted by the legislature, are playing financial games to unilaterally reopen contracts, lower teacher compensation, and save money. Is it appropriate? Quite possibly, yes, but why not go to your local associations and have an honest conversation instead of turning this into a monologue where the teachers are told they need to give without other options being considered?

Quote Week #4

2010-11-25T14:30:00.000-08:00

"Capital organizes, and therefore labor must organize."
--Teddy Roosevelt

How a Lie Becomes a Law

2010-11-24T23:50:00.000-08:00

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.

Quote Week #3

2010-11-24T14:27:00.000-08:00

--Franklin D. Roosevelt

"It is one of the characteristics of a free and democratic modern nation that it have free and independent labor unions."

Quote Week #2

2010-11-23T14:25:00.000-08:00

"Don't waste any time in mourning--organize!"
--
Joe Hill, on the occasion of his execution by firing squad

My Other Favorite Exchange from Inside Olympia

2010-11-23T08:25:00.000-08:00

Sen. Zarelli: "Don't give medical care to illegals."

Rep. Hunter: "You're a moron. That will cost more money in the long run."

Sen. Zarelli: "At least I'm proposing ideas, like closing McNeil Island."

Austin Jenkins: "Should we close Larch Mountain, too?"

Sen. Zarelli: "NO! Also, Walla Walla sucks."

Austin Jenkins: "I think they actually send them to Coyote Ridge, which is new and efficient and awesome."

Sen. Zarelli: "Zip it, pinhead. I'm talking with my hands, which proves my sincerity."

Rep. Hunter: "I support closing everything in Sen. Zarelli's district. This seems fair, and wise."

Sen. Zarelli: "You almost lost an election to Mike the Mover."

Rep. Hunter: "Oh, go to hell."

Austin Jenkins: "Let's talk pensions."

Sen. Zarelli: "You work until 85, then we bill your family for you dying on the job."

Rep. Hunter: "Actually, that sounds about right."

Austin Jenkins: "And that's all the time we have for today. Tune in next week!"

Ross Hunter: I'm Going After the Teacher Jobs Money

2010-11-23T08:01:00.000-08:00

That's pretty much what I just got out of his appearance on Inside Olympia last week.

I've been pushing for my district to encumber the money as soon as we can, and this is the exact reason why.

A Curriculum Recommendation!

2010-11-22T19:02:00.000-08:00

Longtime readers will know that I'm a pretty vocal critic of the LASER science kits that have been thrust upon the schools, so it's nice to be able to make a recommendation: Prime Curriculum, put together by an outfit out of Reardan, Washington. Simple, direct, focused, oriented towards agriculture, I've done a couple of them and have found that they fit into my 5th grade classroom just about perfectly.

They're not meant to be the primary bit of science curriculum, but I think they're a great add-on. Anyone else using them?

Why Ed Reform in Washington State is Completely Full of Crap Right Now

2010-11-22T16:18:00.000-08:00

From the most recent Quality Education Council meeting, the League of Education Voters summarizes:

Concerns about growing budget deficits and lack of funding to implement bold reforms. Ms. Ryan vehemently pushed back saying she hears the budget concerns, but now more than ever is the time to step up and put forward a strong vision for the state — our kids deserve it. Dr. Bette Hyde agreed “125 percent.”

I watched the segment (it's about 2.5 hours in), and I'd say the LEV transcribed it accurately.

I'd also say that Ms. Ryan, of the State Board of Education, and Ms. Hyde, of the Department of Early Learning, are both talking out of their ass, which seems to be the pattern right now.

Exhibit A, right here at the Quality Education Council. Ms. Hyde had anothe quote later on about how people are looking to the QEC for hope (hope of what, who knows?), and that meant they needed to fulfill their charge. Sorry, Bette, but from where I stand in the classroom I'm not looking to you for jack-squat. I'd just as soon you left me alone instead of creating work to justify your existence.

Exhibit B would be Ms. Ryan's very own State Board of Education, which just passed new graduation requirements despite there being absolutely no way to pay for those requirements. But the reasoning goes that, hey, things will get better, and the State Board of Education has to do something, so why not.

You've also got the Professional Educator Standards Board screwing around with cultural competency requirements, the Superintendent of Public Instruction signing on to the common core standards even though we didn't get the Race to the Top money, the Center for the Improvement of Student learning doing who-the-hell-knows what, the Local Levy Workgroup just had a meeting, too, and the districts involved in the Evaluation Pilot Project are also clicking along, and I assume the Department of Early Learning and the Higher Education Coordinating Board are also putting out the paperwork, too.

Right now ed reform in Washington is a sad, expensive Dilbert cartoon with board after board, committee after committee working on scores of different projects and none of them possessed of the moral fibre to admit that we're in a budget crisis and maybe, just maybe, we shouldn't be re-arranging the furniture when the house in on fire. The first rule of being in a hole, the one about stop digging? That's not going to happen as long as the Big Shovel lobby that makes up all these commissions keeps thinking that their work trumps the reality that everyone else in the state is having to live with.

If you put them together, the packets from the last Quality Education Council and State Board of Education meetings come up to exactly 800 pages. Not 800 pages of how to preserve what we have, not 800 pages of acknowledgement that we're in the worst budget crisis since the Great Depression--800 pages of change that we just can't afford. And to put it bluntly, if the bureaucracy can't figure that out for themselves, then Lord let the legislature defund them and use the money for something worth a damn. There may well come a time where what Hyde and Ryan want can be--this is absolutely not that time.

And that's my rant.

Quotes Week #1

2010-11-22T14:21:00.000-08:00

"A scab in a labor union is the same as a traitor to his country."

--Eugene Debs

What Are They Saying About Levy Equalization This Week?

2010-11-21T14:21:00.000-08:00

"We're going to be talking about Basic Health soon, Disability Lifeline soon, levy equalization. School districts are going to get nailed."

--Marty Brown, the Governor's budget director, during the Economic and Revenue Forecast Council meeting from Thursday.

"That discussion includes the Basic Health Plan, which provides health insurance for poor people, and Disability Lifeline, a welfare and health care program for unemployable adults. Both programs are entirely state-financed. Levy equalization payments that aid rural and property-poor school districts also could be on the table, Brown said."

--Marty Brown in the Kitsap Sun
"Just as we saw Reagan Dunn rail against tax increases and then attempt to shift budget away from Publc Health to sherif deputies to guard his castle, we will see Republicans in the legislature the rose on the tax cut camp song beg on the Senate flloor for levy equalization funds. The answer will be no, you wanted no, you ran on no, go get no."
--A commentator at Crosscut
Can't get a two-thirds majority to raise revenue for, well, anything? Then act like the Republicans claim they would act, and start making those painful cuts. You know, by cutting things like school levy equalization.

Yeah, I know, levy equalization is good policy and all that, but let's try to approach this from a classical, free market, Republican perspective for a moment. I mean, if folks out in rural Washington are unwilling or unable to raise local school levies sufficient to educate their children, then perhaps they shouldn't even have public schools? That's the market at work, right? So why should taxpayer dollars be sucked away from school children in Seattle to help pay for schools in communities that obviously don't care enough about their children to properly educate them? At a time of budgetary crisis like this, how can we possibly afford to pay for all this rural welfare?
--David Goldstein, normally of Horse's Ass, posting at Slog

Why the General Consensus is that Chris Christie is an Asshole

2010-11-21T12:40:00.001-08:00

Right here.

Sigh

2010-11-20T14:39:00.000-08:00

I can't possibly see it going anywhere, but it has to make haters like Marguerite Roza happy to see ending the Masters degree bonus being debated on KOMO news.

I need to look harder for good news, but the bad news is so damned easy to find nowadays.

It's Absolutely Critical That I Eat this Candy Bar

2010-11-20T12:13:00.000-08:00

From the list of personal service contracts filed in September of this year (page 42), $900,000 to the Association of Washington School Principals...

"To design, field test, and implement a state-of-the-art Leadership Academy for school principals and administrators, based on research correlating leadership practices and student achievement here in Washington State. The OFM Director approved an exception to ESHB 2921 based upon critical necessity."

When we're living off of Federal credit, when levy equalization is always at risk, when the state budget is $5.8 billion dollars in the red, is a program like this really a "critical necessity"?

Arne Duncan: Still a Pain in the Ass

2010-11-20T09:21:00.000-08:00

This event from the American Enterprise Institute sort of puts every criticism of Arne Duncan that I've ever had into one bite-sized video.

"We need more online learning!" he says, ignoring that internet-based schools haven't proven themselves in the slightest.

"Class sizes are higher in Asia, so they can be here too!" he says, which is one of the dumber things ever said by a Secretary of Education, ever.

He also uses the clever rhetorical device of "I'm not saying we should do these things, but let's talk about it!", which is akin to a husband offering "I'm not saying you're fat, honey, I'm just saying we should talk about your weight problem."

And, shocker, Rick Hess loved it. And he moderated it, too. Whocoodaguessed?

That Little Red Spot? It's the 3rd LD.

2010-11-13T15:00:00.000-08:00

There are roughly 10 legislative districts in Eastern Washington, with 30 legislators between them. Of those 30, only three are Democrats. They're all in the 3rd LD, downtown Spokane.

I only bring it up because while the 3rd might be one of the bluest districts in Washington State, I'm not sure that's always going to be the case. Prior to this election going back quite a few years the Republicans were lucky to poll 33% to 35% in either the primary or the general; this year the two GOP contenders, Dave White and Morgan Oyler, were both right around 40%. If Lisa Brown were to actually run for Governor in 2012 (she shouldn't, but...) and Timm Ormsby were to slide into her Senate spot, it could be competitive. Especially if we're still looking at these same lousy unemployment numbers.

Bob Apple? Louise Chadez? Morgan Oyler? Dave White? Someone we don't know yet? Who ya got?

Offered Without Comment

2010-11-12T14:14:00.000-08:00

Reuven Carlyle:But I know and recognize that real education reform will not happen in powerful and transformative ways unless and until our partners–teachers–feel a profound sense of ownership of this journey. Teachers are the DNA and soul of learning and we must empower their success by unleashing their creative energy. That means the teacher’s union is part of the solution. The Seattle Education Association didn’t endorse me in my highly competitive 2008 campaign or even my uncontested 2010 race, but I hope they know that I remain committed to building a partnership for education progress together.
That's something, at least. I'll leave it to those who known Carlyle better to parse the meaning of it all.

Remembering Veteran's Day

2010-11-11T13:52:00.000-08:00

Teaching at a military base the way I do, our Veteran's Day assembly takes on a different tenor than at most other schools. When you ask all the Veterans in the audience to rise, it's a heavy majority of the parents and more than a few of the staff. When you ask the kids who have had a parent deployed to stand, it's almost all of them.

Thank you, Veterans, for your sacrifice. We couldn't do it without you.