Dr. Ben Chavis, School Reform, and the Pedestals We Stand On

There's a fellow by the name of Dr. Ben Chavis who has had some remarkable success running charter schools in Oakland. By one measure, his American Indian Charter School II is the second best school in all of California. It's the kind of story that catches the eye of those interested in school reform, like the Freedom Foundation doing a 12-part vidcast with him in the summer of 2009, or Liv Finne of the Washington Policy Center calling Dr. Chavis the kind of principal we need, or the conservative State Policy Network inviting him to be their luncheon keynote in 2007.

So why is he in the news today?

Oakland school district staff has recommended the Board of Education deny the renewal application of American Indian Charter School II based on preliminary findings of a state audit. If denied, the public school would close after this academic year.

The financial allegations involve more than $1 million in public funds funneled to the school's founder, Ben Chavis, and his wife, Marsha Amador, for rent, consulting, construction projects and other questionable payments with little to no oversight by the school's own board.

If only we had more Ben Chavises in the world. If only we had more leaders with the vision and the courage to pay themselves $280,000 a year to allow the school they founded to lease the building they own. If only.

It's stories like these that set school reform way back. Any time a Ben Chavis flames out spectacularly and unapologetically ("Chavis said Monday that everything he did was for the students, and said that he only conducts business "differently."), when that narrative of folks like Eva Moskowitz being in the game mainly for the money they can make takes hold, school reform loses. Rod Paige rose to be Secretary of Education on the basis of a Houston Miracle that never happened, and that's pretty much the story of Secretary Duncan as well.

I've been told that I've become much more of a shill for the teacher's union in recent years, and that's likely true. Before I became president of my local, in those happy, heady days when I was "just" a classroom teacher, it was very easy to look at ed reform in the abstract and say, "You know, that sounds like a great idea!"

In the years since, though, I have been exposed to some of the absolute worst abuses in the system. I have seen principals act capriciously, stupidly, and vindictively to ruin a really good teacher who ended up leaving the system entirely because they broke her spirit. I've seen groups like the League of Education Voters decide that teachers really are to blame, and that if we link a test testing built on a foundation of sand to their evaluations that will make things better. Stand for Children and certain members of the legislature (I'm going to call you out by name on this one, Rep. Dahlquist) want me to demand the best and push for excellence, then have 5th grade students weigh in on what my evaluation should be. I didn't move away from ed reform, ed reform moved away from me and other classroom teachers at a breathtaking pace, and I don't know if the pendulum is ever going to swing back.

When we stop looking for 1 or 2 big miracles and start focusing on the million little miracles that happen in our schools every day, we'll all be better for it.

Read more here, if any.

All I Ask is Consistency

Things that drive me mad:

At the end of the term, APOLO students have made great strides, though test scores might not always reflect it. Von’s explanation provided valuable context for this reality. For students who go to APOLO in grades 11 or 12—or at age 19 or 20—on-time graduation might not be feasible, and the road ahead might be longer, affecting the school’s performance data.

Additionally, with a small student body (maximum 75 students), each student’s performance significantly affects the school’s annual performance numbers.

These are sound, valid reasons why test scores might not be representative of the actual performance of a school.

Rewind three years, to when the Freedom Foundation had their brief flirtation with school report cards:

These School Report Cards offer overall ratings on a scale of zero to 10, trend analysis, demographic information, and statewide rankings for 780 public middle schools and high schools. Each Report Card takes WASL data and makes it understandable to the public. Comparison features allow parents to see how their school’s performance stacks up against other schools in the state.

“The statewide ranking system can be controversial, but it is priceless in propelling effective reform,” said Peter Cowley, developer of the School Report Card model at the Vancouver, B.C.-based Fraser Institute. Fraser has 10 years of experience producing these report cards across Canada and tracking the reform they produce.

If test scores are going to count for the brick-and-mortar schools, but not really count for the blended/on-line/alternative programs, remind me again of who is guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations?

Read more here, if any.

Trent England Said Something Silly Again

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.

Read more here, if any.

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

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

Read more here, if any.

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

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.

Read more here, if any.

How Did the On-Line Schools Do This Year?

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?

Read more here, if any.

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

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.

Read more here, if any.

The Freedom Foundation Gets Honest

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.

Read more here, if any.

Values: They're Totally Flexible!

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.

Read more here, if any.

Dear Trent England

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"?

Read more here, if any.

I Was Kindly Invited to the Freedom Foundation Rally

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.

Read more here, if any.

No E, Just FF

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.

Read more here, if any.

The EFF Finds a Monster Under the Bed!

I get mail. Poorly formatted mail that didn't fit into the frames, but mail nonetheless:

With so much to offer, online learning is rocking the boat of the status quo. It’s only a matter of time before education statists target online options for elimination or regulation. The bottom line: These options will only remain available if families and other citizens defend them.

Thing is, digital learning is already regulated. Take, for example, Senate Bill 5378 from 2009, which would have changed how on-line schools are accredited. It passed the Senate unanimously, meaning "statists" (read: secular socialists!) like Pam Roach, Bob McCaslin, and Mark Schoesler all thought it was a good enough idea.

Or Senate Bill 5410, which was sponsored by the usual members of the liberal coalition: Eric Oemig, Rosemary McAuliffe, Bob Morton, and Rodney T....

....wait, Bob Morton? Republican of Kettle Falls/Orient? 7th LD, Stevens County, Northeast Washington? That Bob Morton? Make Eastern Washington the 51st state Bob Morton? What a damned statist!

A great way to implode the whole darn project, guys, would be to keep overstating the case.

Read more here, if any.

Irrational Exuberence

(via)

One of the stories in education this week has been the final settlement of the WEA v. Evergreen Freedom Foundation lawsuit regarding union dues being spent on politics; the releavant press release from the EFF here and here. They spent a lot of time and effort on this effort, and I don't begrudge them their satisfaction, but the case is being a bit overstated. For example, from an email that I received this morning:

But the $1.2 million in penalties and restitution was the least of the union’s losses. The union also suffered a major blow to its reputation as the entity that claims it's "all about the kids." Few people, policy folks, or members of the media believe that any longer. Over the last ten years the number of teachers who voluntarily give to the union's PAC has plummeted and remains very low.

Truth is, over the last 5 years the number of teachers who voluntarily give to the union's PAC has increased dramatically. We're now at about 25,000 WEA-PAC members statewide. A scant few of years ago, it was less than 10,000. Given that one of the bigger membership drives is the time right up to Rep Assembly next month, WEAPAC could be tickling 30,000 members right soon. I'm betting there are more than a few groups around the state who would love to have that kind of membership.

In the years since Davenport was decided in January of 2007, the WEA was at the front lines of getting the simple majority for school levies passed, did quite well in the 2008 elections, got absolutely creamed in the 2009 legislative session, and recovered nicely this year to win legislative battles on levy equalization and school reform. It's very hard to look at what they have accomplished and declare that their reputation is damaged beyond the veil; the current Race to the Top fad is constructed for union input, much to the consternation of some.

The beat goes on.

Read more here, if any.

Washington Education Week #6: The Calm Before the *hitstorm

The Washington State Legislature gets back to work tomorrow. It's expected to be a bipartisan affair where tough budget decisions are made in a spirit of teamwork and cooperation, where the needs of the individual are pushed aside so that the needs of the state can be fully shriven to the benefit of the citizens that make the Evergreen State great.

Nah, just kidding! Think crabs in a bucket, or out-of-control toddlers. Think out of control toddlers in a bucket with crabs. That's actually probably pretty close to the reality.

Item #1: School District Consolidation and Levy Equalization. It's looking like Rep. Sam Hunt of Olympia is the guy who's going to be the grinch that finally brings this conversation to the forefront. The money quote:

"It's a terribly hot issue. But I don't think we can justify having 295 school districts," Hunt said. "If you want to save money, I think this is one way to do it. It sets up a commission."

Rep. Hunt's proposal to get it done is HB2616, which would establish a commission to look at cutting the number of school districts in the state from the current 295 down to 150. Looking it over I like how he's written it--there's a lot of public involvement, and the bill just commits to the conversation, not the eradication of school districts. Whenever it comes up before the House Education Committee (and given that Rep. Dave Quall, the committee chair, is a co-sponsor, you can bet that it will) I'll have to try to make the trip over and watch the proceedings.

Another piece to keep an eye on is the School District Cost and Size Study that the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC) has started work on this year. Their final report is due in either May or June, which means that this is an effort that could really work hand-in-glove with what Rep. Hunt is proposing.

The practical impact, then, is that Eastern Washington newspapers like the Yakima Herald-Republic can host superintendents and write angry editorials until they're blue in the face, but if small school advocates aren't willing to look at every cost--including the cost of their very existence--then they're ceding the moral high ground to folks like Governor Gregoire who can now go out and say "Look, I wanted to save levy equalization, but we can't poor more money into those districts without knowing that it's worth it, yadda yadda I hate this budget."

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Item #2: If the State Doesn't Want to Raise Tuition, Let the Colleges Do It To Themselves. An interesting idea wandering around Olympia is to allow the University of Washington the power to set its own tuition prices. It's come up before and never really gone anywhere, but maybe this is the right economic climate for something to happen.

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Item #3: Things That Only the Shadow Knows. On one hand, you've got budget director Victor Moore saying that we can't change union contracts.

On the other, you've got Amber Gunn of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation with the contract language; her reading is that the state can re-open should revenues decreased.

What's the education angle? Idaho, where school districts are declaring fiscal emergencies and reopening their teacher's contracts. Numerous small districts here in my area have given back pay and benefits, and as my local president I might end up leading my people that way as well.

You might be surprised at how many teaching contracts have language related to financial conditions. An example:

The following instructional load standards are established except for traditional large group instruction classes, such as music, K-6 physical education, team teaching and special education programs for which state standards are prescribed, and except when the District because of financial crisis (such as levy failure) has significantly less money for the instructional programs than it traditionally has.

The trick is that these things have to be collectively bargained, but that is also as it should be. Some districts are overstaffed at the administrator level, and demanding that the cuts be applied to the classified, certificated, and administrative levels is fair.

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Item #4: The State Board of Education and the New Accountability Plan. This is one of those stories that I've been wanting to spend more time on. With the Bylsma Plan set to come on line soon and the Board of Education getting ready to push through legislation, this'll be something to keep an eye on. Edie Harding, the executive director of the SBE, says that it's not a state takeover. Edie Harding is a damned liar.

The trick is, like with everything going on in the state right now, there is no money. It's a happy conceit that you can make extremely troubled systems better with only existing resources, but anyone who has worked with struggling kids knows that is not true. The money quote from the article:

“Some of the lowest 5 percent have made attempts to improve and have not been successful,” said board member Kristina Mayer, an educational consultant from Port Townsend.

She said some districts have not chosen to make changes, so the state board is acting on behalf of the children in those schools.

If it sounds outrageous, it probably is. C'mon, Ms. Mayer--if there really are districts that have chosen to ignore the needs of their kids, name them.

If you want a hint of where things could go, check out the EFF's School Rankings and go to the bottom of any one of the lists, like I did with elementary schools. This isn't going to be easy.

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Bits and pieces:

• No Child Left Behind had a birthday last week. The CW is that reauthorizing the ESEA with a new name will be a high priority this year so that the DC pols have something to hang their hat on as they gear up for the mid-term elections.
  
  
• Calculated Risk says that the reason the unemployment rate is holding steady is because a lot of people are just dropping out of the job hunt and not trying any more. Similarly, the Huffington Post says that 1-in-5 working age men is unemployed. That's scary.
  
  
• WEA President Mary Lindquist on school funding in Washington State.
  
  
• Offered without comment: the League of Education Voters is very proud of their recent appearance on Fox News.
  
  
• A group called MomRising is deliving brown-bag lunches to the legislators on Monday, encouraging them to work hard on the needs of kids. This is much better than my "A Flaming Bag of Doody on Their Doorsteps" initiative.
  
  
• I still haven't seen a good answer to the concern that privatizing the liquor stores would only make our short-term economic problem worse.
  
  
• The Washington Budget and Policy Center on what the Governor's proposal could mean for the schools and colleges.

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This week in the Legislature:

Tuesday, January 12th:
House Education Appropriations Committee, 8:30.
House Education Committee, 10:00.
House Higher Education Committee, 10:00.
Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development, 10:00.

Wednesday, January 13th:
Senate K-12 Education and Early Learning Committee, 8:00.
House Education Committee, 1:30.
House Higher Education Committee, 1:30.
Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development, 3:30.
House Education Appropriations Committee, 6:00.

Thursday, January 14th:
House Early Learning, 8:00.
Senate K-12 Education and Early Learning Committee, 10:00.
House Education Appropriations, 1:30.

Friday, January 15th:
House Education Committee, 8:00.
House Higher Education Committee, 8:00.
House Early Learning, 1:30.
Senate Higher Education and Workforce Development, 1:30.

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Next time: we'll look at the Governor's State of the State address, I'll have finally digested the report coming out of the QEC, and the first 7 days of the legislature. Salud!

Read more here, if any.

Today's Unfortunate Tweet

Amber Gunn of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation:

Fact: most politicians have never held a private sector job in their adult life. Lynn Harsh

From Lynn Harsh's biography on the EFF's website:

Lynn Harsh is Chief Executive Officer and Senior Education Fellow for EFF. She taught high school English and history and served briefly as a school principal, before leaving the field of secondary education to work in politics and eventually public policy.

I'm not exactly seeing a whole ton of private sector work in that job history, Lynn.

Read more here, if any.

I Don't Know Why, But It Always Amuses Me....

....when anything in King County is called the eastside.

I guess it's all relative.

Read more here, if any.

Washington Education Week #3: Thanksgiving Turkeys Edition

The Race to the Top: With the lull between budget announcements and Legislative Assembly Days, most of the blog chatter this past week has been looking at how Washington State measures up in the federal Dash for the Cash Race to the Top grant program. The League of "Education" Voters has done a 6 part series on their blog that's worth your time to read; also with several blog posts that boil down to "Teachers suck, change everything" are the Partnership for Learning, here. And, just to clear out my RSS reader: Publicola.

I'm working on my own posts on each of the impacted areas, but one thing I do have to chuckle at is just how earnest some of the folks on the pro-RttT side are. "We have to allow the state to just take over failing schools!" they'll protest, without seeming to make the connection that we have laws regarding school boards and local control that are every bit as ingrained in the people of this state as dams and snowy mountain passes.

You can get an inkling of the fight if you go and look at the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's School Report Cards. Using their metrics, the worst high schools in the state are in places like Toppenish, Walla Walla, Pasco, Aberdeen, Puyallup, and Coulee City--all represented by Republicans, all places where the community will revolt if you try to send in a bunch of "outsiders" from Olympia to run their schools. "It's for the kids!" needs to be overwhelmingly supported by the evidence to make school takeovers work, and I'm not convinced in the slightest that plan that the State Board of Education has in place gets us where the LEV and SFC want to go.

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Randy Dorn Cares for Children/Randy Dorn Hates All Children: The reaction to the recent proposal by Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn to delay the math and science graduation requirements is still bringing in a ton of reaction. Dorn tried to get out in front of the storm, and a hell of a storm it is: when papers like the Walla-Walla Union-Bulletin are saying that you "continue to undercut the effort to reform — and improve — education", you've got a publicity problem.

Personally, I think that the best, most sensible reaction came from Cliff Mass, a meteorologist of some note at the University of Washington. Keeping science and math as graduation requirements punishes the kids for the failures of adults to get the system right, whether it's the 20 different iterations of testing that we've had in the last decade or trying to define exactly what standards we want to hold them to. The failure of the kids is also the failure of the system, and right now we certainly don't have the system in place to get them all where we want them to be. This thread from the Center for Strengthening the Teaching Profession is also quite well written and on point. Check out Crosscut as well.

Also not really working in Dorn's favor: President Obama came out this week with a new initiative on expanding STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) education. When the Department of Education is saying higher standards, and the President is saying higher standards, it's pretty clear that Dorn is going against the tide.

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The State Budget: Amber Gunn of the EFF stirred up a hornet's nest over on Crosscut when she echoed Sen. Zarelli's call for a special session to start cutting into the state budget right now. You've got some elected officials in the thread saying pretty incendiary things, and that's always fun!

(Personal aside: You don't hear anyone from any of the professional school organizations talking about a special session, because in a special session there's absolutely nothing good that could happen for schools.)

Publicola has a link to a video that Governor Gregoire put out talking about just how bad things are; consider it the anesthesia before the emergency appendectomy come January. The Capital Record also has the video and some pull-out quotes, here.

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"Merit" Pay in Action, and Inaction: The Superintendent of the Seattle Public Schools, Maria Goodloe-Johnson, met 4 of her 20 performance goals last year. That's a bad batting average, a really bad spelling test, and not exactly anything to write home about on the job.

That's also $5,280 more in her pocket, according to the Seattle Times.

The way that Goodloe-Johnson's contract is strucutred she can earn up to 10% on top of her base salary for meeting her 20 goals; that means that each goal met is worth $1,320. Under the goose/gander school of thought, if the state designed a plan to allow every teacher to earn up to 10% of their salary in incentives, the legislature would have to allocate about another $250,000,000 just to cover the costs.

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Other bits of note from the week:

• Joanne Jacobs on Why Arts Education Isn't a Luxury. The half-time art teacher in my district already knows that she's at risk of getting cut in the budget crunch to come; hopefully, I can use this to help mount a good defense.
  
  
• I love this and want to marry it.
  
  
• The United Faculty of Washington State has put together a great blog on higher education issues here in Washington; you can check it out here.
  
  
• People are flocking to community colleges, which isn't a surprise given high unemployment and a down economy.
  
  
• This commentary on what happens when school levies fail is important, particularly given the current state budget realities.
  
  
• When the teachers take over the schools.

Read more here, if any.

The Evergreen Freedom Foundation and Me Are Best Friends Forever

I'm fine with this:

The Freedom Foundation is proud to announce the launch of our School District Transparency Project. With the goal of helping policymakers and taxpayers better understand K-12 education funding through easy access to actual spending (not just budgets), we asked Washington state school districts to post their budgets and warrants (check registers) online.

As a union guy that would make my work that much easier.

This, on the other hand, is a bit divergent from the usual conservative script:

Responses included yes, no and maybe, with many reluctant school districts citing cost as a factor in posting their budget and warrants on their websites. Given that we’re living in the Information Age, we don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a detailed expense report for school districts on the Internet for public inspection. Approval of warrants—including check number, vendor name and amount—is already part of most school board meetings. Posting warrants online requires no additional equipment, and only a limited amount of employee time. In just a few minutes, a document can be converted into PDF form and posted on the school district’s website.

This is how 1,000 unfunded mandates have ended up thrust upon the schools: "Hey, it sounds really easy, and we think it's a good idea, so you guys should do that." Later on they say that if the Districts don't do it the EFF will do it themselves, which isn't exactly a really big threat; if you're a school district that doesn't want to pay to do this, and the EFF says they'll go ahead and do it for you, then you haven't exactly lost anything.

Should be fun to watch.

Update: Brett Davis of the EFF has posted a nice reply on their website, here.

Read more here, if any.

Trading One Agenda for Another

This quote from the EFF blog on the St. John's educators voting to disaffiliate from the WEA and NEA is fairly fascinating:

“It is liberating to declare our independence from the big teacher unions,” said Ms. Gfeller, who teaches at St. John Elementary School. “Our politics just did not mesh with the politics of the WEA, and we couldn’t see throwing any more money to their causes.”

That's an interesting viewpoint, and it makes one wonder--what are the politics of the Northwest Professional Educators and their umbrella organization, the Association of American Educators? In fairness I'm going to use the same exacting standards that they've applied to the WEA and NEA and say that if anyone affiliated with the AAE ever said something in any place, ever, then that's clearly the viewpoint of the AAE as well. Let the games begin!

• We'll start with their very own official September newsletter, which leads off with a reprint of an article from Education Week on national education standards (so long, local control!), and then moves into the usual attack on using seniority in layoffs (which I've talked about here).
  
  
• Their July/August issue is even better, because the front page story is a bold, principled attack.....AGAINST PRE SCHOOL. I'm sad that the teachers in St. John would stand against pre-school, but for better or worse that is their choice, because after all, that is the agenda of the AAE.
  
  
• Hey, look, they have a foundation! Who's on that foundation? Why, there's one Anne Canfield, of the lobbying firm Canfield and Associates Inc. of Washington D.C., and before I even go on you know that this won't end well because, crap, they're a lobbying firm, but if you follow the string you'll find that C&A is working for big pharma companies like Wyeth and Merck (remember Vioxx?) and industry trade group Consumer Mortgage Coalition to the tune of $1.5 million dollars in 2008.
  
  
• The whole enterprise was founded by one Gary Beckner; let's see what he thinks the schools should be doing:
  
  

  Not so, says Gary Beckner, head of the California-headquartered Association of American Educators (AAE), a growing national teachers organization.
  
  In a recent speech, Beckner observed that: "We can all agree that we must raise our academic standards.However, for our children's sake, indeed, for America's sake, we must at the same time raise our moral standards." Although modernists and liberals will scorn the suggestion, Beckner says that our moral standard must be based on religious principles such as those contained in the Ten Command-ments and Christ's Sermon on the Mount: "In other words, our Judeo-Christian foundations-and that is what we suggest should be the underlying principles of any good character education program."
  
  Religious principles are key because they transcend time, fashion, and individual opinion.Since they are based on the premise of a "supreme being" as the final authority, Beckner argues that religious principles answer the question of "‘who says' I should or shouldn't do something, or what is right or wrong." "Without a final moral authority," says Beckner, "it is very difficult, if not impossible, to teach morality."

  Agnostic? Atheist? Buddhist? Strongly believe in the separation of church and state? Questioning? Here's the face of the AAE saying that you don't really matter.
  
  
• I'd make a run at the Northwest Professional Educators, but they haven't updated their newsletter archive since 2006 because they don't have much to say.

In reality, though, we know that this whole thing is an exercise in stupidity. It's very easy to go and take quotes out of context, or from a different time, or on a different subject, and make anyone look foolish. This is especially easy in a group context, when you can look at everyone associated and try to say that they ARE the group. It isn't right, and it isn't good argumentation.

But that's the brush that the WEA and NEA get painted with every single day by those who are opposed to public sector unionism in general and for teachers in particular. A debate at the WEA Representative Assembly on gay marriage doesn't make the WEA an organization in favor of gay marriage; the same applies to the NEA. It's rhetorically lazy, and I'll probably be doing it again tomorrow because hey, this is blogging.

This angels v. demons dichotomy that's been set up simply isn't based in any kind of reality. NWPE can pound the drum of "professionalism" long and hard, but I can show you just as many people in the WEA ranks who care passionately about kids and schools as they can on their side. Further, they can poo-poo involvement in politics all they want, but it's Olympia that decides what we're paid, it's Olympia that's taking unprecedented involvement in what the local curricula is, it's Olympia that decides who gets to be in the classroom or not--any "professional" organization that would conscientiously run away from those issues isn't a real professional organization in the slightest.

Welcome to the AAE/NWPE agenda, St. John. You don't like pre-school, you don't like local control, you're happy to throw senior teachers out to save money, Sunday School is now Monday through Friday as well, and you're a friend of Big Pharma. That's the agenda you're standing with, now that you've chosen to make the agenda the issue. Good luck with it.

Read more here, if any.