Proficiency Doublespeak

The new test results from the federal NAEP, reveal how arbitrary and low many state proficiency levels are:

Thursday, the day that the U.S. Department of Education released the 2003 NAEP results, Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group that works to lift academic standards, put out a report comparing 2003 state testing results with 2003 NAEP results.

Of 29 states giving tests in eighth-grade reading, all but Louisiana and South Carolina came up with more proficient and advanced readers than did the nation's report card.

And Maryland's discrepancy was small compared to most others. Texas found 90 percent of its eighth-graders reading at the proficient and advanced levels. The national test of the same middle-schoolers found 26 percent at those two levels.

Colorado School Voucher Update

Over at Reason's Hit and Run, they are having a vigorous discussion (see the comments) of Colorado's implementation of their new school voucher program. The discussion stems on the extent of "state vetting" of the schools being allowed to participate.

From Hit and Run:

Addendum: A writer at the Rocky Mountain news writes to note that almost half of those 82 schools were denied participation in the program, including the school that threatened to expel gay students. Repulsive as I personally find that particular policy, this does raise the sort of concerns many in the comments had about public control of private school poilcy. The Supreme Court ruled in Zelman v Simmons-Harris that voucher programs are immunized from Establishment Clause scrutiny on the grounds that they enable "true private choice" rather than state favoritism. In other words, the constitutionality depends on parents, rather than government, making the central choices. That reasoning seems prima facie incompatible with this kind of aggressive state vetting.

Why 5 and 7 Year Olds Can't Vote

My kids, Jake and Kate, went to vote with their father yesterday. He told them about the various candidates. Katie (5) grew very excited and said she was voting for the movie star. Jacob agreed when he heard that he starred in action movies. Katie later told me (I'm not making this up)--"Mom, that's why they do not allow five year olds and seven year olds to vote."

Apparently, its not only children who think movie stars should be governor.

Chinese Students Choose Charters

The San Francisco Chronicle tells the story of local Chinese students who had refused to take the Muni across town to attend schools based on economic desegregation. These students and their families wanted neighborhood schools. The district and the parents reached a compromise and now the local students will go to neighborhood charter schools.

No Help

My colleague Ted Balaker, discusses a recent union response to school volunteers at Reason's Privatization Blog, Out of Control:

Put that rake down!

Public schools often urge parents to get involved with their children’s education. So when 50 neighborhood volunteers showed up at San Diego’s Marvin Elementary School you’d think the school district would be happy. After all, because of California’s dire budget situation, local schools had to cut funding for landscaping. Many campuses became overgrown with weeds and littered with trash and broken sprinkler heads.

Too bad such acts of voluntarism violate union labor laws. The union that represents landscapers cried foul saying that schools are prohibited from giving district work to anyone but employees. The district even circulated a memo telling administrators what to do in the event this “problem” of volunteers arose. Now the principal of one school says it was wrong of her to ask for volunteers.

Marvin Elementary Principal E. Jay Derwae is one of the few sticking up for the volunteers. "Our nondistrict school foundation decided it wanted to spruce up the school because of budget cuts and because the weeds were five feet tall," he said. "The union told us we were to cease and desist. But I'm not going to tell my parents and neighbors who live in houses with impeccable yards they can't clean up the school."

California has other volunteer clean-up programs that work very well. Take Caltrans’ adopt-a-highway program. Volunteers “adopt” a stretch of highway and keep it clean. Good thing the highway clean-up union hasn’t squashed that act of voluntarism.

Environmental ED--Courtesy of Gray

In yet another last minute bill imposed by the ousted Gov., California schools will now be required to teach state-mandated environmental education.

California schools are facing yet another education requirement to contend with, courtesy of bill signed by Gov. Gray Davis.

AB 1548 requires the Office of Education and Environment within the EPA to develop a curriculum for teaching environmental issues in schools by July 1, 2004.

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, it could cost up to $500,000 to fund the program, coupled with "unknown major costs' in teacher training. ...

The bill, sponsored by Assemblywoman Fran Pavley, D- Agoura Hills, will provide a curriculum to teach environmental issues in science, math, language arts and other subjects.

Additionally, all state agencies with environment education programs will have to coordinate with the Office of Education and Environment and align their programs with state standards.

Yet another example of spreading education resources too thin and failing to focus on a core mission of raising reading and math achievement in public schools. In my experience dubious environmental issues and discussions already take up a significant portion of school time.

If state standards would make the discussion more balanced this might not be such a bad idea. However, the curriculum will likely favor an environmentalist agenda. If schools cannot manage to teach history and science without raging political debates, it seems like a potential future firestorm to come to terms with a "standard" environmental curriculum.

Inside DC's School Voucher Movement

I highly recommend the blog by Cato Institute’s education policy analyst, Casey J. Lartigue Jr. His blog combines compelling personal anecdotes and education policy. The stories give the reader the feel of being inside the fight for school choice in DC. In addition, Casey is a fascinating person who really gets why education is the most pressing policy issue for urban neighborhoods.

Weighing NCLB

Alexander Russo has a hard-hitting, and in my humble opinion, accurate, assessment of the implementation and future survival of the NCLB act over at Slate.

Choice in Vegas

Here's one for the "We don't live by the double standard, we invented it" files.


Via Education Intelligence Agency

Union Supports School Choice… for Teachers.

In an effort to reduce turnover in the worst schools, the Clark County School District in Nevada negotiated a provision in the collective bargaining agreement that requires new teachers to remain in those schools for three years. The Clark County Education Association wants the regulation removed. Union President Mary Ella Holloway told the Las Vegas Sun that forcing teachers to stay where they are unhappy won’t improve a school.

EIA applauds Holloway’s sound reasoning, and eagerly awaits her explanation as to why it wouldn’t also apply to parents and students.

Yep, forcing students to stay where they are unhappy has not done much for student achievement.

The Price of Parental Involvement

The New York Times reports on how your taxdollars will get parents "Back-to-School":

In a year of budget cuts, the New York City Department of Education is spending $43 million to hire a parent coordinator in every school, to encourage parents to participate in their children's education. They will be paid $30,000 to $39,000 annually.

Why the middle man? Maybe they need a better scheme. Something like parental participation vouchers, where parents with children in failing schools would each get $1,000 bucks for improving their participation and communication with their child's teacher.

Just kidding.

Parent One or Parent Two?

Kentucky's Lexington Herald-Leader prints a sad but amusing column on the loss of the mother and father labels in Kentucky schools.

For a total of 21 years and two children, I was a father, a dad. My wife was a mother and a mom. Yet now, according to the Fayette County public school system, it has all been for naught. Alas, we are now merely Parent One and Parent Two. That's right, folks. If you've actually read the myriad forms and permission slips emanating from Central Office, you will find that there is no longer any space for mother or father's signature. Instead: Parent One and Parent Two.

The author blames Dr. Seuss:

I realize that a great number of schoolchildren do not live with their biological mother or father. Yet it's a safe bet that most of those kids are living with relatives who have a very clear concept of "mother" and "father." Then again, maybe there are adults would be happier being called simply Adult One and Adult Two.

It doesn't take a crystal ball to see what's coming. "Oh thanks, Billy, how sweet. Honey, look. Billy made a card all by himself. Happy Parent One Day! Thank you!"

It's all the fault of Dr. Seuss and The Cat in The Hat. When things got really out of hand and Parent One was at the door, whom did he conjure up? Why Thing One and Thing Two.

SAT Roundup

Joanne and Kimberly have lots of coverage and interpretation of the 2003 SAT scores.

Meanwhile, University of Idaho economics professor, John T. Wenders, sends along this tidbit that helps us to keep in mind the rising cost of higher SAT scores and puts the scores in historical context.

In 1967 and 1968 total SAT scores were 1059. Last year they were 1020, and this year they were 1026. Over roughly the same period, real total expenditure per student went up 118.7% and current expenditure per student went up 125.1%. In short, scores fell while spending more than doubled in real terms.

A Sign of the Times

It is rather disconcerting to see these two headlines in the Baltimore Sun on the same day talking about the same population of Maryland high-schoolers.

Student Scores On The SAT Rise To All-Time High

Half Of Students Fail Unofficial Exit Exams At Md. High Schools

Goals 2000, RIP

Matt Ladner of Children First America looks at whatever happened to Goals 2000.

In September of 1989, President George Herbert Walker Bush and the nation's 50 governors met at an "Education Summit" at Charlottesville, Virginia, and agreed to set education goals for the nation's public schools. A bipartisan affair, the summit eventually resulted in the adoption of "National Education Goals" by the governors and the President. Among the state leaders of this effort was then Governor and future President Bill Clinton, who later codified the goals into federal law. These goals stated that by the year 2000, students would (among other things) "demonstrate competence in challenging subject matter" and be "first in the world in math and science achievement."

As Matt concludes:

Recently, Congress put "Goals 2000" out of business. Doubtlessly, many of the grandees involved have moved on to an assortment of other worthy pursuits. Sadly, a huge number of the children who enrolled in kindergarten in 1989 cannot read and understand this column today.

One has to wonder if someone might be writing something similar about NCLB Act in a decade or so.

Guilty!

Thanks to Mackinac's Michigan Education Report:

MIAMI, Fla. - The chief of the Miami-Dade county teachers union
plead guilty yesterday to fraud after spending hundreds of
thousands of union dollars on personal expenses and luxury items.

An investigation uncovered $650,000 in personal expenditures by
union President Pat Tornillo for the past five years. Tornillo
billed the union for private villas in the Caribbean islands,
luxury cruises, and first-class travel to the 2000 Sydney
Olympics.

A plea bargain states that Tornillo will pay $650,000 in
restitution, $160,000 in back taxes, and a $25,000 fine. His
salary was $228,000 per year, and he was released yesterday on
$100,000 bond.

This is so outrageous. I can't get over the fact that no one questioned Tornillo's extravagance for more than five years! I really wonder how often this happens. I feel guilty if I charge Reason for a Starbucks while I am waiting at the airport.

Your Education Dollars at Work

University of Idaho Economics Professor John T. Wenders e-mails the following with the tag line: News of the Weird (or $350K down the tubes).


From the Idaho Department of Education:


SEPT. 30 DEADLINE FOR COMMUNITY SERVICE GRANT

Seven $50,000 grants are available for school districts to provide community service opportunities for expelled or suspended students. For more information visit: or call Claudia Hasselquist of the State Department of Education, 1.208.332.6961.

School/Prison Metaphor takes on New Meaning

The Chicago Public Schools will have to identify students considered at risk for committing future crimes and set up a program to give them tours of a state prison in an attempt to discourage bad behavior under a bill signed into law Monday by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

This quote by a representative who sponsored the bill is very strange:

Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), a House sponsor of the legislation, said the new law reminded her of the time she visited the Cook County Jail as part of a social studies class when she attended Calumet High School in the 1950s. She said her teacher, who was white, pointed out an African-American female prisoner and suggested she looked like Davis.

"I felt totally humiliated," recalled Davis, who is black. "However, I must say to you I would never want to be housed in the small, cramped, dark corner of a jail cell."

In other words, being humiliated and compared to a black female prisoner was the only thing that kept Davis from a life of crime and led to her successful political career. Oops, I forgot they are one and the same.

Dave Barry on the state of education in America

Barry's latest "back to school column."

I have here a letter, which I am not making up, from a teacher named Robin Walden of Kilgore, Texas, who states:

"I teach math to eighth-grade students. This is an unnecessary task because they are all going to be professional basketball players, professional NASCAR race-car drivers, professional bass fisher people, or marine biologists who will never need to actually use math."

This is a sad commentary on the unrealistic expectations of today's students. Because the harsh statistical truth is that, in any given group of 10 young people, only a third of them, or 22 percent, will actually succeed as professional bass fishers. The rest will wind up in the real world, where, like it or not, they will need a practical knowledge of math.

For example, I recently found myself in a situation at a bank where suddenly, without warning, I had to add up four three-digit numbers by hand. Fortunately, I went to elementary school in the 1950s, when we were in the Cold War, and American children were forced to learn addition, because the Russians were making their children learn addition. Thanks to that training, I knew that, to get the correct answer, I had to carry some numbers.

Unfortunately, I could not remember how to do this.

For some reason I could remember that pi is the ratio of circumference to diameter of a circle, but that did not help me in this case. (To be honest, it has never helped me.) But addition had leaked out of my brain, along with subtraction, multiplication, long division, the cosine, the Smoot-Hawley Tariff and most of the other things I learned in school, although of course my brain has carefully preserved the following jingle for Brylcreem hair ointment:

"Brylcreem, a little dab'll do ya. Brylcreem, you'll look so debonair. But watch out, the gals'll all pursue ya. They'll love to get their fingers in your hair!" Which is a total lie: Touching Brylcreemed hair is like sticking your hand into the nostril of a sick pig.

Thanks to Joanne Jacobs, who still has the best education coverage.

Since education is the largest item in California's budget--it would be nice to know what any candidate plans to do about it.

Would Arnold Support School Choice?

Last week Schwarzenegger told NBC’s Matt Lauer, “I think children should have the first call on the budget.” It turns out in California they do—with the 2003-2004 California budget including $45.7 billion for K-14 education spending alone—representing a $1.7 billion or 4 percent increase from 2002-2003. However, as both parents and government officials know, children can often break the bank, and money can’t necessarily buy love or student achievement.

In fact, on the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading exam, just 21 percent of California fourth-graders scored at or above the "proficient" level. The national rate was 30 percent. More specifically, in Los Angeles, 67 percent of students scored below basic turning in the second worst performance in the nation behind Washington D.C. at 69 percent. The release of California’s 2003 test scores found 925 California schools not meeting adequate yearly progress (AYP). California AYP only requires that 13.6 percent of elementary children and 11.2 percent of high school students be proficient in reading and math. Thousands of children are now eligible for the public-school choice provision under the No Child Left Behind Act. Yet, California has a shortage of better public schools for these kids to transfer into. In the public school sector, these children have nowhere to go.

With vast amounts of taxpayer spending equaling poor performance for California’s children, the crucial question for Arnold becomes: What will he do with the children stuck in record numbers of low-performing schools despite high levels of taxpayer investment in education? Will he spend more or let them out?

We can extrapolate some of Schwarzenegger’s potential education policy from the company he keeps. Pete Wilson opposed proposition 174, the first statewide California school voucher initiative, but later proposed a more moderate voucher plan similar to Governor Jeb Bush’s Florida Opportunity Scholarship Plan, that allows students in failing schools to use vouchers to attend the private or public school of their choice. Similarly, Mayor Riordan opposed Tim Draper’s proposition 38, California’s second failing statewide voucher initiative, but supported private school vouchers for low-income children through the Los Angeles Children’s Scholarship Fund. Arnold has Internet photos with Tim Draper at various children’s charitable functions and recently co-hosted an Education Summit with Education Secretary Rod Paige, who just last week came out in favor of vouchers in the Wall Street Journal. And of course Schwarzenegger has been a prominent supporter of President Bush, who at least pays lip service to the benefits of school choice.

These associations, however, are no guarantee of Arnold becoming a school choice advocate. Yet, it is likely that Arnold would support more school competition and parental choice than the current administration. And with more Democrats like Dianne Feinstein, Joe Lieberman, and DC Mayor Anthony Williams breaking ranks with the union and coming out in favor of vouchers in D.C. and other low-performing urban cities, it makes a Schwarzenegger pro-choice position seem almost moderate.

So while Schwarzenegger will not likely support a full-scale voucher or tax credit scheme to privatize education there are several moderate proposals he could imitate:

· He could drastically increase the number of charter schools in California by letting local government, Universities, and nonprofits authorize and monitor the schools.

· He could let organizations bid to run failing schools similar to the Philadelphia approach, that has universities, nonprofits, and for-profit companies managing the city’s worst-performing schools.

· He could initiate a state-wide voucher program a la’ Colorado Governor Bill Owens and Florida Governor Jeb Bush that allows students in failing schools to use vouchers in private or public schools.

· He could institute a tax credit program like Arizona, Florida, or Pennsylvania that allows individuals and corporations to take a tax-credit for donations to charitable organizations that provide private scholarships to low-income and minority students.

· He could take advantage of President Bush’s proposed $75 million school choice pilot project by offering up a city such as Compton, Oakland, or even Los Angeles as a test city for federally funded school vouchers.


The bottom line is that Arnold will likely follow the George W. school-choice model. The President has been the supporter of more choices in education, including the Washington D.C voucher plan, public school choice, and the private tutoring vouchers for children in failing schools, while simultaneously pumping billions more federal dollars into public education. We know from experience with Proposition 49 that when it comes to children Arnold is not averse to spending taxpayer dollars. Arnold will likely continue record levels of education spending while opening up moderate choice options for children in failing public schools. Hence, one key question for Arnold will be how he intends to utilize choice and competition to stretch the public dollar while increasing accountability and performance. I will be listening very closely for that answer.

California Failing School Theme Continues. . .

Lance Izumi is first out of the gate with Pacific Research Institute's "California Education Report Card: Index of Leading Indicators."

The Orange County Register summarizes some of the report's findings:

• On the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress reading exam, just 21 percent of California fourth-graders scored at or above the "proficient" level. The national rate was 30 percent.

• The 2000 math part of the NAEP for fourth-graders saw improvement by all racial groups, "including African-American and Hispanic students ... compared to scores on the 1996 exam." However, both Hispanic and African-American Californians had scores "considerably lower than the scores of Texas African-Americans and Hispanics." This is an important comparison because Texas also is a large, diverse state with many immigrant students.

• Scores of English learners on the California English Language Development Test almost tripled in 2002, to 32 percent considered "proficient," from just 11 percent in 2001. The 1998 English for the Children initiative, which essentially eliminated bilingual education in favor of English immersion, is working.

• In the 2001-02 school year, 30 percent of students "in the ninth-grade class four years earlier either dropped out or for other reasons did not graduate from high school."

• In 2002, 59 percent of incoming Cal State students took remedial English or math courses. It's appalling that even college students, despite 13 years in K-12 public schools, still can't read and do math.

• From 1995-96 to 2000-01, crimes against persons - assault with a deadly weapon, battery, homicide, robbery/extortion and sex offenses - increased 33 percent in schools. "The rate of sex offenses during this period increased 94 percent." Commenting on this section of the report, Mr. Izumi said, "Interviews of principals showed that, as achievement goes up, safety and discipline problems go down."

Stay tuned for a note on how California's urban centers performed compared to other cities on the NAEP and for the release of California's test scores later this week. My bet is that California will have thousands more children eligible for public school choice with nowhere to go.

NEA Charter School Initiative Fails In California

The Education Intelligence Agency tells the little-known story of one of California's failed charter schools:

Kwachiiyoa was one of a projected six charter schools that were to be part of the NEA Charter School Initiative, launched in 1996 and funded with $1.5 million. Only four charter schools ever opened. Then-President Bob Chase told a Congressional subcommittee that NEA’s main goal was “to learn from this project and share its findings with traditional public schools.” He added that when “charter schools are created along the lines that our members have chosen – professional educators applying best practices and teaming with parents and community members – they do indeed offer hope for positive changes within our public system as a whole.”

The Charter School Initiative was part of the new NEA image. It was promoted in NEA publications, and cited as an example of new unionism at work. “What better way to lead in one of the hottest areas of school reform?” read one article in NEA Today.

By the time Kwachiiyoa’s initial charter expired on January 14, 2003, enrollment was at half-capacity, three classroom teachers were jointly running the school without benefit of an administrator, and the school was the lowest-performing of the 121 schools in the San Diego Unified School District. It ranked lowest even when compared to other California schools with similar student socioeconomic backgrounds. For the 2002-2003 school year, Kwachiiyoa was forced into a state intervention program for underperforming schools. Similar poor academic results were reported in 2000 and 2001.

What is most ironic about this story is the union’s blatant opposition to other potential charter school authorizers like Mayor Jerry Brown or various public and private California universities who want to invest in charter schools and monitor their accountability. The unions have come full circle in California--from opposing charter schools, trying to co-opt the reform and failing, and back again to militant opposition.

Voucher Trial Run In D.C.

Cato's Casey Latrique suggests an Educational Freedom Day for DC, complete with sample vouchers for parents.

Numerous polls have attempted to show what Washington, D.C. residents think about school vouchers. A 1998 poll by the Washington Post and a 2002 National School Boards Association poll have offered conflicting views of how D.C. residents view vouchers. There is a better way than depending on what pollsters find: Give "practice vouchers" to D.C. parents and see how many attempt to use them.

This would be timely as Congress is now considering offering vouchers to 2,000 D.C. residents, and a trial day would give both sides-voucher supporters and opponents — a sneak preview of the demand for school choice. Parents across the city could be mailed vouchers by school-choice advocates, such as D.C. Parents for School Choice, among others, which they could use for a day to visit the private schools of their choice. Parents could pick up forms, interview with administrators or teachers, and see the schools from the inside. To increase awareness, a volunteer team of school-choice advocates should be recruited to lead the effort by walking door to door in the low-income areas (Wards 5,6,7, and 8) to spread word about the vouchers.

Casey goes on to explain the risk of such an experiment to both voucher critics and supporters. This reminds me of a real voucher experiment in Los Angeles. Lately, critics of school choice have observed that few parents in Los Angeles utilize public school choice to transfer out of failing public schools (think long bus rides and marginally higher-performing schools in strange neighborhoods). However, when parents in Los Angeles were presented with legitimate school choices through the privately funded Children's Scholarship Fund the demand was clear. In 1999, during the first year of the program more than 50,000 low-income parents applied for around 2,900 scholarships. This program required parents to pay a minimum of $500 of the private school tuition. The demand for private school scholarships in Los Angeles and other urban centers gives us some indication of what might happen if parents in DC were offered real school choice.

Feinstein on Vouchers

Lance Izumi from the Pacific Research Institute has a good piece on what Feinstein backing vouchers means for the teachers' unions and public school monopoly.

Do you hear that cracking noise? That's the government-school monopoly dam about to burst.

Up until now, the teachers unions have plugged the holes in the dike using threats and money to make sure lawmakers, especially Democrats, oppose school-choice vouchers. U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, however, has just joined a growing number of Democratic elected officials who not only refuse to strengthen the dam but want to tear it down.

In a recent Washington Post op-ed, Sen. Feinstein came out in favor of federally funded vouchers for students in Washington, D.C. Congress has the unique opportunity to implement vouchers in the nation's capital since the federal government provides funds for the city's schools. Thus, according to the proposal before Congress, low-income D.C. students would be eligible for a $7,500 scholarship to pay for tuition, fees and transportation to any D.C. private school. Although D.C.'s Democratic mayor, Anthony Williams, caused a stir when he recently came out for vouchers, the teachers unions have portrayed his support as a self-interested political ploy to get more money for the city's schools.

Feinstein is different. She doesn't have anything to gain by supporting vouchers in D.C. Further, her reputation as a thoughtful centrist-leaning Democrat could swing others in her party to rethink their knee-jerk positions and eventually support school choice.

Edison Goes Private

Critics may hail this as proof of the failure of free-market K-12 education. What it really proves is the resiliency of companies to change their business model quickly to best serve the goal of educating children. We have the Oakland schools model of getting a $100 million government bailout when the going gets rough or the Edison model of scaling back spending and going private when the going gets rough. Guess which model most of the world (including the media and the public school establishment) view as a success.

Edison has signed a merger agreement - with a new company formed by the management team and our new equity partner, Liberty Partners. - in order to take steps toward becoming a privately held company. This agreement was signed with unanimous approval of both a special committee of independent directors and Edison’s Board of Directors. Edison anticipates filing proxy materials promptly with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a special meeting and vote of shareholders this fall on this proposed merger.

Essentially, “going private” means that a company’s shares are no longer publicly traded on the stock market, but are purchased and held privately by a small number of owners. Edison was a privately owned company for many years before its initial public offering (IPO) in November of 1999 and subsequent listing on NASDAQ, so if the merger is approved by its shareholders, the company would effectively become like it was before it went public.

Teachers Packing Heat

John Lott controversies aside, the Los Angeles Times prints a John Lott opinion piece on teachers and administrators who carry concealed weapons in school.

Banning guns from schools seems the obvious way to keep children safe. Utah, though, is doing the opposite, and is stirring up debate across the nation.

Acting under a new state law, school districts across Utah have started drawing up regulations allowing teachers and other public employees to carry concealed guns on school property. Opponents are still trying to fight the law, and at first glance their concern about firearms in schools is understandable. Last Sunday in New Jersey, an attack by armed teenagers against three fellow students and randomly chosen townspeople was narrowly averted. . . .

Contrary to many people's impressions, before the federal law was enacted in 1995 it was possible for teachers and other adults with concealed-handgun permits to carry guns on school property in many states.

Many of the concerns about accidents and other problems are unwarranted. The real problems at schools occurred only after the ban. The rash of student shootings at schools began in October 1997 in Pearl, Miss.

Back from Maui

I have finally caught up enough from my vacation to begin blogging. It's a good thing that Hawaii is so far from everywhere else. I can never get over how uncrowded beaches, restaurants, and the roads are compared to CA. I've got to get Reason to extend their virtual office policy to Hawaii.

Exit Exam

This is long overdue as many New York teachers have failed the state exam multiple times. The New York Post reports that teachers who fail the next test are out:

About 2,500 teachers have flunked their main state license exams, and now thanks to stricter regulations, they'll be kicked out of the city public school system if they fail to pass the next time around, The Post has learned.

The Liberal Arts and Science Test (LAST) measures teaching candidates reading comprehension and writing skills.

Of the 9,581 uncertified teachers who took the exam this year, 2,512 flunked - or more than one out of every four instructors currently operating with a temporary teaching license.

And if the New York test is anything like the California CBEST; it is a simple, simple test.

More Money

ScrappleFace has a great spoof of the recently released NAEP scores, "Nation's School

Report Card Shows Taxes are Too Low."

My favorite line:

"This week the NEA will launch its "No Dollar Left Behind" campaign designed to ensure that every greenback has a chance to go to school."

More School Administrators with Zero Judgement at Graduation

Joanne Jacobs blogs this story out of New Jersey:

OK, kids. Maybe you made it out of kindergarten. But the odds are you'll fail soon enough. Not, perhaps, the point the vice principal meant to make. But it's no surprise parents at a New Jersey elementary school are upset. Newsday:

Some relatives were angry after a vice principal told children at a kindergarten graduation to stand during the ceremony to symbolize the number of students who wouldn't graduate high school because of alcohol, drugs or pregnancy.

Do school administrators have to pass a stupidity exam? Sometimes, I wonder.

Competition Without Consequences

Julian Sanchez, at Reason's Hit and Run, has an excellent post about why competition with public schools may not work to improve public schools:

Competition, Public Sector Style

The Washington Post writes that, contrary to what some had predicted, competition from charter schools hasn't visibly pushed public schools to improve. When you think about it, it isn't all that surprising given the ways in which this differs from ordinary "competition."

For one, while funding is tied to enrollment, the amount of funding tied to each student floats on the legislative breezes. More importantly, it's not clear how much incentive administrators actually have to compete even if their operating budgets do shrink somewhat. The school mentioned in the article dropped from 491 to only 178 students over the course of four years... but you can bet the principal's still taking home the same salary. Hell, he's probably glad to have less crowded hallways and fewer kids to deal with. And unlike many private firms, losing more than 60 percent of his "clients" doesn't put him in danger of having to shut down.. though maybe if enrollment dipped below a hundred we'd start to see the beads of sweat. Since teachers retire younger, on average, than other professionals, even flak from them can be deflected, since budget trimming can be handled (in part) by cutting back on new hires, instead of handing out pink slips. So how many administrators are going to go to the trouble of making real changes in the way things are done, just to be rewarded with a heavier workload?

Private Schools and NAEP Reading Scores

Yesterday the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) released the results of the 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)(also known as The Nation's Report Card) in reading for 4th, 8th, and 12th grade students. Critics of vouchers and private schools often complain that private schools are not subjected to standardized tests and that private school performance cannot be verified. However, the historical data from the NAEP, including the 2002 NAEP 4th, 8th, and 12th grade reading scores give some indication that private schools outperform public schools. This is especially relevant when we consider the cost of school performance. For example, performance of Catholic schools(which have far lower tuition and subsidies than the average per-pupil spending at public schools and often have high low-income and minority populations) on the NAEP reading assessment exceeds public school performance by 18 points.

Obviously, the demographics at private schools may account for much of their superior performance. Yet, the NAEP score differential seems like yet another reason to let parents have more choices and let competition drive up NAEP scores at both public and private schools.

An interesting study might look at NAEP scores in states with the most concentrated competition and see if there has been any change in NAEP scores over time between different types of schools.

The 2002 NAEP average reading scale scores for public versus nonpublic schools show a 17-20 point higher average scale score for private schools.

2002 NAEP Reading Average Scale Scores

Grade 12 8 4
Public 285 263 217
All non-public 304 281 234
Non-Public Catholic 304 281 234
Non-Public Other 305 281 235

In addition, here's a link to a 2002 report on private schools and outcomes from the NCES that shows, based on NAEP data, that private schools also outperform public schools in math, history, and science.

Voucher Debate

I spend so much time reading about education, vouchers, test scores, charter schools, blah, blah, blah--that I sometimes do not realize that other people don't. In fact, we need publications that will take on this issue with a more general population. In its current issue, Brain,Child, the magazine for thinking mothers, takes on the voucher debate. My friend Katie Allison Granju offers a personal yet comprehensive essay about why she supports school choice.

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to say up front that my three children--a fifth-grader, a second-grader, and a preschooler--all attend private schools. In other words, not only do I believe in school choice, I have exercised it on behalf of my own kids. Additionally, of course, I continue to pay taxes to support our generally mediocre and monolithic local public school system. In essence, I pay tuition twice for the privilege of opting out of sending my children to schools I do not believe would offer them the education I want them to have.

My three kids' schooling needs are as individual as they are, and as their parent, I am best able to evaluate the right school, teacher, and educational method for each of them. For example, two of my kids do best in a Montessori classroom, while another needs extra support with math. I have never been able to understand the logic behind matching a particular child to a particular classroom based almost entirely on that child's street address.

Interestingly, annual tuition at the private Montessori school attended by two of my children amounts to less than the per-pupil amount spent each year in our local public schools. This is not an isolated statistic; many private and public charter schools across the country offer parents demonstrably higher achievement, smaller class sizes, and specialized courses of study for fewer dollars per student per year than the demographically-matched public schools in the same district.

California charter students score lower but improve faster

According to a new Hoover Institute study reported in today's Los Angeles Times:

The Hoover report analyzed Academic Performance Index test results beginning in 1999, when such data were first available from the state. It found that overall average scores in charter schools showed faster growth than among those at regular public schools but still lag because charters often enroll many students who were not doing well at other schools.

For example, in 2001 the average API test score was 612 for charter high schools and 635 for traditional high schools. But the charter high schools boosted their scores by 37 points on average from 1999 to 2001, compared with 18 points for traditional campuses.

The comparative gains for charter elementary school students were minimal, according to the report. In 2001, the average API test score was 676 for charter elementary schools and 691 for traditional campuses. The rate of improvement from 1999 to 2001 was 60 for charter schools, compared with 58 for traditional campuses.

Dammit, Private Schools Have Empty Seats!

The worst part about children stuck in failing schools in Los Angeles (or anywhere, USA) is the open slots in better private schools that remain empty every year while these children suffer with overcrowded conditions. In a LA Daily News commentary, Michael Warder, the executive director of the Los Angeles Children's Scholarship Fund, explains the plight of these children in one of the worst-performing schools in Los Angeles:

Manchester Avenue School is arguably the worst elementary school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Its students tested last spring in the very lowest of the lowest 10 percent of California schools. And the state ranks among the poorest performers in the country. . . .

Currently 1,694 students are crammed into the buildings in grades K-5. My respect for the administrators and teachers who faithfully do their job each day there is enormous.. . .

A few blocks down the street from Manchester is St. Michael's, a K-8 elementary school. Currently it has 242 students, but it could hold 315.

Despite being a private school, it is not a school for the economic or social elite. About 84 percent of the children who attend St. Michael's qualify for the federal lunch program. About 54 percent of its students are African-American, and 46 percent are Latino.

The basic tuition for children who are not part of the parish is $2,180, although the second child in a family would pay only $940. While tuition levels are low because of subsidies from the Catholic Church, children who attend need not be Catholic.

There is a wide body of scholarship showing that such private schools, even when controlling for demographics, do a better job at educating. This is especially the case when private schools are compared with the worst public schools.

In addition to St. Michael's, there are 11 other private schools in that same ZIP code area. If some of those children could move to these private schools, where there is room, at the minimum it would relieve the overcrowding and the busing in the public schools.

Private philanthropy could help. The Los Angeles Children's Scholarship Fund, for instance, provides partial-tuition scholarships for 145 children who live in 90044 with a total of $181,000. The average family income of the families in our program in that area is $18,060. The average tuition in the area is $2,734. This means that these families heroically pay about $1,486 a year of the tuition!

Throughout the city of Los Angeles, we offer 2,426 such scholarships. When they were first offered in 1999, we received more than 50,000 applications. There are perhaps 12,000 to 14,000 empty spaces in the 551 private schools located within the LAUSD geographic area.

Michael goes on to argue for a Florida, Arizona, or Pennsylvania-style tax credit to generate more scholarships for students in failing Los Angeles schools to take advantage of the empty seats in LA private schools.

Dressed Down

An academic paper out of Canada argues that teenage girls suffer all kinds of negative consequences thanks to their uniforms:

The school uniform, sold to parents and students as a way of simplifying student life and making all students equal, actually complicates the lives of teenage girls, according to a Montreal researcher.

Wearing a uniform to school opens up girls to unwanted sexual attention by men turned on by a "schoolgirl look" and harassment by those who view them as being rich, says a new study, which details the reactions of teenage girls to uniform wearing.

However, what was more revealing was the new academic field of, I kid you not, "dress studies."

The study fits into a relatively new academic focus, dress studies, which examines dress as a way of explaining culture and behaviour.

The school uniform paper was presented alongside papers on the prom dress, the influence of Britney Spears and "little girls in sexy clothes," and the pedagogy of shoes at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Halifax.

Our higher education dollars at work.

Recommended Reading

Education News fact checks the U.S. Department of Education summer reading list.

The US Dept of Education has posted a "Recommended Elementary Grades Reading List" for its "No Child Left Behind Summer Reading Achievers Pilot Program" that is replete w/ misspellings, misprints, and/or incorrect authors and titles. A cursory glance comes up with at least two in every grade so far.

For example mistakes from the kindergarten list include:

The Kindergarten List

The Very Best Spider, Eric Carle (The Very Busy Spider)
Have You Seen My Duckling, Nancy Tafari (Nancy Tafuri)
Richard Scarry's Best Mother Goose Book, Richare Scarry (Richard Scarry)

Jobs Program

My recent visits to Sacramento really crystallized for me how much power the unions have over the legislative process and how the unions are about saving any job at any cost. In the Boston Globe, Jeff Jacoby takes a harsh look at how teachers unions differ from other unions.

If the UAW proposed that domestic automobile manufacturers be paid a federal subsidy for each new employee they hired, everyone would recognize its self-serving aims -- to swell the ranks of auto workers and increase its own membership.

But when teachers unions demand hefty increases in education spending or mandatory reductions in class size, they get a respectful hearing. Union officials are routinely quoted in the media and invited to testify before legislative committees. And yet their aims are no less self-serving and their interests no less mercenary than those of any other union.

Jacoby discusses how the media treats the teachers' unions as if they were neutral sources and concludes that: "Teachers unions, like all unions, want to make money and amass power. Those are the motives behind everything they say and do. They're not in business ''for the children.'' They're in business for themselves."

Every state strives to be Arkansas...

The New York Times notes that my August 2001 prediction about the No Child Left Behind Act has become a reality in many states. The headline says it all: "States Cut Test Standards to Avoid Sanctions."

Special Education Insurance

Hoover Institute's Paul T. Hill on special education insurance:

Laws on the education of handicapped students are a major challenge for charter schools. Schools that remain connected to school districts must pay hundreds of dollars per student to support the central office special education unit. Schools that maintain no connection to school districts must pay for whatever services their handicapped students need, including placement in residential facilities costing as much as $50,000 per pupil.

This sets up a dilemma: To avoid the financial ruin that could result if a seriously handicapped child were to enroll, many charters stay close to the very districts whose control they hoped to escape. Further, charters that rely on school districts often get far less than they pay for. Because charter schools hope to avoid labeling children as handicapped, they work hard to solve students' learning problems early. Charters therefore pay a lot for district schools that are careless with the "handicapped" label.

Schools in a voucher system could face the same dilemma. As long as public funding brings an absolute obligation to provide special education services, schools must either affiliate with districts or take huge risks.

Some charter schools are forming special education risk pools, which are good until one school's unexpected costs create havoc with many schools' budgets.

A better solution would be insurance for special education costs. Schools could buy insurance coverage from commercial underwriters, including deductibles for small extra costs and "catastrophic coverage" for the rare instance when a student requires residential placement. A mature insurance program could be loss rated, so that schools with excellent track records of solving children's problems without applying the "handicapped" label would pay less than schools that use the label carelessly.

A special education insurance program would be good for schools and for children. Schools would know in advance what special education would cost each year-no awful surprises. Students would also benefit from schools' efforts to solve learning problems before they became overwhelming. Children who truly need special services would also benefit because the funding would be guaranteed by insurance.

Voucher Wars Part II

University of Notre Dame Law Professor, Richard Garnett, writing in National Review Online, has one of the best explanations I've seen of the significance of the Supreme Court's decision yesterday to hear the Davey v. Locke school choice case.

The other shoe is about to drop in the voucher wars. After ruling last year, in the Zelman case, that communities and governments are not required by the Establishment Clause to exclude religious schools from their school-choice experiments, the United States Supreme Court has now agreed to decide whether such exclusion is permitted by the Constitution. Under the leadership of Chief Justice Rehnquist, the Court has made it increasingly clear that the First Amendment forbids "viewpoint discrimination" in the administration of public-welfare programs, and also that religious believers and institutions may not be singled out for special disadvantages and burdens. In Davey v. Locke, though, the justices will confront provisions of Washington state law that appear to do just that. . . .

Now, at first blush, Davey might seem like just another "federalism" case, and Washington's no-aid provision might look like just another example of devolution in action. And didn't Justice Brandeis once note — in a passage dear to the heart of localists everywhere — that "it is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country"? So, why shouldn't the State of Washington be allowed to part company with the Supreme Court, and provide its citizens with greater protection from religious establishments and entangling church-state alliances?

Not so fast. "Novel social and economic experiments" are well and good, but it is the Constitution that is the "supreme Law of the Land." State constitutions may neither authorize nor permit that which the Constitution of the United States forbids.

Garnett predicts that the Supremes will find in favor of allowing students, through their individual choices, to use college aid in Washington for religious studies and put an end to the Catholic bigotry that many state constitutions embrace. He writes, "It remains the fact that the no-aid provision of Washington's Constitution, and many other provisions like it, are continuing monuments to the claim, which once held sway in the salons of elite opinion, that Catholics, to the extent they remain Catholics, are suspect as Americans. And, as Justice Thomas wrote, a few years ago in Mitchell v. Helms, "[t]his doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.""

Privatized School Superintendents

The St. Louis public school board will hire a "turnaround management team" to restructure the public schools.

Ten companies, ranging from the partnership hired by Kmart to a team that includes the former head of New York City schools, responded by Monday's deadline to the School Board's request for an interim superintendent.

Bringing in a "turnaround management firm" to temporarily perform the duties of superintendent has so far been the signature move of the four new School Board members, elected in April with the support of Mayor Francis Slay. . . .

The novel approach of applying private sector remedies to the troubled school system has attracted the top turnaround specialists in the country, including some that propose pairing with well-known education reformers.

The ALTMA Group, a national firm specializing in restructuring financially ill companies, has proposed teaming with educators who worked under Paul G. Vallas, the former head of Chicago public schools who has garnered national attention for his current attempts to improve the Philadelphia school district. The group would feature top members of Vallas' team in Chicago and the leaders of his Philadelphia transition.

Another company, New York-based Alvarez & Marsal, has proposed coupling William V. Roberti, former CEO of the clothing company Brooks Brothers, with Rudy Crew, the chancellor of New York City Public Schools from 1995 to 1999. Alvarez & Marsal's resume includes restructuring services for HealthSouth, site of a massive financial fraud, and Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm ensnared in the Enron scandal. . .

The fees for the other companies vary widely, ranging from about $36,000 to $500,000 a month.

I'm all for privatization--it's in my job description. However, I have to wonder about the decision to spend millions on a job that normally pays around $150,000 or less. On the other hand, the California legislature just voted to "loan" Oakland $100 million in exchange for state control of Oakland schools. I imagine the private education crises team will have a better track record than the state of California will in Oakland--and for less than $100 mil. So maybe the St. Louis school board is getting a bargain. It should be an interesting experiment.

Follow the Money

Michael Lopez at Highered Intelligence has a good post about the student who skipped class to go sing in the Indianapolis Children's Choir before President Bush gave a speech. The school principal initially gave the student an unexcused absence until the school superintendent reversed the decision.

Michael asks, "Is it me or did I just read that a child's parents can't "excuse" an absence just by saying so? This can't be true... can it? A school that doesn't let parents just excuse a kid?"

He argues that the "first change that should be made is that parents can excuse their kids whenever and however they want. The schools are in loco parentis, not parentis itself. When parentis is actually there, in loco is, well, irrelevant. And loco, as in pollo. The idea that a parent can't decide when their child goes to school reeks of condescension and arrogance on the part of the district. It's categorically ludicrous."

I agree. It is one of the things I dislike most about government schools--the nanny state role where they discount parents’ rights to make decisions regarding their children.

One point that Michael doesn't bring up is why parents can't just excuse any absence. It's all about the money. As long as schools receive funding based on average daily attendance, they will tightly control the circumstances under which children are allowed to be absent. In fact, even when parents have legitimate reasons, schools can threaten them with tough truancy policies. When I was attending 10th grade at Orange high school, waiting to turn sixteen so that my California proficiency exam scores would count, and I could go to college, I missed at least one day of school a week. I was making excellent grades--but I just couldn't stand to be there. My dad knew about my absences and even approved. However, the school went ballistic. The principal called a parent conference, she questioned my teachers about how I could have good grades and miss class, and she threatened to expel me if I missed any more class. Ah, the logic of school bureaucrats.

Pay Dirt

Union officals are not the only well-paid school educrats in NYC.

It pays to be a school custodian. Just ask Martin Fogarty. Fogarty pulled down $177,195 last year making sure Public School 125 in Morningside Heights stayed neat and tidy - while doing stints at a half-dozen other schools.That made him the highest-paid school custodian last year, earning more than anyone in the city Education Department except Schools Chancellor Joel Klein and first Deputy Diana Lam.

Fogarty was among scores of custodians who were able to take home hefty paychecks thanks to a sweetheart contract that lets members of Local 891 of the International Union of Operating Engineers collect two salaries - doing two jobs at once, often within a normal nine-hour day. The contract allows custodians to earn a second salary for taking care of a neighboring school that lacks a custodian of its own. The more schools a custodian can juggle, the more money he makes.

In fact the New York Daily News lists the top ten paid custodians with the lowest salary a whopping $162,929. No wonder the bathrooms are filthy. And apparently, Joel Klein and crew recognize the privatization opportunity here:

This summer, officials plan to seek private contractors to take over custodial duties at a cluster of 40 or more schools. Josephine Santiago, principal of PS 169 in Brooklyn, is one beneficiary of privatization. Her Sunset Park school had a revolving door of subs for the three years it lacked a permanent custodian. "It was a nightmare," Santiago said. "Some temporary custodians were great, some were terrible, but no one stayed and nothing got done." Life got better when a private company, Johnsons Controls, took over custodial services last June. The company hired a member of PS 169's custodial crew as its new building manager. "The school sparkles. But it's not the company, it's the man they hired," Santiago said. "This is his school. He has pride in it. He's not going anywhere."

Santiago sounds nice, but she's wrong. It has everything to do with the company. The school sparkles because the company will lose the contract if it doesn't.

We Didn't Create the Double Standard, We Invented It

Chalk one more up for union hypocrisy. . .

The United Federation of Teachers has charged the Bloomberg administration and Schools Chancellor Joel Klein with civil-rights violations for sending out notices to lay off mostly minority school aides to close a budget gap while at the same time hiring six-figure white educrats.

However, a New York Post analysis found that "a whopping 85 percent of the union's highest-compensated management staff are white, and 15 percent are minorities.

That's a far greater racial disparity than the teaching work force, which is about 60 percent white and 40 percent minority."

Go there and read how much money the top 50 union officals are making in New York City and you may realize that you picked the wrong career track. Oh, the moral superiority of not drawimg down a $200,000 + salary. I have to keep this in mind the next time some union PR hack accuses me of supporting programs that lead to "profits on the backs of children."

Educators Lose Their Minds in Birmingham

Not only can kids not take the weight of their books, they also can't seem to handle having their parents watch them race--according to one school in the UK:

A primary school's banned parents from attending its annual sports day to spare children from embarrassment if they lose.

The head of Maney Hill Primary in Sutton Coldfield, Judith Wressel, wrote to parents to tell them of her decision.

She says the West Midlands school will instead hold a non-competitive sports day behind closed doors.

Mrs Wressel wrote: "Taking part in traditional races can be difficult and often embarrassing for many children, which is why we envisage a different outdoor activity event that will suit all children."

While I realize that these individual school stories represent extreme behavior, I also believe the adage that the extremes make less extreme but equally ludicrous behavior like banning dodgeball and tag seem moderate. As one local parent with two sons in the school aptly notes:

"It is political correctness gone mad. They are trying to solve a problem that does not exist. Children do not become scarred for life if they lose the egg and spoon race. They all love being in the races and they love the fact that their parents are there to cheer them on."

More Whimpy Kids

These back-pack stories make the rounds every few months. . .

There are times when Jessica Alexander feels more like a 60-year-old than an athletic 16-year-old high school student. Between visits to a chiropractor and a massage therapist, Jessica finds herself walking hunched over because her back aches so much. The Clayton High School sophomore lays the blame for her problem on the 20-plus pound backpacks that she has carried since middle school.

Poor baby. How about going to Target and buying a $20 backpack that has wheels. I see kids around here with those backpacks all over the city. Oh, here's why:

Some students have turned to rolling backpacks, only to have them banned or restricted. At Carver Elementary School, Principal Mary Castleberry said they were banned because teachers tripped over them and students were having backpack fights.

The article calls for passing legislation to limit textbook sizes. I thought the schools didn't have any money for textbooks.

The Real Private Education K-12 Market

The private education market in the United States is called tutoring. Where dozens of private corporations and individual tutors compete to fill the academic holes left by the inadequacy of the public schools.

Consider:

• Sylvan Learning Centers has added more than 500 centers in the past 10 years, growing from 449 in 1993 to 960 this year.

• Princeton Review, known for standardized test preparation classes, attracted fewer than 39,000 students to its company-owned sites in 2000. By 2002, more than 81,000 had come for extra help. Over the same period, revenues for the test-preparation division soared from $34 million to $66 million.

• Kumon Math & Reading Centers helped 33,000 students in the United States to master their basics in 1992. This year, that figure exceeds 120,000.

• The number of individuals nationwide offering private tutoring for a fee has increased from 250,000 five years ago to more than 1 million today, according to the National Tutoring Association in Indianapolis.

How inefficient is our education system that we support billions a year for a state education system, while parents pay billions more for a private system to teach their kids reading and math. Let's cut to the chase and just enroll the kids in Kumon or Sylvan.

High Achievers want Choices Too

I've always thought that the current standards-based focus of school reform must be frustrating for kids that already meet those standards. Granada Hills High School wants to become a charter school and be freed from LAUSD's constraints. Problem is, the high school does not have the usual sympathy argument of failing students. The school just wants to be free to serve its high-achieving students better.

[Update] LAUSD voted to approve the Granada Hills Charter]

Clueless as Usual

San Diego Libertarian and friend of Reason, Richard Rider takes on a May 7 New York Time's piece on school vouchers that hyped a study showing that low income black kids in New York City who received $1,400 vouchers did no
better academically than similar black kids in the public school system. As usual the education establishment obscures the relevant cost data.

Rider's crucial points:

The particular NYC voucher in question is privately funded, and it is VERY low -- $1,400 per student per year. This is less than the cost of almost ANY private school. The more conventional government voucher being discussed or implemented is far higher. Cleveland is doing well with a $2,500 voucher. The California voucher (which didn't pass) was to be about $4,000. The Milwaukee voucher is about $5,500. The proposed Washington, D.C. voucher is a whopping $11,000 -- admittedly a nutty idea, but then, we're talking about WASHINGTON!

Here's the crucial point carefully ignored by educrats and liberals: While the NYC private school kids supposedly did no better than the public school kids, the vaunted rebuttal by voucher opponents showed that the voucher kids DID NO WORSE EITHER. Consider: New York City spends $9,059 per "general education" student. (This government figure already factors out the incredible $30,464 spent annually per "special education" student.)

Hence these $1,400 vouchers are providing the SAME education as public schools for LESS THAN ONE SIXTH THE COST! Why charge taxpayers over six times as much for the same service readily available from low budget private providers? And how much better could these kids do with a more realistic but still modest voucher of, say, $3,000?

Big Words

In an entertaining Wall Street Journal piece Daniel Henninger takes on the education establishment. My favorite paragraph:

Curriculum, what students actually learn, is another chipped brick in the institutional edifice of our schools. We now have "The Language Police," education historian Diane Ravitch's meticulous but horrifying narrative of how the major textbook publishers, the testing companies and state education departments have reduced what public-school kids learn to politically correct, politically laughable pabulum and swill. Ms. Ravitch's new book is must reading for anyone who wants to learn why (my conclusion, not hers) so many kids would rather listen to hip-hop songs on their headphones than read what's now in their textbooks. Answer: The rappers use bigger words.

The State of Parental (childhood) Angst

In a Washington Post book review, Reason's Editor-n-Chief, Nick Gillespie, looks at two recent books on the state of childhood and parenting and all the anxiety that entails.

The next time you start to worry about today's kids, hit the pause button the "Girls Gone Wild" video, turn down the Eminem CD and consider the following:

They have sex less than they used to, reports the Kaiser Family Foundation, with the percentage of high schoolers who have had intercourse declining from 54 percent in 1991 to 46 percent in 2001. The federally funded Monitoring the Future Study informs us that 12th graders are using fewer drugs than they did 25 years ago. Among the Class of 2002, 25.4 percent said they'd used an "illicit" drug in the previous 30 days, an accepted measure of casual use. While that figure is up a bit from lows reached in the early '90s, it's still far smaller than the 37.2 percent reported by those now middle-aged stoners in the classes of 1979 and 1980. They're less prone to violent crime, too, with rates for non-homicide offenses well below early '90s peaks. As Mike Males, a researcher for the Justice Policy Institute has shown, between the early '70s and 2000, the juvenile homicide arrest rate per 100,000 youths ages 10 to 17 dropped 46 percent.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, kids today are more likely to go on to college, with about 63 percent of graduating seniors enrolling in some form of post-secondary education, up more than 10 percent from three decades back. While the poverty rate for children under 18 has ranged around 16 percent for the past 30 years, there's every reason to believe that the overwhelming majority of kids are doing better than ever.

Yet we still worry about them, don't we? The Abandoned Generation, by Henry A. Giroux, and Raising America, by Ann Hulbert, deal with different aspects of child-related anxiety.

School Leaders as Role Models . . .

The trend towards school leaders bilking taxpayers continues. The LA-Times reports on yet another faithful educrat:

The president of the Inglewood school board was released from jail early Thursday, one day after being arrested on charges of fraudulently receiving welfare aid and lying about her academic background.

Cresia Green-Davis, 50, posted $35,000 bail, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office.
Green-Davis is to be arraigned May 21 on charges of welfare fraud, perjury and grand theft.

The district attorney's office alleged that, from Nov. 1, 1995, to April 30, 2001, Green-Davis received almost $38,000 in aid while failing to report that she was employed as a teacher.

Prosecutors also alleged that she lied on applications for teaching positions in the Compton and Centinela Valley school districts.

They said Green-Davis claimed that she had received a bachelor's degree — required for California teachers by state law — from Eastern Michigan University, when in fact she had never graduated from that institution.

The Los Angeles school system is an easy mark--who knows what anyone is ever up to.

Stopping School Violence

Meanwhile Alameda teachers and some parents continue to press for nonviolent schools. As the Sacramento Bee reports:

A small group of teachers and parents at Encinal High School in Alameda contend the school's use of a retired U.S. Marine Corps jet is inappropriate because the plane is an icon of violence.

A few thousand more out. . .

Gov. Bill Owens has signed the Colorado school choice bill into law.

The program is targeted at struggling students from low-income families. About 3,200 such students from 11 Colorado school districts will be eligible when the program begins in fall 2004. That number can grow to about 20,000 students when the program is fully implemented in fall 2007 - potentially making Colorado's program the largest in the nation. The bill attracted support from several community leaders and key Democrats, including former state School Board member Gully Stanford and present board member Jared Polis. "This is just the beginning," said Jon Caldara, president of the Independence Institute, a Golden think tank that began pushing for vouchers in 1985. "This will give people a taste of freedom," Caldara said. "Once you give people a taste, there's no turning back."

Racism and Special Ed in Arizona

A Goldwater Institute study by Children First America vice president Matthew Ladner, documents the mislabeling of minority students in special education in Arizona.

This study focuses on race and special education in Arizona’s public school districts, based on data from the Arizona Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education. Even after controlling for school spending, student poverty, community poverty, and other factors, research uncovered a pattern of predominantly White public school districts placing minority students into special education at significantly higher rates. As a result, Arizona taxpayers spend nearly $50 million each year on unnecessary special education programs.

In Arizona, predominantly White districts label substantially higher percentages of minority students as disabled when compared to predominantly minority districts:

Disability rates for Hispanic students are 48 percent higher
Disability rates for African-American students are 29 percent higher
Predominantly White districts label 34 percent fewer White students as disabled

The study calls for reforming the "bounty system" of special education funding in Arizona and instituting Florida-style revenue-neutral special-education vouchers in Arizona.

More from E. D. Hirsch Jr.

Hirsch's Education Next article on the twentieth anniversary of A Nation at Risk is my favorite in the Spring 2003 issue. He argues that the commission got the basic premise about what went wrong with American education wrong. He makes a very compelling argument for why content matters and why we need a core curriculum.

Where I differ with Hirsch is that I do not trust the states or any government body to implement and stick to a relevant core curriculum--free from the educrats usual statist agendas. I'd rather have the choice to buy Hirsch's curriculum at Costco or better yet choose a school that embraces clear content knowledge.

Rigorous Testing

Daryl Cobranchi links to a review of the TEXAS TAKS from EducationNews.org.

Here's a sample of one of the easy questions that 86 percent of 10th graders can answer:

At a candy store, chocolate costs $0.35 per ounce. Hector bought 8.25 ounces, Jeanette bought 8.7 ounces, James bought 8.05 ounces and Shanika bought 8.42 ounces. Which list shows these weights in order from least to greatest?

A. 8.05 oz 8.25 oz 8.42 oz 8.7 oz.

B. 8.42 oz 8.05 oz 8.25 oz 8.7 oz

C 8.05 oz 8.7 oz 8.25 oz 8.42 oz

D. 8.7 oz 8.05 oz 8.25 oz 8.42 oz

When I first skimmed the question, I was assuming that it would ask the sophomores how much each piece of chocolate costs.

School Choice All Around

While all eyes are on Iraq, the school choice movement quietly moves forward . . .

Dateline: Colorado

In what looks to be the first new school voucher program since the Supreme Court ruling, Kevin Teasley from the Greater Education Opportunities sends word that:

After four years of struggle, educational activities, grassroots mobilizing, legislative coaxing, numerous fact trips to Milwaukee, and lots of endless meetings, Colorado will be the next state to adopt vouchers. Today, the Colorado Senate approved House Bill 1160 which allows children in the state's lowest performing schools to take 85 percent of their funding to a private or parochial school of their choice.

Today the Wall Street Journal's John Fund reports on more details of the Colorado program:

The Colorado choice program is quite limited. It tightly restricts the number of eligible students in the early years to 6,000, limits participation to 12 districts where at least eight schools have been rated "low" or "unsatisfactory," and allows only students who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches to apply for a voucher equal to 85% of the state's portion of education costs. School districts lose nothing when a student takes his voucher to another school--except public acknowledgement that they failed that student. Just maybe that will prompt them to improve.

The House already approved 1160 and now it is a matter of procedure for the bill to be signed into law by Gov. Owens.

Dateline: Florida

It looks like Florida will be a shoe in again for number one in Manhattan Institute's Education Freedom Index . Governor Bush continues his incremental approach to school choice. There are 15,000 students using the corporate tax credits with the $50 million a year cap to receive scholarships to private schools; several thousand students in charter schools; 10,000 students using McKay special education scholarships for private schools, a few hundred students from failing schools using opportunity scholarships; and now a proposal to satisfy the class-size reduction initiative by using scholarships to send kids to private schools; and finally a bill to use a tax-credits to offer scholarships to soldiers' children.

As the March 25 and Sun-Sentinel reports:

The House answer to the voter mandate to cap class would allow parents of any child entering kindergarten to have a $3,500 state voucher to attend a private school and would also let school districts use vouchers to help reduce class size at any grade level.

As for the military tax credit the March 26 Sun-Sentinel reports:

The House approved a military voucher bill Tuesday after a bitter debate that crossed party lines. It provides $10 million in tax credits to corporations that donate money for scholarships enabling soldiers' children to attend private school. The bill was passed after a one-hour debate pitting veterans against one another and revolving around competing claims of patriotism.

Dateline Arizona

The Goldwater Institute sends word that on, March 24, the Arizona State Senate delivered a victory for proponents of educational freedom. With a bipartisan majority of 16 votes, the Senate passed SB1263, a corporate scholarship tax credit program that could give thousands of low-income, public school students the opportunity to transfer to private schools next fall.

The legislation, based on an idea put forth in a Goldwater Institute research study last spring, would allow corporations to receive a dollar-for-dollar tax credit for donations to fund private school scholarships. Those scholarships would be used to provide school choice for public school students who qualify for the federal free and reduced school lunch program.

Children's First America reports that

The bill now goes to the House, where support is considered to be much stronger than in the senate. "Arizona already has an individual tax credit law in which citizens can direct up to $500 ($650 for couples) of their tax burden to organizations which grant scholarships for families to use at the school of their choice. Unlike the individual tax credit, however, the proposed corporate scholarships would be available only to those students currently enrolled in public schools who are eligible for the federal free or reduced-price lunch program. In addition, figures from legislative budget staffers indicate that the program will be revenue positive, as the state has a net gain of $2,000 per student that transfers. The measure would cap the scholarship fund at $10 million the first year, but that figure would rise to $50 million after four years.

Dateline: Compton

If there is anyplace that needs more competition and choice, Compton is the place. The Los Angeles Times reports on State Assemblyman's Ray Haynes pretty much doomed bill to give kids in Compton a way out.

The Compton experiment would be modeled after the highly popular Cal Grant program for college students, which provides the financially neediest students with grants of as much as $9,708 a year to pay tuition and student fees.

Haynes refused to detail his strategy for getting the bill approved in a Legislature dominated by Democrats who oppose vouchers. But he indicated that packaging the subsidies as scholarships similar to Cal Grant subsidies would make the bill more attractive to Democrats.

The plan would get a five-year test run, starting Jan. 1. The results would be evaluated and decisions made on whether to expand it elsewhere.

As a potential model for the rest of the state, Haynes said, Compton "was a good place to start.... What we need in Compton is a revolution." . . .

Haynes identified the sponsors of his bill as about 50 Compton parents and a nonprofit organization known as the Coalition on Urban Renewal and Education, a conservative, religion-based think tank with an office in Los Angeles. It was founded by commentator Star Parker, a one-time Los Angeles welfare mother who wrote the book "Pimps, Whores and Welfare Brats."

"We wanted to submit a bill that had to be taken seriously. We did not want a bill that would be thrown out because it was not constitutionally acceptable or credible," said Timothy McGhee, the organization's director of community affairs.

But Haynes said it will be very difficult to push the bill through the Legislature and get it signed by Gov. Gray Davis, who opposes vouchers. Haynes said he told the Compton parents that it would take lots of work and expansion of their group of 50 parents to "something more like 10,000" for the bill to succeed.

Dateline: Washington DC

President Bush has allocated $75 million in his fiscal-year 2004 budget to fund voucher programs in seven or eight cities, including Washington.

Arizona Rep. Jeff Flake has introduced the five-year, $45 million D.C. School Choice Act to provide vouchers for up to 8,300 students in the D.C. Public Schools. New Hampshire Sen. Judd Gregg's new bill authorizes $55 million in vouchers over six years.

Dateline: New Hampshire

House Bill 603 offers parents about $1,700 if they choose to withdraw their child from the public school in their community. This would apply to homeschoolers and any parent who removed their child from the public schools.

Dateline: Texas

A bipartisan group of legislators has proposed a pilot school choice bill, known as the Texas freedom scholarship program, to address both academic achievement and overcrowding problems in Texas public schools. Large urban districts where a majority of students are educationally and economically disadvantaged qualify for the pilot program.



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For more school choice news, see the March 2003 Privatization Watch education issue, where I explore the growing menu of school choice options across the United States.

For any one who doubts that kids want out, today's New York Times reports that more than 16,000 New York City children have demanded transfers under a federal law that gives parents the right to request to move their child to a better-performing school.

A few thousand kids here and there and pretty soon we are talking about real children and real competition.

More gifts from the public school establishment in DC

Bill Evers send word that:

"The District public school system has about 640 more employees than its budget allows, the result of a chronic failure to control personnel spending, school officials said yesterday," reports The Washington Post.

If school vouchers can't gain traction in DC-- then I don't know where they would get through. Except of course in Florida, and Colorado, and Arizona.

Propaganda Mills

Via Center for Education Reform:

"Time for Kids" is a news weekly that schools purchase to distribute to kids about current events. Most of the time it's relatively harmless. But the issue that came home to families all over the country last week about the pending war in Iraq is so full of distortions and misrepresentations of fact that it not only fails in its educational mission but it actually will miseducate students.

The document said that Saddam Hussein was elected by 100 percent of the people of Iraq, with no reference to the fact that there was no democratic process in place. The piece also said that the president wants to go to war, not mentioning the human rights violations or terrorist connections. Saddam's denial of having bad weapons is offered with no contradiction. Whoever at AOL/Time Warner is responsible for the publication of this weekly might consider taking a history lesson before they are permitted to issue such propaganda to kids.

This is why Marshall Fritz believes in the separation of school and state. And why I believe in the separation of school and Time Warner.

More Education Brickbats

Here's some Brickbats from the last couple of weeks.

The Blackboard Jungle (3/10)
Teachers at Houston's Fondren Middle School say they are being terrorized by some of their students. "They walk the halls, curse the teachers, hit the teachers, and disrespect authority," said Gayle Fallon of the Houston Teachers Union. "It's a powder keg waiting to happen over there." One student reportedly brought a gun to school, but he got just a 10-day suspension. Indeed, that seems to be the harshest punishment ever dealt to these students. Why? They are special education students, and federal law makes it difficult to remove them from school, even if they are violent. "We do have a process that we have to follow, also recognizing that we continue to keep people safe as the process is carried out," school system spokesperson Heather Browne told KTRK-TV.

Ghost Pupils (3/6)
In England, East Sussex education officials send out a notice each year reminding parents when school is about to start. This year they sent notices to the families of at least 17 dead children. The error arose when local officials obtained the birth records of area children, which included the names of children who later died, and used those records for the mailing.

Bad Loans (2/26)
Two students from the Y'Hica Institute for the Visual Arts in London recently received student loans from a program administered by the U.S. Department of Education. Not bad for a school that doesn't actually exist. The school was created by the General Accounting Office to see how closely the Education Department monitors student aid programs. The answer, apparently, is not very.

Fake Firearm Nets a Year Suspension (2/12)
Mitch Muller is in the seventh grade at Colorado's La Salle Middle School. He had never been in trouble at school. But then he played with a friend's laser pointer in class. First, his teacher took the pointer, which looked like a miniature gun. No problem there. But what happened next stunned the Muller family. The principal sent the boys home, then suspended them for a year for having a "firearm facsimile" in school.

Principal Pressures

They say being an urban principal is stressful these days. . .

Via Reason's Brickbats

Rock 'n' Roll High School (3/21)

Evelyn Peralta-Tessitore, 41, was spotted by police squatting and urinating beside the open door of her car around 2:40 p.m. one Tuesday. Her car was stopped at a red light. Peralta-Tessitore allegedly admitted she had been drinking. The police said she reeked of liquor and her speech was slurred. She allegedly refused to get out of her car and started flailing her arms at officers when they tried to arrest her. Peralta-Tessitore, principal of Public School 192 in Harlem, was charged with driving while intoxicated and resisting arrest. Her companion, school secretary Helen Torres, 45, was charged with obstructing governmental administration after she reportedly jumped out of the car and tried to keep officers from arresting her principal.