Thursday, August 26, 2010 10:44:00 AM by Susan
IN OPS, YOU HAVE A
1-IN-2 CHANCE OF BEING ILLITERATE
Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce week in education news: on top of the announcement that Nebraska is tied for first in the nation in the size of its graduation gap between the races (83% for white males and 40% for black males), comes now the atrocious scores on a statewide reading test posted by the Omaha Public Schools.
Only 52% of the OPS students scored as "proficient," which is generally considered to be at or above grade-level reading skill.
So if you attend an OPS school, you have basically a 1-in-2 chance of being functionally illiterate. Of course, the inner-city schools are much worse than the suburban ones within OPS, so it's more like a 9-in-10 chance, in some places. But the overall effect is atrocious.
OPS defenders say that the statewide reading test was only a quick "snapshot" of how the kids did on one day. Their own assessments take place over much more time than that, with lots of opportunities for remediation, and so their own reading test scores are much higher than the state's.
But even if the scores are only a snapshot, think about this: a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Ironically -- or tellingly -- in the Omaha Public Schools, scores were even worse in high school. At Benson High School, for example, only 35% of the students could read proficiently. And yet reading is the schools' basic mission, and these kids have been in high-priced public school for quite a few years, which reflects even worse on the low scores.
Lousy reading doesn't bode too well for their college prospects, or for the future workforce in this state.
And just think of the impression these students now have of what their fellow Omahans and units of government really think of them, to allow them to be in school for so many years and remain unable to read. Can we really blame them for turning to crime, unwed pregnancy and welfare?
Shame, shame, shame . . . but tomorrow, an idea for change!
1-IN-2 CHANCE OF BEING ILLITERATE
Not exactly a Chamber of Commerce week in education news: on top of the announcement that Nebraska is tied for first in the nation in the size of its graduation gap between the races (83% for white males and 40% for black males), comes now the atrocious scores on a statewide reading test posted by the Omaha Public Schools.
Only 52% of the OPS students scored as "proficient," which is generally considered to be at or above grade-level reading skill.
So if you attend an OPS school, you have basically a 1-in-2 chance of being functionally illiterate. Of course, the inner-city schools are much worse than the suburban ones within OPS, so it's more like a 9-in-10 chance, in some places. But the overall effect is atrocious.
OPS defenders say that the statewide reading test was only a quick "snapshot" of how the kids did on one day. Their own assessments take place over much more time than that, with lots of opportunities for remediation, and so their own reading test scores are much higher than the state's.
But even if the scores are only a snapshot, think about this: a picture is worth 1,000 words.
Ironically -- or tellingly -- in the Omaha Public Schools, scores were even worse in high school. At Benson High School, for example, only 35% of the students could read proficiently. And yet reading is the schools' basic mission, and these kids have been in high-priced public school for quite a few years, which reflects even worse on the low scores.
Lousy reading doesn't bode too well for their college prospects, or for the future workforce in this state.
And just think of the impression these students now have of what their fellow Omahans and units of government really think of them, to allow them to be in school for so many years and remain unable to read. Can we really blame them for turning to crime, unwed pregnancy and welfare?
Shame, shame, shame . . . but tomorrow, an idea for change!
Wednesday, August 25, 2010 3:12:00 PM by Susan
NEBRASKA'S 40% GRAD RATE FOR BLACK MALES
IS ATROCIOUS IN THE MIDWEST
AND THE BIGGEST RACIAL GAP IN THE NATION,
BUT FAIRLY NORMAL OTHERWISE
Talk about shocking: that horrendous 40% graduation rate for black teenage boys in Nebraska is about on par with the East and West Coasts, and actually better than many of the larger cities.
Even so, statewide figures and the huge disparity between black and white graduation rates for boys -- 83% for whites vs. that 40% for blacks -- lands Nebraska in a tie with New York for the largest statewide graduation racial gap in the nation.
Ew! Ew! Ewwww! That's a claim to No. 1 that nobody in Nebraska wants to hear -- and they're doing it to our kids, using our money.
See a report on 2008 national data from the Scott Foundation for Public Education, www.schottfoundation.org
If there has ever been a time to pull all low-income and minority children out of the public schools, and put them in the private schools where they can succeed, it is now.
There is no doubt that the relative illiteracy of Head Start teachers, the lack of phonics instruction in the early grades, and the overall atmosphere of harsh, unkind, zero-tolerance discipline by staff in the public schools has created a monstrous amount of illiteracy among young black males, and correspondingly high dropout rates with correspondingly high rates of juvenile delinquency and violence.
We need private donors to fund 200 one-room, K-12 schoolhouses around North Omaha, and it really wouldn't cost that much . . . and let OPS' inner-city schools implode, as they should, and let the district concentrate on its middle-class and upper-class schools, which also need help, but aren't in as drastic a crisis.
IS ATROCIOUS IN THE MIDWEST
AND THE BIGGEST RACIAL GAP IN THE NATION,
BUT FAIRLY NORMAL OTHERWISE
Talk about shocking: that horrendous 40% graduation rate for black teenage boys in Nebraska is about on par with the East and West Coasts, and actually better than many of the larger cities.
Even so, statewide figures and the huge disparity between black and white graduation rates for boys -- 83% for whites vs. that 40% for blacks -- lands Nebraska in a tie with New York for the largest statewide graduation racial gap in the nation.
Ew! Ew! Ewwww! That's a claim to No. 1 that nobody in Nebraska wants to hear -- and they're doing it to our kids, using our money.
See a report on 2008 national data from the Scott Foundation for Public Education, www.schottfoundation.org
If there has ever been a time to pull all low-income and minority children out of the public schools, and put them in the private schools where they can succeed, it is now.
There is no doubt that the relative illiteracy of Head Start teachers, the lack of phonics instruction in the early grades, and the overall atmosphere of harsh, unkind, zero-tolerance discipline by staff in the public schools has created a monstrous amount of illiteracy among young black males, and correspondingly high dropout rates with correspondingly high rates of juvenile delinquency and violence.
We need private donors to fund 200 one-room, K-12 schoolhouses around North Omaha, and it really wouldn't cost that much . . . and let OPS' inner-city schools implode, as they should, and let the district concentrate on its middle-class and upper-class schools, which also need help, but aren't in as drastic a crisis.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010 12:12:00 PM by Susan
GREAT NEW BELLEVUE U PRO-AMERICA CENTER
LEADS THE WAY ON PROPER SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Those who are sick about the anti-American "social justice" curriculum that is on its way to Omaha's Nathan Hale Middle School should take heart: there are, indeed, people in the metro area who know what appropriate "social justice" instruction is for kids.
Maybe those with a grasp of the right kind of "social justice" training should have a talk with the Omaha Public Schools people who are now planning the "social justice" theme at the school, well aware that around the country, "social justice" schools tend to devolve into Marxism, multiculturalism, racism and all kinds of other "isms" instead of making their students highly literate, numerate and able to take the reins of citizenship.
The good "social justice" course is offered by the Bellevue University Center for American Vision and Values, in partnership with the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy and the Heritage Foundation. The seven-week, dual enrollment (high school students earning college credit), online course is called "Re-Visioning Social Justice: American Civil Society and the World's Poor."
The course examines the history of poverty in the United States, and the pro's and con's of various private-sector and public-sector attempts to assist the nation's poor.
As the climax of the course, students design their own anti-poverty initiative and argue for its likely effectiveness.
For more about the Bellevue University Center for American Vision & Values, see:
www.americanvisionandvalues.org
LEADS THE WAY ON PROPER SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION
Those who are sick about the anti-American "social justice" curriculum that is on its way to Omaha's Nathan Hale Middle School should take heart: there are, indeed, people in the metro area who know what appropriate "social justice" instruction is for kids.
Maybe those with a grasp of the right kind of "social justice" training should have a talk with the Omaha Public Schools people who are now planning the "social justice" theme at the school, well aware that around the country, "social justice" schools tend to devolve into Marxism, multiculturalism, racism and all kinds of other "isms" instead of making their students highly literate, numerate and able to take the reins of citizenship.
The good "social justice" course is offered by the Bellevue University Center for American Vision and Values, in partnership with the Jesuit Virtual Learning Academy and the Heritage Foundation. The seven-week, dual enrollment (high school students earning college credit), online course is called "Re-Visioning Social Justice: American Civil Society and the World's Poor."
The course examines the history of poverty in the United States, and the pro's and con's of various private-sector and public-sector attempts to assist the nation's poor.
As the climax of the course, students design their own anti-poverty initiative and argue for its likely effectiveness.
For more about the Bellevue University Center for American Vision & Values, see:
www.americanvisionandvalues.org
Monday, August 23, 2010 6:15:00 PM by Susan
HOW MANY OF THESE NEA POLICIES
DO YOU AGREE WITH? LET THEM KNOW
Here are the rather disturbing policy stands taken by attendees at the annual National Education Association convention.
Circle any that you agree with -- don't worry, you won't use much precious ink -- and mail to your state or local NEA union affiliate with a note.
Your note could say something like, "These don't seem to have much, if anything, to do with actually educating children. Are you about schools, or politics?" See if you get a response:
www.eagleforum.org/educate/2010/aug10/resolutions.html
DO YOU AGREE WITH? LET THEM KNOW
Here are the rather disturbing policy stands taken by attendees at the annual National Education Association convention.
Circle any that you agree with -- don't worry, you won't use much precious ink -- and mail to your state or local NEA union affiliate with a note.
Your note could say something like, "These don't seem to have much, if anything, to do with actually educating children. Are you about schools, or politics?" See if you get a response:
www.eagleforum.org/educate/2010/aug10/resolutions.html
Friday, August 20, 2010 1:08:00 PM by Susan
HOW IS ANYBODY GOING TO AFFORD
SCHOOL SUPPLIES NEXT YEAR,
MUCH LESS COLLEGE TUITION?
Keep this in mind when you vote in November for new school board members, legislators, and anybody else who can levy taxes. What a bunch of anti-family, anti-education tax increases we are going to see! Do not vote for anybody who ISN'T talking about the urgent need to cut taxes and government spending, STAT, and to reverse these horrendous increases.
Imagine how hard it is going to be to save for your children's college educations now. The Democratically-controlled Congress and Democratic Party President have set in place these tax increases on you, starting Jan. 1:
-- Increase of income taxes; for example, the 35% tax bracket zooms up to 39.6%
-- New tax on the value of your health-care benefits
-- Loss of deductions for tuition, student loans and interest payments, as well as health savings accounts
-- Capital gains tax zooms up from 15% to 20%
-- Dividends tax zooms up from 15% to 39.6%
-- Death tax returns; that's 55% tax after the first $1 million in an estate, which these days, isn't all that doggone much
-- Child tax credit is cut in half, to $500
-- Marriage penalty tax is back
-- Dependent-care and adoption tax credits gone
SCHOOL SUPPLIES NEXT YEAR,
MUCH LESS COLLEGE TUITION?
Keep this in mind when you vote in November for new school board members, legislators, and anybody else who can levy taxes. What a bunch of anti-family, anti-education tax increases we are going to see! Do not vote for anybody who ISN'T talking about the urgent need to cut taxes and government spending, STAT, and to reverse these horrendous increases.
Imagine how hard it is going to be to save for your children's college educations now. The Democratically-controlled Congress and Democratic Party President have set in place these tax increases on you, starting Jan. 1:
-- Increase of income taxes; for example, the 35% tax bracket zooms up to 39.6%
-- New tax on the value of your health-care benefits
-- Loss of deductions for tuition, student loans and interest payments, as well as health savings accounts
-- Capital gains tax zooms up from 15% to 20%
-- Dividends tax zooms up from 15% to 39.6%
-- Death tax returns; that's 55% tax after the first $1 million in an estate, which these days, isn't all that doggone much
-- Child tax credit is cut in half, to $500
-- Marriage penalty tax is back
-- Dependent-care and adoption tax credits gone
Thursday, August 19, 2010 5:18:00 PM by Susan
STATE, NATIONAL ACT AVERAGE SCORES:
A CHAIR LEG COULD DO AS WELL
Let's remember that the national average of a 21 on the college admissions test, the ACT, announced yesterday, is about as good as a CHAIR LEG could do on the test.
A perfect score is 36, and that's very hard to get, but a score of 21 is what would be posted by someone on the verge of functional illiteracy . . . and remember, that is the average, which means half of those taking the test did worse.
Nebraska's average score of 22.1 is actually pretty embarrassing on that 1-to-36 point scale, considering that we have relatively few test-takers who are African-American and Hispanic, two student groups who have notoriously low test scores for various reasons.
The Wall Street Journal reported that 75% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT had scores so low on the individual tests, especially science, that they lacked the academic skills to pass an entry-level college course in those subjects. That means our high schools have a 25% success rate in meeting their basic mission.
Rather than celebrating that Nebraska "beat" the national average on the ACT, we really ought to demand that the State of Nebraska compel the ACT to publish the test questions and send parents the test booklet with their child's answer sheet. Then we can all see the kinds of mistakes that our kids are making after 12 or so years of educating them to the tune of more than $10,000 per pupil per year.
There would be an immediate stampede to private schools and how-to books on homeschooling, betcha.
A CHAIR LEG COULD DO AS WELL
Let's remember that the national average of a 21 on the college admissions test, the ACT, announced yesterday, is about as good as a CHAIR LEG could do on the test.
A perfect score is 36, and that's very hard to get, but a score of 21 is what would be posted by someone on the verge of functional illiteracy . . . and remember, that is the average, which means half of those taking the test did worse.
Nebraska's average score of 22.1 is actually pretty embarrassing on that 1-to-36 point scale, considering that we have relatively few test-takers who are African-American and Hispanic, two student groups who have notoriously low test scores for various reasons.
The Wall Street Journal reported that 75% of 2010 graduates who took the ACT had scores so low on the individual tests, especially science, that they lacked the academic skills to pass an entry-level college course in those subjects. That means our high schools have a 25% success rate in meeting their basic mission.
Rather than celebrating that Nebraska "beat" the national average on the ACT, we really ought to demand that the State of Nebraska compel the ACT to publish the test questions and send parents the test booklet with their child's answer sheet. Then we can all see the kinds of mistakes that our kids are making after 12 or so years of educating them to the tune of more than $10,000 per pupil per year.
There would be an immediate stampede to private schools and how-to books on homeschooling, betcha.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010 10:16:00 AM by Susan
KUDOS TO CHILDREN'S SCHOLARSHIP FUND:
HELPING 2,000 POOR KIDS GO TO PRIVATE SCHOOL
If you want to help a low-income child have the choice to attend private school instead of public school, donate to the Children's Scholarship Fund of Omaha, 3212 N. 60th St., 68104, or call 557-5650 ext. 1906 or 1908.
The organization's annual luncheon recently disclosed that donors helped 2,000 children in 23 northeast Nebraska counties, including Omaha, attend private schools through tuition assistance provided by the donors to the scholarship fund.
According to outgoing president J. Peter Ricketts, the program's effectiveness is shown by this statistic: 96% of the scholarshipped students who leave Holy Name School in Omaha's inner city go on to graduate from high school. That compares to an overall graduation rate in the inner city of less than 50%.
Around the country, the evidence is mounting that private education works better for disadvantaged children than public education.
New donors are being sought for the Nebraska group because of the recession. The poor economy has increased the need for tuition assistance at the same time as it has eroded giving power among existing donors. Ricketts said that there is only enough money to give 200 additional scholarships on top of the ones already being given this year, but the group has more than 1,300 new applications for the 2010-11 school year.
HELPING 2,000 POOR KIDS GO TO PRIVATE SCHOOL
If you want to help a low-income child have the choice to attend private school instead of public school, donate to the Children's Scholarship Fund of Omaha, 3212 N. 60th St., 68104, or call 557-5650 ext. 1906 or 1908.
The organization's annual luncheon recently disclosed that donors helped 2,000 children in 23 northeast Nebraska counties, including Omaha, attend private schools through tuition assistance provided by the donors to the scholarship fund.
According to outgoing president J. Peter Ricketts, the program's effectiveness is shown by this statistic: 96% of the scholarshipped students who leave Holy Name School in Omaha's inner city go on to graduate from high school. That compares to an overall graduation rate in the inner city of less than 50%.
Around the country, the evidence is mounting that private education works better for disadvantaged children than public education.
New donors are being sought for the Nebraska group because of the recession. The poor economy has increased the need for tuition assistance at the same time as it has eroded giving power among existing donors. Ricketts said that there is only enough money to give 200 additional scholarships on top of the ones already being given this year, but the group has more than 1,300 new applications for the 2010-11 school year.
Tuesday, August 17, 2010 2:02:00 PM by Susan
HAPPY BACK TO SCHOOL!
Go Big Ed returns for the 2010-11 school year.
See you soon on Facebook, too. You can subscribe here or there to receive a link to a K-12 education story on approximately a daily basis.
Cheers . . . and Go Big Ed!
----------------
Whoopsie Daisy! Is K-2 Really the Answer?
Boy, is my face red. I've been going around for years, promoting K-2 as the answer to our education woes. 'Course, I mean that we need to have systematic, intensive, explicit phonics instruction on the front burner for our kindergarten through second-grade classrooms.
Comes now State Sen. Beau McCoy of west Omaha, who is sponsoring a bill next session that would make the sale or possession of a new drug, K2, illegal. K2 is synthetic marijuana, and it can give you rapid heart rate, agitation, panic attacks, paranoia and hallucinations.
We already have enough of THAT in our schools -- particularly when people get their school tax bills!
K2 is sold as "herbal incense" and goes by brand names such as Spice, Black Magic, Blue Summit, Blueberry and SuperNova.
Thanks, Sen. McCoy, for alerting parents to this latest threat to our kids . . . and giving me a heads up to make sure I make it clear, when I promote "K-2," that I'm talking about PHONICS for the itty bitty kiddies!!!
Monday, February 22, 2010 1:06:00 PM by Susan
RHODE ISLAND UNION-BUSTING TACTIC
IS THE PERFECT RX FOR OPS
Whoa! Cheers for Frances Gallo, a Rhode Island school principal, who is going to fire about 100 teachers, assistants, and administrators for failing to obey her orders aimed at improving the educational outcome of the high school in beleaguered Central Falls, R.I.
Half of the students are failing ALL of their classes, and the graduation rate is BELOW 50%. Unemployment is rampant in the town, with average salaries pegged at $22,000 a year. But school staffers are making upwards of $50,000 MORE than that.
So Ms. Gallo decided it was time for the staff to take some serious steps to fix the failing school:
-- work 25 minutes longer per school day
-- provide before- and after-school tutoring on a rotating basis
-- eat lunch with the students once a week
-- have more rigorous staff evaluations
-- attend weekly after-school planning sessions with other teachers
-- attend two weeks of summer training
The unionized staff refused. So Ms. Gallo FIRED them!!!
Woo hoo! Love it. Let's keep watching this one . . . and see if the idea spreads to other schools where far too many kids are failing and dropping out. Exhibit A: the Omaha Public Schools.
Read about it:
www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodgett-unionized-rhode-island-teachers-refuse-to-work-25-minutes-more-per-day-so-town-fires-all-of-them-2010-2
IS THE PERFECT RX FOR OPS
Whoa! Cheers for Frances Gallo, a Rhode Island school principal, who is going to fire about 100 teachers, assistants, and administrators for failing to obey her orders aimed at improving the educational outcome of the high school in beleaguered Central Falls, R.I.
Half of the students are failing ALL of their classes, and the graduation rate is BELOW 50%. Unemployment is rampant in the town, with average salaries pegged at $22,000 a year. But school staffers are making upwards of $50,000 MORE than that.
So Ms. Gallo decided it was time for the staff to take some serious steps to fix the failing school:
-- work 25 minutes longer per school day
-- provide before- and after-school tutoring on a rotating basis
-- eat lunch with the students once a week
-- have more rigorous staff evaluations
-- attend weekly after-school planning sessions with other teachers
-- attend two weeks of summer training
The unionized staff refused. So Ms. Gallo FIRED them!!!
Woo hoo! Love it. Let's keep watching this one . . . and see if the idea spreads to other schools where far too many kids are failing and dropping out. Exhibit A: the Omaha Public Schools.
Read about it:
www.businessinsider.com/henry-blodgett-unionized-rhode-island-teachers-refuse-to-work-25-minutes-more-per-day-so-town-fires-all-of-them-2010-2
Saturday, February 20, 2010 9:58:00 AM by Susan
NEBRASKA EDUCATION LEADER
BLASTS FEDS FOR ENDING SCHOOL CHOICE IN D.C.
It's encouraging to see a university president in Nebraska who "gets it" about how school choice is the answer for disadvantaged children and youth.
Even though we're a state which lacks any form of meaningful school choice -- vouchers, tax credits, charter schools, contract schools, a network of multifamily attendance area homeschools -- the president of Grace University still perceives the benefits of school choice. He still has enough common sense to see that it is wrong of the Obama Administration to end the school-choice vouchers program that was demonstrably working in the District of Columbia.
See:
www.issuesinperspective.com/2010/Feb/10feb20-21_2.cfm
BLASTS FEDS FOR ENDING SCHOOL CHOICE IN D.C.
It's encouraging to see a university president in Nebraska who "gets it" about how school choice is the answer for disadvantaged children and youth.
Even though we're a state which lacks any form of meaningful school choice -- vouchers, tax credits, charter schools, contract schools, a network of multifamily attendance area homeschools -- the president of Grace University still perceives the benefits of school choice. He still has enough common sense to see that it is wrong of the Obama Administration to end the school-choice vouchers program that was demonstrably working in the District of Columbia.
See:
www.issuesinperspective.com/2010/Feb/10feb20-21_2.cfm
Thursday, February 18, 2010 1:58:00 PM by Susan
ELKHORN KIDS COMPETE IN
ENGINEERING CONTEST IN D.C.,
JOIN THE PRESIDENT IN SPACE CHAT
Congratulations to two middle-school teams from the Elkhorn Public Schools, who took first and second in a recent regional Future City competition, and were in Washington, D.C., this week, competing at the national finals. See http://www.futurecity.org/
Students from Elkhorn Ridge Middle School and Elkhorn Middle School designed and built tabletop models of a DURA -- Disaster Underground Relocation Area -- which was this year's theme for the student competition that is put on during National Engineers Week.
Three of the students got to visit President Obama along with students from three other states as he placed a phone call to American astronauts in the space station.
Kevin Riggert, principal of Elkhorn Ridge, said that experience and the Future City competition is a good example of how schools are teaching students 21st Century thinking skills, creativity, collaboration and real-world application. "It gives me shivers," he said. "This is what makes your job."
He said 34,000 middle-school students were in Washington for the event, so it was an honor indeed for the three Elkhorn students.
The students used simulation software, researched and wrote an essay and narrative about how the city would function, and gave an oral presentation to a panel of engineers. They worked with engineer mentors in this practical application of math, science, technology and engineering.
Riggert said his school's students were the only ones at nationals to use an outer space theme. He conjectures that is why some team members were invited to the White House. The team won a special award, he said.
ENGINEERING CONTEST IN D.C.,
JOIN THE PRESIDENT IN SPACE CHAT
Congratulations to two middle-school teams from the Elkhorn Public Schools, who took first and second in a recent regional Future City competition, and were in Washington, D.C., this week, competing at the national finals. See http://www.futurecity.org/
Students from Elkhorn Ridge Middle School and Elkhorn Middle School designed and built tabletop models of a DURA -- Disaster Underground Relocation Area -- which was this year's theme for the student competition that is put on during National Engineers Week.
Three of the students got to visit President Obama along with students from three other states as he placed a phone call to American astronauts in the space station.
Kevin Riggert, principal of Elkhorn Ridge, said that experience and the Future City competition is a good example of how schools are teaching students 21st Century thinking skills, creativity, collaboration and real-world application. "It gives me shivers," he said. "This is what makes your job."
He said 34,000 middle-school students were in Washington for the event, so it was an honor indeed for the three Elkhorn students.
The students used simulation software, researched and wrote an essay and narrative about how the city would function, and gave an oral presentation to a panel of engineers. They worked with engineer mentors in this practical application of math, science, technology and engineering.
Riggert said his school's students were the only ones at nationals to use an outer space theme. He conjectures that is why some team members were invited to the White House. The team won a special award, he said.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 2:50:00 PM by Susan
N.U. GRADS FUND READING CENTER
ON UNL CAMPUS FOR 1-ON-1 TUTORING
A major gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation has resulted in a new name for the remedial reading center in the Home Economics Building on East Campus at UNL. It's the Kit and Dick Schmoker Reading Center:
http://cehs.unl.edu/tlte/readingcenter/
The Schmokers graduated in the 1960s and live in Edina, Minn. Their git pays for salaries, outreach services, equipment, scholarships and fellowships for college students involved in reading education.
N.U.'s future teachers tutor children at the center to apply what they're learning in their undergraduate and graduate courses.
The center serves students who read one to three years below grade level. So far, nearly 300 students in elementary, middle and high schools have been aided.
ON UNL CAMPUS FOR 1-ON-1 TUTORING
A major gift to the University of Nebraska Foundation has resulted in a new name for the remedial reading center in the Home Economics Building on East Campus at UNL. It's the Kit and Dick Schmoker Reading Center:
http://cehs.unl.edu/tlte/readingcenter/
The Schmokers graduated in the 1960s and live in Edina, Minn. Their git pays for salaries, outreach services, equipment, scholarships and fellowships for college students involved in reading education.
N.U.'s future teachers tutor children at the center to apply what they're learning in their undergraduate and graduate courses.
The center serves students who read one to three years below grade level. So far, nearly 300 students in elementary, middle and high schools have been aided.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010 11:08:00 AM by Susan
MONOPOLY:
GOOD GAME, BAD SCHOOL SYSTEM
John Stossel has a good article that points out how foolish it is to expect a government monopoly to do a good job delivering an important item like a child's education:
www.townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2010/02/17/education_too_important_for_a_government_monopoly
In the last few days, I've talked to three teacher friends who are all down in the mouth over what they CAN'T do. It's all because they are forced to do things a certain way by the government monopoly.
One wants the freedom and flexibility to teach to the children's passions and interests, but has to stick to the multitudinous, micromanaging standards which bore her as much as they bore the children.
One wants to be able to flunk kids who aren't working hard in his high school science class, but it's against district policy to flunk anybody, and the kids KNOW that, so all he can do is let them take the same test over and over until even an eggplant would be able to pass.
The third would like to recommend to the parents of a short, frail seventh-grade boy to switch him to a private school, because he is getting bullied by the public school "toughs" who are already in gangs. But if she did that, she'd get fired.
What should we do?
End the government monopoly over schools. The question is, how?
GOOD GAME, BAD SCHOOL SYSTEM
John Stossel has a good article that points out how foolish it is to expect a government monopoly to do a good job delivering an important item like a child's education:
www.townhall.com/columnists/JohnStossel/2010/02/17/education_too_important_for_a_government_monopoly
In the last few days, I've talked to three teacher friends who are all down in the mouth over what they CAN'T do. It's all because they are forced to do things a certain way by the government monopoly.
One wants the freedom and flexibility to teach to the children's passions and interests, but has to stick to the multitudinous, micromanaging standards which bore her as much as they bore the children.
One wants to be able to flunk kids who aren't working hard in his high school science class, but it's against district policy to flunk anybody, and the kids KNOW that, so all he can do is let them take the same test over and over until even an eggplant would be able to pass.
The third would like to recommend to the parents of a short, frail seventh-grade boy to switch him to a private school, because he is getting bullied by the public school "toughs" who are already in gangs. But if she did that, she'd get fired.
What should we do?
End the government monopoly over schools. The question is, how?
Tuesday, February 16, 2010 10:25:00 AM by Susan
WATCHING THE SEATTLE SCHOOL BOARD SQUIRM
OVER JUDGE'S RULING THAT THEIR MATH CURRICULUM
DAMAGES THE FUTURES OF LOW-INCOME STUDENTS
It is instructive and encouraging to see how a citizens' group in Seattle is shining a spotlight on the terrible disservice that "whole math" does to all students, but particularly low-income and minority students:
www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/53457.html
The Omaha Public Schools has the exact same problem -- stubbornly clinging to "discovery" math curriculum that is actually making low-income kids more innumerate, and widening the racial achievement gap. It has become a civil rights issue in Seattle, and it sure as shootin' is in Omaha as well.
Now all we need is a small group of concerned citizens to file suit. Any takers?
OVER JUDGE'S RULING THAT THEIR MATH CURRICULUM
DAMAGES THE FUTURES OF LOW-INCOME STUDENTS
It is instructive and encouraging to see how a citizens' group in Seattle is shining a spotlight on the terrible disservice that "whole math" does to all students, but particularly low-income and minority students:
www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/53457.html
The Omaha Public Schools has the exact same problem -- stubbornly clinging to "discovery" math curriculum that is actually making low-income kids more innumerate, and widening the racial achievement gap. It has become a civil rights issue in Seattle, and it sure as shootin' is in Omaha as well.
Now all we need is a small group of concerned citizens to file suit. Any takers?
Monday, February 08, 2010 9:48:00 AM by Susan
SEATTLE JUDGE ORDERS SCHOOL BOARD
TO TAKE A HARDER LOOK AT FUZZY MATH TEXTS
This is a victory for fans of traditional math instruction! A group of citizens filed a lawsuit against the Seattle Public Schools for selecting a "discovery math" curriculum, even though the evidence showed that it increased the racial achievement gap, rather than helped low-income and minority students succeed more in math.
The judge recently ruled that the school board should take another look at the evidence for and against that curriculum. While he stopped short of ordering them to throw it out, he agreed with the citizens that it looked counter-productive to the goal of helping low-income and minority students succeed in math:
http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2010/02/decision-favors-plaintiffs-in-court.html
"Discovery math" is the style of many, many public school boards these days. It keeps the low-income kids down, and prevents more advantaged kids from achieving as much in math as they could, if they had traditional math instruction.
Wouldn't it be great if school boards would come to their senses, drop-kick "fuzzy math" and get tried-and-true, computation-based math textbooks back in the classroom?
Or do we have to SUE 'em?
TO TAKE A HARDER LOOK AT FUZZY MATH TEXTS
This is a victory for fans of traditional math instruction! A group of citizens filed a lawsuit against the Seattle Public Schools for selecting a "discovery math" curriculum, even though the evidence showed that it increased the racial achievement gap, rather than helped low-income and minority students succeed more in math.
The judge recently ruled that the school board should take another look at the evidence for and against that curriculum. While he stopped short of ordering them to throw it out, he agreed with the citizens that it looked counter-productive to the goal of helping low-income and minority students succeed in math:
http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/2010/02/decision-favors-plaintiffs-in-court.html
"Discovery math" is the style of many, many public school boards these days. It keeps the low-income kids down, and prevents more advantaged kids from achieving as much in math as they could, if they had traditional math instruction.
Wouldn't it be great if school boards would come to their senses, drop-kick "fuzzy math" and get tried-and-true, computation-based math textbooks back in the classroom?
Or do we have to SUE 'em?
Friday, January 15, 2010 1:16:00 PM by Susan
HEAD START IS A TOTAL WASTE;
OPS SHOULD DROP-KICK IT IMMEDIATELY
According to this well-designed, massive study for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, kids who had been in the expensive, government-provided early childhood program Head Start scored no better than kids in their same economic circumstances on 40 out of 41 measurements of cognitive impacts at the end of kindergarten:
http://acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/impact_study/reports/impact_study/executive_summary_final.pdf
The study used a very large, nationally representative sample and used a random assignment design -- the gold standard for such research.
The study, "Head Start Impact Study Final Report," released this week, was produced by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families within HHS.
The Omaha Public Schools administers Head Start along with several other providers across the State of Nebraska.
OPS SHOULD DROP-KICK IT IMMEDIATELY
According to this well-designed, massive study for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, kids who had been in the expensive, government-provided early childhood program Head Start scored no better than kids in their same economic circumstances on 40 out of 41 measurements of cognitive impacts at the end of kindergarten:
http://acf.hhs.gov/programs/opre/hs/impact_study/reports/impact_study/executive_summary_final.pdf
The study used a very large, nationally representative sample and used a random assignment design -- the gold standard for such research.
The study, "Head Start Impact Study Final Report," released this week, was produced by the Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation of the Administration for Children and Families within HHS.
The Omaha Public Schools administers Head Start along with several other providers across the State of Nebraska.
Friday, January 15, 2010 12:53:00 PM by Susan
YET ANOTHER GOVERNMENT-FUNDED STUDY
SHOWS HEAD START DOESN'T DO A DANG THING
(See post, above, for the link to the study)
Nebraska's finances are in such dire straits, it's a no-brainer that we should immediately cancel our Head Start funding across the state. It's a boondoggle!
We should switch to the early childhood ed curricula and methods that have been proven to result in strong literacy and numeracy for all kids on down the road, but especially at-risk, low-income kids who are now being ill-served by Head Start. Those are phonics-based and play-based curricula and methods -- better, cheaper and more fun all the way around.
If our tax dollars aren't REALLY giving low-income kids a "head start" on doing well in school, why in the Sam Hill do we keep funding it?
I contend that lousy pre-K and early-primary curriculum and instruction in the Omaha Public Schools is WHY they have one of the nation's widest racial achievement gaps, and WHY the graduation rate is so low among low-income and minority kids.
The kids and their parents can tell right off the bat that their futures don't matter as much to OPS as those of the rich, white kids, and so they disengage.
I CAN'T LIVE WITH THAT ANOTHER DAY. CAN YOU?!?
If we used pre-K and early-primary methods for our state's low-income itty bitties that really could bring them up to par academically with their more-advantaged classmates, how much happier would we feel about the outcomes of our hard-earned tax dollars, vs. throwing them down a rathole with Head Start programs?
How much better would it be for Nebraska's economic development prospects to get rid of that atrocious race-based academic achievement gap?
And most of all, how many tens of millions of dollars in remediation and at-risk services would we save, now and in the years to come, if we could drastically reduce the number of kids who ARE at-risk because of lousy reading preparation and instruction?
The juicy stuff starts on p. iv of this report, indicating clearly that any benefit young children might get from attendance in the Head Start program washes out almost immediately.
It's just another red flag showing why it is long past time to force the Omaha Public Schools, which runs Head Start in the state's largest city, to drop Head Start immediately or "show cause" why they shouldn't.
SHOWS HEAD START DOESN'T DO A DANG THING
(See post, above, for the link to the study)
Nebraska's finances are in such dire straits, it's a no-brainer that we should immediately cancel our Head Start funding across the state. It's a boondoggle!
We should switch to the early childhood ed curricula and methods that have been proven to result in strong literacy and numeracy for all kids on down the road, but especially at-risk, low-income kids who are now being ill-served by Head Start. Those are phonics-based and play-based curricula and methods -- better, cheaper and more fun all the way around.
If our tax dollars aren't REALLY giving low-income kids a "head start" on doing well in school, why in the Sam Hill do we keep funding it?
I contend that lousy pre-K and early-primary curriculum and instruction in the Omaha Public Schools is WHY they have one of the nation's widest racial achievement gaps, and WHY the graduation rate is so low among low-income and minority kids.
The kids and their parents can tell right off the bat that their futures don't matter as much to OPS as those of the rich, white kids, and so they disengage.
I CAN'T LIVE WITH THAT ANOTHER DAY. CAN YOU?!?
If we used pre-K and early-primary methods for our state's low-income itty bitties that really could bring them up to par academically with their more-advantaged classmates, how much happier would we feel about the outcomes of our hard-earned tax dollars, vs. throwing them down a rathole with Head Start programs?
How much better would it be for Nebraska's economic development prospects to get rid of that atrocious race-based academic achievement gap?
And most of all, how many tens of millions of dollars in remediation and at-risk services would we save, now and in the years to come, if we could drastically reduce the number of kids who ARE at-risk because of lousy reading preparation and instruction?
The juicy stuff starts on p. iv of this report, indicating clearly that any benefit young children might get from attendance in the Head Start program washes out almost immediately.
It's just another red flag showing why it is long past time to force the Omaha Public Schools, which runs Head Start in the state's largest city, to drop Head Start immediately or "show cause" why they shouldn't.
Friday, December 04, 2009 4:04:00 PM by Susan
HOW EDUCATORS FUDGE THE NUMBERS
TO MAKE MATH TEST SCORES LOOK ROSY
Hmmm. This ed researcher from Washington State has done a good job of showing how educational administrators use numbers to conceal the sharp erosion in math knowledge at all levels of students in her state.
Go Big Ed will have to find some spare time to run these same numbers for us. Gulp. Hope it's not as shocking as this Nov. 29 report:
http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com
TO MAKE MATH TEST SCORES LOOK ROSY
Hmmm. This ed researcher from Washington State has done a good job of showing how educational administrators use numbers to conceal the sharp erosion in math knowledge at all levels of students in her state.
Go Big Ed will have to find some spare time to run these same numbers for us. Gulp. Hope it's not as shocking as this Nov. 29 report:
http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com
Friday, November 13, 2009 10:22:00 AM by Susan
THOSE WHO WANT TO REMOLD SCHOOLS
AS VOC-ED JOB TRAINING ACADEMIES
WORK AS A TEAM . . . AND THEY'RE GOOD AT IT
Re yesterday's post about the School-to-Work tsunami:
It's no surprise that the flagship of educational Political Correctness, the TC Record publication of Teachers College, Columbia University, would publish an article extolling the virtues of vocational education the same week as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report that condemns schools in their present form and attempts to pave the way for a whole "new" educational system and a whole "new" philosophy of education . . . one that . . . gasp! . . . would center on vocational education just like the former Soviet Union and Germany and Japan.
Here's the Teachers College article, which was not-so-mysteriously resurrected from over a year ago and republished today:
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=14537
Is this just a merry coincidence? Hardly. Follow the money, and see how the same companies and organizations that prop up the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also prop up the leftist teachers colleges, particularly Columbia's, where the anti-intellectualism of John Dewey first held sway.
The propaganda push is on. It's coming from all quarters. And it's likely to sweep us off our feet, unless we keep our feet on the ground and continue to insist on academic improvement, not massive systemic change.
AS VOC-ED JOB TRAINING ACADEMIES
WORK AS A TEAM . . . AND THEY'RE GOOD AT IT
Re yesterday's post about the School-to-Work tsunami:
It's no surprise that the flagship of educational Political Correctness, the TC Record publication of Teachers College, Columbia University, would publish an article extolling the virtues of vocational education the same week as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce released a report that condemns schools in their present form and attempts to pave the way for a whole "new" educational system and a whole "new" philosophy of education . . . one that . . . gasp! . . . would center on vocational education just like the former Soviet Union and Germany and Japan.
Here's the Teachers College article, which was not-so-mysteriously resurrected from over a year ago and republished today:
http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=14537
Is this just a merry coincidence? Hardly. Follow the money, and see how the same companies and organizations that prop up the U.S. Chamber of Commerce also prop up the leftist teachers colleges, particularly Columbia's, where the anti-intellectualism of John Dewey first held sway.
The propaganda push is on. It's coming from all quarters. And it's likely to sweep us off our feet, unless we keep our feet on the ground and continue to insist on academic improvement, not massive systemic change.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009 11:25:00 PM by Susan
NEBRASKA'S LOW GRADES FROM CHAMBER REPORT
CAN BE FIXED MUCH MORE CHEAPLY AND EFFICIENTLY
THAN TURNING OUR SCHOOLS INTO JOB TRAINING ACADEMIES
No need to go haywire over the "F" grades that Nebraska got this week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for poor school management, lack of innovation, poor use of technology, absence of charter schools, no-brainer learning standards, tsunami of teacher paperwork requirements, lack of college and career readiness, and very low percentage of students who pass advanced placement tests.
Hunh? How can those NOT be problems?
Well, they are. But they can be fixed in simple, cost-effective ways such as creating a bona fide competitive marketplace for education. Those problems would vanish if parents could control their own children's school placements and direct where their state education subsidy dollars will flow. Providing more educational freedom is a much, much better and cheaper solution to these problems than the scary and fascist system the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has in mind. THEIR system would destroy educational quality and freedom of choice for students, not enhance them.
What the politicians and the powers-that-be, including the U.S. Chamber, have in mind is School-to-Work. It's a new philosophy about schooling, that morphs schools away from traditional academics to job-training factories. How? By putting a heavy emphasis on career planning from an early age, dumbing-down academics for most students, and placing teenagers away from classrooms and into on-the-job apprenticeships, spending part of each day in the workplace, where their "higher learning" will be in voc-tech areas, not academics.
Big Government, Big Labor and Big Business are making this happen . . . greased by the federal education department, and your tax dollars. (Remember, "fascism" is when government and private industry mesh as "partners" while individual citizens, including parents of young children, have no say, but have to pay via increased taxes for what will destroy their freedoms and their children's futures. That's what School-to-Work will do.)
Now that it has come out strongly against the American educational system, saying it's "broken" and giving states poor grades based on carefully-crafted measuring rods that don't assess academic achievement in any way, the Chamber's "exciting" alternative is to adopt the School-to-Work philosophy of education.
It's the idea that schooling should be focused on preparing you for work in the global economy, and not necessarily for preparing you to become a well-educated, well-rounded U.S. citizen and voter.
The Chamber would like to follow the lead of the former Soviet Union, Japan and Germany in transforming schools into job-training academies, meshed with centralized government job forecasting and planning processes. How do we pay for all this?
Often, it's with sharply increased payroll taxes. Doesn't that sound ducky, in this recession with this level of unemployment? Where a few more dollars a month in payroll taxes may easily convince an employer NOT to hire a new full-time employee? Especially when that employer can get a "free" or "subsidized" teenaged apprentice employee through the School-to-Work program? But what about the adult laborer who needs that job? Tough. That adult laborer will just have to be re-trained for some other job. But don't worry -- it won't cost that laborer. It'll be "free." (Translation: taxpayer-provided.)
The likelihood of skyrocketing education costs that make today's spending levels look cheap is matched only by the breathtaking potential for politicization, corruption and unfairness.
If the central planners think we'll need more nurses 10 years from now, voila! All kinds of kids will miraculously "score high" on the "ooh, you should be a nurse!" questions on the annual aptitude tests. They'll mainly be trained to be nurses, and if the central planners are wrong, and we REALLY need tons more truck drivers 10 years from now, then darn! A lot of those nurses will just have to be re-trained!
But it won't cost them anything -- just the taxpayers, you know. The re-training will be "free." Riiiiiight.
Now, if your dream is to become a singer, but the "system" forecasts a need for culinary arts workers, then darn! You'll just have to become a singing waiter!!! Because if you're assessed as being suitable for culinary arts, and you turn that assignment down, then darn! There are no other slots for you other than what the central-planning committee came up with. You'll just have to leave school without ANY kind of training or credentials. Good luck with that, huh?
See why Big Labor loves this, too? The constant re-training, while laughably inefficient and costly for taxpayers, promises union members job security beyond all other systems. And the centralized government workers who will control this system will have all the power and say-so, and ability to extend favors and withhold placements -- NOT the parents, and NOT the lowly teachers.
You can trace the development of this plan from its genesis in the America 2000/Goals 2000 federal education legislation that got going in the 1980s, through the May 4 (interesting date, eh?), 1994, signing of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act by then-President Clinton. Since then, all kinds of funding has flowed into Nebraska to get these systems in place for the "right" time to crash traditional schooling and get School-to-Work in place, which appears to be now.
That's why there has been all this fuss about:
-- markedly increased federal involvement with local public schools and unfunded mandates which have seized effective control of local schools,just paving the way for nationalized schools which are actually job-training academies such as in Germany, Japan and the former Soviet Union;
-- "standards," which are basically the same at each grade level in all 50 states, paving the way for nationalized curriculum and the destruction of local control over curriculum by elected school boards;
-- "assessments," which are more like job evaluations than academic evaluations, have replaced academic tests, and measure attitudes, beliefs, opinions and job-related skills rather than knowledge and academic skills;
-- "benchmarks," which reveal whether a student has met the bare minimum standards for passing, which is all the School-to-Work system needs to know, with no incentives for kids who in past years might have stretched their efforts to get a "B" or an "A" -- now, with Outcome-Based Education, a "C" is all you need, and a "C" is enough;
-- specialized "academies," "magnet schools" and "focus schools," which are paving the way for specialized job training even at the grade-school level, and getting rid of the broad-based liberal-arts curriculum that has stood the test of time;
-- the decrying of the lack of charter schools in Nebraska, since charter schools are intended to be the mechanism for introducing School-to-Work, especially in low-income areas;
-- the big push for "year-round schooling" -- not because it makes any academic sense at all, but to provide employers with "year-round" apprentices for their year-round work schedules;
-- "lifelong learning" to get everybody ready for a world in which constant re-training is necessary, accepted and expected;
-- International Baccalaureate programs which are thinly-veiled Marxist prep schools to turn out a global-preferenced elite for multinational corporations, not citizen-leaders for the United States of America;
-- and all the references to "world-class" everything in schools. This last trend is because School-to-Work doesn't have anything to do with equipping students to start and own their own small businesses someday; it's all about providing labor for the global corporations which might need to send workers all over the world, so they have to be ready to fit in anywhere in the world on a moment's notice. So people need to be "globally-standardized," according to the School-to-Work gurus.
The people who have designed and are now instituting School-to-Work are not concerned about what PARENTS are concerned about, academic quality. Did the Chamber decry the huge numbers of students who can't read or do math at grade level any more? Noooo. Not a word. They don't care about that. They're getting ready to institute government-controlled job training in lieu of traditional K-12 education in this country.
To do it, the meshed forces of Big Education and Big Labor deliberately nuked the schools over the last 20 or 30 years with America 2000 / Goals 2000 and Outcome-Based Education, and are now criticizing them heavily, getting the voters all upset. That is so that voters and taxpayers will be prepared to accept the offered "alternative," which is fascist schools run by the government-labor cartel and NOT by your neighbors on the elected school board or little old Mrs. Humphrey, that nice teacher, or Mr. Mahoney, that nice principal. The role of educators in education is being down-sized, bigtime. It won't be teachers teaching; it'll be the system, "downloading." And putting in place School-to-Work spells the death knell of any semblance of local control by parents and teachers.
What's the telltale sign that School-to-Work is coming? Those learning "standards" you hear so much about. Those standards are boilerplated -- the same -- all over the country. They are dumbed-down unbelievably, to dupe the public into believing that since THEIR kids scored in the 90th percentile, they must be very, very smart, and their school must be tops. They'll accept nationally-standardized curriculum and assessment, figuring that since THEIR kids are tops locally or even statewide, they'll be tops nationally as well. But the score is meaningless. It's a ruse.
If you looked at kids' actual academic abilities in reading, writing and 'rithmetic, if you're over the age of about 30, you would be absolutely shocked at how much erosion in academic quality there has been since the 1960s.
This is a planned crash, apparently, and it's sad to see.
The Chamber is in cahoots with the educrats to get this done, because it is a strong belief among the leftists in government as well as education that we need a meek, malleable, sub-literate workforce with "skills" rather than classic academic knowledge, who would move anywhere in the world for a job. And since they don't have a broad base of skills and knowledge, they will be more "loyal" than the worker of today, who has more options because of that vanishing broad-based liberal-arts education that School-to-Work is demolishing.
The School-to-Work educrats would roughly follow the old 80-20 rule: 80% of the students would be "assessed" and pigeonholed into low-level jobs with intensive career readiness programming that starts in kindergarten, and only a lick and a promise in traditional school subjects rather than a thorough grounding in all academic subjects . . . just "brought up to specs" for an entry-level job, in other words . . . while the lucky other 20% would be "sorted out" at a young age, groomed in academic skills and given college-prep classes to get them ready for college to eventually emerge and take the reins of society as the ruling elite.
Of course there would be all kinds of corruption and fandango to determine whose kid gets labeled a "Smurf" with entry-level job prospects and opportunities limited (translation: conservative Christians and those who would dare to buck the fascist system), or, on the other hand, those whose kid gets an Ivy League education with all the perks (translation: leftists and ambitious parents who'll do and say anything to suck up to people in power to get their kids an edge).
Now who, pray tell, would be the "Smurfs" in Nebraska? Why, eureka! We already rank at about the bottom of the 50 states in the achievement gap between rich and middle-class students -- almost all of them white -- and those in poverty, almost all of them from families of color.
School-to-Work wouldn't do anything to raise the academic outcomes and, hence, life outcomes of those who are already at the bottom of the barrel. Instead, they'd be handed no-brainer apprenticeships and steered into dead-end jobs; no physics or calculus or art or in-depth history classes for kids like that.
Why would they need them, if the point of school is to get ready for a job?
But that's not racist -- deliberately dead-ending the mostly-poor, mostly-minority kids. School-to-Work is just "practical" -- it'll get them a decent job -- and isn't that what schooling is all about?
If you don't think so -- if you think the point of schooling is to turn out citizens, not worker bees -- you'd better get moving quickly and educate yourself, your fellow parents and taxpayers, your school board members, your state senators and anyone else who will listen, to expose and battle the School-to-Work juggernaut, coming to a school district near you.
Here's a great place to start:
http://www.arthurhu.com/index/stw.htm
CAN BE FIXED MUCH MORE CHEAPLY AND EFFICIENTLY
THAN TURNING OUR SCHOOLS INTO JOB TRAINING ACADEMIES
No need to go haywire over the "F" grades that Nebraska got this week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for poor school management, lack of innovation, poor use of technology, absence of charter schools, no-brainer learning standards, tsunami of teacher paperwork requirements, lack of college and career readiness, and very low percentage of students who pass advanced placement tests.
Hunh? How can those NOT be problems?
Well, they are. But they can be fixed in simple, cost-effective ways such as creating a bona fide competitive marketplace for education. Those problems would vanish if parents could control their own children's school placements and direct where their state education subsidy dollars will flow. Providing more educational freedom is a much, much better and cheaper solution to these problems than the scary and fascist system the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has in mind. THEIR system would destroy educational quality and freedom of choice for students, not enhance them.
What the politicians and the powers-that-be, including the U.S. Chamber, have in mind is School-to-Work. It's a new philosophy about schooling, that morphs schools away from traditional academics to job-training factories. How? By putting a heavy emphasis on career planning from an early age, dumbing-down academics for most students, and placing teenagers away from classrooms and into on-the-job apprenticeships, spending part of each day in the workplace, where their "higher learning" will be in voc-tech areas, not academics.
Big Government, Big Labor and Big Business are making this happen . . . greased by the federal education department, and your tax dollars. (Remember, "fascism" is when government and private industry mesh as "partners" while individual citizens, including parents of young children, have no say, but have to pay via increased taxes for what will destroy their freedoms and their children's futures. That's what School-to-Work will do.)
Now that it has come out strongly against the American educational system, saying it's "broken" and giving states poor grades based on carefully-crafted measuring rods that don't assess academic achievement in any way, the Chamber's "exciting" alternative is to adopt the School-to-Work philosophy of education.
It's the idea that schooling should be focused on preparing you for work in the global economy, and not necessarily for preparing you to become a well-educated, well-rounded U.S. citizen and voter.
The Chamber would like to follow the lead of the former Soviet Union, Japan and Germany in transforming schools into job-training academies, meshed with centralized government job forecasting and planning processes. How do we pay for all this?
Often, it's with sharply increased payroll taxes. Doesn't that sound ducky, in this recession with this level of unemployment? Where a few more dollars a month in payroll taxes may easily convince an employer NOT to hire a new full-time employee? Especially when that employer can get a "free" or "subsidized" teenaged apprentice employee through the School-to-Work program? But what about the adult laborer who needs that job? Tough. That adult laborer will just have to be re-trained for some other job. But don't worry -- it won't cost that laborer. It'll be "free." (Translation: taxpayer-provided.)
The likelihood of skyrocketing education costs that make today's spending levels look cheap is matched only by the breathtaking potential for politicization, corruption and unfairness.
If the central planners think we'll need more nurses 10 years from now, voila! All kinds of kids will miraculously "score high" on the "ooh, you should be a nurse!" questions on the annual aptitude tests. They'll mainly be trained to be nurses, and if the central planners are wrong, and we REALLY need tons more truck drivers 10 years from now, then darn! A lot of those nurses will just have to be re-trained!
But it won't cost them anything -- just the taxpayers, you know. The re-training will be "free." Riiiiiight.
Now, if your dream is to become a singer, but the "system" forecasts a need for culinary arts workers, then darn! You'll just have to become a singing waiter!!! Because if you're assessed as being suitable for culinary arts, and you turn that assignment down, then darn! There are no other slots for you other than what the central-planning committee came up with. You'll just have to leave school without ANY kind of training or credentials. Good luck with that, huh?
See why Big Labor loves this, too? The constant re-training, while laughably inefficient and costly for taxpayers, promises union members job security beyond all other systems. And the centralized government workers who will control this system will have all the power and say-so, and ability to extend favors and withhold placements -- NOT the parents, and NOT the lowly teachers.
You can trace the development of this plan from its genesis in the America 2000/Goals 2000 federal education legislation that got going in the 1980s, through the May 4 (interesting date, eh?), 1994, signing of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act by then-President Clinton. Since then, all kinds of funding has flowed into Nebraska to get these systems in place for the "right" time to crash traditional schooling and get School-to-Work in place, which appears to be now.
That's why there has been all this fuss about:
-- markedly increased federal involvement with local public schools and unfunded mandates which have seized effective control of local schools,just paving the way for nationalized schools which are actually job-training academies such as in Germany, Japan and the former Soviet Union;
-- "standards," which are basically the same at each grade level in all 50 states, paving the way for nationalized curriculum and the destruction of local control over curriculum by elected school boards;
-- "assessments," which are more like job evaluations than academic evaluations, have replaced academic tests, and measure attitudes, beliefs, opinions and job-related skills rather than knowledge and academic skills;
-- "benchmarks," which reveal whether a student has met the bare minimum standards for passing, which is all the School-to-Work system needs to know, with no incentives for kids who in past years might have stretched their efforts to get a "B" or an "A" -- now, with Outcome-Based Education, a "C" is all you need, and a "C" is enough;
-- specialized "academies," "magnet schools" and "focus schools," which are paving the way for specialized job training even at the grade-school level, and getting rid of the broad-based liberal-arts curriculum that has stood the test of time;
-- the decrying of the lack of charter schools in Nebraska, since charter schools are intended to be the mechanism for introducing School-to-Work, especially in low-income areas;
-- the big push for "year-round schooling" -- not because it makes any academic sense at all, but to provide employers with "year-round" apprentices for their year-round work schedules;
-- "lifelong learning" to get everybody ready for a world in which constant re-training is necessary, accepted and expected;
-- International Baccalaureate programs which are thinly-veiled Marxist prep schools to turn out a global-preferenced elite for multinational corporations, not citizen-leaders for the United States of America;
-- and all the references to "world-class" everything in schools. This last trend is because School-to-Work doesn't have anything to do with equipping students to start and own their own small businesses someday; it's all about providing labor for the global corporations which might need to send workers all over the world, so they have to be ready to fit in anywhere in the world on a moment's notice. So people need to be "globally-standardized," according to the School-to-Work gurus.
The people who have designed and are now instituting School-to-Work are not concerned about what PARENTS are concerned about, academic quality. Did the Chamber decry the huge numbers of students who can't read or do math at grade level any more? Noooo. Not a word. They don't care about that. They're getting ready to institute government-controlled job training in lieu of traditional K-12 education in this country.
To do it, the meshed forces of Big Education and Big Labor deliberately nuked the schools over the last 20 or 30 years with America 2000 / Goals 2000 and Outcome-Based Education, and are now criticizing them heavily, getting the voters all upset. That is so that voters and taxpayers will be prepared to accept the offered "alternative," which is fascist schools run by the government-labor cartel and NOT by your neighbors on the elected school board or little old Mrs. Humphrey, that nice teacher, or Mr. Mahoney, that nice principal. The role of educators in education is being down-sized, bigtime. It won't be teachers teaching; it'll be the system, "downloading." And putting in place School-to-Work spells the death knell of any semblance of local control by parents and teachers.
What's the telltale sign that School-to-Work is coming? Those learning "standards" you hear so much about. Those standards are boilerplated -- the same -- all over the country. They are dumbed-down unbelievably, to dupe the public into believing that since THEIR kids scored in the 90th percentile, they must be very, very smart, and their school must be tops. They'll accept nationally-standardized curriculum and assessment, figuring that since THEIR kids are tops locally or even statewide, they'll be tops nationally as well. But the score is meaningless. It's a ruse.
If you looked at kids' actual academic abilities in reading, writing and 'rithmetic, if you're over the age of about 30, you would be absolutely shocked at how much erosion in academic quality there has been since the 1960s.
This is a planned crash, apparently, and it's sad to see.
The Chamber is in cahoots with the educrats to get this done, because it is a strong belief among the leftists in government as well as education that we need a meek, malleable, sub-literate workforce with "skills" rather than classic academic knowledge, who would move anywhere in the world for a job. And since they don't have a broad base of skills and knowledge, they will be more "loyal" than the worker of today, who has more options because of that vanishing broad-based liberal-arts education that School-to-Work is demolishing.
The School-to-Work educrats would roughly follow the old 80-20 rule: 80% of the students would be "assessed" and pigeonholed into low-level jobs with intensive career readiness programming that starts in kindergarten, and only a lick and a promise in traditional school subjects rather than a thorough grounding in all academic subjects . . . just "brought up to specs" for an entry-level job, in other words . . . while the lucky other 20% would be "sorted out" at a young age, groomed in academic skills and given college-prep classes to get them ready for college to eventually emerge and take the reins of society as the ruling elite.
Of course there would be all kinds of corruption and fandango to determine whose kid gets labeled a "Smurf" with entry-level job prospects and opportunities limited (translation: conservative Christians and those who would dare to buck the fascist system), or, on the other hand, those whose kid gets an Ivy League education with all the perks (translation: leftists and ambitious parents who'll do and say anything to suck up to people in power to get their kids an edge).
Now who, pray tell, would be the "Smurfs" in Nebraska? Why, eureka! We already rank at about the bottom of the 50 states in the achievement gap between rich and middle-class students -- almost all of them white -- and those in poverty, almost all of them from families of color.
School-to-Work wouldn't do anything to raise the academic outcomes and, hence, life outcomes of those who are already at the bottom of the barrel. Instead, they'd be handed no-brainer apprenticeships and steered into dead-end jobs; no physics or calculus or art or in-depth history classes for kids like that.
Why would they need them, if the point of school is to get ready for a job?
But that's not racist -- deliberately dead-ending the mostly-poor, mostly-minority kids. School-to-Work is just "practical" -- it'll get them a decent job -- and isn't that what schooling is all about?
If you don't think so -- if you think the point of schooling is to turn out citizens, not worker bees -- you'd better get moving quickly and educate yourself, your fellow parents and taxpayers, your school board members, your state senators and anyone else who will listen, to expose and battle the School-to-Work juggernaut, coming to a school district near you.
Here's a great place to start:
http://www.arthurhu.com/index/stw.htm
Wednesday, October 28, 2009 11:08:00 PM by Susan
ORD, NEB., BOND ISSUE APPROACHES VOTE:
SHOULD A SMALL TOWN BE SPENDING $10 MILLION
IN THIS ECONOMIC CLIMATE?
It's hard to see how people could vote for the massive, $10 million school bond issue that's coming to a head in the central Nebraska town of Ord. But sources say it's going to be a whisker-thin margin, either way. Results of the balloting will be in by mid-November.
A committee made up of pro-school district residents is urging a "yes" vote, claiming that snazzy school facilities will attract new residents to Ord. But an opposing committee has gathered information which indicates that the fire and safety violations at the school that the bond issue is intended to fix could be fixed for much less than the school officials are claiming, and that the nonacademic improvements that would be made, such as the practice gym, are off-target in the economic conditions of now and the foreseeable future.
Ord's student population has dropped to 480 from 515 five years ago, while its spending per pupil per year has increased to $12,817.98, adding five teachers to the payroll. Ord teachers make an average of $45,709 -- great money in that neck o' the Nebraska woods.
The $9.8 million bond issue is being sought to add a practice gym to the 1928 building as the fourth major addition in its history, plus bring various fire and safety features up to code, improve the HVAC system, add an elevator for handicapped access, and expand and modernize facilities.
According to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (NDED), Ord already provides some of the nicest learning facilities in the state. The teacher-to-pupil ratio is 1:9 in the elementary school and 1:10 in the junior-senior high, and the computer-to-pupil ratio is 1:2. Academic results are average: about three-fourths of the senior class takes the ACT and scores right on the Nebraska average.
Actually, Valley County looks to be one of the richest counties in Nebraska on paper, with an actual valuation per pupil of $614,058, according to the NDED. All those rich farmers!
But wait:
Valley County actually has one of the lowest averages of household income in the state. Per household, income is measured at $43,000, which is significantly beneath the Nebraska average of $58,000. So there may be wealth in that county, but it's not easily tapped because it's tied up in property. The proposed bond issue would put an extra tax bite on top of regular taxes of $956.20 per year for the typical farmer, according to observers following the issue. Not a good cash-flow situation.
With the concern about the economy, it's questionable whether this is the time to be going into debt to the tune of $10 million, plus interest, over the next 20 years, in a tiny school district with declining enrollment.
One interesting footnote gathered in researching this issue:
According to the Ord district's annual financial report, sent to the Nebraska Department of Education and accessed at http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/ASPX/AFR/AFRDistrict.aspx?codistsch=88-0005-000&datayear=2007/08&id=1, Ord's superintendent of schools makes a salary of $119,012. That comes to $247.94 per pupil per year for his salary alone.
In contrast, the superintendent of the Omaha Public Schools makes $336,805.99 -- $8.08 per pupil.
But no . . . there's nooooooo way Ord could find any way to cut spending and avoid going so deeply into debt. Or is there?
SHOULD A SMALL TOWN BE SPENDING $10 MILLION
IN THIS ECONOMIC CLIMATE?
It's hard to see how people could vote for the massive, $10 million school bond issue that's coming to a head in the central Nebraska town of Ord. But sources say it's going to be a whisker-thin margin, either way. Results of the balloting will be in by mid-November.
A committee made up of pro-school district residents is urging a "yes" vote, claiming that snazzy school facilities will attract new residents to Ord. But an opposing committee has gathered information which indicates that the fire and safety violations at the school that the bond issue is intended to fix could be fixed for much less than the school officials are claiming, and that the nonacademic improvements that would be made, such as the practice gym, are off-target in the economic conditions of now and the foreseeable future.
Ord's student population has dropped to 480 from 515 five years ago, while its spending per pupil per year has increased to $12,817.98, adding five teachers to the payroll. Ord teachers make an average of $45,709 -- great money in that neck o' the Nebraska woods.
The $9.8 million bond issue is being sought to add a practice gym to the 1928 building as the fourth major addition in its history, plus bring various fire and safety features up to code, improve the HVAC system, add an elevator for handicapped access, and expand and modernize facilities.
According to the Nebraska Department of Economic Development (NDED), Ord already provides some of the nicest learning facilities in the state. The teacher-to-pupil ratio is 1:9 in the elementary school and 1:10 in the junior-senior high, and the computer-to-pupil ratio is 1:2. Academic results are average: about three-fourths of the senior class takes the ACT and scores right on the Nebraska average.
Actually, Valley County looks to be one of the richest counties in Nebraska on paper, with an actual valuation per pupil of $614,058, according to the NDED. All those rich farmers!
But wait:
Valley County actually has one of the lowest averages of household income in the state. Per household, income is measured at $43,000, which is significantly beneath the Nebraska average of $58,000. So there may be wealth in that county, but it's not easily tapped because it's tied up in property. The proposed bond issue would put an extra tax bite on top of regular taxes of $956.20 per year for the typical farmer, according to observers following the issue. Not a good cash-flow situation.
With the concern about the economy, it's questionable whether this is the time to be going into debt to the tune of $10 million, plus interest, over the next 20 years, in a tiny school district with declining enrollment.
One interesting footnote gathered in researching this issue:
According to the Ord district's annual financial report, sent to the Nebraska Department of Education and accessed at http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/ASPX/AFR/AFRDistrict.aspx?codistsch=88-0005-000&datayear=2007/08&id=1, Ord's superintendent of schools makes a salary of $119,012. That comes to $247.94 per pupil per year for his salary alone.
In contrast, the superintendent of the Omaha Public Schools makes $336,805.99 -- $8.08 per pupil.
But no . . . there's nooooooo way Ord could find any way to cut spending and avoid going so deeply into debt. Or is there?
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:29:00 PM by Susan
KUDOS TO ST. PATRICK'S SCHOOL
FOR A GEOMETRY PROJECT
THAT'S A PERFECT '10'
Fun idea at St. Patrick's Elementary School in Elkhorn: to celebrate the school's recent 10th anniversary, five eighth-grade geometry students who meet before school with their math teacher for geometry enrichment practice designed a human "10!" of hundreds of people that could be photographed from the air.
The students measured a nearby soccer field, brainstormed a design, made a scale drawing, painted exact measurements of the outlines of the numbers, organized over 600 students and teachers into the "10!" shape, and now have an unusual memento, the aerial photo.
FOR A GEOMETRY PROJECT
THAT'S A PERFECT '10'
Fun idea at St. Patrick's Elementary School in Elkhorn: to celebrate the school's recent 10th anniversary, five eighth-grade geometry students who meet before school with their math teacher for geometry enrichment practice designed a human "10!" of hundreds of people that could be photographed from the air.
The students measured a nearby soccer field, brainstormed a design, made a scale drawing, painted exact measurements of the outlines of the numbers, organized over 600 students and teachers into the "10!" shape, and now have an unusual memento, the aerial photo.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 12:15:00 PM by Susan
COMMON CONUNDRUM:
WHEN A DISTRICT'S AVERAGE ACT SCORE
IS MUCH, MUCH WORSE THAN ITS "ASSESSMENTS" WOULD PREDICT
Here's a head-scratcher: according to the Douglas County Post-Gazette, which covered the Oct. 12 meeting of the board of the Elkhorn Public Schools, fourth and fifth graders scored in the 96th to 100th percentile of mastery on state standards, as measured by the constant barrage of assessments
On the statewide writing assessment, Elkhorn fourth, eighth and eleventh graders scored in the 98th, 96th and 93rd percentiles of mastery.
Wow! Incredible! Sure looks like Elkhorn teachers are hot stuff.
But wait: the board also was told that Elkhorn's 2009 graduating class averaged 22.9 on the ACT exam, the same score as last year. The best score -- 100% mastery -- is a 36.
So let the head-scratching begin. The Elkhorn average of 22.9 computes to about a 47.6% on the ACT. And these are the kids whose parents' chests are bustin' with pride because their standardized test scores in the earlier grades are close to 100%?!?
I hate to pick on Elkhorn. This is going on all across the state.
What does that say about the value of our statewide learning standards, and all those assessments that teachers are complaining are substantially interfering with their ability to teach? Could the standards and assessments be a big, fat waste of time?!?
And what does that say about the actual, apples-to-apples quality of the education we are giving kids in Nebraska? Are you happy with a 47.6% for your close-to-$10,000 per pupil per year in tax funding? Didn't think so.
WHEN A DISTRICT'S AVERAGE ACT SCORE
IS MUCH, MUCH WORSE THAN ITS "ASSESSMENTS" WOULD PREDICT
Here's a head-scratcher: according to the Douglas County Post-Gazette, which covered the Oct. 12 meeting of the board of the Elkhorn Public Schools, fourth and fifth graders scored in the 96th to 100th percentile of mastery on state standards, as measured by the constant barrage of assessments
On the statewide writing assessment, Elkhorn fourth, eighth and eleventh graders scored in the 98th, 96th and 93rd percentiles of mastery.
Wow! Incredible! Sure looks like Elkhorn teachers are hot stuff.
But wait: the board also was told that Elkhorn's 2009 graduating class averaged 22.9 on the ACT exam, the same score as last year. The best score -- 100% mastery -- is a 36.
So let the head-scratching begin. The Elkhorn average of 22.9 computes to about a 47.6% on the ACT. And these are the kids whose parents' chests are bustin' with pride because their standardized test scores in the earlier grades are close to 100%?!?
I hate to pick on Elkhorn. This is going on all across the state.
What does that say about the value of our statewide learning standards, and all those assessments that teachers are complaining are substantially interfering with their ability to teach? Could the standards and assessments be a big, fat waste of time?!?
And what does that say about the actual, apples-to-apples quality of the education we are giving kids in Nebraska? Are you happy with a 47.6% for your close-to-$10,000 per pupil per year in tax funding? Didn't think so.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009 10:24:00 AM by Susan
GOOD NEWS:
LAWSUIT CHALLENGES
LEARNING COMMUNITY'S CONSTITUTIONALITY
Three cheers for former Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg and his clients. They filed a lawsuit to point out that the Legislature's Learning Community is 'way off-road of the state constitution when it comes to assessing tax dollars. It's unfair, it's socialistic, and even though this would only chip away at its power, it's a good first step to get rid of it entirely.
Here's the lowdown:
http://nebraska.watchdog.org/2009/10/20/exclusive-lawsuit-claims-learning-community-unconstitutional/?utm_source=NE_Subscriptions&utm_campaign=90295e3903-NE_Breaking_29_15_2009&utm_medium=email
Meaning no disrespect to the late State Sen. Ron Raikes and former state senator and now Learning Community board member Ernie Chambers, who designed the LC, but what a boneheaded idea the Learning Community was and is.
The problems with this socialistic model of educational governance go 'way beyond the injustices of inequitable revenue extraction, positioning the Elkhorn School District, among others, as a loser, and districts including Millard and Westside as the winners.
The real problem is how the revenue production and dispersion has NOTHING to do with local control, everything to do with consolidation of power -- which always leads to corruption and waste -- and nothing to do with educators "on the ground" making the decisions for how to spend resources.
What the LC has in mind is, apparently, fancy-pants, high-tech "focus schools" with all the bells and whistles that will make construction companies rich and "look good on paper" for the political hotshots and big-government, left-wing donors who will be involved -- BUT ARE NOT WHAT KIDS NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR READING, WRITING, MATH AND THINKING SKILLS.
I've read about 10 books by authors of all political stripes on how to improve academic achievement among low-income students. That's my passion, and it's the ostensible purpose of the Learning Community. But I've been gravely disappointed by the LC concept since it was first proposed. The creation of yet another level of bureaucracy and expense that distances the educational power elite and control over curriculum and instruction even further from parents and students is NOT one of the many, many practical and cost-effective solutions that are being tried in other states.
We need to drive the money source CLOSER to the students, their families and their teachers, not further away, if we hope to meet their needs.
It was encouraging to learn last summer that Chambers is a new fan of systematic, intensive, explicit phonics -- which I firmly believe is a key solution to the outrageous lack of literacy among all income levels of students right now, something that all schools should have had in place 20 years ago.
So I hope this lawsuit can dissolve the Learning Community bureaucracy while preserving the network of well-meaning citizens, including Chambers, who can devote their efforts to doing what will WORK:
-- phonics and other no-nonsense language instruction in the early grades with a return to quality children's literature instead of the senseless, pointless and disturbing stuff that's on the reading lists of most public schools today;
-- traditional, systematically-taught, computation-based math instead of "whole math" with its ineffective "spiraling" which makes kids jacks of all math trades, but masters of none;
-- a true market system with meaningful school choice for parents, involving the public, private and homeschooling educational communities, instead of a shell game that "allows" students to choose among cookie-cutter, overstandardized public schools only, and only if they have the "right" color of skin or income level;
-- the promulgation of creative innovations for K-12 education -- why not get rid of the pointless requirement for teacher certification? why not have school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. four days a week and save money while being more efficient? why not let kids who can meet state standards get out of school at 1 p.m. and give them a stipend to do the fun, challenging learning activities they WANT to do in the afternoons, at far less cost than maintaining a school class day that is in large part pointless for smart kids;
-- reform curriculum and instruction to increase the students' knowledge base and decrease the amount of Political Correctness, distractions and non-academic activities;
-- and cut waste and fraud within the massive public school system. Spending per pupil per year has nearly doubled since our eldest child toddled off to kindergarten 20 years ago; that's outrageous.
For those whose heads spin over trying to keep track of the educationese and jargon about the Learning Community, here's a good synopsis:
http://www.changforlearningcommunity.com/about-the-learning-community/
For those who would like to contact Don Stenberg and compliment him, comment on his efforts, or join in them, see:
http://www.changforlearningcommunity.com/about-the-learning-community/
LAWSUIT CHALLENGES
LEARNING COMMUNITY'S CONSTITUTIONALITY
Three cheers for former Nebraska Attorney General Don Stenberg and his clients. They filed a lawsuit to point out that the Legislature's Learning Community is 'way off-road of the state constitution when it comes to assessing tax dollars. It's unfair, it's socialistic, and even though this would only chip away at its power, it's a good first step to get rid of it entirely.
Here's the lowdown:
http://nebraska.watchdog.org/2009/10/20/exclusive-lawsuit-claims-learning-community-unconstitutional/?utm_source=NE_Subscriptions&utm_campaign=90295e3903-NE_Breaking_29_15_2009&utm_medium=email
Meaning no disrespect to the late State Sen. Ron Raikes and former state senator and now Learning Community board member Ernie Chambers, who designed the LC, but what a boneheaded idea the Learning Community was and is.
The problems with this socialistic model of educational governance go 'way beyond the injustices of inequitable revenue extraction, positioning the Elkhorn School District, among others, as a loser, and districts including Millard and Westside as the winners.
The real problem is how the revenue production and dispersion has NOTHING to do with local control, everything to do with consolidation of power -- which always leads to corruption and waste -- and nothing to do with educators "on the ground" making the decisions for how to spend resources.
What the LC has in mind is, apparently, fancy-pants, high-tech "focus schools" with all the bells and whistles that will make construction companies rich and "look good on paper" for the political hotshots and big-government, left-wing donors who will be involved -- BUT ARE NOT WHAT KIDS NEED TO IMPROVE THEIR READING, WRITING, MATH AND THINKING SKILLS.
I've read about 10 books by authors of all political stripes on how to improve academic achievement among low-income students. That's my passion, and it's the ostensible purpose of the Learning Community. But I've been gravely disappointed by the LC concept since it was first proposed. The creation of yet another level of bureaucracy and expense that distances the educational power elite and control over curriculum and instruction even further from parents and students is NOT one of the many, many practical and cost-effective solutions that are being tried in other states.
We need to drive the money source CLOSER to the students, their families and their teachers, not further away, if we hope to meet their needs.
It was encouraging to learn last summer that Chambers is a new fan of systematic, intensive, explicit phonics -- which I firmly believe is a key solution to the outrageous lack of literacy among all income levels of students right now, something that all schools should have had in place 20 years ago.
So I hope this lawsuit can dissolve the Learning Community bureaucracy while preserving the network of well-meaning citizens, including Chambers, who can devote their efforts to doing what will WORK:
-- phonics and other no-nonsense language instruction in the early grades with a return to quality children's literature instead of the senseless, pointless and disturbing stuff that's on the reading lists of most public schools today;
-- traditional, systematically-taught, computation-based math instead of "whole math" with its ineffective "spiraling" which makes kids jacks of all math trades, but masters of none;
-- a true market system with meaningful school choice for parents, involving the public, private and homeschooling educational communities, instead of a shell game that "allows" students to choose among cookie-cutter, overstandardized public schools only, and only if they have the "right" color of skin or income level;
-- the promulgation of creative innovations for K-12 education -- why not get rid of the pointless requirement for teacher certification? why not have school from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. four days a week and save money while being more efficient? why not let kids who can meet state standards get out of school at 1 p.m. and give them a stipend to do the fun, challenging learning activities they WANT to do in the afternoons, at far less cost than maintaining a school class day that is in large part pointless for smart kids;
-- reform curriculum and instruction to increase the students' knowledge base and decrease the amount of Political Correctness, distractions and non-academic activities;
-- and cut waste and fraud within the massive public school system. Spending per pupil per year has nearly doubled since our eldest child toddled off to kindergarten 20 years ago; that's outrageous.
For those whose heads spin over trying to keep track of the educationese and jargon about the Learning Community, here's a good synopsis:
http://www.changforlearningcommunity.com/about-the-learning-community/
For those who would like to contact Don Stenberg and compliment him, comment on his efforts, or join in them, see:
http://www.changforlearningcommunity.com/about-the-learning-community/
Thursday, October 15, 2009 2:22:00 PM by Susan
NEBRASKA PUBLIC SCHOOL SPENDING
ALIGNS WITH THIS CHART:
SKYROCKETING COSTS, FLAT RESULTS
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/30/chart-of-the-day-federal-ed-spending/
So what are we going to do about it?
ALIGNS WITH THIS CHART:
SKYROCKETING COSTS, FLAT RESULTS
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2009/09/30/chart-of-the-day-federal-ed-spending/
So what are we going to do about it?
Individuals: read and share these features freely!
Publications: please contact GoBigEd to arrange for reprint rights to these copyrighted news stories and features.
© GoBigEd.com, All Rights Reserved.