Moscow Education (Idaho)

Parents, family members and friends of New Saint Andrews’s graduating class of 2006 will join College faculty and students Wednesday, May 10, for the ninth commencement ceremony of Moscow’s 12-year-old classical Christian college.  A Processional Psalm will mark the beginning of the ceremony at 6 p.m. at the Logos School Knight’s Court, 110 Baker Street. 

The College, one of only a few in the country devoted exclusively to the classical liberal arts, will confer 26 degrees in Liberal Arts and Culture.  Nineteen of the graduates have earned the four-year Bachelor of Arts degree and seven will receive their Associate of Arts degree.

The ceremony will include a student address from NSA’s top graduating senior Tyson Rallens (who will also receive an engineering degree from the University of Idaho later in the week) and President Roy Alden Atwood’s presentation of the College’s first Distinguished Christian Service Award.

An accredited member of the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools, New Saint Andrews is a limited-enrollment, liberal arts college located on Friendship Square in downtown Moscow. 

As reported in today's Spokesman Review:

Schools must inform parents of students' suicidal tendencies only if the students show a present trend toward taking their own lives, the Idaho Supreme Court has ruled.

The narrow interpretation of Idaho's "duty to warn" law was handed down Monday in a case that pitted the family of a teenager who took his own life against two North Idaho school districts.

From the Alliance for the Separation of School and State

As reported in today's edition of the Lewiston Tribune, or you can listen to the KQQQ audio report and interviews.

City Attorney Randy Fife estimated Monday that there are perhaps 300 boarding houses operating in Moscow without a required conditional-use permit.

But the estimate, Fife told the Lewiston Tribune, hinges in part on the definition of a boarding house and, in some cases, the definition of a family unit.

Fife told members of the Moscow Administrative Committee that he is not aware of any conditional-use permits having been issued to boarding houses. Yet the city has received a number of complaints recently that boarding houses are operating illegally.

One complaint alleges that students from New Saint Andrews College are living illegally in a number of boarding houses in town. Another complaint alleges that boarding houses are operating in specific neighborhoods.

But Fife, in a report to the committee, said prosecution under current language would probably be unsuccessful. "Attempts at prosecution may result in a court determination that the ordinance is unconstitutionally vague," Fife wrote. "Current code language is such that a defendant could simply modify behavior to come into compliance with the code."

Under current code language, Fife told members of the committee, any homeowner renting to anyone who isn't a family member is required to have a conditional-use permit.

Family, Fife said, is defined in two ways. A related family consists of members who are related by blood. A functional family, on the other hand, is one having family members who aren't related by blood, but act as a family.

"We don't have anyone on staff who's hired to drive around town looking for zoning problems," Fife said. And prosecution, he added, would involve balancing public, privacy and property rights.

"Prosecution without the cooperation of those in the dwelling could require a search warrant in order to gather evidence," Fife wrote in his report. "Such would have to be based upon probable cause supported by an affidavit, naming or describing the person, and particularly describing the property and the place to be searched in order to enter into a home because homes enjoy the highest standard of protection in the United States Constitution."

The current complaints appear to be based on general exterior observations and assumptions, Fife said.

Officials of New Saint Andrews College have said they are being targeted by people opposed to the school's location in downtown Moscow. Don Huskey, who filed the particular complaint, has said he's only interested in having people follow the law and the city enforcing it. {DMC: In a pig's eye!}

Committee members Linda Pall, John Weber and Aaron Ament agreed that additional direction is needed from staff and that the issue should go before the entire city council for discussion and possible changes in the city code.

Damned If You Do… "People sometimes forget that they're experimental schools that do experimental work with children, and we have to be extremely cautious when that's going on." -- Sharon Palmer, president of AFT Connecticut, talking about charter schools.

 

…And Damned If You Don't. "Charter schools were supposed to experiment with new curricula and classroom practices, but they have proven no more innovative than other public schools…. The company-run schools do not contribute to innovation because they offer a single 'cookie-cutter' school design, curriculum and technology package to all the schools they operate." – from pages 6 and 7 of Do Charter Schools Measure Up?, an AFT study of charter schools from July 2002.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

Listen Here.

Listen Here.

As reported in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

The University of Idaho College of Art and Architecture is on track to open in August now that the State Board of Education has approved the plan.

It was like getting the “go ahead stamp,” said interim Dean Bill Woolston.

“The board was enthusiastically supportive of the revitalization of the college,” he said.

The board approved many items that were necessary for the strategic planning to move forward including:

• a full-time dean position in the salary range of $125,000-$150,000;
• professional fee increases; and
• changing the name of the existing department from Architecture to the “Department of Architecture and Interior Design.”

As reported in today's edition of the Lewiston Tribune:

Jones said a sustained funding source topped the list. {DMC: 50% of our Idaho revenues aren't a sustained funding source? What's Jones want, 75 percent? Likely!} Beyond that the Legislature needs to set "global expectations" and steer clear of "cookie-cutter approaches in the state code."

Marley said the Legislature needs to reverse a "slide" away from making education the state's top priority. {DMC: my, I didn't realize that directing 50% of our taxes to the Idaho Educational-Industrial Complex was an indication of a slide away. }

Next, Marley said school districts need more local control, noting a comment from a school board member that "the only decision that's left to them is which classes to cut." {DMC: Local control = local funding. Duh!}

Luna placed local control as his top priority and advocated bypassing bureaucracy and sending money straight to school districts. And, rural school districts need help because they can't maintain buildings, upgrade technology and attract good teachers.

Casey placed "sustained funding" as the highest priority. {DMC: See my comment above about Jones.} He also said the state needs a plan to attract qualified teachers and administrators. And, he wants greater focus on maintaining safety in schools.

Smylie said the Legislature needs to stop micromanaging education. And, he said there needs to be a more collaborative effort among policy makers, teachers and parents.

"It's a team effort," said Smylie. "It requires a lot of collaboration."

As reported in today's edition of the Lewiston Tribune:

Republican candidates -- a businessman, a principal and a lawmaker -- split on the topic.

Tom Luna, a Nampa business owner and former Bush administration education official, opposed the idea.

"We need to identify the needs, then the costs, then go after the dollars," Luna said. A 1 cent sales tax hike might derail future property tax reforms, he added.

Coeur d'Alene principal Steve Casey suggested the initiative may not accomplish what proponents are after.

"We can pass the initiative but the Legislature doesn't have to do what we want them to do with that 1 cent," Casey said.

Rep. Steve Smylie, R-Boise, who is also a teacher, came out strongly in support of the initiative.

"It is time for the people to say do they support education," said Smylie, who noted it is "perilous to do tax policy by initiative."

Here's how the Democratic candidates weigh in. And no surprise -- they want to raise taxes.

As reported in today's edition of the Lewiston Tribune:

Under the watchful eyes of parents and teachers, all five candidates for the state's top education job answered questions Thursday night in Lewiston.

Candidates tackled everything from a 1 cent sales tax initiative to childhood obesity. The forum was part of the 101st Idaho PTA Convention at the Red Lion Inn.

Two Democrats and three Republicans tried to convince the PTA only one of them would best replace retiring Superintendent of Public Instruction Marilyn Howard.

Primary voters have some clear choices.

The crowd bent in to hear what candidates had to say about a teacher-driven initiative that will be on the ballot this fall. Voters will decide whether to raise the sales tax 1 cent to create a dedicated fund to pay for teacher salaries, classrooms and supplies.

On the question of the 1 cent initiative, both Democrats -- Howard's second in command and a state senator -- supported it.

"We need to tell our policy makers we want sustained support," said Chief Deputy Superintendent of Public Instruction Jana Jones, of Boise. "We shouldn't have to go back after the fact to fund the things we're requiring schools to do."

Sen. Bert Marley, D-McCammon, agreed.

"We do need more money for education, based on years of experience on JFAC (state budget committee) trying to grab a few more dollars."

Of course, the real question is: can Boise best determine what the needs of the Moscow schools are? Or can the local voters best determine those needs?

As a rule, the Dem's prefer to have centralized control.

As reported in today's edition of the Lewiston Tribune:

Despite impassioned pleas from President Tim White and student body President Humberto Cerrillo, the Idaho Board of Education cut deeply into the University of Idaho's request for a 9.5 percent fee increase.

After a long debate Thursday that followed board reductions of tuition increase requests from Boise State University and Idaho State University, the board approved a 5.85 percent increase for the UI.

"We had a really systematic view of the increases," said board President Rod Lewis after hours of debate that lasted well into the evening. "In the end we tried to put together an approach that was fair to all the institutions."

Lewis added that the board wanted moderate increases from all schools after the Legislature boosted higher education funding by 5 percent, the largest increase in several years.

The board also reduced Lewis-Clark State College's 6 percent increase request to 4.5 percent after a much shorter debate.

...

The final student fees and tuition next year for the three state universities and LCSC are:

• UI: $4,200, a 5.85 percent increase; original request: 9.5 percent.
• LCSC: $3,898, a 4.5 percent increase; original request: 6 percent.
• BSU: $4,154, a 7.3 percent increase; original request: 8.7 percent.
• ISU: $4,190, a 4.75 percent increase; original request: 7 percent.

From today's Idaho Statesman:

Idaho voters likely will decide this November whether to pay an extra penny in sales tax to send more than $200 million to the state's public schools.

Backers said Tuesday that they've surpassed the 47,881 signatures they need to put the question on the ballot. Secretary of State Ben Ysursa's office still has to verify the count to make it official.

Backers of five other initiatives are working to qualify for the ballot, too. Groups hoping to limit property taxes have been working to gather names, and people in the Treasure Valley may have noticed petitions on eminent domain. The deadline for signatures is May 1.

The following letter to the editor appeared in today's edition of the Lewiston Tribune.

It's the same bottle and the same old whine. The Jim Jones Kool-Aid drinkers out there should love Liz Chavez's latest whine.

Ms. Chavez mentions a number of times that it is just one penny. However she fails to mention that this is a 20 percent increase in sales tax. Like all good politicians, she obfuscates the truth.

Mention the magic words kids, education or teachers and, voila, it is suddenly forgotten that a 20 percent increase in the sales tax very adversely affects the poor and less fortunate. As for the poor, the teaching aristocracy is saying, "I got mine; let 'em eat cake."

According to Jay P. Greene, professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas,

"We have poured more money into schools, hired an army of new teachers to reduce class size, expanded professional development and retained more experienced teachers. Doubling school spending, however, has not yielded a doubling in student achievement. Math and reading test scores for 17-year-olds are the same today as they were during the Nixon administration, and science test scores have fallen, along with graduation rates."

If Greene's assessment is only half right, we have been shortchanged. Idahoans annually pay $1 billion or 50 percent of all state and local expenditures for education. The education aristocracy is telling us to bend over once again while they shove it up ours. This time they will encounter more than a little resistance from those who pay the taxes.

Gene Deasy, Lewiston

Editor’s Note: More than four years after President Bush signed the No Child Left Behind Act, nearly 2 million children’s test scores aren’t being counted under the law’s required racial categories.

An Associated Press review found states are exploiting a legal loophole that is giving a false picture of academic progress and leaving some educators fearful that schools might become more segregated. The law also is creating financial gain for some private consultants, and leaving teachers increasingly skeptical that all children will be able to read and perform math as promised.

Something precious in the lives of many deserving New Yorkers is slowly dying in Mayor Mike Bloomberg’s glittering city. The New York Catholic Archdiocese recently announced that it would close 14 schools, following on last year’s announcement by the Archdiocese of Brooklyn that it would shutter 22 of its schools in Brooklyn and Queens. Located in some of Gotham’s neediest neighborhoods, these schools have served for over a century as a haven for low-income but striving families. Many of the predominantly minority children in those closed schools will now have to attend failing public schools.

The school closings result in part from the inexorable laws of competition. No, I don’t mean that the Catholic schools have fallen behind in the areas of academic achievement or classroom productivity. Quite the contrary. Catholic schools still deliver a far bigger bang for the education buck than the public schools. For example, in last year’s state reading and math tests for 4th and 8th graders, Catholic school students scored from 7 percent to 10 percent higher than their public school counterparts. And the Catholic high school graduation rate is nearly double that of the public high schools. Moreover, Catholic schools deliver these stellar results with per-pupil expenditures remaining about a fourth of the costs of the public schools. {DMC: Sound familiar?}

In a truly competitive education world—one, that is, where taxpayer money followed children to their school of choice—the Catholic school sector would be thriving financially as well as academically, prodding the public schools to do better. But with no vouchers or tuition tax credits in place, the Catholic schools are finding it harder and harder to compete financially with an insatiable public school monopoly, ever more expansive under mayoral control. The city’s Department of Education budget now tops $17 billion, or about $15,000 per pupil. This spending growth has allowed Mayor Bloomberg to raise teacher’s salaries by 33 percent. The top public school salary of $93,000 is now double that of the highest paid Catholic schoolteacher. (When I first started writing about Catholic schools ten years ago the salary gap was a “mere” 60 percent.) To try to keep teachers from leaving for the public system, the Catholic schools have had to boost salaries, too, forcing up tuition and putting the squeeze on their low-income families. According to the Brooklyn Archdiocese, average tuition in its schools has risen from $1,659 in 1992 to $3,000 in 2004. This increase has already resulted in an outflow of thousands of low-income families to the public schools.

KQQQ carried an audio report this morning about the proposed 9.5% fee increase at the University of Idaho.

Listen Here.

Listen Here.

"[P]eople can criticize the tests because they only test 'basic facts' (although, as you said, they really don't), but facts themselves are the crucial building blocks of thinking skills. We would do better as a profession if you acknowledged this and stopped acting like the word 'fact' is a pejorative word."
– Salem, Virginia, social studies teacher Mark Ingerson, writing to Washington Post columnist Jay Mathews. (April 18 Washington Post)

HT: EIA

If there were ever a doubt that charter schools are now an integral part of American public education, it disappeared with the controversy surrounding the LEAP Academy University Charter School in Camden, New Jersey.

 

Is there crime in the hallways? No. Financial mismanagement? No. Testing irregularities? No.

 

The problem is that other schools in the area are accusing LEAP of bringing in ringers for the charter school's title-winning boys' basketball team.

 

LEAP has an enrollment of only 170 high school students, but finished with a 24-6 record, winning the South Jersey Group 1 title. But district officials accuse the school of sidestepping residency requirements in order to field a team of star athletes.

 

"In my opinion, they have an athletic program that's trying to grow beyond their means," Pennsauken Board of Education President Michael Stargell told the Courier-Post.

 

This sort of thing has a long and storied (not to mention recent) record in high school athletics. For a new school, LEAP may have embraced the wrong old tradition.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

EIA has completed school district enrollment and spending tables for states from Alabama through Michigan. While not yet half-done, there are already some patterns emerging.

 

The "enrollment lag" when it comes to per-pupil spending appears to hold true everywhere. School districts that lose students – particularly if the loss is 6% or more over three years – show a higher than average increase in per-pupil spending over the same time period. This suggests that districts at least maintain the same level of spending, spread out among fewer students. How long this effect endures would require research over a longer time frame.

 

There are notable exceptions: Oakland, Atlanta and Baltimore all had substantial drops in enrollment and lower-than-average spending increases. But more typical were districts like Flint, Michigan, which saw a 9.2% drop in enrollment, coupled with an 18.2% increase in per-pupil spending.

 

The Michigan tables also provide what is so far a unique opportunity for comparisons. The U.S. Census Bureau included Michigan charter schools as "districts" for data collection. They are included individually in EIA's Michigan table, ranked along with school districts by enrollment. Since charter schools take on many school district duties, this juxtaposition isn't as jarring as it seems.

 

The tables also shed some light on the "65% solution" – the policy proposal that public schools should spend 65% of their budget on instruction. While controversial on its own, the tables may ultimately show that the 65% solution ties into a second, equally controversial public education issue: school district size.

 

This aspect has not been thoroughly debated (though this Philadelphia Inquirer story comes close), but will ultimately have to be addressed. At first glance, it appears very large districts cannot reach the 65% threshold. It's especially pronounced in states like Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Michigan.

 

In Arizona, the top 89 school districts in enrollment did not spend 65% on instruction. In Michigan, the top 72 did not. In Colorado, the top 93 did not. In Florida, none of the state's 67 county-wide school districts reached the 65% plateau.

 

In Michigan, only one school district in the top 10% in enrollment was a 65% instruction district. Of the districts in the bottom 10% in enrollment, 27 reached the 65% level.

 

In other states, the picture is murkier. Cobb County School District in Georgia had more than 102,000 students, but still spent 65% on instruction. Bridgeport is the largest district in Connecticut, but it managed to spend 65% on instruction.

 

There are a host of explanations for the relationship between district size and spending priorities. I have my theory, but others are legitimate. But 65% solution advocates have another, more pressing, question to answer. Does it really matter? Maryland is the place where this question absolutely needs to be answered.

 

Can the case be reasonably made that the Baltimore school district – subject of an Oprah tirade last week – is making better instructional spending decisions than the Montgomery County school district? Baltimore is a 65% district. Montgomery County is not.

 

The irony of all this is that there seems to be a simple solution if you identify the problem as low per-pupil spending, or insufficient spending on instruction. Just reduce enrollment. The lag factor increases per-pupil spending (at least in the short term). With the same number of instructors (or more) with fewer pupils, the "spending on instruction" percentage also rises.

 

Alas, the real problem is neither low per-pupil spending nor low instructional percentages, but poor academic performance. And for that, Standard & Poor's examination of the issue put it succinctly: "Thus, the data do not suggest that mandating a minimum instructional spending allocation applied uniformly across all districts will necessarily increase academic performance."

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

An Associated Press computer analysis has found ... nearly 2 million children whose scores aren't counted when it comes to meeting the [No Child Left Behind] law's requirement that schools track how students of different races perform on standardized tests. The AP found that states are helping public schools escape potential penalties by skirting that requirement. And minorities - who historically haven't fared as well as whites in testing - make up the vast majority of students whose scores are excluded.

HT: WorldMagBlog

Corporate tuition tax credit is law
Measure enacted without signature of governor; will aid up to 5,000 kids
Chip Scutari

After two controversial vetoes and nearly a year of sniping with the Republican-led Legislature, Gov. Janet Napolitano on Wednesday closed the chapter on a nasty political fight by letting a new corporate scholarship tax credit become law without her signature.

The bottom line: An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 children will be able to get scholarships to private or parochial schools over the next year.

The creation of corporate tax credits for businesses that donate to private-school scholarship funds will be capped at $5 million annually for the next five years. It's estimated that each student will receive at least a $1,000 scholarship. Senate Bill 1499 directs the money to children in low-income families. The purpose of the private-school tax credits is to give poorer children the option to attend private schools and to save the state money as more kids leave public school to attend private ones.

Saratov State University placed first, with four other Russian schools in the top 10 in the 2006 Association for Computer Machinery's International Collegiate Programming Contest (ACM-ICPC).

Seven of the top 10 teams were from Europe, and just one from the United States: MIT placed 8th, managing to solve 5 of the 10 problems in less than 14 hours.

The poor U.S. showing could provide new fuel for the debate over whether U.S. computer programmers lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to talent.

Bangladesh University tied Cal Tech and beat notables such as Princeton, Carnegie-Mellon, Duke, Georgia Tech, Rice and Wisconsin.

Altai State topped all American Universities including MIT (8th place).

HT: Frank

Here's Rev 2 from the evening of 12 April.

And here's Rev 4 from 17 April:

Looks like people just keep dropping off the list.

"After two controversial vetoes and nearly a year of sniping with the Republican-led Legislature, Gov. Janet Napolitano [let] a new corporate scholarship tax credit become law without her signature. The bottom line: An estimated 3,000 to 5,000 children will be able to get scholarships to private or parochial schools over the next year."

HT: Marv O.