Moscow Education (Idaho)

• What happened: The Moscow Board of Adjustment again approved a conditional-use permit for New Saint Andrews College without parking
conditions.
• What it means: The college will continue operating downtown without requirements on the number of parking spaces allowed or for off-site parking.
• What’s next: An appeal of this decision can be made to the City Council. At least three other appeals about NSA are pending before City Council.

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

Moscow may have a downtown parking problem, but the city’s Board of Adjustment said it’s not up to New Saint Andrews College alone to solve that problem.

After a public hearing Thursday night, the board decided new information related to the Jackson Street parking lot wasn’t enough to prevent the college from continuing to operate downtown or to prompt the board to add parking-related conditions to the conditional use permit.

“I don’t think the new information means we need to do something different,” board member Bob Ries said.

This is the second time the Board of Adjustment has considered a conditional-use permit for New Saint Andrews. The board originally approved the college’s conditional-use permit in March. Tom Bode, owner of the Moscow Hotel, appealed the board’s decision to the City Council. The council sent the conditional-use permit back to the Board of Adjustment on June 5, with instructions the board consider new information related to parking.

Bode said downtown businesses provided the money for the down payment on the Jackson Street parking lots in the 1970s, and the council passed a resolution shortly after that allowed only commercial business customers to park in the lots.

Bode said because New Saint Andrews College is not a commercial business, its faculty, staff and students have no right to park in the Jackson Street lot.

But City Attorney Randy Fife said the lots are now owned by the city.

He added that the resolutions are a guide, not law.

“These are 30-year-old resolutions and in my opinion all moot,” Fife said.

He said that even if the resolutions still were in effect, the ordinance the resolutions were based on no longer exists.

When the board initially approved the conditional use permit for the college, it required that enrollment be capped at 200 students and that the college maintain 160 feet of commercial frontage.

New Saint Andrews College has been on South Main Street since 2002, and recent changes to city law {DMC: zing!} require the school — and other educational institutions — obtain a conditional use permit to operate in the downtown business district.

Community members who testified Thursday disagreed about whether parking is a problem downtown, and the role New Saint Andrews College has in that parking problem.

Former Moscow Mayor Marshall Comstock told board members “it’s not the responsibility of one entity to be singled out to solve the parking problem; there are other nonprofits that use the lot.”

Former City Councilman Jim Anderson said it’s the responsibility of downtown businesses to find out what the parking problem is and come up with a solution.

Bob Greene, owner of BookPeople downtown, disagreed.

“My taxes on my building have doubled in the years I’ve owned the store,” he said. “We’re being told downtown businesses have to solve the problem. Where will the money come from if there are no downtown business owners?”

“The lot was created for commerce and profit, the businesses downtown wanted a return on their investment,” said BJ Swanson, vice president of AmericanWest Bank. “Limiting it now to someone who doesn’t increase commerce is basically unfair.”

But Greg Dickison, attorney for New Saint Andrews College, said the new information presented shows the parking problem is not something that showed up in the years the college has been downtown.

“The more information presented, the more clear it is that parking downtown has been a problem for decades,” he said.

New Saint Andrews has taken steps over the last few months to do their share to mitigate parking, forming a Parking Advisory Group.

The board debated adding conditions related to parking mitigation but decided against it.

“This was a mess that was created by the city; this is way beyond the scope of the Board of Adjustment,” board member Patrick Wilson said. “I’m not sure that New Saint Andrews adds significantly to that problem.”

Four appeals were made to the board’s original decision, and Fife said at least three of the appeals still are pending before City Council.

City staff was unclear whether Bode’s appeal is pending.  

From Lew Rockwell’s website, North fires another accurate salvo.

See Textbooks as Ideological Weapons.

HT: Dave G.

From WND:

German homeschooling parents who face fines or jail sentences are prepared to take their cause to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.

The German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe recently turned down an appeal by Christian parents. According to the justices, the parents are required to send their children to state registered schools.

Homeschooling is illegal in Germany, even if parents object to institutional education for religious reasons. Many Christians, however, are defying legal requirements. Some have been fined or incarcerated after refusing to pay the fines. It is estimated at least 1,000 children in Germany are taught by their parents.

Germany takes a tougher line against homeschooling than other European democracies. France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland and Austria also require children to receive school education but leave the form of education up to the parents.

The constitutional appeal was launched by Sigrid and Michael Bauer, members of the Evangelical Reformed Church in Giessen, 50 miles north of Frankfurt. The Bauers teach five of their eight children at home.

The parents argue they want to rear their children according to the Bible and shield them against negative influences. According to the Bauers, sex education and the teaching of evolution undermine the Christian upbringing of their children.

The Bauers were fined $650 and $800 respectively by lower courts. The Constitutional Court refused to accept their appeal on the grounds compulsory school education "serves the legitimate cause of enforcing the state's educational mandate." The German constitution did not include the right to exempt children from religious expressions other than their own.

An excellent education is not what matters. It’s a state-provided education that’s important there.

A press release from Bob Hieronymus, Executive Vice President of Administration and Advancement at New Saint Andrews College:

The Board of Adjustment ruled 6-0 last evening to uphold its previous decision to not place a parking condition on New Saint Andrews’s conditional use permit.

 The board’s original decision at its March 28 hearing was appealed on the purported existence of new information.  The new information turned out to be old and of no consequence, according to the city’s legal counsel and many others who spoke at the hearing.

“The ‘new’ information only served to underscore our point that parking is a broader issue for the community, and has been for 30 to 40 years,” explained NSA spokesman Bob Hieronymus. “But the evidence supports our claim that NSA takes up fewer parking spaces than a more typical commercial use of our building.”

The College wishes to thank its supporters in Moscow and across the country for their continued prayers in support of the College.  “We’re grateful to God for His protection,” Hieronymus concluded.

I have been asked by a few friends to comment on the below. Some of my specific comments are inter-spaced in red. But generally my take on all this is "More of the Same." More top-down proposals w/o any changed public-choice mechanism to achieve them. Now, I'll be the first to admit that I don't know what such a mechanism is , or even if one exists, because that is impossible to know before-hand. But it is smugly wrong to think that one does, because all that does is lock one into something that is undoubtedly wrong.

The 100% Solution Nostrum is no better an anaesthetic than the 65% Solution Nostrum.

Market solutions are necessarily a process of discovery--trying different approaches and seeing what works--and this will not, and cannot, be known, beforehand. We are not omniscient and omnipotent. Market based solutions expenditures are built from the bottom up by trial and error, not the top down. The only general answer I know of is to open the system op, see what works, and goes on from there depending on what one discovers. [I note that among the sponsors, and footnotes, there is not one education economist, no less a prominent one.]

John T. Wenders
Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of Idaho
For all the facts about Idaho education go to: http://www.edexidaho.org

For School Equality, Try Mobility
By ROD PAIGE

DUMB liberal ideas in education are a dime a dozen, and during my time as superintendent of Houston's schools and as the United States secretary of education I battled against all sorts of progressivist lunacy, from whole-language reading to fuzzy math to lifetime teacher tenure. Today, however, one of the worst ideas in education is coming from conservatives: the so-called 65 percent solution.

[JTW: Agreed.]

This movement, bankrolled largely by Patrick Byrne, the founder of Overstock.com, wants states to mandate that 65 percent of school dollars be spent "in the classroom."  [JTW: Any evidence the money spend "in the class room" improves student performance" I know of none.] Budget items like teacher salaries would count; librarians, transportation costs and upkeep of buildings would not.

Proponents argue that this will counter wasteful spending and runaway school "overhead," and they have convinced many voters - a Harris poll last fall put national support at more than 70 percent. Four states - Georgia, Kansas, Louisiana and Texas - have adopted 65 percent mandates and at least six more are seriously considering them.

The only drawback is that such laws won't actually make schools any better, and could make them worse. [JTW: Yup] Yes, it's true that education financing is a mess and that billions are wasted every year. But the 65 percent solution won't help. [JTW: and neither will the "100% Solution".] The most likely outcome is that school officials will learn the art of creative accounting in order to increase the percentage of money that can be deemed "classroom" expenses.

[JTW: Which is just what goes on now.]

More ominously, it will tie school leaders' hands at a time when they need more freedom to innovate. Things we should be stressing, like teacher training [JTW: There is no evidence that either past or present "teacher training" has worked in the sense that it produced higher student performance. None.], online content to supplement lessons and after-school tutoring, would not fall under "classroom expenses."

What we need is a 100 percent solution, a reform that tackles America's antiquated education financing system, gives dynamic school leaders more freedom, fosters true equity and opens the door wider to school choice.

[JTW: To do this, you are going to have to "buy off" the existing constituencies with more $$, so you end up pouring more $$ into an entrenched spending, employee bloated system that has had declining productivity for decades. Lots of luck. The NEA's going to love this.]

Our schools are failing our most at-risk students. Only 30 percent of eighth graders are "proficient" or "advanced" in reading, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. Math scores are nearly as bad. The No Child Left Behind Act is helping, by focusing attention on our neediest students, but it will succeed only if we recognize that certain children require more resources to educate than others.

[JTW: Again, any evidence that more spending per student improves the performance of low-income/ability students? I know of none. I this were true, then the DC, NYC school systems would have the highest achieving students in the US.]

Most children living in poverty, for example, need longer school days and years, better teachers and materials, and extra services like tutoring.

[JTW: Again, I would like to see the evidence on this, as it relates to student academic performance. "Need" is meaningless unless so defined. Even if true, are more resources the most effective way to achieve better student performance? Another warm-and-fuzzy, feel-good proposal.]

A second problem is that as we enter a new era of choice-driven schooling, with a growing menu of options from charter schools to virtual schools to cross-district choices, the old [JTW: I.e., top down.] budgeting model is getting in the way. Charter schools, for example, receive on average only 80 cents on the dollar compared to traditional schools. [JTW: True. and the charters do quite well on that. So lets save resources by cutting regular public school spending per student by 20%, for openers.]

A million children attend charter schools, but in most places we essentially tell them that their education is worth considerably less than that of their friends in district-run schools. [This statement implies that we should give the charters more, making them more cost and employee bloated like the regular public schools--strange-- and presumes that the is a positive connection between student performance and spending per-student, something that has never been shown by anyone, anywhere, even in charters. More $$ doesn't = "worth".  That's an NEA slogan. Since the charter schools do produce , arguably, better than their public counterparts at 80% of the spending, then the logical solution is to improve the regular public schools by cutting the latters' spending.]

Instead of gimmicky fads, we need fundamental reforms. One good idea now picking up support is "weighted student funding." [JTW: An improvement for sure, if it can be accomplished by spending less. But it's still top-down funding, something that has never worked.]  Under this approach, each child receives a "backpack" of financing that travels with him to the public school of his family's choice. The more disadvantaged the child, the bigger the backpack. [JTW: Again, Any evidence that the bigger the backpack the better the disadvantaged child's academic performance?] 

When that money arrives at a school, principals have freedom to spend them as they see fit. Does the school need to pay more to snag a top-notch math teacher? Are extra hours needed to allow for intensive tutoring? Principals would be able to allocate resources accordingly; accountability systems like No Child Left Behind give them strong incentives to make good decisions. [JTW: Must de-consolidate down to the school level to do this. Abolish districts, w/ free student transferability among schools, w/ money following the child.]

What about reducing administrative waste, the primary aim of the 65 percent solution? Weighted financing handles this better, too: because principals are given full control over their budgets, they can choose whether to forgo a new coat of paint - or, better, consultants and travel expenses - in favor of an additional classroom aide.

Weighted student financing was pioneered in Edmonton, Alberta, in the 1970's and has now been tried in a handful of cities including Houston, San Francisco and Seattle. These experiments have shown considerable promise. [JTW: "Promise" is not evidence. Another "warm-and-fuzzy, feel-good" slogan.] In Edmonton, education reforms based on a weighted system helped turn the city's struggling public schools into some of Canada's finest - 80 percent of students regularly score at or above grade level on standardized tests. [JTW: Due to good SES, or good value-added by teachers/ schools correlated with $$ spent per pupil?]

Perhaps the best thing about weighted student financing is that it's a reform both liberals and conservatives can support. [JTW: Both of whom may be wrong.] Liberals should like the extra investment in needy children; conservatives should appreciate its positive effects on deregulation and school choice. That's why Democrats like John Podesta, former chief of staff to President Bill Clinton, and former Gov. Jim Hunt of North Carolina have joined Republicans like me and former Education Secretary Bill Bennett in supporting weighted financing. [JTW: All the political, education know-it-alls whose past "solutions" have failed.] When it comes to educating our children, we should all put politics aside.

Michael J. O'Neal is a freelance writer who lives here in Idaho.

He has a recent article over at Edspresso. Here’s just a taste. Read the whole thing.

Teachers' Unions as Monopolies (Michael J. O'Neal)

One can only chuckle at the bumper stickers on SUVs whose drivers look forward to the day when schools get all the money they need and the Defense Department has to hold a bake sale. Bake sale indeed. Annually, public education is a $446.3 billion enterprise. That's a whole lotta cookies.

Now, the Idaho Education Association wants taxpayers to pony up $180 million more each year for increased funding for education through a 1 percent sales tax hike. A penny here and a penny there, and soon, as the late Senator Everett Dirksen might have said, you're talking about real money.

You've gotta hand it to the teachers unions. They've made sure that when the public pie gets sliced, the profession gets its "just desserts"-and then some. In 1960, annual spending on public education nationwide was about $3,000 per student. In the years since, that amount has swollen to over $9,400 per student. Those are inflation-adjusted dollars, so spending on public education in real terms has more than tripled, with dubious results.

For years the teachers unions have sustained a PR campaign that should be the envy of corporate CEOs everywhere. Take the issue of charter schools. Charters expose the cost bloat and inefficiency of the typical school system by doing a better job for about a third less money. They do so primarily by reining in administrative costs, in contrast to school systems generally. In 1960 American public schools limped along with one administrator for every 13.6 students; by 2002 they apparently needed one for every 8.1 students.

The unions, predictably, maintain ongoing jihad against charters, wanting the public to believe they siphon money away from "real" public schools-though maybe it's the "real" schools that are siphoning money away from charters and other alternatives that would provide taxpayers and kids better results for less money. Yet in 2005 the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, donated $500,000 to a Washington State anti-charter group called Protect Our Public Schools-an Orwellian name, given that charters are public schools.

HT: Jack Wenders

From the 28 June Idaho Statesman:

Since several lawsuits stemming from the failed University Place project in Boise have been resolved, you might wonder who paid what and did it cost taxpayers anything?

In fact, taxpayers paid half a million dollars as part of an $8.3 million settlement.

The money was paid through the Office of Risk Management, which covers state agencies and employees in liability cases. The $500,000 is the maximum the state is allowed to pay out by law in any liability claim, said Kit Coffin, with the office.

The settlement is a civil matter and has nothing to do with pending federal and state criminal investigations. Neither is the settlement an admission of civil liability by any of the parties involved in the University Place lawsuit.

The state's portion was 6 percent of $8.3 million: the University of Idaho Foundation contributed $2.5 million, and insurance companies put in $5.3 million to settle the lawsuits last spring. The individual amount contributed per insurance company has not been made public as part of the settlement.

How the foundation repaid its debt:

The U of I Foundation ended up $26 million in debt over University Place. But the foundation has now repaid the debt. Here is how:

• The Idaho State Building Authority gave the foundation $6.4 million — money that was not needed in construction of the Idaho Water Center, the only surviving structure of University Place.
• Foundation property at University Place in Idaho Falls was sold to Idaho State University for $5.5 million.
• Foundation property at the corner of Myrtle Street and Broadway Avenue in Boise that was once going to be a health sciences center for Idaho State University was sold by the foundation for $3 million.
• The civil suit settlement directed $5.8 million toward the debt the foundation created when it borrowed money from U of I trust accounts for University Place development costs.
• A $7 million debt that the State Board of Education had once said the foundation owed U of I was canceled as part of the settlement.

The total: $27.7 million. The difference of about $1.7 million reflects additional interest and some legal fees.

Notice the difference between CdA and MSD. When enrollment declines in CdA, their school board cuts teaching positions—after all, you need less teachers and staff if you have less students.

MSD does just the opposite—as enrollment declines, they hire more and more people and then complain that they don’t have enough money.

From today's Idaho Statesman:

The Coeur d'Alene School Board has approved the school district's budget, cutting six regular teaching positions, two special education positions and making cuts in programs such as summer school.

Board members on Monday unanimously approved the $77 million budget, including $1.9 million in cuts.

The budget could still change, depending on fall enrollment numbers. If fewer students than expected enroll, that would reduce how much money the district gets from the state.

The budget includes a five-year plan to restore the district's reserves to the recommended amount of about 5 percent of the total budget by putting $410,000 into the reserve each year. Currently, the reserve totals less than 1 percent of the budget.

• The Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy increased its sixth- and seventh-grade enrollment this fall from 75 students in each grade to 100 in anticipation of a four-classroom expansion, and it plans to hire three new teachers by the time school begins Aug. 28.
• Sixth- and seventh-grade class sizes will increase slightly, from about 18 to around 21.

It's worth noting that the CDA Academy's current cost per student is $5778 compared to CDA regular public schools' $6751, and the Academy is entirely secondary which have higher costs than comprehensive and primary schools…

John T. Wenders
Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of Idaho
For all the facts about Idaho education go to: http://www.edexidaho.org

The Coeur d'Alene Charter Academy will have more students and staff when school resumes this fall, but it won't have the four additional classrooms that officials had planned to build this summer.

Rising construction costs pushed estimates into the $1.2 million range, far higher than the approximately $800,000 the school had planned to spend. The school's board of directors has rejected the bids, and school officials will spend the summer figuring out where to put the additional people.

"We obviously don't like the situation, but we'll do the best we can to make it work," said Glenn Mabile, business manager for the school. "It will make for a crowded building, yes."

The school increased its sixth- and seventh-grade enrollment this fall from 75 students in each grade to 100 in anticipation of the four-classroom expansion, and it plans to hire three new teachers by the time the school year begins Aug. 28.

There already aren't enough classrooms for every teacher, and the new teachers likely will be added into the classroom rotation, Mabile said.

"The space that we need for the additional students exists here in the building, but it will require a bit of creative scheduling," Mabile said. "We've got a couple of different plans that we're working on."

Sixth- and seventh-grade class sizes will increase slightly, Mabile said, from about 18 to around 21.

Board member Jeff Child said at last week's meeting that construction costs have increased by about 50 percent in the last year, pushing the cost of the additional classrooms beyond what the school is prepared to pay.

Since MSD already spends about $2,000 per student more in current costs than Idaho districts with comparable enrollment—that's about $4.5 million per year—the headline to this article should more accurately read: “MSD patrons will see increase in levy rate as district spends more on salaries and employees”.

John T. Wenders
Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of Idaho
For all the facts about Idaho education go to: http://www.edexidaho.org

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

The Moscow School District wants voters to know a request for a supplemental levy increase might be only a year or two away. "We want to be open about the potential need," said Superintendent Candis Donicht.

During the school board's Tuesday budget hearing, Donicht announced that voters likely will see an election in either spring 2007 or spring 2008.

The supplemental levy is a fixed amount that the district uses as annual revenue, she said. The district's current levy was set at $5.64 million in April 2002. Before that, it was $4.54 million in May 1995.

The district maintains an indefinite-term supplemental levy, the amount of which can be increased only through voter approval. Voters decided to implement the indefinite levy in May 1992.

Because the levy is fixed, it limits how far the taxpayers' money can be stretched. Over time, inflation increases the cost of salaries, benefits, utilities, gas and other operational needs and a fixed levy can't keep up, Donicht said.

That means the district tries to adjust the amount of the levy every four to seven years to accommodate the increase in general expenses.

"We know the pattern," Donicht said. "I felt it was only fair to alert the community."

After voters approve a levy increase, the fund balance grows. A fund balance is money the district sets aside to cover emergency costs. But four to seven years after an increase, the balance begins to drop, which is a red flag that inflation is happening.

Discussions on increasing the levy will begin at the coming board meetings, she said.

The need to consider a levy election is causing a brief hiatus in the planning the district had been doing for a facilities bond election. Donicht said the board will give the facilities committee direction this fall as to how to continue.

Just in from Daniel F. at the P&Z CUP hearing: P&Z Board of Adjustment hearing: the Board of Adjustment re-approved the exact same CUP as previously.

They said that the new information was not relevant.

From EIA:

Meanwhile, across the state line in Arizona, Governor Janet Napolitano (Democrat) reached a budget compromise with Senate President Ken Bennett and House Speaker Jim Weiers (Republicans) that included tuition tax credits and school vouchers.

 

In his response to this news, Arizona Education Association President John Wright wrote, "The Arizona Education Association opposes this budget and takes offense that it was negotiated in secrecy, voted on in the middle of the night, and that educators were not consulted about, or alerted to, the inclusion of vouchers."

Wright's anguish can best be assuaged by a 372.48 mile drive west, where his sister union embraces what he decries.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From EIA:

In case you didn't see Friday's late bulletin on Intercepts, NEA's Resolutions Committee has already put together an alternate resolution on gay marriage and adoption that would supersede the one offered by the union's Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Caucus. The new amendment would move the issue from Resolution B-8 to B-10, and insert this language:

 

"The Association also believes that these factors should not affect the legal rights and obligations of the partners in a legally-recognized domestic partnership, civil union, or marriage in regard to matters involving the other partner, such as medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption, and immigration."

 

In a communication to state affiliate leaders that notes the e-mail protests of the American Family Association, NEA President Reg Weaver wrote: "While I understand that the e-mails and phone calls you are receiving are generating concern, we must not allow the tactics and manipulations of these divisive groups to derail our process. NEA has no position on same-sex marriages, and leadership is not seeking to establish such a position."

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

Some comments on the below article (not a bad reporting job):

1. “The campaign recently released its own grading system for Idaho schools, with only teacher pay and effort from educators and parents receiving a grade above F.”

Gee, I thought that we measured school quality by (value added) to student performance. In short we measure output not inputs. As John Goedde correctly points out, does that IEA have any evidence, from either Idaho, the USA or the plant, that more spending produces better student performance? If, so the author will win a Nobel Prize, as no one else has.

2. “[McLean] added that Idaho ranks fifth in the U.S. in per pupil spending.”

What she forgot to mention is that by having the fifth LOWEST cost per pupil, Idaho ranks as the fifth most productive public school system in the US. Hooray, let's got for #!, which for 20 years has been Utah.

3. “’As near as I can tell, there is no study that says if we spend more money our kids are going to learn more,’ Goedde said.”

Could you imagine the previous Chair of the the Senate Education Committee saying something like this? Kudos to John Goedde for getting this right. Also, can you imagine anyone having the testicular fortitude to point out that the charter schools are doing a better job at for less cost per pupil that the regular public schools? See attached.

John T. Wenders
Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of Idaho
For all the facts about Idaho education go to: http://www.edexidaho.org

From the 22 June 2006 WSJ (Page A17).

When the Arizona legislature concludes its 2006 session in a few days, it will set a record for school-choice legislation by enacting four new or expanded programs allowing disadvantaged children to attend private schools. Even more remarkable: The programs were enacted in a state with a Democratic governor.

Yet Arizona is not an aberration. Already in 2006, a new Iowa corporate scholarship tax credit bill was signed into law by Gov. Tom Vilsack; and in Wisconsin, Gov. Jim Doyle signed a bill increasing the Milwaukee voucher program by 50%. Gov. Ed Rendell may expand Pennsylvania's corporate scholarship tax credit program, as he did last year. Messrs. Vilsack, Doyle and Rendell are all Democrats.

And last year, hell froze over: Sen. Ted Kennedy endorsed the inclusion of private schools in a rescue effort for over 300,000 children displaced from their schools by Hurricane Katrina. As a result, tens of thousands of kids are attending private schools using federal funds, amounting to the largest (albeit temporary) voucher program ever enacted. Before that, a voucher program for the District of Columbia was established with support from Democratic Mayor Anthony Williams and Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Joseph Lieberman.

HT: Jack Wenders

Via Marv O:

Slowly and not surely -- actually, inch by inch, against dug-in opposition -- school choice is coming to the United States.

Clint Bolick summarizes here some state-by-state initiatives, with a particular look at the new legislation in Arizona.

See the entire article over at Opinion Journal.

From Education Week’s “Essential Guide to Graduation Policy and Rates”.

Check out the Idaho Graduate Rate.

Download here: http://www.edweek.org/media/ew/dc/2006/id_SGB06.pdf

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

U. S. Sen. Larry Craig today announced the launch of a scholarship program at the University of Idaho that will help veterans who have been severely or permanently wounded as a result of military service since Sept. 11, 2001.

The comprehensive scholarship also is available to spouses of wounded veterans.

“The educational benefits for our returning GIs under the Montgomery GI bill are substantial but not complete,” Craig said today in a telephone interview from Washington, D.C. “This really fills in all of the missing pieces.”

“It says we care, we care a great deal about you and your future. We also thank you for the service you’ve provided to our country,” said Craig, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee and a UI alumnus.

Operation Education Scholarship is the first program of its kind in the nation.

Eligible veterans and/or their spouses will be able to receive financial support and resources in multiple areas including tuition, fees, books, on-campus housing, transportation, medical assistance, child care, adaptive equipment, tutoring and mentoring, and job placement and internship assistance.

The exact size of the scholarship will vary by student.

The UI will begin accepting applications July 1 and the university expects the first recipients to arrive this fall. The scholarship is available to veterans nationwide from all branches of the military, though preference may be given to Idaho residents. The university has not placed a cap on the number of scholarships available.

“It makes me very proud that the University of Idaho has stepped forward and sensed a responsibility and a need,” Craig said.

Funding comes from the Helping Our Heroes Foundation, an organization that provides funding, services and volunteers to veterans wounded in operations in Iraq or Afghanistan. The foundation pledged initial funding and continued support of the Idaho program. Additional money will come from UI alumni and supporters, and from individuals, corporations and foundations.

The university’s first lady, Karen White, will chair the program, which began just a few months ago.

“Many members of the U.S. armed forces have sustained life-changing injuries that seem to limit their options when their time of service is complete,” White said in a prepared statement. “We are providing an avenue for them to pursue an education that will prepare them for a new life, as well as career opportunities.”

White and others behind the program decided to include the opportunities for veterans’ spouses as a way to acknowledge the needs of each family and to open a wider range of options as the veterans re-enter civilian life.

The announcement, which took place today in Washington, D.C., brought out many supporters including R. James Nicholson, Secretary of Veterans Affairs; Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, the former governor of Idaho and also a UI alumnus; and members of the Idaho Congressional delegation, Sen. Mike Crapo, Rep. C. L. “Butch” Otter, and Rep. Mike Simpson.

UI President Tim White and student body president Humberto M. Cerrillo II also attended.

“The next step is the leadership role that the University of Idaho is playing,” Craig said.

The UI’s program is designed to be a blueprint for use by other higher-education institutions, Karen White said in a prepared statement. Its goal is to create interest and stimulate similar initiatives at colleges and universities across the country.

“It’s Idaho stepping forward and saying we see a need and we’re willing to step out into the forefront of this need, not only at home for Idahoans, but we think it ought to happen elsewhere in the country,” Craig said.

* For more information or to obtain an application, veterans should contact John Sawyer at the University of Idaho at (208) 885-7979 or by e-mail at johns@uidaho.edu. Gifts may be made in support of Operation Education by calling the University of Idaho at (208) 885-7069 or (866) 671-7041, or online at www.uidaho.edu/givetoidaho.

From today's Idaho Statesman: 

Teen Challenge Christian Academy's summer school will start July 6.

The high school in Northwest Boise will provide classes this summer for students who have subjects to make up or for those who want to get ahead.

The summer school is part of a new trend at Teen Challenge, which operates under the umbrella of Assemblies of God churches.

For a number of years the school wasn't accredited, so students didn't automatically get their credits transferred to regular public schools.

But beginning this year, the school received accreditation from the Northwest Association of Accredited Schools, the accrediting agency for schools throughout the region.

Now, Teen Challenge's credits transfer to other local schools and its diploma is recognized by Idaho colleges and universities.

Teen Challenge uses a Christianity-based curriculum.

The following story of interest was in today's Spokesman Review (subscription required):

Idaho still spends just under 1 percent of its state budget on its two community colleges, a percentage that hasn't changed in 22 years – even as the percentages going to public schools and four-year colleges and universities have dropped.

"I think they have a good message," said state Sen. John Goedde, R-Coeur d'Alene, who's co-chairing an interim legislative committee looking into expanding community college services statewide.

Leaders of Idaho's two community colleges often frame their budget pitches to lawmakers around the good deal they offer – education for lots of students, tailored to communities, at low cost. But state education officials are warning that the existing state money pie for community colleges can't just be split up further. If the state adds more colleges, it'll need to put in more money.

By Brad Edmonds over at Lew Rockwell’s website.

Note: Brad is a “homeschool is the only school” kind of guy. But he raises some disturbing points here.

There are well-known reasons to home school:  to provide a better education in fewer years; keep your child safe from bullies and pushers; and inculcate your own religion and values rather than the State’s permissive pansexuality, atheism, and hatred of competing value systems.  But there is another compelling reason that doesn’t get enough airplay:  Home schooling protects your children from criminal public education employees.

Many cases of teacher sexual abuse of students have made headlines lately, due to the perpetrators’ attractiveness and/or brazenness (one recent convict resumed contact with her still-underage victim immediately upon release from jail).  In most of the recent high-profile cases, the teacher was female, and the victim male.  This particular combination seems to lead to astounding frequencies of crimes, with some teachers having sex with particular students a dozen times in a week.

I know that news reports are case studies, proving nothing, so here are some numbers:  It is estimated that 4.5 million children, or one in every ten, sometime between K and 12 endures some kind of improper sexual conduct at the hands of a government school employee, ranging from off-color jokes to violent rape (recently, one male teacher took a high school student into the woods and tried to kill her, presumably to prevent disclosure of an ongoing sexual relationship).

While defining sexual abuse too widely (jokes count the same as rapes in some statistical compilations) may inflate the numbers, teacher sexual abuse is enough of a problem that there is an extensive government literature covering it.  For example, sexual abuse of the mentally retarded by government educators is common enough to have its own literature. 

I recommend reading the entire article.

In another case of women teachers raping students, Kristi Dance Oakes–a former science teacher in Sevierville, Tennessee–has pleaded guilty to one charge of child rape, for performing oral sex on a 16-year-old student.

From EIA:

The National Education Association's gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender (GLBT) controversies seem to run on five-year cycles, so it should not come as a surprise that this year's NEA Representative Assembly will face yet another uncomfortable debate on a GLBT issue.

This time around it is an amendment to Resolution B-8, Diversity. The resolution currently calls for "appreciation and acceptance of the various qualities that pertain to people as individuals and as members of diverse populations." The diverse populations are noted by 17 categories, including race, sexual orientation, gender identification, size, marital status, and geographic location. The proposed amendment, sponsored by the union's GLBT Caucus, adds the following language as a new fourth paragraph:

"The Association believes that legal rights and responsibilities with regard to medical decisions, taxes, inheritance, adoption, legal immigration, domestic partnerships, and civil unions and/or marriage belong to all of these diverse groups and individuals."

Such resolutions have a long and storied history. At the 1995 convention, delegates added language expressing support for a lesbian and gay history month, only to delete the language the following year amid membership losses in southern states, replacing it with generic encouragement to participate in "cultural and heritage celebrations and/or history months."

In 2001, the GLBT Caucus offered a resolution that would have put NEA in a position of support for GLBT curricula in public schools. This prompted a large conservative Christian protest outside the Los Angeles Convention Center. The resolution was withdrawn, replaced by the establishment of a task force to study the issue. In 2002, the NEA Special Committee on Sexual Orientation delivered its report, which recommended no change in NEA's resolutions.

GLBT issues tie the union into knots of political correctness, as delegates try to burnish their liberal credentials, defy religious conservatives, and protect their membership numbers all at the same time.

It has been, and continues to be, EIA's long-held position that NEA resolutions on such issues have no practical meaning. Should the amendment pass, teachers will not suddenly start promoting gay marriage and adoption in the classroom. The union itself will not suddenly increase support for such measures beyond what it already does. {DMC: this is a typical liberal “form over substance” motion.} 

NEA is a liberal-left organization run by liberal-left people. It will support a liberal-left agenda. The resolutions debates are often an exercise in semantics to disguise this fact. Whatever the outcome of this debate, I will bet my meager reputation that upwards of three-quarters of NEA convention delegates support gay marriage and adoption.

Just as with abortion, GLBT issues create a strange commonality of purpose between NEA's most militant activists and its most strident opponents. They both want the union to express its positions on controversial social issues in no uncertain terms. They will not get their wish.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

How come similar Idaho school districts produce comparable education at a far less cost than others? To ask this question invites the observation that some schools districts are much more efficient. Current cost per student (04/05):

• Preston = $5,271;
• Shelley = $5,454;
• Kuna = $5,562;
• Blaine = $12,425;
• Lapwai = $12,282;
• Grangeville = $10,874.
• Charter average = $5,601;
• Regular average = $6,997.

Why does the entire state of Utah produce comparable education at far less ($5,086 in 03/04) per student cost than Idaho? Why not find out and imitate Utah?

Why not build some incentives into Idaho's school funding to encourage more efficient school management?

Idaho should abandon its "raise all the money you can and spend all you raise" approach to school spending.

Here's a small step in the right direction.

The idea of replacing the School M and O property tax levy with a sales tax has some possibilities for introducing some efficiency changing reforms too. Of course, if this replacement idea gets any momentum, the school will argue for a sales tax increase that more than compensates for the loss of M and O levies, the producing a net increase in school spending---"for the children"--of course. That will be their price for going along with the replacement.

On the other hand, there are clearly some schools that are overspending relative to other schools of comparable enrollment. Moscow comes to mind, which spends at least $1500-$2000 more per pupil than its comparable (in enrollment) schools. Thus suggests that the sales tax replacement to O and M for such schools be capped as a way of encouraging better operating management of such schools.

For openers, I propose that replacement sales tax revenues for any individual school district be capped at 1.x times what the average of its 8 comparable districts per student current (Comparable districts defined as those with four higher and four lower in per student current spending).

Thus, if a district were presently getting, say, $1 m from its current O and M levy, and its comparables got $750,000 in O and M levies, that district would be limited to a sales tax reimbursement of 1.x times its comparables', or 1. times $750,000, which would equal $825,000 when x were 1, not $1m. X would have to be threshed out politically, but the lower the better.

If local taxpayers really wanted their district's excess spending, Trustees could always go to a supplemental levy on which taxpayers vote. Supplemental levies should also be made two-thirds majority for passage, to offset the inherent pro-yes bias resulting school employees voting for their own self-interest.

John T. Wenders
Professor of Economics, Emeritus, University of Idaho
For all the facts about Idaho education go to: http://www.edexidaho.org

A letter to the editor from Donald J. Boudreaux, Chair of the Department of Economics, George Mason University:

 29 August 2005

Editor, The Christian Science Monitor

Dear Editor:

You rightly demand that each school's performance be measured and that it receive feedback "to identify and fix problems" ("Defending 'No Child Left Behind'," Aug. 29). But the No Child Left Behind Act won't achieve this outcome.

One problem is that government standard setting is inevitably politicized. A related problem is that no one set of standards is appropriate. Some parents, for example, want their kids to learn 'intelligent design' while others prefer no mention of the supernatural in their children's science classrooms. Yet another problem is that NCLB further centralizes decisions with beltway bureaucrats, who are too far from each school's and each family's situation to know what's appropriate in specific cases.

Only by separating school and state will schools respond to parents rather than to political lobbies - and only then will schools excel at educating children.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Department of Economics
George Mason University

What are your thoughts about the government schools making special allowances for Muslim students’ religious needs?

Have we learned nothing from the experiences in France?

David? Daniel?

From the Associated Press:

Seattle school officials are finding ways to accommodate the needs of a growing Muslim student population without compromising the separation of church and state.

Federal and state law prohibit teacher-led prayers in public schools, as well as student-led prayers at school events or religious programs. But students have a legal right to pray on their own in private or in groups.

The challenge comes in allowing students to pray without disrupting class.

In Islam, prayer five times per day is obligatory. Adherents must face in the direction of Mecca and engage in a series of ritual movements. One of the five daily prayers must occur around midday, and on Fridays, the Muslim holy day, the midday prayer is supposed to occur in a mosque.

Seattle School District guidelines give school administrators the responsibility of deciding how to handle Muslim prayer. The district's Office of Equity and Race Relations has established a committee to examine the needs of Muslim students, and the ways the district can address them.

Students at Nathan Hale High School have permission to drive to Idriss Mosque about a mile away for Friday afternoon prayers, a trip that requires them to miss many of their afternoon classes.

Check out the article in today’s Daily News (subscription required) about the “Troops to Teachers” program.

Here’s the link from the U.S. Department of Education: http://www.ed.gov/programs/troops/index.html

This is an excellent program.

Boise State University continues to add graduate programs. These will only continue to affect the enrollment at the University of Idaho.

From today's Idaho Statesman:

Boise State University will start two new master's programs in fall. The State Board of Education on Thursday approved programs in education and hydrology.

The education program will prepare students to become school principals. The hydrology program looks at how water moves through stream channels, glaciers or underground, and how water interacts with plants and other living systems or with rocks and sediments. The program had been part of a master's degree in geology.

Seventy master's-degree programs are now offered at Boise State, including the two programs approved Thursday.

Forwarded from Jack Wenders:

The National Center for Education Statistics doesn't always do right by its annual ''Condition of Education'' report (COE), which has sometimes been humdrum and sometimes dizzy from pro-administration spin. But this year Education Statistics commissioner Mark Schneider and his team have produced an uncommonly interesting and, at almost 400 pages, sizable report. It differs from the group's facts-only ''Digest of Education Statistics'' in that COE points to trends, patterns, and notable changes, thus making it informative, not just informational.

Yes, its value is diminished by the nation's archaic ed statistics apparatus. Even the latest numbers, for example, are nearly always a year or two old (the finance data are typically 3 years old). Moreover, important data is simply unavailable (e.g., the cost and value of teacher benefits); the dropout and graduation definitions remain murky; and Congressional constraints on what can be asked of kids and parents means some information cannot be gathered.

Still, there's much here of value, both for K-12 and higher education, beginning with an excellent (if depressing) summary of comparative international data on academic achievement, which generally show U.S. students reading about as well as their counterparts in other countries but faltering by age 15 in both math and science. (In 4th grade, young Americans do OK across the board.)

These items in the 2006 COE caught my eye:

• Despite much recent ferment about early childhood education, participation in pre-K programs seems to have plateaued over the past 15 years at 50 to 60 percent of 3- through 5-year-olds and remains slightly lower for poor children.
• Total pre-K--12 enrollments are rising slowly, due both to increasing birthrates and to immigration, but it's lumpy across grades and regions. Over the next five years, for example, high school rolls will shrink a bit while the pre-K--8 ranks will grow. And regional differences are significant, with the Northeast and Midwest continuing to lose pupils while the South and West add them. (Surely that helps to explain why battles over things such as charter school caps are so much bloodier in New York, Ohio, and Michigan than in Colorado, Florida, and California, where conventional schools can lose students to charters and still not face declining enrollment overall.)
• Private schools cling to about a 10 percent ''market share'' as they have for several decades, but the Catholic portion of that continues to shrink (from 55 percent in 1990 to 46 percent in 2004), offset by growth in other religious and secular schools.
• One in five American school children is now Hispanic, but this, too, is really lumpy: less than 7 percent in the Midwest versus 39 percent in the West. Meanwhile, black enrollments are essentially stable at 16 percent. The Hispanic share of K-12 enrollments first exceeded the black share in 2001.
• Seventy percent of black 4th graders are poor (eligible for free/reduced lunch)--and 72 percent of black kids are enrolled in schools where most pupils are poor. For Hispanic 4th graders, both numbers are 73 percent.
• The share of 5- through 17-year-olds who speak a language other than English at home rose steadily from 1979 to 2000, but over the past few years the number seems to have stabilized at 18 to19 percent.
• The number of women enrolled in undergraduate colleges surpassed the number of men for the first time in 1978, and that gap keeps widening. In 2004, colleges had four women students for every three men. In graduate school, it's nearly 3 to 2, and 2005 was the first year that women outnumbered men in professional schools.
• Young Americans continue to have overly optimistic notions of how far they will go in formal education. In 2004, more than two-thirds of 12th graders expected to earn a bachelor's degree or more. (Indeed, more expected to complete graduate/professional school than to stop after undergraduate training.) This included 67 percent of black and 57 percent of Hispanic 12th graders. While immediate college matriculation rates are almost that high (69 percent for white high school grads, 63 percent for blacks, 62 percent for Hispanics), college completion rates are far lower: in 2005, only 29 percent of the 25- through 29-year-old population had bachelor's degrees or higher. Only 18 percent of blacks and 11 percent of Hispanics in that age group held such diplomas. (Note, though, that the latter figures are percentages of the entire age cohort, not of high school graduates.)
• A huge fraction of U.S. school children now attend ''schools of choice'': more than half of K-12 parents reported in 2003 that they had the ''opportunity'' to send their kids to a ''chosen public school.'' It appears that 15 percent actually sent them to a ''chosen'' public school (including charter schools), to which must be added the 10 to 11 percent in private schools, the 1 to 2 percent who are home schooled, and what seems to be 24 percent who moved into their current neighborhood because of the schools. Though there is some duplication in those numbers, it looks to me like a third to a half of U.S. schoolchildren's families are exercising school choice of some sort.
• Class-size data are elusive but it's easy to calculate the student/teacher ratio in U.S. public schools, which has been below 17 to 1 since 1998. Even allowing for special ed, AP physics, and 4th year language classes with 5 kids in them, one may fairly ask why a country with fewer than 17 kids per public-school teacher remains obsessed with class-size reduction. (When I was in fifth grade, the national ratio was about 27:1.)
• Total expenditures per pupil in U.S. public schools reached $9,630 in 2003--up 23 percent in constant dollars over the previous 7 years. At 17 kids per teacher, that translates to almost $164,000 per teacher. Why, then, are teachers not terribly well paid? Because (using the NCES categories) the U.S. spends barely half of its school dollars on ''instruction.''

And that's just the tip of the COE iceberg. You really should peruse it for yourself. You can find it here.

by Chester E. Finn, Jr.

From EIA:

The union-funded Economic Policy Institute has a simple solution to win higher wages for Wal-Mart employees. All the corporate giant has to do is cut its profit margin from 3.6% to 2.9%!

This could catch on. Now if unions would only cut their dues 50% it would mean hundreds of extra dollars in the paychecks of wage-earners -- dollars that would otherwise go to funding the Economic Policy Institute's pointless studies.

Meanwhile, we wait patiently for the national union campaign to boycott non-union Target Stores (4.7% profit margin). "A survey by the UFCW found that starting wages are similar in Targets and Wal-Marts -- possibly higher overall at Wal-Marts – and that Target benefits packages are often harder to qualify for and less comprehensive," reported CorpWatch last April.

So why not target Target? Maybe it's because Target gave only $181,000 to Republicans while Wal-Mart gave $1,355,000 (source: BuyBlue.org).

From The Education Intelligence Agency