Moscow Education (Idaho)

"If the Democrats win, it will be a Forrest Gump victory - essentially things swirled around them over which they had very little control and they ended up scoring touchdowns, designing happy signs, and making money on shrimp."

- Political Pollster John Zogby

From the University of Idaho’s Argonaut. Not good news for our university.

The University of Idaho may see more open spaces and fewer open minds if Northwest trends in decreasing enrollment continue.
Enrollment has decreased across the state and the Northwest this year, with UI’s enrollment dropping 5.9 percent.

According to UI Provost Doug Baker, enrollment has decreased 7.7 percent during the past two years. Last year, UI enrollment decreased 2 percent despite a record-high freshman class. Baker said almost three quarters of the decrease this year was due to retention problems.

Aside from increasing empty parking spaces, enrollment drops have a sharp fiscal impact on the university. According to Baker, for every 1 percent decrease in enrollment, the university loses $500,000, bringing the total loss of revenue to $2.95 million.

I encourage you to read the entire article over at the Argonaut. The writer makes another excellent point: UI is the economic controlling factor in Latah County.

Decreased enrollment at UI also impacts the Moscow community at large.

According to a report presented to the Moscow City Council by UI professor of economics Jon Miller, research economist and instructor Steven Peterson and EMSI senior economist Hank Robison, UI dominates Moscow’s economic base. The report states, “UI accounts for 52.6 percent of all jobs (9,383) and 53.9 percent of all earnings ($265 million) in Moscow.”

The report showed how decreases at UI are consistent with the slow and decelerating growth in Moscow. In conclusion, the report noted that in order for UI to have a positive effect on prosperity by 2010 (the date of the next United States Census), a “turnaround will have to occur.”

Good luck getting those goals past the Moscow City Council. They would rather have Moscow turn into Bovill sans the university.

It has been estimated that 250,000 teachers are working without proper preparation in course content or without any kind of training in how two teach...only 36 percent of teachers...felt they were 'very well prepared' to meet the current increased standards in grammar and high schools." "Officials give poor marks to teachers," p. A1, The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, PA, January 10, 2000

From David W. Kirkpatrick, Senior Fellow at the Freedom Foundation.

Read this carefully. You’ll see immediately why education reforms will never happen in the US. We have to do something completely different to overhaul the system.

One requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act is that all teachers be "highly qualified." The law specifies that each teacher have a bachelor's degree, state certification and a "demonstrated knowledge" in the core subject they teach. This requirement was to be met within four years.

In the enthusiasm over passage of the Act by Congress in December of 2001 and its signing into law by President George W. Bush in January 2002, there seemed to be little recognition that this wouldn't happen.

And it hasn't. As of June 30, 2006, beyond the four year deadline, not one state met that requirement.

The requirement for each teacher to have a bachelor's degree could be satisfied by having a B.S. in Education (now, now, B.S. means Bachelor of Science, not what you think). A great many of the nation's 3,000,000 teachers, having majored in education, have such a degree. Since it can be obtained without a strong academic major or minor it doesn't result in'highly qualified" teachers. The late Al Shanker, longtime president of the American Federation of Teachers was cited as saying a quarter of all classroom teachers were not competent to teach. That's 750,000 teachers!

Next is the issue of certification. Again, according to Shanker, education students had SAT scores 40 points below the national average of all college students. They would be even further below the scores of students in other professional majors. Shanker added that the lower ability of education majors is further complicated as superintendents were inclined to hire the worst of newly graduated teachers because the brighter ones were more likely to cause trouble. Brighter ones, as some studies have indicated, are also more likely to leave the classroom after only a few years. They have both a lower toleration for the classroom environment coupled and more opportunities to move elsewhere.

Even for better student teachers, countless studies for decades have concluded that the teacher certification process is essentially useless. A few years ago Eric Hanushek, then of the University of Rochester, analyzed 113 studies on student performance and found no relationship between a teacher's educational background and the achievement of the teacher's students. Sam Peavey, professor emeritus of the School of Education at the University of Illinois has said 50 years of research finds "no significant correlation between the requirements for teacher certification and the quality of student achievement."

These results are not just theoretical. A 2005 report said 68% of eighth graders are taught math by teachers with no degree or certificate in the field. Thirty-three percent of grades 5-9 students are taught physical science by teachers with no relevant qualifications.

If the aim is to have "highly qualified" classroom teachers, requiring teacher certification won't do it. Further, if certification is a valid requirement then the education professors who prepare student teachers to obtain certification are themselves not qualified because they are not required to be certified. Also, very few homeschool teachers are certified, yet their students tend to rank in the 85th percentile in achievement.

University of Missouri's Michael Podgursky notes that Missouri issues one license to practice medicine, law, dentistry, accounting, nursing and veterinary medicine but has 781 valid education certification codes. That's ridiculous. Podgursky adds that Missouri is not unique. In Kentucky, the pass rate on a verbal ability test teachers is the 20th percentile. Yet verbal ability is one teacher attribute known to make a difference.

As for "demonstrated knowledge," President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Education, Richard Riley, said there are too few "talented, dedicated" teachers. Current president George W. Bush's administration has issued a study saying many of the best candidates don't enter teaching because of the "useless education courses" they would have to take, the same courses the NCLB Act accepts for certification.

Finally, many of today's 3,000,000 classroom teachers will still be there when NCLB expires. Given tenure laws, union contracts, and prohibitions against ex post facto or retroactive laws, updating the current teaching staff is virtually impossible. Given the inadequacy of teacher preparation programs, and the resistance of the establishment to any meaningful change improving the future quality of teachers may be equally unlikely.

In brief, what's supposed to happen, won't.

I’m really stumped about this entire conversation.

Why must you “teach WASL math” in order to pass the WASL? Why not just teach math — thoroughly, comprehensively, and excellently, and then watch the students blow the WASL out of the water?

Isn’t the WASL simply identifying areas where the students either have not been taught or where they have not learned?

It’s similar to arguing that high schools shouldn’t teach to the SAT/ACT. That’s true. Those are a slice/snapshot of academic studies. But if the kids learn algebra, then they should do well on the algebra portion of the standardized tests.

The following article ran in today's Lewiston Tribune (subscription required).

With high school graduation on the line for nearly half of Washington state's juniors who failed last spring's state math exam, superintendents are worried about helping students reach the bar.

About 51 percent of last year's 10th-graders passed the math portion of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning. They are the first class required to pass all portions of the test in order to graduate in 2008. [DMC: Half of Washington’s kids cannot pass the math portion to graduate. The educrat’s solution: either do away with the WASL or postpone (for ever?) it’s being implemented.]

Washington school superintendents, along with state education board officials, teachers, parents and others convened in the Seattle area Friday to address the issue.

State schools Superintendent Terry Bergesen has said she does not favor pushing back the deadline for the mathematics graduation requirement, although other groups seem supportive of such a move.

Local school officials wonder whether the whole way of teaching math needs to be overhauled.

"I think there was a tendency in the past to say, 'We're above the state average -- it's all good,' " said Pullman Superintendent Paul Sturm.

"Now we're talking about high stakes for individual kids. It's not about the system anymore -- it's about the kids.
…
In this area, 74.7 percent of Pullman 10th-graders passed the math exam. In the Asotin-Anatone School District 67.5 percent of 10th-graders passed the test; in Clarkston it was 38.5 percent; in Pomeroy 50 percent, in Palouse 80 percent, in Garfield 70 percent, in Colton 88 percent and in Colfax 60.8 percent.

Students who failed the test now have 20 months to try again to receive their high school diploma. A group of superintendents in the Snohomish area put together a plan to help districts achieve goals that include developing intervention plans, aligning standards and materials and improving professional development.

From MSNBC:

Officials locked down a Florida elementary school after two people reportedly fired shots at each other and fled the scene, WTVJ-TV reported Thursday.

The two suspects were on school grounds when the shooting took place, authorities told the NBC News affiliate.

Police closed off roads in the area as they look for the suspects.

Shots were heard shortly before 11 a.m. near Christina M. Eve Elementary School, said John Schuster, a school district spokesman for Miami Dade County Public Schools.

Schuster said there was no indication the suspects were students.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The following article ran in today's Lewiston Tribune (subscription required).

For the second time this year Idaho officials are questioning the legitimacy of a three-year-old online public charter school that serves 1,200 home-schooled students throughout the state.

Earlier this month the Idaho Charter School Commission denied a request from the Idaho Distance Education Academy, based at Bovill, to transfer jurisdictional authority from the Whitepine School District to the commission.

In a unanimous vote commissioners said the online public charter school assists parents who homeschool their children, but does not provide any direct educational contact between certified teachers and students.

"The pivot point ... is whether I-DEA is a school -- virtual or otherwise -- if the parent does the instruction and assessment," commission Chairman Jim Hammond said. His comments were made during a hearing Oct. 5 in Boise, which was tape recorded. [DMC: What does that statement say about all our homeschooling families?]

Another commission member who was not identified on the tape said the way I-DEA is structured violates the No Child Left Behind Act, which requires teachers be qualified in the subjects they teach.

In March, state schools Superintendent Marilyn Howard turned down a $341,000 transportation request from I-DEA after an opinion by Deputy Attorney General William A. Von Tagen said the school most likely would not meet a court definition of a public virtual school.

Von Tagen also based his opinion on the fact that parents -- not certified teachers -- are the primary instructors of their students.

In refusing the school's transportation request, Howard questioned whether Idaho taxpayers should be supporting an entity that is not a legal public school.

Another left-handed attack on homeschoolers.

The following cracked me up, so I decided to take a picture of it and post it.

Waiting to pickup kids after school: six mini-vans in a row and two more waiting to leave.

Only at Logos School.

Last night’s debate turned to homosexual activism in the government schools. From the Associated Press:

When the candidates were given the opportunity to question each other, Luna quizzed Jones about not backing HJR 2, the constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would ban same-sex marriage, civil unions or domestic partnerships.

Jones called that a "personal issue for me," and added, "It's not something we're dealing with in our public schools." [DMC: Huh? You have got to be kidding me!]

But Luna disagreed. "I don't think the superintendent of public instruction can operate in a vacuum," he said.

"There is a direct connection between strong traditional families and the success that we have in our schools. … I think it's important to know, as somebody who is going to have such influence in our schools and be the spokesperson for our schools, to know that that person would always defend the traditional family and the children that are in it."

Jones responded, "We have single-parent families, we have all kinds of families in Idaho, and we need to support all families. And I'm offended that you think I don't support traditional families because that's not even remotely correct."

She noted that she's been married for 33 years "to an absolutely wonderful man" and has three daughters and grandchildren.

"The state superintendent has to be accepting and open to all the children in the state, to all the families that they serve, and … make sure that we're not being judgmental and we're not being biased in the way we approach education in this state," Jones said.

Luna warned that the superintendent will have to deal with the same-sex marriage issue because "we've always had attempts by liberal gay rights activist groups to get into our high schools and form clubs that the parents objected to, and we also have groups like Planned Parenthood, who are also working to defeat the marriage amendment, that are always trying to get access into our schools so that they can give our daughters abortion counseling without our consent.

"I think the superintendent has to be aware of all of these issues that could come into our schools and take away parents' rights," Luna said.

Jones said issues like whether student clubs are formed or whether organizations come to schools are local issues, made locally.

"It shouldn't be from the state level or the state superintendent's level," she said.

From the Associated Press:

Tom Luna, the Republican candidate for state superintendent of schools, called Wednesday for separate charter elementary schools for children who are struggling to learn English.

"In my district in Nampa, we have 14 elementary schools – every one of them struggles with non-English-speaking students," Luna said during a live televised debate. "Imagine if we had one school – a school of choice so nobody was forced to go there – but just one school would have the best and brightest teachers in language acquisition. We could bring the students to that school, get 'em up to grade level in English and then transition them back into the traditional school."

Democratic candidate Jana Jones strongly denounced the idea as "segregation," as the two faced off in the "Idaho Debates," sponsored by the League of Women Voters and the Idaho Press Club and broadcast live on Idaho Public Television.

It was one of many disagreements – including a protracted argument on the relevance of an anti-gay marriage amendment to the job of the state's top school official – between the two candidates.

"We learned a long time ago that segregating kids based on disability or limited English proficiency, even if the parents may want to choose or not to choose to go there, that that is not in the best interest of children," Jones declared. "We should never propose or promote that that is what we want for our kids."

Instead, every school should excel and meet its students' needs, she said.

Luna seized on her response. "That's wrong," he said. "That puts the bureaucracy and the bureaucrat at a higher level in deciding what's best for a child than it does the parent, and we can never have a successful public education system that meets the needs of every child as long as we have an attitude that the bureaucracy knows what's best."

Jones, who holds a doctorate in education, is the current chief deputy superintendent of schools.

Wednesday’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News had two fun (and contrasting) articles. One was the Town Crier article by Elyse Cregar (a Pullman Librarian); the other an article on the talk given at WSU by Norman Augustine, member of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and former CEO and chair of Lockheed Martin.

Compare and contrast the positions. Listen to Augustine’s take on matters:

If appropriate measures are not taken to bring further attention to these subjects in the K-12 years, students will be unable to compete with their counterparts in countries like China, India and Russia, Augustine said.
…
Augustine remains optimistic about the potential for the United States to change its education standards in math and science. He related the situation back to his family to indicate that the potential is there, but it needs to be fostered and maintained carefully.

Here’s Cregar in her own words:

I was quite disturbed to read and recognize the impacts of corporate values on our children as they seep into our schools. We can already see it happening: competition in test scores (how is the other student, town, state, country performing?); possible take-over of schools that don’t meet the test standards; monopoly and top-down control of school policy by the federal government.

Is your child inspired by the idea that he “must” someday compete globally? Are you? Our silence as parents, grandparents, neighbors and taxpayers is being understood as our approval of or even agreement with such government tactics. Alfie Kohn, author, speaker and educator wrote, “When test scores go up, we should worry, because of how poor a measure they are of what matters, and what you typically sacrifice in a desperate effort to raise scores.”

As I’ve said before, if the schools had policed themselves and weren’t routinely graduating kids who cannot read their own diplomas (and who have to take a year of college math/English classes before they can handle Freshman classes), none of this would have occurred.

But I’ve repeated the submarine mantra here before: you get what you inspect not what you expect. We won’t have world-class education if we’re afraid to raise the bar, admit that not everyone is going to pass the high standards, and live with the results.

From the Associated Press:

MOSCOW, Idaho – To save money, the University of Idaho is cutting back health and life insurance benefits for retirees.

Tim White, the university's president, said increased costs and a change in accounting methods will, without the cuts, cost the school $222 million.

"To put that number into context, that is 70 percent of our total annual operating budget," White told retirees at a Monday meeting, the Lewiston Tribune reported.

The school is putting in a four-tiered system that mostly keeps intact coverage for current retirees and those near retirement but charges more.

Newer employees in the bottom three tiers will also pay more for coverage and will have to work longer to be eligible to receive benefits.

White said those changes will reduce the $222 million cost to $99 million.

WSU is having a seminar today by Norman Augustine, Retired chairman and CEO Lockheed Martin Corp.

I cannot attend. But if anyone does and would be willing to email me some thoughts from the content of his talk, I’d enjoy hearing what he has to say.

My bottom line: America will never be able to compete globally until the systemic problems that have crept into government education are removed. And the teachers unions will not allow that to happen.

"The recent firestorm surrounding the Human Rights Committee's decision to host an extremist pro-Palestinian group's meeting at UTLA headquarters has taken on global proportions. We have received hundreds of emails and phone calls overwhelmingly opposed to this meeting
…
On October 13, I sat in on a meeting of the Human Rights Committee. At that meeting an overwhelming majority of its members indicated that they understood the damage done to our organization and agreed to take steps to make course corrections in the direction the committee is going
….
They agreed to shut down their website and send no further messages except to committee members internally. They further agreed to post a message on the website indicating that the Human Rights Committee will go through a month-long (or longer if necessary) process of self-evaluation concerning the committee's core beliefs and to chart a different course for their work."
—United Teachers Los Angeles President A. J. Duffy.

That works on the PR and marketing-side. What about the root issue?

From EIA:

EIA highly recommends the new report by the National Charter School Research Project titled The Future of Charter Schools and Teachers Unions. Authored by Paul T. Hill, Lydia Rainey, and Andrew J. Rotherham, the report summarizes the conclusions of a symposium held last May that included various luminaries from both the charter school and union worlds. Judging solely by the report, there were some fireworks.

 

The symposium provided an excellent examination of the divide between the two camps, how each judges the other by their most extreme opponents, and how each believes the other is misguided.

 

And, as is the norm for this type of symposium, the two sides cited the need to find some common ground, and in some cases even found some.

 

But so what? We shouldn't be surprised that the discussion focused on charter schools – how they operate, how they're funded, whether they're conducive to quality teaching, and whether there is a place for collective bargaining. These are all superb questions, but they have little to do with the chasm between unions and charters.

 

What is the union position on charter schools? Let's hit the ping pong ball back and forth across the table. AFT credits Al Shanker with dreaming up the idea. Teachers' unions fought against every single state law to establish charter schools. NEA started a Charter School Initiative in 1995. AFT called charter schools "a diversion from reformers' and policymakers' efforts to improve education in America." NEA ended its Charter School Initiative in 2000, which, by all accounts, was a failure. In 2001, NEA decided to rank charters "on a continuum ranging from outright support to reluctant acquiescence to categorical opposition." The United Federation of Teachers opened two charter schools of its own. Last week, the Wisconsin Education Association Council posted a press release that began, "The state's current charter school program is working 'reasonably well' and should not be expanded."

 

So unions are for charter schools, except when they're against them. Or both.

 

To me, this suggests quite strongly that charter schools are not the cause of this great divide. Gee, what else could it be? I don't know, maybe union membership? The symposium and the report looked at a lot of different bones of contention from the viewpoints of both the charters and the unions, but failed to note that unions need members. And if they have members, they need more members. If charter schools were unionized, they would be no more of a threat to NEA and AFT than are magnet schools, alternative schools, open enrollment schools, or any of the other public "schools of choice" that currently exist. The union's relative position on charters would be limited to how well its locals fare in the enforcement of the contract, and the level of salaries, benefits and working conditions.

 

But as long as there is a growing network of schools – particularly public schools – where union membership is not required, and is, in fact, rare, the teachers' unions will oppose them, regardless of the quality of the school's program, the desires of its staff, or the satisfaction of students and parents.

 

When you try to lift the cap on the creation of new charter schools, you're asking the union to acquiesce to an increase in the number of non-union public schools. When funds follow the children from public schools to charters, they are used to pay non-union teachers and may result in layoffs of union teachers.

 

Business professionals who involve themselves in charter schools need to recognize that teachers' unions are in the membership business. They "sell" services to education employees. Your operation model takes away their customers.

 

The battle over charter schools has little to do with education, and everything to do with labor and economics. Unless we address it that way, there is no resolution possible.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From WorldMagBlog:

In the fall of 2005, the University of Connecticut's Department of Public Policy undertook the largest statistically valid survey ever conducted to determine what colleges and universities are teaching their students about America's history and institutions. UConnDPP asked more than 14,000 randomly selected college freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges and universities across the country 60 multiple-choice questions in order to measure their knowledge in four subject areas:

1. American history;
2. government;
3. America and the world; and
4. the market economy.

Guess what? They flunked. Miserably. (See a summary of the results here.) So what's the problem? "Students who demonstrated greater learning of America's history and institutions were more engaged in citizenship activities such as voting, volunteer community service, and political campaigns," reports the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, the group that commissioned the survey. That UConn found so few students demonstrating even basic competency in history and civics is bad news for citizens on both sides of the political aisle. Here's the Washington Examiner's take on the findings (Interesting quote: "Do your college kids know more about Rigoberta Menchu than Patrick Henry?...Are they asked to share stories of phallo-logo-centric abuse in required courses, but can’t explain the Bill of Rights?") Here's what Newseek and USA Today have to say. Today's college seniors are tomorrow's national leaders. What can Americans expect from leaders who know so little about America?

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

This is a very long article. I’m only including snippets. Grab a copy of today’s Spokesman Review for the entire article.

The Proof’s In the Pudding

"There's a lot of animosity, mainly from the extreme left, people who are really pushing for gay rights and are more radicalized on that issue," Atwood said.

Regarding criticisms about the school's faculty and academic quality, he said that four of the seven full-time faculty members have doctorates. Part-time instructors don't – but neither do the grad students and many adjuncts who teach at public universities, he said.

He said the school's performance speaks for itself, with some students moving directly into doctoral programs. The ISI, in its rankings of the top 50 conservative Christian colleges, noted that the reading list includes about 100 books from the Western canon and called the school's core curriculum "impressive."

"The proof is in the pudding," Atwood said.

For students like Eric Mabry, that pudding involves a whole lot of books. The 20-year-old sophomore from Texas, who was home-schooled, said he was drawn to New Saint Andrews by its curriculum primarily, because he was interested in reading ancient languages and studying philosophy, looking toward a future in graduate school.

In his freshman year, his reading assignments totaled between 600 and 800 pages a week.

"For me it's just wonderful," he said. "It's one of the reasons I'm here – the amount of stuff we're able to read."

Mabry said that alternative views aren't omitted.

"I feel like I am exposed to more ideas here than I might be in a secular university," he said. "We've discussed atheism. We've discussed humanism. … In a university, sometimes Christianity is ignored."

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

This is a very long article. I’m only including snippets. Grab a copy of today’s Spokesman Review for the entire article.

A Lot of Latin

Kathryn Garfield is a 19-year-old Moscow woman with about a decade of Latin under her belt – first during her education at Logos School, the K-12 school of Christ Church [DMC: This is factually incorrect. Logos school is independent from Christ Church and is run by a board of directors comprised of members churches from across the Palouse.], and now as a sophomore at New Saint Andrews. "I've had to take Latin since third grade," she said.

Garfield is one of roughly 150 students who take classes at New Saint Andrews. She's grown up in Christ Church and said she believes strongly in the values and benefits of a Christian education. Were she to take classes at a public university, she said, she'd likely encounter an atmosphere that's "hostile to Christianity."

The curriculum at New Saint Andrews is a liberal-arts approach, based on study in history, philosophy, literature and the other humanities. The school's Web site says it emphasizes "a right understanding of Christ's lordship over every human endeavor."

The school teaches the biblical version of a six-day creation. While students read Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species," it would be "odd" if they arrived at the conclusion that it was correct, said Atwood, the school's president.

By contrast, just last year UI President Tim White made a public announcement that alternatives to evolution had no place in the science classroom – a reaction to the intelligent design movement. Most mainstream scientists say Darwinian evolution is the mechanism that best explains life on Earth.

Critics of the school's curriculum say an emphasis on biblical inerrancy precludes true academic inquiry – everything is directed toward arriving at a predetermined answer. But Atwood and others said that all schools teach from a foundation of beliefs. [DMC: every system of thought has presuppositions and axioms. Honest academicians are up-front about what these presuppositions are; dishonest academicians say presuppositions only exist for others but not for themselves.]

"All education is probably the most religious thing most students do. We are passing on what we believe to be the fundamental truths of the universe," he said. "If other schools were honest, they'd say, come here and we'll teach you a secularized version of the world."

The school grew from a church group that studied Greek and opened formally with four students in 1994. It has since grown to about 150 students and in 2003 moved into its building in downtown Moscow, on Friendship Square. A year ago, the school was accredited by TRACS – the Transnational Association of Christian Colleges and Schools.

New Saint Andrews attracts a lot of intelligent students with good test scores. Roughly 40 percent were home-schooled. Atwood says they're trying to establish a new model for classical Christian education.

While the school is not likely to grow much beyond its current size in Moscow, school officials can envision trying to establish similar models elsewhere.

"We really do see ourselves as the new generation of Christian colleges," Atwood said.

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

This is a very long article. I’m only including snippets. Grab a copy of today’s Spokesman Review for the entire article.

The Newest College on the Palouse

The newest college on the Palouse is trying to return to some old ideas. Students at New Saint Andrews College learn ancient languages and read heavily from the Western canon, in a curriculum based on Calvinist theology. There's no such thing as a major. Most exams are oral. School officials say it's an effort to return to a classical model of higher education.

A modern university education, said college President Roy Atwood, with its emphasis on elective majors and job preparation, is "only going to train people to be widgets, and plug into low-paying jobs. It's not going to train people to be leaders and visionaries."

New Saint Andrews College is part of a model of classical Christian education that is growing from minister Douglas Wilson's controversial Christ Church. It has gotten some recent national attention, being cited among the top 50 conservative Christian colleges in the country by the Intercollegiate Studies Group just 12 years after it started with four students.

Steve McClure has an editorial in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

I thought they were kidding at first. The folks in the newsroom insisted a story had moved on the wire that said an elementary school in Massachusetts had banned tag during recess.

But, according to The Associated Press, this school says there will be no games of tag, no touch football, nothing that resembles “unsupervised chase games” while the children are at recess.

Since most chase games are initiated in an unsupervised environment — in other words, they haven’t been sanctioned by the playground monitor — I shook my head and contemplated the future of recess. Then I went to get some coffee to wake myself up.

The sad part is, I halfway understand the school’s decision. There’s a portion of the population that can be a tad litigious. If a district thinks such a ban will cover its backside in the event of a lawsuit, it likely would sail through the approval process.

Still, it’s hard to fathom how the principal at Willett Elementary School in Massachusetts — or those in Cheyenne, Wyo., or Spokane where similar policies are in place — actually figures this policy will be implemented.

Kids have an energy most of us look at with envy — and an occasional sense of annoyance.

Steve, this is an easy fix — continue to dope the kids up on more drugs like Ritalin^®. Keep them docile and they won’t want to play.

That fixes the litigation issue, the discipline issues, and having to deal with boys being boys.

Their slogan? “We’re losing kids; we need more money”.

From the Associated Press:

Supporters of a ballot measure to boost state public education funding by $219 million a year released a new television advertisement Thursday.

The ad will run throughout the state on all major stations, said Lauren McLean, campaign manager for the group Invest in our Kids' Education.

It features students and teachers and highlights the nine areas on which schools would be required to spend the additional money:

• new textbooks and supplies;
• new college preparatory classes;
• reducing class size;
• new classroom technology;
• teacher recruitment;
• restoring eliminated programs;
• classroom aides;
• arts and music classes; and
• routine school maintenance.

"From the beginning, Proposition 1 has been very clear that all the money has to be spent on these nine areas," McLean said of the measure, which is on the Nov. 7 ballot.

According to the group's campaign finance report, it has raised nearly $1.4 million and has more than $400,000 on hand.

The National Education Association, the national teachers union, and the NEA's Idaho chapter together contributed $1.2 million to the campaign.

I just received the Fall 2006 enrollment numbers from MSD. These are their “unofficial” count as of last week. The official numbers will be sent to the State Board of Education in November. But these numbers aren’t going to change significantly in the next month.

The numbers are not pretty. MSD enrollment is down again from the Fall 2005 numbers.

Here’s the change in enrollment for each of the MSD schools from Fall 2005 to Fall 2006.   

• J. Russell Elementary School — down 30
• West Park Elementary School — up 25 
• A.B. McDonald Elementary School — up 4 
• Lena Whitmore Elementary School — up 6
• Moscow Junior High School—no change
• Moscow High School—down 23
• Paradise Creek Regional Alt— down 4

Bottom line: enrollment at MSD is down ~22 students this year from last year.

In a letter to the district, Dr. Candis Donicht said that the numbers were down ~30. That’s probably more accurate since that would take into account ADA verses just enrollment.

There are some things that jumped out at me from the data, however.

First, (see the first graph below), I tracked changes in students by year group. In other words, last year’s 11th graders are this year’s 12th graders. As expected, they are pretty constant. There are some changes here and there, but nothing that appears out of the ordinary.

Second, look at the class sizes (second graph below). Compare the Junior High and High School enrollment to the elementary enrollment. You will see that we are graduating classes that are about 43 students larger than the up-and-coming classes. That means: unless something dramatic happens enrollment-wise, we will continue to see enrollment decline for the next six years before it stabilizes. It appears that the stabilization might happen around a student enrollment of ~2,093. Compare that to the 2006 enrollment of 2,412. And compare that to the 1991 enrollment of 2,602.

It doesn’t take much thought to see where this is all going.

But here’s the funny mantra: when MSD has more students, they ask for more money. When MSD has fewer students, they ask for more money. See the pattern?

See the Milwaukee (Wisconsin) commercial on school choice.

http://www.schoolchoicewi.org/library/comealong.cfm

From my friend John L. in Wisconsin:

Milwaukee has had a limited version of parental choice in education for about a decade now. You have to live in Milwaukee and be under a certain income level, but if you qualify, you get a voucher to send your child to a participating school.

The number of students who could participate in the program has been capped by law, and in the last year there was a lot of political action over raising the cap.

The group called School Choice Wisconsin was instrumental in getting the cap increased. They did a great job of adding some grass roots advocacy to the policy arguments.

I highly recommend the following commercial. Make sure to watch it until the end. It's a Quicktime file, 5MB.

From EIA:

Last Friday, Chester High School in Pennsylvania was forced to close early after nearly one-third of its teachers called in sick. The district is correctly called "troubled," and there is an ongoing dispute over teacher layoffs and funding. What caught my eye about the story is that the local union claims "there was absolutely no concerted sickout – none."

 

This may be true – though it probably chagrins the union to see one-third of its membership organize a job action without its knowledge or authorization. But it made me wonder why we rarely hear about district managers applying a little jiu jitsu to such problems.

 

If one-third of your teachers all develop a sudden illness on the same day, and the union says it isn't a sickout, then why don't you call in the public health authorities and the Centers for Disease Control? You must have a sick building or some kind of epidemic. Quarantine the teachers' lounge. Have the faculty refrigerator checked for bacteria. Install hand sanitizers and institute norovirus procedures.

 

You can relent once you're assured no one was really sick in the first place. But who will go on the record to offer that assurance?

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From EIA:

EIA reported last week on the uproar over the decision by UTLA's Human Rights Committee to host a meeting for the Café Intifada crowd (see Item #11), and then the uproar when UTLA President A.J. Duffy rescinded the invitation.

 

Now the UTLA Human Rights Committee is heading for the tall grass, and more fuel was added when teachers' unions in Ireland received a letter from AFT President Edward McElroy, urging them not to support a boycott of Israel, as had been proposed in a letter signed by 61 Irish academics. (UTLA is an affiliate of both NEA and AFT.)

 

"Boycotts of this nature only help those who wish to curtail the academic freedom faculty members hold dear," McElroy wrote.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From EIA:

The 2006 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher was released last week and provides a very different picture of teacher retention and job satisfaction from what we are all used to seeing in the press.

 

The "major findings" section provides some useful information, but you may find it difficult to come to overall conclusions unless you read through the 167 pages – and especially the actual survey questions and answers in the back of the report.

 

The lead finding was that 90 percent of America's teachers were satisfied with teaching as a career – 56% calling themselves "very satisfied." It stands to reason that people who are very satisfied with their careers would be unlikely to leave them, and the survey bears that out. Only 27 percent say they are likely to leave within the next five years. But even that figure seems inflated for two reasons. First, the number who predict they will leave, and the number who actually do leave, are apt to be very different. Second, the average experience of all teachers surveyed was 17 years, but the average experience of those who planned to leave was 22 years, suggesting it is the older teachers who plan to leave, rather than the much-ballyhooed "fifty percent of teachers in the first five years."

 

Page 123 contains question Q1055, which asks, "At what age do you expect to leave teaching as a career?" Sixty-nine percent picked an age higher than 55, suggesting that a healthy majority have made, or will make, teaching their lifelong career.

 

Finally, the survey found that new teachers and veteran teachers had similar levels of job satisfaction. All in all, the survey provides a much more balanced look at the education labor market than usual.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From Scott Ott over at Scrapple Face:

A new Brookings Institution study that shows an inverse relationship between math skills and student self-esteem is “just plain wrong,” according to an overnight poll of the nation’s largest teacher’s union.

The study found that Japanese and Korean students excel in math despite their lack of confidence in their own abilities, while American kids feel great about their abilities but have much lower skills according to tests.

But the survey of National Education Association (NEA) members shows that “five out of four teachers find fault with the data.”

“It just doesn’t add up,” said an unnamed NEA spokesman. “We’ve spent three decades of the last 20 years teaching kids that their self-esteem and happiness are unrelated to their academic competence. The overwhelming minority of them now feel really happy about math.”

The NEA spokesman said the comparatively-low standardized test scores of American children “simply prove that test designers don’t know how to measure what really counts.”

The teacher opinion poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 34 percent, “but that’s okay,” the spokesman said, “because the pollsters did their personal best.”

From the University of Idaho’s Argonaut:

The University of Idaho’s new ad campaign revolving around the slogan “Open Space. Open Minds.” has just been released into the wild, and it’s not surviving so well.
Despite cheery reports from administrators and PR officials, it’s not hard to find someone who doesn’t dig UI’s new “brand.” Professors mock it in class. Students don’t understand it. ASUI doesn’t support it. Plus, it’s not even distinctive — Oregon State University’s slogan is “Open Minds. Open Doors.”

Stamats, the same company who gave us “Open Space. Open Minds.” developed that one, too. In fact, many of the slogans they peddle to universities are exactly the same: there are four schools they’ve branded “Start here. Go anywhere,” two “Where are you going?” two “Discover the difference.” These aren’t marketing campaigns, they’re collections of buzzwords.

I wonder how much the University of Idaho paid for that losing slogan?

You know, they have free websites that will generate slogans for you.

I’m sure for a lot less than the University of Idaho paid for that one. Sheesh!

This is a good, political move on their part. MSD would have been a constant obstruction to the formation of a charter school.

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

Charter school pulls application

Palouse Prairie School Board bypasses MSD, will submit petition directly to state; potential opening delayed for a year

Board members for a proposed charter school in Moscow are taking their plans to the state after deciding they were unable to work through the process with the Moscow School District.

The Palouse Prairie School board will submit its petition to the Idaho Public Charter School Commission by Thanksgiving, delaying the school’s projected opening date from fall 2007 to fall 2008. The proposed charter school would serve roughly 75 to 150 students in kindergarten through sixth grade, using the expeditionary learning model.

Board member Nils Peterson said the board decided to pull its application to the Moscow School District at its Sept. 21 meeting.

“Our big issue was the failure of an opportunity for the school boards to get together and negotiate about a complex contract,” he said.

Peterson said there needs to be a public hearing and a face-to face meeting of the two school boards in the process of establishing a charter school.

The Moscow School District held its public hearing on Aug. 17, which was within the 60-day requirement from the time the Palouse Prairie School submitted its petition in mid-June. At the hearing, the charter school received feedback from the district on areas of planning that still needed development.

Moscow School District Superintendent Candis Donicht said the district considers the public hearing a face-to-face meeting because the members of both boards were in attendance.

After the public hearing, the Palouse Prairie School board asked to be a part of the Moscow School Board’s September meeting.

It also submitted a revised plan to the Moscow School District on Sept. 22.

The Moscow School District responded by agreeing to allow the charter school board to present a report as an informational item at its next meeting.

“Everything was moving through the process as we understood it,” Donicht said.

Then on Sept. 25, Donicht received notice that the Palouse Prairie School was withdrawing its petition and would be pursuing authorization from the state commission.

“The process stopped right there,” Donicht said.

After confirming the notice, Donicht canceled a special meeting that had been scheduled for Oct. 9, when the board intended to make a decision.

Peterson said the Moscow School District’s process did not include any interaction between the two boards nor did it allow any opportunities to work through the feedback and concerns that arose at the public hearing.

Peterson said the re-submission of the charter is “giving us a chance to do some revisions to the document, which I think will make it even stronger.”

By taking a new approach and seeking authorization from the state commission, the charter school won’t be able to open for another year.

“This is probably a good thing, because trying to put together a school in nine months — finding a facility, hiring, etc. — would have been an extremely difficult task,” Peterson said. “Now we’re expecting to have a January approval and 18 months to put together a school.”

He said the charter hopes to maintain a working relationship with the district.

Donicht said there can be a positive future.

“Our interactions (with the proposed charter school) also have been amenable, except I do take issue with the statement that the Moscow School Board was not negotiating in good faith,” she said. “We have an amenable relationship with all of the schools in Moscow — private schools, parochial schools, and the existing charter school.

“Many students transfer back and forth, and we get many at the secondary level,” Donicht said. “So it’s our goal to maintain good relationships with everyone. It’s the business of education.”

The following letter to the editor appeared in today’s Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

Nancy Nelson’s letter to the editor (Opinion, Sept. 27) raised some fair points, but also repeated common misconceptions about charter schools.

Nelson claims charter schools draw students and resources away from district public schools. Some charter school supporters believe that their schools actually bring students back into public education from private institutions or home schooling. I believe that charter schools conserve district resources, by providing an environment for kids who don’t fit in regular school environments. But Nelson raises a legitimate issue, and reasonable minds could differ on the right answer.

Reasonable minds cannot differ on Nelson’s charge that a charter school education is only available to a privileged few. That is simply false. Charter schools are public schools. Admission is based on a lottery which is open to all students in the district. The lottery is run by outsiders to ensure fairness. Students who are selected do not pay any money to enroll. Their parents are not required to donate time or money to support the school. The children who attend charter schools are not economically privileged. The Moscow Charter School’s rates of participation in the free and reduced lunch program is higher than two of the four Moscow School District elementary schools, which shows that its population is no more privileged than Moscow as a whole.

It is also wrong to suggest that those who send their children to charter schools care only about their own children. I volunteered at the Moscow Charter School because it allowed me to make a contribution to the well-being of all the children there — including some with very real and pressing needs. Those who volunteer at charter schools make a contribution to a lot of young lives. There is nothing selfish about that.

Peggy Jenkins, Moscow

From Luci Willits, Communications Officer with the Idaho State Board of Education.

As a participant of the State Board of Education’s Feedback Forum on High School graduation requirements conducted this summer, the Board wanted to inform you of the public hearing Tuesday, October 17. The hearing dates have been published in local media, but the Board wanted to ensure you knew about the hearings as well. If you are not able to attend the hearing, written comments will be accepted until October 25 and carry the same weight as verbal comments.  Please see the release below:

----------------------------

The State Board of Education will hold "open house" style public hearings on October 17, 2006 to gather feedback on raising high school graduation requirements.

Hearings will be held in five Idaho communities from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Constituents can offer written or verbal comments during the hearing, and ask questions about the proposal.

Dwight Johnson, Executive Director of the State Board, said the hearings are meant to gather feedback, but also to answer questions. “The hearings will be open house style, which means constituents can attend any time from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. to ask questions, get more information, and offer their feedback on the proposal,” said Johnson.

The hearing schedule is set as follows:

• Blackfoot: Blackfoot School District, Board Room, 270 E Bridge Street.
• Boise: Boise State University, Student Union Building, Room Hatch A, 1910 University Drive;
• Coeur d' Alene: North Idaho College, Driftwood Bldg, Bay Room, 1000 W Garden Avenue;
• Moscow: University of Idaho, JA Albertson Building, Michael Boardroom (Room 311), 645 W Pullman Highway;
• Twin Falls: College of Southern Idaho, Student Union Building, Room 248, 315 Falls Avenue.

The Board will also accept written comments until October 25, 2006. Comments can be emailed to board@osbe.idaho.gov or mailed to State Board of Education, P.O. Box 83720, Boise, ID 83720-0037. Written comments receive the same consideration as verbal comments offered at public hearings.

The State Board of Education, which is responsible to set statewide graduation requirements, unanimously voted at its August Board meeting to raise Idaho’s graduation requirements to be more competitive with other states’ requirements, align high school requirements with university and college entrance requirements, reduce college remediation rates, make the senior year more meaningful, and help students be better prepared for the challenges of the 21st century workplace.

Beginning with the class of 2013, the plan requires students to complete three years of science and three years of math, with at least one of the math classes taken in the student’s senior year. Students would also be required to take algebra I and geometry or classes that meet those standards.

Idaho has one of the lowest graduation requirements in math and science in the country. Current state requirements only require students to take two years of math and two years of science, versus four years of English and three years of social studies and fine arts. English is the only course a student must take all four years of high school.

The Board included language in the rule to ensure students could meet math and science requirements by mastering standards in other courses including professional technical classes or other standards-based classes developed by districts.

While the state would require students to take an additional math and science course, the Board also intends to recommend incentives to reward districts who raise their requirements to four years of math and another incentive for districts to require students to meet algebra II standards. The Board will develop a comprehensive implementation plan which will include funding recommendations, as well as strategies to attract more math and science teachers, improve math curriculum, offer additional professional development for elementary and middle school teachers, and offer scholarships for students.

Students would also be required to take a state funded college entrance exam either the ACT, SAT, or Compass. Several other states including Wyoming, Illinois and Colorado require students to take the exam. The plan incorporates greater opportunity for students to take advanced classes and requires students to do a senior project including an oral and written component. Districts would have the flexibility to determine how to implement the project.

More than 10 states have raised their requirements in the past 12 months including Utah, Texas, Florida, Kentucky, Michigan, and Ohio.

Raising graduation requirements has been a top issue for the Board for two years. The Board revealed an extensive high school redesign plan in August 2005, but pulled back on the plan before forwarding it to the Legislature in January 2006.

During June and July, the Board hosted 13 roundtables statewide from Sandpoint to Soda Springs to gather feedback on ways to improve education. More than 450 people attended the forums, including superintendents, principals, teachers, parents, Legislators, community leaders, and business and higher education representatives. The new proposal reflects many of the suggestions given at the feedback forums.

After the public comment period closes, the Board will meet for a special board meeting in November to consider changes and forward the final rule onto the Legislature. Either the House or Senate Education Committee must approve the rule.

For more information on the proposal to raise graduation rates, visit http://www.boardofed.idaho.gov to read the proposed rule changes, background material, how Idaho’s requirements stack up compared to other states, and view a side-by-side comparison of what the requirements are now and how they would change.