Moscow Education (Idaho)

I’m working my way through the MSD labor union contract.

I came to a section that just about made me fall off my chair.

 

The provisions of this Article apply only to a district-wide reduction of staff.

Reduction in certificated staff shall occur when it is the decision of the Board of Trustees of the School District that one or more of the following has occurred:

1. A substantial reduction in funds which will be available to the School District for maintenance and operation and such reduction cannot be avoided by the exercise of the Board's taxing powers, but not including levy elections which require voter approval for additional funds.

2. A substantial reduction in total pupil enrollment.

3. The discontinuance by the Board of Trustees of a particular type of teaching service, class or course of study, provided that such discontinuance is not for discriminatory reasons.

4. A bona fide consolidation of the School District with one (1) or more other school districts; or

5. A significant reduction or elimination of categorical funds for specific programs offered by the District.

 Imagine my shock.

We’re down 13% in student enrollment at MSD. Does that qualify as a “substantial reduction in total pupil enrollment”?

MSD staffing is up 30%

Clearly that 13% reduction in student numbers is not what’s really driving MSD staffing.

But then again, as long as Moscow taxpayers are willing to throw more money at the administration, they’re gladly willing to spend it.

I’m still working my way through the MSD labor union contract.

In the 24 Jan 2006 edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News, Michael J. O’Neal wrote:

The teachers union cartel is a larcenous monopoly. Now, like nineteenth-century robber barons, they're compounding their larceny by trying to enlist the state to force consumers of their product to fund their monopoly.

There was much made in the local news of the fact that Idaho teachers had a starting salary of $24,394.

However, in Moscow a first year teacher starts at $30,000.  And recall — that’s for only working 9 months. That makes their equivalent starting pay $40,000 — not bad when you have a guaranteed 3–month summer break every year.

We’ll talk shortly about all of the additional financial benefits that Moscow teachers get — and they are numerous.

Also, recall when you look at the chart below — teachers are not paid on their ability to teach. They are paid by a) how long they have taught, and b) how many years of college they have.

Everyone knows that those two factors do not make a good teacher.

I’m working my way through the MSD labor union contract.

I’m going through this randomly as things hit me.

This one hit me tonight: that elementary teachers need academic freedom.

Here’s the text of the text:

3.17 Academic Freedom and Responsibility

1. Meaningful education requires that teachers and students enjoy academic freedom and exercise academic responsibility. Academic freedom allows qualified teachers to present and encourage discussion of controversial issues. The goal of academic freedom is to foster critical thinking and the free exchange of ideas in an atmosphere of mutual respect. With that freedom is a corresponding responsibility to discuss controversial issues only after giving consideration to the relevance of the subject matter to classroom or curriculum objectives, the maturity of students, and the fundamental values of the community.

Can someone tell me why elementary school teachers need “academic freedom”? What does a kindergarten teacher need “academic freedom” for?

And why does it take at least 7 years to get tenure at a state university for a professor when a public school teacher gets it after three years?

And who else in the world has a guaranteed job for life after only three years on the job?

I was told that MSD has been provided a copy of this 21 April 1995 letter from the then Deputy Attorney General of the State Department of Education.

I was also told that MSD cannot find this letter any more.

So I’m posting this opinion here so that everyone (including MSD) can have a copy of it.

File Attachment: MSD_Smoking_Gun.pdf (153 KB)

I had an MSD parent ask me if I could get a hold of the union labor contract for MSD. I’m providing it here for those of you who may be interested in what such things look like.

I’ll be spending a few days going thru the more interesting parts of it and providing comments.

Not only are we bloated with administration/staff/teachers, you will quickly see why labor is so expensive at the Moscow School District.

File Attachment: MSD Union Contract.pdf (1579 KB)

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

Judge to review motion to dismiss filed by district's attorney

The first hearing for a lawsuit that could eliminate $7.6 million of supplemental funding from Moscow School District is scheduled for June 29.

The hearing will review a motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The motion was filed May 17 by the district's Boise-based attorney, Brian Julian of Anderson, Julian and Hull. The motion argues three points against the lawsuit, which was filed May 3 by Moscow dentist Gerald Weitz.

The lawsuit claims that the district's last four supplemental levy elections should be invalid because they allegedly failed to comply with different requirements of the state's election laws. The four levies were passed by a majority of voters in 1992, 1995, 2002, and most recently on March 27.

The district's motion to dismiss contends that Weitz lacks the standing to bring his claims, that the court lacks subject matter jurisdiction, and that Weitz failed to use the type of claims where relief could be granted.

The hearing is scheduled for 10 a.m. in Magistrate Courtroom No. 2. Judge Carl B. Kerrick assigned Judge John Bradbury to preside over the case after Judge John Stegner recused himself.

Superintendent Candis Donicht said the district's attorneys notified her of the hearing by phone.

"At least we have a date," she said. "That is good news to have a date on the calendar."

Julian said he believes the issue of standing will be the focus of the hearing.

"The Idaho Supreme Court typically views standing as the first issue whenever someone is challenging a taxing, bonding, or levying issue," he said.

To have standing in these types of cases means there must be a unique or peculiar injury to the plaintiff other than being a taxpayer at-large and challenging the requirements of having to pay taxes.

"Weitz hasn't alleged any type of unique injury in his complaint," Julian said. "He is simply complaining about paying additional taxes." [DMC: That statement is factually incorrect.]

Julian said during a status conference last week that the judge indicated that all the papers in the case had been reviewed and suggested it may be more efficient to address the district's motion to dismiss rather than set it for trial.

"The judge indicated that he wanted to focus on the standing issue," Julian said. "It's unclear to me whether we're going to address the other issues at this time or not, or whether we're going to address only that issue."

More legal memorandums will be filed with the court before the June hearing. Julian expected Weitz's attorneys to file a brief in opposition, and the district plans to file another in support.

Weitz is being represented by Brian Thie, of Moscow, and Richard Hearn and Scott Smith, of the Pocatello-based firm Racine, Olson, Nye, Budge and Bailey.

Weitz could not be reached for comment, but Thie made a brief statement on the case.

"We attempted discussions and negotiations with the district prior to filing the action but they made it clear that they were not interested in discussing the matter with us," Thie said. "As a result, we filed the action in district court and that is where we will be trying the matter."

Julian said the judge probably will issue a written opinion within 30 days of the oral arguments at the hearing.

"It will be an opinion granting or denying the motion to dismiss," he said.

The opinion could wrap up the lawsuit before another pretrial and scheduling conference that is scheduled for July 23.

"If there is anything left of the case, I assume we'll still hold on to that date," Julian said. 

[T]here's no reason we must have public schools. Granted, the public has a strong interest in educating America's children, at a cost that's divided equitably among all taxpayers and not borne by the parents of school-age children alone. But these requirements don't imply any need for public schools...Schooling might be furnished on either model: mainly by public or mainly by private organizations. We know that private schools are perfectly capable of supplying first-class educations. So the question stands: Why have public schools? How should we decide whether to have them or not?

Why not liberate all the vast resources we spend on public schools to be re-channeled to private schools chosen by the nation's parents?...In the system I am picturing, education would continue to be free and accessible to every child, and all taxpayers would continue to pay for it. Parents would be guaranteed access to "reasonable" schools that cost them nothing beyond what they pay in taxes.

I hope that this doesn’t come as a surprising new revelation to anyone, but many have been reading and discussing this subject for the last 20+ years. Libertarians and the Separation of School and State have been saying this as long as I can remember.

Just like you do not need government to run grocery stores, run clothing shops, or run apartment complexes (think the basic necessities of life: food, clothing, shelter), you also don’t need the government to run schools.

Having traveled extensively in the former communist Germany and Czechoslovakia, I know what government-run houses and grocery stores look like. It was an ugly thing with poor quality and no choice.

• Think of walking into your favorite grocery store in town and only having one choice of breakfast cereal. That’s what they had in East Germany.
• Think your worse nightmare of what a monopoly would create, then add to it government regulation run by a union. Look there and you’ll see why education in the USA is failing so badly.

This is another dialog that we need to have in the USA. Education is bankrupting us (50% of Idaho taxes go to government education). And we’re still graduating students who cannot read or write; and we’re having to postpone the WASL so that kids who cannot do math can still get their diplomas.

Quite a return on our “investment.”

Glenn Schwaller over at V2020 has an interesting insight into the school lunch price increases at Whitepine.

This is based on the story in today’s Moscow-Pullman Daily News, page 7B (not available online):

Apparently the Whitepine School District has "proposed to increase its School Lunch Prices by an amount that exceeds 105% of the fee charged last year. The proposed increase of 25 cents per meal is 9% above the 105% of the fees charged the previous year." Huh??

• 2006-2007: K-6 $1.75 7-12 $2.25 adult $2.75
• 2007-2008: K-6 $2.00 7-12 $2.50 adult $3.00

My abacus tells me this reflects a 14.3%, 11.1% and 9.01% increase, repsectively. So the grade school kids are subsidizing the adult lunches?? Whoa Vizzies! You were right! When Weitz roars, it's the kids who'll pay!

But wait! The proposed increase is "9% above the 105% of the PREVIOUS year". This means the 2005-2006 school lunches were 85 cents, $1.10, and $1.34 for K-6, 7-12, and adults? So THIS years' lunches exceed LAST years' lunches by 105%, (holy crap! and you're complaing about gas price increases??) And NEXT years' lunches will exceed THIS years' lunches by 9% (or is it 11.1%? or is it 14.3%??) So what's the "exceeds 105% of the fee charged LAST year"?? Or is it 9% of the 105%, above the 105% of the last year before the previous year??

Was this written by one of the razor sharp legal minds that penned the current levy language?? Possibly they were educated by a less-than-stellar-can't-be-bothered-with-lesson-plans-yet-unionized-and-tenured math teacher who, in the wake of budget cuts, couldn't POSSIBLY be replaced by a young, over-achieving but mere 1st year teacher?

No, never mind. I'm sure it's all legal and arithmetically correct.

Hey, 14%; 9% - it's all the same eh? Just one of those "minor nit-picky" discrepancies that happen in these complicated district documents.

Check out what the NEA opposes (page 60):

• The Association opposes providing additional compensation to attract and/or retain education employees in hard-to-recruit positions.
• The Association further believes that performance pay schedules, such as merit pay or any other system of compensation based on an evaluation of an education employee’s performance, are inappropriate.
• The Association believes that its affiliates should seek the repeal of laws limiting maximum salaries and benefits for education employees.

Now this from EIA:

Seven years have passed since the National Education Association debated a change in direction on the issue of performance pay, and the results were the exact opposite of what the leadership had hoped for. Now, NEA President Reg Weaver has asked the union's Professional Standards and Practices Committee to reexamine the issue, in an effort to allow the national union to aid its state affiliates in helping design and implement such plans.

 

As the union's current policy stands, NEA is forbidden to provide assistance to any state or local affiliate that either wants, or wants to negotiate provisions of, a performance pay plan. NEA Resolution F-9 reads, in part:

"The Association opposes providing additional compensation to attract and/or retain education employees in hard-to-recruit positions.

 

"The Association also believes that local affiliates can best promote the economic welfare of all education employees, regardless of source of funding, by following the salary standards developed at the state and national levels.

 

"The Association further believes that performance pay schedules, such as merit pay or any other system of compensation based on an evaluation of an education employee's performance, are inappropriate."

When former NEA President Bob Chase attempted to alter the performance pay language at the union's 2000 representative assembly, the delegates delivered a stinging rebuke, and actually strengthened the protections of the single-salary schedule.

 

Weaver's assignment of the task to the Professional Standards and Practices Committee appears to be an attempt to work out a consensus in advance that would not place the national union in favor of performance pay, but would remove NEA from an awkward hands-off position when the issue arises. Unfortunately for Weaver, there is no evidence that the sentiment among those who crafted the current language at the 2000 convention has changed in any way. Weaver, however, is term-limited out in 2008 and may be willing to face that opposition if it comes.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

Harrison Scott Key over at WorldMagBlog writes

A new study suggests that K-12 education is so poor because it addresses the problem a little too late. The first two or three years of a child's life, it seems, are too important to be neglected. Really. As the family splinters, so do the minds of children.

Here’s the findings of that study:

Recent developments in neuroscience have shown that the early years are vital to cognitive development, which in turn is important to subsequent success and productivity in school, life, and work. Early-childhood nurturing has traditionally been the province of families. But families are deteriorating. Roughly one in six kids was born into poverty or single parenthood or both in 1970. In 2000, the rate was about one in four. What's more, almost 10 percent of children were born to unmarried teenage mothers in 1999; these kids tend to receive especially low levels of emotional and intellectual support and cognitive stimulation. They arrive at kindergarten cognitively disadvantaged, and the gap widens as they get older, eventually leading to early babies, lousy jobs, and elevated crime.

The study suggests that the answer is more money for early education.

Am I the only one skeptical that throwing more money at the educational-industrial complex isn’t going to fix this problem?

The Young American Foundation’s Jason Mattera spar with Alan Colmes of Fox News Channel’s Hannity & Colmes.

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

I would like to thank Gerald Weitz for pointing out the way the Moscow School District may have violated the law. Most of us other taxpayers follow blindly and believe that the entity we trust with our children's education are going to teach them not only necessities of life but also to obey the law at every juncture. Guess we were wrong.

I read that if this decision goes against the school district it would be devastating. That is a shame, but everyone caught extorting money is going to serve some sort of punishment. Instead of continuing to threaten us taxpayers with program cuts, maybe they should be looking at the oversated administration budget and hold responsible the person and persons involved in this ruse.

Thank goodness someone is watching out for the rest of us.

Michael Snow, Moscow

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

I tried to understand what causes anyone to question our Moscow School Board of Trustees and our last supplemental levy.

• Did the district clearly mention the annual levy amount, which would include previous indefinite levies as well, totaling some $7.5 million? No.
• Did they consider a failed levy election in 2001 then turn around and declare the passed levy elections in 2002 and 2007 to be indefinite? The law clearly states seven consecutive years of supplemental levy before declaring a levy indefinite.
• There is no provision in the law to add an indefinite levy to an indefinite levy.
• I believe seven years is required of a supplemental levy to give voters the right to question the direction of our school board:

The taxpayers must have a voice in the following matters:

• Is MSD providing vocational education? Not every child goes to college.
• Is MSD providing adequate precollege curriculum?
• Are our school facilities adequate? Do we need a new high school?
• Are we keeping up with the trends and technology?
• Are we providing dual enrollment programs with two universities so near?
• Are we paying our teachers and staff fairly?
• Is the school board spending our tax dollars wisely?

The law must be followed for the good of everyone. A new election on a supplemental levy will put the Moscow School District on track. I hope this helps.

Funding for this school year in not affected by the lawsuit. Activities must not be altered for students in the district this year.

Jim DeMeerleer, Moscow

This is still a long way off in the USA, but there’s much to commend in this move in the U.K.

The best schools across the globe are private schools. If government education truly want to excel, it should learn from those who best know how to educate.

From the U.K. Telegraph:

Private schools will soon be lending their teachers to local comprehensives for part of the week under radical plans to boost state education being developed separately by both Labour and the Tories. 

The moves by both parties suggest a consensus is building around the idea that state education can receive a massive lift if the methods and ethos of the private sector is transported into schools for less privileged children, particularly in deprived areas.

In an interview with tomorrow’s The Daily Telegraph, Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, says private schools must share their teaching “expertise” with the state sector - or risk losing their charitable status, worth a total of £100 million a year.

At the same time it has emerged that David Cameron’s Tories - still reeling from a row over the Conservative leader’s opposition to more grammar schools - are drawing up plans to lure some of the best private schools into running non-selective, state funded city academies.

The Tories say that when private schools set up academies near to the parent school, teachers from the fee-paying school should be encouraged to spend part of their time helping to bring on pupils in the academy.

Free Republic has an article out titled “Graduates unprepared for college academics”.

PJ posted a picture of parents out protesting the decision to not allow students who failed state graduation test to participate in commencement ceremonies.

Notice the sign being held by the woman on the left: “Let Are Kids Walk”.

Not only did the current generation of kids fail foundational educational. requirements; so did many of their parents.

Thousands of Colorado high schoolers are graduating this month with plans to go to college in the fall.

Hundreds of them will be academically unprepared when they get there.

Those students will take — and pay for — remedial classes that don’t count toward a degree.

Educators say the need for remedial work is fueled largely by a lack of communication between high schools and colleges about what’s important to know. They also say high school students need to pay closer attention to class selection and grades, especially in the senior year when many coast toward graduation day. And, some say, high school should be more rigorous.

About 30 percent of recent high school graduates who went to Colorado’s public colleges last year were assigned to remedial courses in at least one subject, the report said. The number rose to about 56 percent at two-year colleges.

Nearly 61 percent of students were assigned to remedial classes at Pikes Peak Community College.

Even in the Pikes Peak region’s top-performing high schools, as many as 20 to 30 percent of graduates needed remedial help in college.

Not bad for $10,000 per year per student.

As I mentioned previously, the Moscow-Pullman Daily News has an entire section today featuring profiles of students graduating from local high schools.

I thought it would be interesting to look at the number of students graduating from each school.

Here’s the number of seniors graduating, in descending order:

• Pullman High School: 176
• Moscow High School: 158
• Colfax: 50
• Potlatch: 43
• Troy: 28
• Logos: 26
• Genesee: 24
• Gar-Pal: 21
• Deary: 18
• Kendrick: 17
• Pullman Eclipse: 15
• Colton: 14
• Paradise Creek: 13
• Pullman Christian: 2

I had the opportunity to look at the Logos graduation bulletin. 100% of the 26 graduates have been accepted to various colleges around the nation.

The Moscow-Pullman Daily News has an entire section today featuring profiles of students graduating from local high schools.

Here’s just one — Cecilia Hui from Logos.

File Attachment: Logos Senior Cecilia Hui (1219 KB)

(click on images below to enlarge and read).

From Robert Fanger, Director of Communications with the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice:

I wanted to make sure you saw the latest from our Utah friends Parents for Choice in Education. Yesterday, they filed a petition asking the Utah Supreme Court to revise the misleading ballot title that has been prepared for the school choice referendum.

PCE has been a long time ally of the Friedman Foundation and has been driving the local school choice effort in Utah for years.  The Institute for Justice has been working closely with the local team on this legal strategy.

It may also be important to note that while the Attorney General has said that the school choice program can be implemented under H.B. 174, which is not the bill subject to the referendum, the state board of education has refused to do so at this point.

Here’s that article:

Petition Asks Utah Supreme Court To Ensure Legal and Accurate School Choice Vote

Salt Lake City, UT — Utah legislators, parents and voters filed a petition today asking the Utah Supreme Court to end the legal confusion over Utah’s school choice program.  Specifically, the petition urges the court to revise the inaccurate and misleading ballot title prepared for the school choice referendum by Utah’s Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel.

“This petition asks the Utah Supreme Court to uphold the rule of law and ensure that only a legal and accurate referendum goes before the voters,” said Clark Waddoups, partner with Parr Waddoups Brown Gee & Loveless, which represents the petitioners.  “As written, the ballot title is patently false, ignores clear Utah law and misleads voters.”

The ballot title is false because it fails to accurately describe the law the referendum challenges, H.B. 148.  The key provisions of that bill, including those that established the scholarship program, were superseded by a different bill, H.B. 174, before they ever took effect.  H.B. 174, which has become law and cannot constitutionally be subject to a referendum, created a new and substantively different school choice program.  In spite of this fact, the ballot title incorrectly states that the entirety of H.B. 148 is up for a vote, including the parts that were repealed and replaced

“With a false and misleading ballot title, it is impossible for the people of Utah to make an informed decision about what the referendum really means—or for their true preferences to be registered at the ballot box,” said Senate Majority Leader Curtis Bramble, the Senate sponsor of H.B. 148, and one of the petitioners.  “Only the Utah Supreme Court is in a position to fix the ballot title and protect the integrity of the referendum process.”

Utah Supreme Court precedent and the Utah election laws prohibit referenda on repealed and superseded laws.  A referendum is a specific process to address specific legislation that is scheduled to take effect.  If a law has been superseded or repealed, there is no need for a referendum since the vote will not impact current law. 

Because the ballot title fails to accurately describe the voucher law, it misleads voters about the true effects of the referendum.  A legal and accurate ballot title would be limited to just those sections of H.B. 148 that have not been repealed, and today’s petition asks the Utah Supreme Court to revise the ballot title accordingly.

“As written, the ballot title is a disservice to Utah voters’ right to clear and accurate information about an issue of huge public importance” said Doug Holmes, chairman of Parents for Choice in Education, another petitioner.  “Even those opposed to school choice have agreed that the courts must quickly resolve this issue.  Thousands of Utah parents are eager to apply for the school choice program as soon as possible.”

Indeed, Governor Huntsman, the Attorney General, and even school choice opponents such as State Board of Education Chairman Kim Burningham (a leader of the anti-voucher effort) agree that the courts must resolve this issue. 

By making clear that the scholarship program established by H.B. 174 is not subject to a referendum, the Utah Supreme Court can also resolve the concerns that have caused the Board to delay implementing that law, even though it went into effect on April 30, 2007.

That is another reason it is essential for the Utah Supreme Court to act quickly to ensure an accurate and legal referendum.

“I am counting on vouchers so I can start my daughter in a new school this fall, but all this legal confusion keeps delaying the program,” said Laura Johnson, an Ogden mother and one of three parent and voter petitioners.  “My child’s future is on the line and I cannot wait any longer.  I hope the Utah Supreme Court will quickly set things right so the voucher program can go forward.”

Finally, because the flawed ballot title reflects similar problems with the referendum effort itself—both mistakenly attempt to place all of H.B. 148 on the ballot—the petition also asks the court to review whether the referendum as filed was similarly misleading to voters.  The petition further notes that the referendum sponsors chose the wrong constitutional mechanism to challenge the school choice law.  Because H.B. 174 passed by referendum-proof majorities, the proper avenue is a citizen initiative.

Rep. Steve Urquhart, the House sponsor of H.B. 148, also joined the petition.

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

I am a lifelong resident of Moscow and have observed the Moscow School District eliminate vocational classes, become very unapproachable, and ignore the needs of students not going to college. It is no wonder we have so many dropouts at the high school level. When my son was in high school we had an exchange program with Pullman in auto mechanics. The school board eliminated this program while agreeing to fund travel for an additional sports program. There seems to be something wrong with that prioritization.

As I understand it, the dispute is over the district's alleged violation regarding the levy. The district is accountable to the taxpayer. If the district desires to remain honorable and above board, it could immediately run a regular levy as other rural districts do. The idea that the district can have the property owners' money forever until the end of time is bad for all. Why? Because property owners and circumstances change. What was voted in years ago is simply not fair to present and future taxpayers. It is a form of taxation without representation.

If residents are so concerned about the lawsuit and funding for education, one solution would be to give up the 75 percent homeowners' exemption and there will be plenty of money for education without passing any levy. After all it is the children in the homes that require educational funds, not businesses. I encourage the district to swallow its pride. Stop blaming Gerald Weitz who has simply asked: "Is this correct?" Rerun the levy, listen to the public, and restore confidence in the school board. It is important to deliver great vocational programs for our youth who will not be going to college.

Robert Clyde, Moscow

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

Jack Porter and Jamie Nekich (Opinion, May 15) have missed the point. The people who will be served by this lawsuit are the elderly who struggle to make ends meet. Who do you think property taxes hurt the worst? If you doubt me, stand around any pharmacy and ask the elderly about their property taxes. The boomers are voting these insane taxes onto the books. How do they intend to pay these taxes in 10 years when they start retiring en masse? I think that Gerald Weitz is correct for more reasons than even he thinks. Bravo!

I worked for Upward Bound for five years. We were working our duffs off to make sure that our students measured up to the requirements of the U.S. Department of Education. If the kids did not measure up, we would likely be defunded. Public schools have no such accountability. No Child Left Behind is not enforced. There is no real accountability for public schools. Weitz is trying to force a little accountability on the MSD which it desperately needs. Again I say, bravo!

Robert Seward, Moscow

The following article by Murf Raquet appeared in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News. This is the consensus of the Daily News editorial board.

What should have been said is that MSD made all of these cuts — and without the sky-falling, end-of-earth predictions that kept appearing in print.

I take exception with Murf’s last sentence: “We applaud the district in finding what little "fat" was left to trim.” There’s still a ton of fat to be trimmed. You cannot have MSD increase in size the way it has while simultaneously losing all the students it has, and not tell me it’s bloated.

 The Moscow School District proved it can be proactive in the face of budget cuts.

School officials trimmed $400,000 from the district's 2007-08 budget despite the hand-wringing of the worst-case-scenario folks.

The move was prompted by a lawsuit against the district filed by Moscow dentist and former school board member Gerald Weitz. Weitz contends the four previous school levies are invalid.

The most recent levy for $1.97 million was passed in March.

Whether Weitz prevails or the suit gets thrown out is anyone's guess.

Nonetheless, the district found itself in the position of potentially having far less money available for the coming school year if it lost the suit.

As is often the case, well-meaning people went into panic mode and painted pictures of a school system stripped bare. Others said it was about time district officials showed fiscal responsibility.

Mostly it was the uncertainty of it all after the lawsuit became public.

It took a few weeks, but district officials did what they had to do.

Most of the teachers in jeopardy of losing their jobs were given contracts. Five contracts were not renewed. Eleven jobs lost to attrition, some reshuffling of duties at the high school and a spending freeze on discretionary budgets will save the district about $400,000 next school year. That's the amount that would have been cut from the budget if the March levy hadn't passed.

"If we come through our court hearing and prevail, the money we've held and cut, and the positions that have been eliminated can be restored," said Superintendent Candis Donicht.

It will be up to the courts to decide the merits of the suit and we hope that's done soon so the district can plan accordingly.

More important, this suit and others around the state must be a signal to the Legislature their school funding formula isn't working.

School districts are forced periodically to go to the voters for supplemental money if they want to do more than the state minimum. And that money comes on the backs of taxpayers in the form of a levy.

The cuts were the only move officials could make. We applaud the district in finding what little "fat" was left to trim.

Perhaps this is the solution for parents who want their kids to pass the ISAT and WASL.

And it sounds like the tutors are more responsive than many teachers in the USA.

Then again, these teachers have a financial incentive to be responsive.

From the U.K. Telegraph:

A new trend in Indian outsourcing is promising to revolutionise the way that British schoolchildren receive extra tuition in maths and science.

Indian entrepreneurs are hoping to capitalise on the dearth of science and maths teachers in Britain by using India's wealth of graduates to deliver virtual lessons at affordable prices.

With private tutors costing £25-£50 an hour in Britain, Indian-based companies are now offering online GCSE maths tuition for just £50 a month for unlimited sessions to anyone with a broadband internet connection.

"If a child does 15 classes in a month, that works out to just £3.30 an hour," said Nishant Sinha, whose online service, Transwebtutors.com, is one of a small number of companies that have started providing tuition to customers in Britain and the United States.

"The key to success is high quality, which we ensure by using consultants in Britain and America to make sure that all our teachers are properly trained and equipped to teach the individual syllabuses for GCSE, A-Level or SATs," he said.

This year British parents will spend about £500 million for out-of-school tuition to help their children pass crucial examinations.

Last month, another India-based company was launched in Britain, backed by Sequoia Capital, the venture capital company that provided early funding for Google and YouTube. TutorVista aims to attract 5,000 pupils within a year.

Krishnan Ganesh, the company's chief executive, said that he believed online tuition had the potential to democratise the benefits of one-to-one tutoring.

"Until now, private tuition has been the preserve of the wealthy, costing up to £30 an hour," he said. "UK parents spend millions of pounds a year for improving their children's grades. TutorVista aims to open up such services to the mass market." It is estimated that in some of London's poorest boroughs up to 50 per cent of children are having extra lessons, with the remaining half often too poor to afford the advantages enjoyed by their classmates.

Companies such as Transwebtutors and TutorVista are also hoping to exploit the fact that a quarter of all British secondary schools do not have a single physics specialist, while almost a third of GCSE physics teachers do not have an A-Level in the subject.

Those logging on for online tuition are typically offered a free trial and a "get to know you" session at which teachers can ascertain the level of the student and particular areas in which he or she is having difficulty.

After downloading the appropriate software, which takes a few minutes, children can then share a virtual whiteboard on which teachers hand-write in coloured pens exactly as they would in a conventional classroom.

Students then "chat" through lessons with their online tutors either using a "type-chat" program, such as GoogleTalk, or directly to the teacher via an internet telephone voicelink like Skype.

At the end of the session a transcript of the lesson can be emailed to parents who want to see how their children are getting on or check up on the quality of the lesson.

HT: Chris W.

I looked over the past national mock trial results for 2007, 2006, 2005, and 2004.

Only four schools in the nation have competed at all four national competitions during the last four years:

• Logos School, Idaho
• John Adams High School, Indiana
• Montgomery County High School, Kentucky
• Hampden Academy, Maine

That’s an elite “club” to belong to.

FWIW, only John Adams High School (Indiana) has had five consecutive competitions. They must be quite a team!

The University of Idaho’s Argonaut has a good article about the UI hero Pete Husmann who tried to take out the sniper.  

Pete was hit in the neck, shoulder, stomach, and leg. In spite of being nearly killed, he got up and ran ~60 yards, out of the snipers line of fire.

Pete and his family are in our thoughts and prayers.

Get well soon so you can finish your senior year!

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

For only the second time in 20 years, Moscow voters rejected a property tax override levy, on a vote of 683 against and 661 for, a margin of less than 2 percent. A simple majority was needed. 

"Being suspended with pay is not a vacation."
—Dena Rosenkrantz, staff attorney for the Virginia Education Association, discussing the case of local affiliate president Joyce Tyree, who was suspended with pay for brandishing a butcher knife in class last March. (May 17 Culpepper Star Exponent)

HT: EIA

From EIA:

The Oregon Senate passed a bill that would allow those convicted of misdemeanor prostitution to become teachers in the state's public school system. The "Second Chance Act" passed by a margin of 20-7 after an amendment was added to place a five-year waiting period between the conviction and the application for a teaching license. The bill has been assigned to the Oregon House Education Committee, where it is expected to meet some opposition.

 

In a completely unrelated story, three Oregon teachers were arrested in a police sting for having sex in broad daylight in a public park.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

We’re at a terminal generation when it comes to primary education. As Mike Antonucci notes:

We're faced with a Hobson's choice: a generation of kids with (perhaps) adequate reading skills but inadequate knowledge of other subjects, or a generation of kids with broad exposure to all academic subjects, but with insufficient basic skills to make sense of them.

Are those the only two choices? Or are those the two ditches?

Is it too much to ask of the government schools to teach both the reading skills and the knowledge of other subjects?

From EIA:

The worst thing about standardized tests is not their effect on children, teachers or schools, but the way politicians, policymakers and pundits reverse field depending on who's in power and what the scores are.

 

The New York Times headline reads, "Students Gain Only Marginally on Test of U.S. History." Normally Democrats will tout test score gains, and Republicans will minimize them as inadequate. In this case, the Bush administration is promoting the gains as evidence of the positive effect of the No Child Left Behind Act's focus on reading, while opponents blame the small size of the increases on NCLB's narrowing of the curriculum.

 

What's strange is that they're both right.

 

If history and social studies are being crowded out by a greater emphasis on reading and math, then the only explanation for a statistically significant increase in history test scores must be due to increased reading comprehension. But if the gains were marginal, it must mean that while students understand more of the history they are reading, they aren't reading enough of it because of the all the time spent on reading and math.

 

So we can argue all day about the relative merits and pitfalls of NCLB, but this is the real dilemma. We're faced with a Hobson's choice: a generation of kids with (perhaps) adequate reading skills but inadequate knowledge of other subjects, or a generation of kids with broad exposure to all academic subjects, but with insufficient basic skills to make sense of them.

 

Neither is acceptable. So what to do next? Sounds like a pretty good question to ask the two dozen or so dwarves running for President a year early.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From EIA:

Jeanine Echols wanted her three children to attend the Marietta, Georgia, public schools. But she didn't live in Marietta and (evidently) didn't want to pay the annual tuition of $2,125 per child. So she used various ruses to make district officials believe she resided in Marietta.

 

What made Echols unique among the thousands of parents throughout America who defy the law in an effort to get their kids into better schools is that she was prosecuted on 16 felony counts of swearing to false documents and faced up to 80 years in prison. She was arrested in May 2005 and, after a two-year court battle, she was acquitted on all counts by a Cobb County jury last week.

 

The University City School District calls similar attempts by Missouri parents "educational larceny." District officials recently decided not to accept students seeking to transfer from the St. Louis Public Schools, which is about to lose its accreditation. They claimed their decision was "developed through studies of comparative achievement and other factors."

 

Comparative achievement? I thought traditional schools didn't cherry-pick.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

From EIA:

Where else can you find the executive officers of the National Education Association (and special surprise guest) discussing the union and each other? Yes, only in the EIA Video Intercept for June 2007. Catch it on the EIA home page at http://www.eiaonline.com or on Google Video or YouTube.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.