Moscow Education (Idaho)

I understand that the report is rife with factual errors. And not just spin, but untrue facts are presented, then critiqued. There will be much more about this report in the near future.

Standby for heavy seas, as we say.

This ran in today’s edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Five Idaho teachers who participated in the University of Idaho's National Board for Professional Teaching Standards facilitation program have received NBPTS certification - the highest level of professional teaching excellence.

…

National Board Certified teachers demonstrate subject-area expertise, as well as the ability to develop lesson plans and deliver instruction that meets the needs of students at different levels and abilities.

There must be more here than meets the eye. My family is chock-block full of educators — both on my mom’s side and on my wife’s side.

Being subject-matter experts, writing lesson plans, and delivering instruction used to be the default requirement of all teachers.

Why is this now the highest level of professional teaching standards?

I would love to see how these new certifications stack up against my aunt’s 40 years of “old-school” teaching requirements.

UPDATE: I understand that the report is rife with factual errors. And not just spin, but untrue facts are presented, then critiqued. There will be much more about this report in the near future. Stay tuned.

And here’s the kicker (which I’ve been saying for years here): graduate education is where UI can beat BSU, ISU, and BYU. We’re not competitive with them at the undergraduate level (at least not in most programs — engineering and sciences being the exception). But UI wants to focus on its weaknesses and not its strengths.

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

According to the report, the graduate programs began to suffer after the UI began to emerge from a fiscal crisis over the past few years. The school squandered millions of dollars in an attempt to build a satellite campus in Boise several years ago that was mismanaged by a previous administration. It has also suffered from a state budget holdback in 2002 and lean state appropriations since then.

But even as the university was righting itself in regards to undergraduate education, it lacked a clear plan to get graduate education moving in the right direction, the report says. And many faculty members simply jumped ship after it ran aground, especially research faculty.

"The best response to the financial crisis would have been strategic reduction and elimination and corresponding marshalling of resources to build existing strength," the report states. "Instead, the University continued to do everything it once did, with the consequence that most of what it is doing is not nationally competitive."

Baker said he and White want the report to serve as a catalyst for discussing how to realign graduate programs into interdisciplinary "centers of excellence," and not be a guide for eliminating programs.

"It's not going to be used for a hatchet," Baker said.

Unlike undergraduate programs, graduate programs fill a crucial financial niche at the university because of the high level of research funding they can attract. The report says the university's peer institutions have spent much of the past five years finding new ways to attract outside funding, but that the UI has been stuck trying to rebuild the same old strategies.

It says that with the financial realities of dwindling state and federal support, the bulk of the money needed to bolster graduate programs must come from other sources.

The report says many departments used the fiscal crisis as an excuse for doing little or no research.

"Faculty persist in the belief that the 'right sizes' of their departments were the sizes that they were prior to the fiscal crisis," it says.

The report largely places blame for the programs' decline on continued squabbling inside the university.

"Obsession with long-standing conflicts among faculty, upper administration, departments, colleges, institutes, and branch campuses is a key factor," the draft report states.

What's more, a culture of "promoting from within, seeking like-minded (graduate school) recruits, resisting diversification of faculty and leadership, and replacing rather than restructuring vacant positions further isolates and fragments the institution," according to the report.

Graden bristled at that notion, however. "I'm absolutely opposed to that idea," he said. "(People promoted from within) have committed their lives to working here in the trenches. I think they deserve the opportunity, many of them, to work their way upward."

The report also faulted the UI for not being able to hire a vice president for research. A search to fill that position has been dragging on for months.

Graden did applaud the UI administration for posting the report on the provost's Web site, even though he sees it as problematic and incomplete. "I pay homage to them (administrators), that they've allowed this to be online for everybody to review it." It can be downloaded at http://www.provost.uidaho.edu/yardley .

Baker said the report was akin to a regular physical at the doctor's office: unpleasant, but necessary.

"I'm proud of our faculty, because the institution is now at a point when it can go through this type of stem-to-stern examination," he said. "You get probed, prodded and poked, and sometimes you find that you need to lose a few pounds and exercise more."

UPDATE: I understand that the report is rife with factual errors. And not just spin, but untrue facts are presented, then critiqued. There will be much more about this report in the near future. Stay tuned.

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

Further, it says they feel constantly under siege from the state and the administration, and have a sense of entitlement to state funding.

It also says many faculty members are poor team players. "(They are) overly concerned with trivia and do not feel they have an obligation to help with larger issues - the fiscal crisis, for example, is the fault of administrators and needs to be fixed by administrators," it says.

The Yardley Research Group is billed as a national higher education consulting practice. It is based in Pennsylvania.

In focusing on graduate programs, the report faulted some departments for focusing too heavily on undergraduate education, rather than bringing in research grants and contracts, publishing books and papers, and performing other scholarly activities that would bolster the national reputation of UI grad programs.

The programs have suffered a 21 percent decline in enrollment over the past five years, according to the report.

It suggested a shift away from "academic masters" programs that do little research, to "professional masters" programs that charge fees and academic doctoral programs that attract research funding.

It also said the UI needs to do more of the interdisciplinary work helping peer institutions thrive. But Graden said that type of work, which is seen as producing more valuable research and graduates, already happens in droves.

Many interdisciplinary programs don't have "fancy" names like the UI Waters of the West program, and weren't noticed by the Yardley Group, Graden said. "If they were really doing their job, they would have said 'wow, look at what this department is doing, both at the undergraduate level and at the graduate level."

He said most professors feel an obligation to teach undergraduates, as well as publish and do research. The focus on undergraduates is also key to the financial success of the university, because it helps keep students enrolled until they graduate, Graden added.

Did Graden happen to mention the abysmal attrition rate at UI? And the stats pointing to how long it takes to graduate? And the total costs for attending university for 6 years instead of 4 years?

UPDATE: I understand that the report is rife with factual errors. And not just spin, but untrue facts are presented, then critiqued. There will be much more about this report in the near future. Stay tuned.

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

A new report says some graduate programs at the University of Idaho are in dire straits, and face tough challenges if they are ever to be competitive again.

But one faculty leader said Friday the report is "deeply flawed," and Provost Doug Baker said that while it could serve as a valuable catalyst to improve graduate programs, it should be taken with a grain of salt.

"The president (Tim White) and I sensed we needed to take a good look at graduate programs and research, and make sure they were on good footing," Baker said when reached by phone while vacationing in Oregon.

But Baker cautioned the UI-commissioned report by the Yardley Research Group used year-old data. Much has changed since then, he said.

That’s the complaint? Year-old data is hardly ancient.

"It may be a little harsh," Baker said of the tone of a draft of the report. "It's more reflective of what was going on a year ago. If they'd collected the data over the last year, it would have had a much more positive tone."

Dale Graden, a history professor and president of the faculty union for more than four years, said he was appalled by some of the harsh criticism the report had for faculty members.

"To me, it almost verges on being disgraceful, some of the comments they made about faculty culture," said Graden, who was recently succeeded as union president by music professor Robert Dickow. "That's a joke. That's a complete farce. The people I know work from morning to night, seven days a week."

And why do they run to the unions for a response?

The report faults faculty culture in several areas, saying it has an attitude that is stuck in the past and resistant to change. It says some faculty members have a "mistaken sense of national prominence," despite being outperformed by their peers.

Now this is spot-on. If I hear one more time from a UI professor about how the UI is a top-tier university, I’m going to barf.

It’s this culture of denial that’s killing us. Enrollment is bigger at BSU, ISU, and BYU than at UI. And there are reasons for that. The faculty’s habit of sticking its head in the ground will only accellerate UI’s decline.

I could have told you this without needing a research study.

We are paying more and more (including inflation) to educate kids less and less.

At this rate we’ll be paying everything we earn to teach kids nothing. A liberal’s nirvana.

From the article More Grads, But Cognitive Ability Declines:

Degrees and diplomas may not translate to on-the-job success

The good news: recruiters should see an increase in applicants with college degrees and high school diplomas; the bad news is that those applicants might not succeed on the job. A study conducted by Wonderlic, Inc. reveals a steady decline in the cognitive ability scores associated with specific education levels.

Wonderlic's press release about this study:

The explanation for this downward trend in cognitive ability by level of education is that more people with modest ability are remaining in school and graduating,” said Michael Callans, President of Wonderlic Consulting. “While remaining in school has obvious personal and societal benefits, it also impacts the relative meaning of a high school and college degree for employers.”

Mark Perry writes:

The study suggests that because the ability level of the average high school graduate has changed over time, finding job candidates with the same level of ability as 1970 high school graduates requires employers seek out applicants with two or more years of college training.

HT: Mark Perry

The following article ran in Tuesday’s Lewiston Tribune.

Nearly 270 University of Idaho retirees think they were cheated out of special benefits they were given for retiring early, and are considering a lawsuit against their former employer.

Earlier this month, the retirees put the university on notice with a claim for damages filed with the Idaho Secretary of State's Office in Boise. In the claim, which is a precursor to a lawsuit, the retirees say the university broke deals it cut with them in 1999 and 2002 to make way for new faculty and to save money.

"It was a deal," said T. Alan Place, a retired mechanical engineering professor and a member of the class action, which involves about 268 retirees. "The university administration is reneging on that deal. We're now getting higher deductibles, we're getting poorer health care offerings, and there's now a cost to health care that we didn't have before."

The 11-page claim says that by agreeing to leave their jobs early, the retirees did the UI a favor and helped it save millions of dollars. "These retirees terminated their employment, relinquished employee benefits, and selected pension options relying upon these promises from the University," it states.

 

A composite drawing of the suspect involved in the attempted kidnapping on Dec. 17 at 8 a.m. in the 1400 block of F Street in front of the Moscow School District Track and Field Complex.

A composite drawing of the suspect involved in an alleged child enticement Dec. 20 at 3:20 p.m. on Eisenhower Street in front of Good Samaritan Society-Moscow Village.

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

Police released composite sketches of the suspects in a pair of alleged attempted abductions that occurred in Moscow last week.

The first alleged incident occurred Monday morning on F Street near Moscow Junior High School. A 14-year-old female junior high school student reported the suspect said something that caused her fear, and then grabbed her by the arm and attempted to pull her inside his vehicle. She reported the subject released her after making a threat, and she was able to flee and report the incident to school officials.

The girl described the suspect as a white male in his early 20s, standing 6-foot-2 with an average build, a goatee-style beard and "orange" hair. A parent who reported witnessing the incident backed up the student's description.

The girl reported the suspect was driving a mid-1990s model, white short-cab pick-up truck with an orange stripe. However, the witness said the truck was a red Ford Ranger with no canopy. The girl has since said the truck may have been red, Moscow Assistant Police Chief David Duke said.

Duke said police are following up on several leads in the case, but have no new information to disclose.

The second incident, which police have classified an "alleged child enticement," occurred Thursday afternoon. A 10-year-old male McDonald Elementary School student reported he was walking home when a man in a car pulled up next to him, rolled down his window and told the boy to get in the car. The boy ran home and told his parents.

The boy described the man as a black or Hispanic male with light complexion, in his early 40s, with brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a green and purple tie-dye T-shirt and blue jeans. The boy described the suspect's car as a very dirty white or silver four-door passenger car with five air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror and a dent in the left front corner panel.

Duke said the two incidents do not appear to be related.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

Police continued Friday to investigate reports of two attempted abductions at schools here. Assistant Police Chief David Duke said the incidents appear to be unrelated and involve separate suspects.

The first incident happened Monday morning and involved a 14-year-old Moscow Junior High School girl who reported she was grabbed by a man who attempted to push her toward the passenger door of a vehicle, according to a Moscow School District letter sent to parents.

The second incident occurred Thursday, according to a police news release, and involved a 10-year-old McDonald Elementary School boy who said the driver of a car pulled up next to him, rolled down the window and told him to get in. The boy ran home and told his parents, according to the news release.

In the first incident, said Duke, police are looking for a white male with reddish-brown hair in his 20s. The reported victim described the suspect's vehicle as a mid-1990s white pickup truck with a cab-height shell on a short bed, according to a school district description.

In the second incident, the suspect is said to be a black male, light in complexion, in his early 40s, with brown hair, blue eyes and wearing a green and purple tie-dye shirt and blue jeans, according to the police news release. The vehicle, according to the release, is described as a "very dirty" white or silver four-door passenger car with five air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.

Duke said police are expecting an artist to draw composite sketches of both suspects and those sketches might be made public within a few days.

Persons with information on either incident are asked to contact police at (208) 882-2677.

And now more students will be exiting the Moscow School District — just in time to raise the rent.

Here’s something that caught my eye. Check out where this school is going to be located:

The school, located at 103 N Jackson St., will open Jan. 7 and offer a morning session from 9 a.m.-noon and an afternoon session from 12:30 p.m.-3:30 p.m. Each session will be three hours long.

I wonder if the same people who cried “foul!” at Atlas School being downtown, and NSA being downtown, will cry foul at the Montessori school being in the central business district?

My guess — absolutely not. All of those zoning hassles had nothing to do with zoning itself and everything to do with the recipients of the harassment.

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

Mike and Tammy Bonney's recent decision to move to Moscow is giving families and their preschool-aged children an alternative to traditional early education.

The Kent, Wash., natives decided they wanted to open a Montessori school three years ago and picked Moscow as the ideal spot.

Mike Bonney, director of White Pine Montessori, said there were two significant reasons he and his wife - who serves as assistant director - thought Moscow would be a great place for the school.

"We're very sold on Montessori education, (and) Moscow tends to be a town that's fairly sold on education," he said.

Bonney said he and his wife, who have lived in Moscow for six months, learned there was a Montessori school in Pullman and many Moscow students had to drive between the towns each day.

"Research shows that there is plenty of demand for (the school) in Moscow," he said. "Education is a highly valued thing here in Moscow."

Bonney said the Montessori school, which is a separate entity from the Moscow School District even though it has a similar calendar schedule, is accepting students 2 1/2 through 6 years old.

Interested in the Idaho teachers who made the list?

Look here: http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20071219/NEWS/254364212

Recognize any names locally?

From Breitbart:

 A confidential, nationwide list of 24,500 teachers who have been punished for a wide array of offenses was made available to the public Friday by a Florida newspaper.

The Sarasota Herald-Tribune created a searchable database of the teachers' names after waiting for years to gain access to the list. The paper began seeking the material as part of its earlier reporting on teacher sexual misconduct in Florida. It obtained the list from the Florida Department of Education.

The list, gathered and maintained by the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification, does not provide any information on why any of the teachers were disciplined. Sexual misconduct, financial misconduct, criminal convictions and other misbehavior all can bring disciplinary actions against teacher licenses.

From today's Spokesman Review.

Idaho’s State Board of Education voted Thursday to amend its $22 million testing contract and eliminate this spring’s Idaho Standards Achievement Test for 9th graders throughout the state.

“I want a balanced budget. I don’t want to be in this situation ever again,” declared board President Milford Terrell.

In a special meeting, the board voted 5-1 to amend its contract with Data Recognition Corp. of Maple Grove, Minn. to eliminate funding for 9th grade Idaho Standards Achievement tests, and voted unanimously to waive its rule requiring ISAT testing for 9th graders for this spring only.

If the board hasn’t come up with a new plan before next fall, it’d have to waive the rule again to cancel the fall 9th grade ISAT, for which there would be no funding in the contract. The test previously was required, at least twice a year, for students in 2nd through 10th grades, with passing the 10th grade test required for graduation from high school. The board canceled 2nd grade testing this fall due to budget shortfalls, which it also cited for eliminating the spring 9th grade test.

State Superintendent of Schools Tom Luna was the lone dissenter in the 5-1 vote, saying he didn’t want to eliminate the funding for the life of the contract, which runs for four years with two possible two-year extensions. He preferred to cut it just for this year, and leave funding for future years in the contract. “I understand the predicament the board’s in,” Luna said. But, he said, “The 9th grade test is a critical test given the year before we expect students to pass a graduation test.”

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

Thousands of American parents, while paying the taxes extorted by law to support local public schools (so much for "free" public education), have of their own volition accepted the additional financial burden of paying to have their children educated in private schools of their choosing. Don Orlich (Opinon, Dec.14) seems to believe that this amounts to unseemly anti-social, possibly even unpatriotic behavior, as though government has been endowed by constitutional mandate or natural right with authority to undertake the formation of the ethical and moral character of children.

Wal-Mart is not by any means the only entity willing to help parents pay the added costs of exercising their fundamental right to educate their children as they wish, but I doubt that such philanthropy is motivated by anti-union sentiments to any significant degree. (I can understand why it might be, however, for I know about the underlying socio-political ideology that motivates and permeates the anti-family, pro-homosexual, pro-abortion resolutions routinely and repeatedly endorsed by annual conventions of National Education (?) Association).

Those "school choice advocates" that Orlich castigates for seeking "your public tax funds" happen also to be among the taxpayers that provide those funds. I'm sure few of them are pleased at having to pay doubly for the education of their children. We have no cause to accuse them of malfeasance of citizenship for so doing. And by the way, aren't we pro-choice? As for the alleged "benefits of early interventions" by certificated pedagogues in the work of parents exercising their natural right and duty to shape the attitudes and mores of their children, who exactly is it that benefits, and to what purpose? I am highly suspicious of government agents seeking to usurp the role of parents, especially during those crucial years of early childhood.

Leonard C. Johnson, Moscow

Details from Spokesman Review Betsy Russell's blog An Eye on Boise.

Idaho’s State Board of Education has called a special meeting for tomorrow afternoon to formally cancel the 9th grade Idaho Standards Achievement Test. The board earlier announced it was cancelling the test, which 3rd through 10th graders now must take at least twice a year, due to a budget shortfall, after discussing the matter in a closed meeting in apparent violation of the Idaho Open Meeting Law. On behalf of The Spokesman-Review, I filed a complaint with the Idaho Attorney General’s office over the incident; that office is investigating. Today, the Idaho Allied Dailies, an association of 16 daily newspapers, filed a similar complaint. The board’s agenda for tomorrow’s meeting, which was announced late this afternoon, includes amending its $22 million contract with the ISAT testing firm and formally waiving the board rule that requires 9th grade ISAT testing.

I’m sure this special meeting is because the Spokesman Review filed an open-meeting complaint against the Idaho State BoE for cancelling the 9^th grade ISAT in a closed door session.

The results for the 2006 Program for International Student Assessment is out.

You can find it here: http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2008/2008016.pdf

This is the “Performance of US 15-Year-Old Students in Science and Mathematics Literacy in an International Context”.

As you can well imagine, the results are ugly — as always: the US spends more money per child and gets the least results.

Liberals will call for throwing more money at the problem instead of addressing the root cause issues.

Key findings from the report include:

• Fifteen-year-old students in the United States had an average score of 489 on the combined science literacy scale, lower than the OECD average score of 500. U.S. students scored lower on science literacy than their peers in 16 of the other 29 OECD jurisdictions and 6 of the 27 non-OECD jurisdictions. Twenty-two jurisdictions (5 OECD jurisdictions and 17 non-OECD jurisdictions) reported lower scores compared to the United States in science literacy.
• U.S. students also had lower scores than the OECD average score for two of the three content area subscales (explaining phenomena scientifically (486 versus 500) and using scientific evidence (489 versus 499)). There was no measurable difference in the performance of U.S. students compared with the OECD average on the identifying scientific issues subscale (492 versus 499). Along with scale scores, PISA 2006 uses six proficiency levels to describe student performance in science literacy, with level 6 being the highest level of proficiency. The United States had greater percentages of students below level 1 (8 percent) and at level 1 (17 percent) than the OECD average percentages on the combined science literacy scale (5 percent below level 1 and 14 percent at level 1).
• In 2006, the average U.S. score in mathematics literacy was 474, lower than the OECD average score of 498. Thirty-one jurisdictions (23 OECD jurisdictions and 8 non-OECD jurisdictions) scored higher, on average, than the United States in mathematics literacy in 2006. In contrast, 20 jurisdictions (4 OECD jurisdictions and 16 non-OECD jurisdictions) scored lower than the United States in mathematics literacy in 2006.
• When comparing the performance of the highest achieving students—those at the 90th percentile—U.S. students scored lower (593) than the OECD average (615) on the mathematics literacy scale. Twenty-nine jurisdictions (23 OECD jurisdictions and 6 non- OECD jurisdictions) had students at the 90th percentile with higher scores than the United States on the mathematics literacy scale.

We pay the most to turn out the most inferior educational product in the OECD.

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

Moscow Police and school officials are now looking for both a white or a red vehicle that could have been involved in the alleged attempted abduction of a Moscow Junior High School student Monday.

Moscow Junior High School Principal Dale Kleinert said the Moscow Police Department received a call from a parent who said they witnessed the altercation.

The parent said the incident occurred at about 8 a.m., and their description of the subject backed up that of the student. However, the parent said the automobile involved was a "red Ford Ranger with no canopy," rather than a white Chevrolet with a canopy, Kleinert said.

The student reported the vehicle as a mid-1990s model, white short-cab pick-up truck with an orange stripe.

No license plate number was reported.

"We're possibly looking for both color vehicles," Kleinert said.

A $1,000 reward for information that leads to an arrest and conviction is being offered, according to a flier being circulated by the Moscow School District.

The female student said she outran an individual who approached her in his car as she walked to school on F Street near the track field off Mountain View Road.

The man - described as being in his early 20s, standing 6-foot-2 with an average build, and having a goatee-style beard and "orange" hair - reportedly said something that caused the student fear, and then grabbed her by the arm and attempted to pull her inside his vehicle.

According to a Moscow Junior High School news release, the subject released the student after "making a threat," and she was able to flee. The student ran to the school and within five minutes reported "as many details as she could remember" to school officials.

Kleinert said parents were notified of the incident via e-mail and students received details at the end of the school day on Monday.

Anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact the Moscow Police Department at (208) 882-2677, or WeTip, an anonymous crime tip hotline, at (800) 782-7463.

These kinds of things don’t happen in Moscow.

Yet here we are.

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

A female Moscow Junior High School student was able to outrun an individual who approached her in his car at about 8 a.m. today.

The student was walking to school on F Street near the track field off Mountain View Road when the man, described as being in his early 20s with a goatee-style beard, said something that caused her fear.

Moscow Assistant Police Chief David Duke said the suspect "grabbed her by the arm (and) started to take her toward a white pick-up truck" that was parked next to the track field.

According to a Moscow Junior High School news release, the subject released the student after "making a threat," and she was able to flee. The student ran to the school and within five minutes reported "as many details as she could remember" to school officials.

The suspect was described as being 6-foot-2 with an average build, with short, "orange" hair. He was reportedly driving a mid-1990s model, white short-cab pick-up truck with an orange stripe.

The vehicle may have been a Chevrolet with a "cab-height canopy," according to the release. No license plate number was reported.

Duke said officers have located a truck that matches the description.

"They'll be following up on that with the victim and trying to get more info on what occurred," he said.

Moscow Junior High School Principal Dale Kleinert said parents are being notified of the incident via e-mail and students will be given details at the end of the day.

Anyone with information about the incident is urged to contact the Moscow Police Department at (208) 882-2677, or WeTip, an anonymous crime tip hotline, at (800) 782-7463.

From EIA:

Last week EIA reported on declining enrollment in California's Elk Grove Unified School District, which only two years earlier had been one of the fastest growing districts in the nation. This week word comes from Florida – traditionally a state of booming enrollment – of a second consecutive year of declining enrollment statewide.

 

Government officials were quick to blame this on falling immigration, or housing costs, or hurricane insurance – anything but demographics. While everyone refers to the aging American populace when discussing the workforce and pensions, few come to grips with the corollary: Older people produce fewer children than younger people.

 

The labor implications are clear. There are going to be increased pressures to lay off the armies of education employees who were hired in the boom years. And there are going to be increased efforts by education employee unions to prevent any such thing.

 

We have been warned for years about the coming catastrophe due to a massive number of teacher retirements. In fact, those retirements may be the only way to prevent a massive layoff of the newly hired teachers we are trying so hard to recruit and retain.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

This is another example of how the educational-industrial complex repeats a lie often enough that people start to believe it.

From EIA:

I won't bore you with yet another recitation of why the claim that "half of all new teachers leave the profession in five years" is phony. I only want you to see what happens when such an exaggeration goes uncorrected:

 

"In this economy, you have six out of 10 going into teaching leaving within five years because the pay's not competitive." – Sen. Joseph Biden, during the Democratic presidential candidate debate on December 13 in Johnston, Iowa.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

I’ve had people comment to me that because the NEA endorsed Huckabee, he’s clearly unfit to be a Republican candidate. That’s an interesting power that the NEA wields — endorsing someone causing them to be discredited.

Mike makes some excellent points here. From EIA:

Ten days ago, NEA New Hamsphire endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Mike Huckabee. It was the first time the organization had ever endorsed a Republican for president in the primaries. That much was noteworthy. Of course, the first time NEANH endorsed a Democrat for president in the primaries was Howard Dean in 2004, but why monkeywrench the accepted narrative so early?

 

It is amazing how many people – in both parties – have taken this molehill and built it into a mountain. On the one hand, you have Republican conservatives going ballistic because they think it highlights their worst fears about Huckabee. Sen. Fred Thompson capitalized on this sentiment during the Republican candidate debate in Iowa by naming NEA as the biggest obstacle to improving education. (Thompson thus staked out the popular, but failed, Bob Dole "I'm against NEA but can't articulate why" position.)

 

On the other hand, you have commentators assuming a widespread teacher love affair with Huckabee, based on nothing at all.

 

"He recently got an endorsement from the New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association, the teachers group that ordinarily backs Democrats," reported the Kansas City Star. "That serves as a testament to the success he had in boosting students' test scores in Arkansas."

 

Really? NEA wants a candidate who can boost student test scores?

 

Next you have Michael J. Petrilli, vice president for national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, writing "Why Teachers Like Mike" for National Review Online. "To the degree that people like to support candidate whom they can relate to, Huckabee is a natural fit for the teacher vote," he states, adding that if Huckabee wins the Republican nomination, "it's conceivable that he could steal a lot of their votes from the Democratic candidate."

 

Well, some things are conceivable – like Dennis Kucinich being carried away on Parliament Funkadelic's Mothership – but they are hardly worth mentioning in a serious editorial on the presidential campaign.

 

Either Huckabee is really slick or even NEA New Hampshire is confused. In a short press conference announcing the endorsement, NEANH President Rhonda Wesolowski admitted the union didn't ask Huckabee very much about the No Child Left Behind Act, and, according to a published report, "lauded Huckabee's opposition to school vouchers."

 

Petrilli mentioned Huckabee's opposition to vouchers in his editorial and received a correction from the Huckabee campaign, stating the candidate "is a supporter of school vouchers, and has always been a supporter of school vouchers." This prompted Petrilli to ask, "Will the teachers' union rescind its support now that his position is clearer?"

 

Today the Washington Post ran a story on home-schoolers working for Huckabee in Iowa. NEA Resolution B-75 states, "The National Education Association believes that home schooling programs based on parental choice cannot provide the student with a comprehensive education experience."

 

It's understandable that so many people are confused. They thought NEA New Hampshire's endorsement of Huckabee occurred because the union preferred him to the other candidates and wanted him to win the nomination. But the endorsement has everything to do with the union and little to do with Huckabee.

 

NEA as a whole has spent much of the Bush years trying to cultivate swing Republicans for two reasons: 1) to change the perception that the union and the Democratic Party are adjuncts of each other; and 2) to peel off moderate votes in a divided Congress. This strategy is less important now than it was before the 2006 elections, but NEA still has to account for the estimated one-third of its members who are registered Republicans.

 

Huckabee, needing something to distinguish himself from the rest of the Republican field, was the lone GOP candidate to accept NEA's invitation to speak before its Representative Assembly in July, and handled himself with warmth and humor. The delegates responded well, mainly because he didn't fit their stereotypical view of a Republican. (For one thing, he wasn't chewing tobacco or carrying a concealed weapon. At least I don't think he was.)

 

But it needs to be repeated that NEA national has not endorsed Huckabee. Not yet, anyway. He was also the only Republican to interview with the NEA New Hampshire leadership. Those are the people who endorsed him. Because no other GOP candidate agreed to see them, NEANH had only two choices: endorse Huckabee or endorse no one. If they failed to endorse Huckabee, why would any future GOP candidate ever visit?

 

There was no rank-and-file vote. There was no secret ballot. I have no information on the party affiliation of the NEA New Hampshire leadership, but I'll bet most, if not all, are Democrats – and party-active Democrats at that. It's unlikely that most of New Hampshire's teachers had any notion their union was even considering an endorsement of Huckabee. So to believe that the endorsement has anything to do with the preference of New Hampshire's teachers, never mind America's, is simply silly.

 

Besides, NEA endorsements aren't primarily about teacher votes, they are about union volunteers and organizers managing phone banks and walking precincts and putting up lawn signs. If you see them doing that for Huckabee in New Hampshire, let me know. And if you see them doing it for any non-incumbent GOP candidate in the general election anywhere, write about it, because you'll have a real story then.

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

The following article by Steve McClure appeared in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

This is the consensus of the Daily News editorial board.

Bottom line: if Bradbury vacated the March election, then MSD doesn’t get the money from the November election until Fall 2008. That’s clear in the law.

MSD has two million reasons to fight with the judge over that decision.

District Court Judge John Bradbury's series of decisions on the lawsuit against the Moscow School District has created an unlikely sense of unity among patrons.

No one really knows what all the decisions mean.

It might be the only place the district can get 100 percent agreement among voters. Unfortunately, that agreement is centered around confusion.

Outside of clearly giving the district six weeks to correct the ballot language and run another election, most of the decisions issued from Bradbury's desk have been lacking in clarity, and clarity in this instance is as important as an actual decision.

Since the election a month ago, district patrons have been trying to move forward. But there's no way of knowing how to proceed. Bradbury declared the March levy election null and void in November, and then turned around earlier this month and declared the decision to declare the March election null and void, well, null and void.

"Hopefully this will all be settled soon," Latah County Treasurer Connie Jain Ferguson said this week.

Ferguson is not the only one waiting for a resolution.

Since his ruling will determine when the school district can begin collecting the tax money associated with the levy, the lack of clear instructions from the courts has created significant headaches for the county treasurer, the school district and patrons.

We fully recognize the issues surrounding the lawsuit filed by Moscow dentist Gerald Weitz were complex and far-reaching. We also recognize that legal maneuvering by attorneys for Weitz and the school district often can appear confusing to those who haven't studied the nuance of the judicial system.

That puts a greater onus on Bradbury to clear the fog. It's a responsibility he has to the public based on the robe he puts on and the bench he occupies. 

The following editorial by Vera White appeared in today's edition of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

Vera reflects exactly what I’ve been saying here for the last few years  (see here, here, here, and here)— UI has been wasting a ton of money on bogus advertising slogans.

Vera’s just 13 months behind the times.

Would you immediately think of the University of Idaho when you heard the motto, "A Legacy of Leading?" Doubtful, but the university is expected to spend $900,000 a year on the new campaign to promote the motto which, according to a UI spokeswoman, will be "more impactful" with the institution's various audiences.

This amazing piece of information was brought to the INKster's attention by "Anonymous UI faculty" who enclosed a copy of an article addressing the subject in a Nov. 23 issue of The Chronicle Review of Higher Education, described as "the leading administration and faculty jobs paper in the nation."

"Just more wonderful publicity from our wonderful leaders at the UI," the sender wrote in an enclosed note.

The article, written by Thomas Bartlett, noted that last year, the UI had dropped its motto, "From Here You Can Go Anywhere" (unless U.S. Highway 95 is in another construction phase) for a new marketing theme dubbed "No Fences," with the tag line, "Open Spaces, Open Minds." The words were intended to evoke "both the romantic landscape of Idaho and the boundless intellectual opportunities at the university."

One problem, no one really liked it.

Bartlett questioned whether a college really needed a motto. "Not if it's costing nearly $1 million a year," was the INKster's immediate thought. It seems that much money could be better spent elsewhere, especially since the article indicated it would become an annual expenditure.

Bartlett wrote that an "extremely informal and decidedly unscientific survey indicates that many people don't know" the slogan of their alma mater.

The INKster lauds the efforts of faculty members who brought this to her attention. She thought of a motto for the people who shelled out this kind of money, but it wasn't suitable for print in a family newspaper!

Logos school requires all of the seniors to take the ACT exam prior to graduating.

The ACT has a high correlation with college performance and well represents the preparedness of high school graduates for doing well in college (not to mention the academic scholarships that come with high ACT scores).

I don’t think that MSD will want all of their students tested with the ACT in order to graduate, though. There’s no wiggle room for them to allow kids to slip through who don’t perform well on the ACT. That really is an objective standard that I’m sure they would prefer to avoid.

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

Proposal comes on heels of announcement state won't give ISAT test to ninth-graders any more to save money

As the state announced discontinuing the Idaho Standards of Achievement tests for ninth grade, principals from Region 2 heard a proposal to replace the ISAT test with the ACT.

"I don't think this thinking is isolated," said Jeff Farden, principal of Culdesac Schools. "How many times do we need to test them?"

The proposal was brought by Steve Higgins of Kamiah High School, chairman of the Region 2 Principals Association. It was drafted by Sandra Russo, counselor at the school.

"(ISAT) is a test that meets the requirements of government regulations, nothing more," she wrote in a letter addressing the group. "Colleges do not recognize it as a means of measurement as they still function on GPA, ACT or SAT scores."

She added that ACTs meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind, which is one reason state tests are given.

Higgins told the association at its regular meeting Wednesday in Lewiston that while the idea of test reform is huge, the idea has merit.

"Maybe it is one of those ideas that has been talked about before but never went anywhere," he said.

Mark Browning, public information officer for the State Board of Education, said in a separate discussion Tuesday he has not heard such an idea before but welcomes a presentation to the assessment review committee.

Interesting that the Spokesman Review is the entity to file this complaint.

From today's Spokesman Review.

A complaint filed this morning asks the Idaho Attorney General's office to investigate whether the state Board of Education violated the law by having a closed meeting to decide to stop standardized tests this spring for Idaho ninth-graders.

The Spokesman-Review filed the complaint alleging that the board violated the Idaho Open Meeting Law by discussing the testing matter during a closed session at its Pocatello board meeting on Thursday. The law allows closed meetings only for specific purposes.

The complaint further alleges that the board didn't keep minutes of the executive session and discussed public policy issues, including student testing and the board's budget, in the closed meeting.

"Important matters of public policy in our state should be decided in public, as our law requires," reporter Betsy Z. Russell wrote in the complaint. 

I’m glad that the Spokesman filed the complaint.

But I always find it funny when liberals file a complaint against something that they disagree with (NCLB, “high stakes testing”, etc).

From today's Spokesman Review.

A complaint filed this morning asks the Idaho Attorney General's office to investigate whether the state Board of Education violated the law by having a closed meeting to decide to stop standardized tests this spring for Idaho ninth-graders.

The Spokesman-Review filed the complaint alleging that the board violated the Idaho Open Meeting Law by discussing the testing matter during a closed session at its Pocatello board meeting on Thursday. The law allows closed meetings only for specific purposes.

The complaint further alleges that the board didn't keep minutes of the executive session and discussed public policy issues, including student testing and the board's budget, in the closed meeting.

"Important matters of public policy in our state should be decided in public, as our law requires," reporter Betsy Z. Russell wrote in the complaint.

The following article ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

A district judge Monday vacated his ruling that the March school levy election in Moscow was null and void.

Meanwhile taxes are being collected and accounted for separately, awaiting a refiling of the decision.

Because the March levy was validated by the Idaho State Tax Commission, the levy is included in the December tax bills.

"There is no way that an individual taxpayer can just hold back a piece of their bill," said Latah County Prosecuting Attorney William Thompson.

The money from the levy increase is being kept separately pending 2nd District Court Judge John Bradbury's final decision.

The money in question comes from a levy ballot this spring in which Moscow voters approved a $1.97 million increase to the district's $5.6 million indefinite levy.

Gerald Weitz, a local dentist, filed a civil suit against the district saying all the levies dating back to 1992, when the initial indefinite levy was passed, were invalid. Bradbury upheld only his objection to the 2007 levy. But now that decision is on hold.

The district reran the levy this fall at the instruction of Bradbury. The increase again passed but did not make the cutoff for validation by the tax commission for the December tax bills.

"He is not going to change the judgment, he is vacating the judgment," said Brian Thie, attorney for Gerald Weitz. "It is a procedural event to reset timelines."

A hearing is set Jan. 15 to hear outstanding motions and issues.

"The judge is leaving the case open pending more motions and briefings," Thompson said.

Brian Julian, attorney for the Moscow School District agreed the move was strictly procedural.

"I wouldn't read too much into the fact that he vacated the decision," he said Tuesday.

Thie said in court documents he filed in May for injunctive relief, taxes based on an invalid levy election should not be collected. Bradbury has not ruled on collection of the levy but had ruled the levy was invalid.

The district filed a petition saying it should be eligible for the money.

"The question is did the November election cure the deficiencies he found in the March election," Julian said. "It should because we ought to honor the will of the people."

Thompson said confusion in the case has created some questions from taxpayers, who are due to pay taxes this month.

"The best thing we can do is all just sit back and wait for Judge Bradbury to make the decision," he said.

That means paying the entire tax bill.

He said it is also unlikely the increased levy amount would be removed from the second half bills due in June 2008 bill because some people pay their entire tax bill in December, making it unfair to remove the levy for those who pay later.

"One option (if it isn't disbursed) would be to have it applied to next year's taxes."

Thompson said the county is simply collecting the tax and waiting a decision.

"I think status quo is a good description."

MSD is going with the national flow: more staff for fewer students.

From EIA:

The National Education Association today released its annual report, Rankings and Estimates: Rankings of the States 2006 and Estimates of School Statistics 2007. You can read the union spin here, but you already know what it is.

 

The report will revive the usual back-and-forth about average teacher salaries, after which no one's mind will be changed. And no one will note the one astonishing statistic that greatly explains why all the revenue and expenditure numbers are where they are.

 

Teacher hiring is completely out of control.

 

Yes, believers in the eternal teacher shortage, you read that correctly. A trend that was obvious after last year's edition of Rankings and Estimates is now glaring. The last of the Baby Boomer's kids are working their way through high school and they are not being replaced. NEA estimates that K-12 enrollment grew by only 0.3 percent in 2006-07, but the demographic implications are only clear when you separate elementary enrollment from secondary.

 

Grades K-8 Enrollment 2006-07= 29,758,808 (+51,958; +0.2%)

Grades 9-12 Enrollment 2006-07= 19,133,765 (+113,079; +0.6%)

 

Looks like we should be hiring a greater percentage of high school teachers, right? But we're not, not even close.

 

Grades K-8 Classroom Teachers 2006-07= 1,856,567 (+42,541; +2.3%)

Grades 9-12 Classroom Teachers 2006-07= 1,317,787 (+10,175; +0.8%)

 

That's right. America hired 42,541 extra elementary school teachers for 51,958 extra elementary school students. That's one extra teacher for every 1.2 extra students. This is not a new trend, only an accelerated one. In the last 10 years, K-8 enrollment has risen by a cumulative 4.1 percent. But the K-8 teaching forced has risen by a cumulative 17.1 percent.

 

If the national picture seems insane, consider California. NEA estimates a 48,031 student decrease in K-8 enrollment for 2006-07, but an increase of 9,284 K-8 teachers.

 

NEA estimates K-8 average salaries increased 4.2 percent in 2006-07, which means we are paying a premium for all those extra teachers. So while NEA decries the failure of average salaries to match inflation, the fact that public school districts can so massively increase the number of teachers at the bottom end of the scale, while still increasing the average salary by a substantial amount, is a testament to the ability of government to appropriate money for education. 

From The Education Intelligence Agency.

How convenient.

Details from Spokesman Review Betsy Russell's blog An Eye on Boise.

The state Board of Ed has eliminated the Idaho Standards Achievement Test for 9^th graders, both spring and fall, effective immediately – but not because they’ve decided 9th graders shouldn’t be taking the test, or because there was too much testing, or anything like that. “It’s unfortunate, but we must balance our budget,” said board President Milford Terrell. “Accountability is key, and that includes fiscal accountability.”

The ISAT is the test that the state requires every high school student to pass in the 10th grade or risk not graduating, though various second chances are given to pass. It’s part of the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s requirements. Idaho kids still will take the ISAT test in grades 3 through 8, spring and fall, and again in the 10th grade, when it counts for graduation. But not the year before that.

The state board announced in a news release that the change came “due to unforeseen contractual costs associated with the test.” Eliminating the test for 9th graders will save $826,320 this year.

“Rapidly declining student enrollment could be leveling. Donations have rebounded after dropping by two thirds. Research grants are picking up. And on campus, the attitude change is tangible.”

Personally, I’m less optimistic. There are many reasons that keep students from coming to Moscow:

• The anti-business climate that the current City Council have created. Students who want to work and attend college know not to look to Moscow. No jobs.
• Statewide campuses (Boise, Cd’A, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Post Falls).
• There are other large university choices in Idaho (BSU, ISU, BYU). BSU and ISU in fact have larger enrollment than UI. It could be that BYU also has a larger enrollment now than UI.
• Moscow is not well connected with interstate highways. Therefore, it’s not as easy to get here as it is to Boise, Cd’A, Twin Falls, Idaho Falls, Post Falls, etc.

Time will tell. We’ll need to see what the January enrollment looks like before we can make that kind of declaration about enrollment. But if I lived in one of Idaho’s largest cities, I would not likely send my kids to Moscow — at least not for their first two years of college.

From today's Idaho Statesman:

After years of financial and image problems, the University of Idaho is showing signs of renewal.

Key indicators of a university's health - enrollment and research grants - appear to be leveling off or increasing after several years' decline.

President George Bush last month presented U of I the government's highest arts honor for the school's signature Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival.

Faculty numbers, which were cut in the early part of the decade as the university reined in spending, are beginning to rebound.

The University of Idaho Foundation has restructured itself after problems that grew out of the university's attempt to expands its Boise campus.

U of I, however, still wrestles with problems. Enrollment, which fell 10 percent in five years, has yet to show a healthy rebound, and that makes it harder to recruit both students and faculty and makes it tougher for the school to get more money from the Legislature.

But throughout the university, once dark feelings of pessimism are being replaced by hope.

U of I is in planning stages for an estimated $300 million capital campaign - nearly twice the size of a campaign recently announced by Boise State University - aimed in part at improving student financial assistance.

University supporters say such a campaign would have been unthinkable just three years ago.

This is a great followup to the previous post: Pullman school officials eye potential math changes.

Still feel like you’re getting your money’s worth out of government education?

$10,000 per child per year doesn’t get you what it used to.

The following letter to the editor ran in today’s Lewiston Tribune.

Dreading algebra costs

"Dreaded algebra"?

Would the Associated Press write "dreaded U.S. history"?

This article [Dec. 1] could have been written with a positive slant. Using an equation to estimate cow populations is an application of algebra, just one example of its value.

There are many reasons for poor student performance in math courses. One of them is a strong belief by students that math should be dreaded, and that it is acceptable to quit doing math as soon as possible.

More than 50 percent of freshmen beginning academic coursework at Lewis-Clark State College must take developmental math courses.

Each fall, we enroll about 100 students in pre-algebra, 150 students in elementary algebra and 75 students in intermediate algebra.

These are junior high and high school math courses.

Dreading and avoiding math is costing students and taxpayers significant money.

Without one or more college-level math courses, a student cannot earn a degree. Without confidence and competency, many degrees and careers are closed to students.

Laura Bracken
Developmental Math Faculty
Lewis-Clark State College
Lewiston