Education News

TOPEKA | As the Kansas Legislature slowly moves through what could be its final day, the fate of education funding is still in doubt.

The Senate and the House disagree with how much money to put into schools. The Senate wants $77 million. The House wants to put in $50 million.

The Senate wants to take the money from general taxes. The House wants to take it from the state highway fund.

But all of this is essentially superfluous if both chambers can’t agree on some matters of education policy that House leaders want.

The House has offered to give the Senate the education funding it wants, but in exchange, it wants the Senate to agree to a number of policy measures it doesn’t necessarily like.

The House also wants the Senate to agree to revisit compromise plan for cutting taxes that the Senate has refused to consider.

The Senate made some concessions, but the House really is pushing for proposals that might tell the state courts how to adjudicate questions of school finance.

In a conference committee this morning, tensions flared a little when House and Senate leaders couldn’t agree on some key policy matters, including measures that would direct how the courts to decide how to evaluate adequate school spending.

House members believe the state could benefit from the laws as the state prepares to go to court in several weeks and defend its current finance formula.

House members were perplexed why Senators wouldn’t go along with the bills that had no direct effect on school budgets, but might save the state from a judgment costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

In deciding the adequacy of school funding, one proposal would require that the courts consider no less than 65 percent of all state money spent on education as going toward classroom instruction.

The bill, backed by Republican House Speaker Mike O’Neal, also would require anyone bringing a court challenge over school finance to have the burden to prove that the money wasn’t sufficient to fund instructional costs.

Another proposal that the Senate doesn’t really like would redefine a portion of local funding as state money that could be used to help the state defend the lawsuit.

“Can you tell me why something that will help (defend) the lawsuit is not negotiable,” said state Rep. Clay Aurand, chair of the House Education Committee.

However, Sen. John Vratil, a Leawood Republican, said he thought the Legislature would be over-stepping its authority with those kinds of bills.

Vratil said he could not support bills undercutting the authority of the judiciary, the third branch of government

Key conservative House members have long had issues with how the courts have forced the state to cough up millions for schools.

Earlier this year, the House came up just shy of passing a constitutional amendment that would have effectively stopped the courts from solving questions about school funding.

The constitutional amendment, which would have gone to the voters, was directed at a state Supreme Court decision from 2005 that ordered the state to spend hundreds of millions more dollars on schools. There was a feeling among many Republicans that the court over-stepped its authority when it issued that ruling.

Back in 2005, the Supreme Court forced a rare special session of the Legislature when it ordered lawmaker to increase school funding by $143 million, setting off a bitter debate about whether the court had the power to direct legislative spending choices.

After 12 days, the Legislature met the court’s conditions, Lawmakers also authorized a new study of education costs, which the court later said must reflect the cost of improving academic performance. The court told lawmakers to base future funding increases on those costs, which were priced at $400 million.

The state constitution already says the power to appropriate lies with the Legislature. But some lawmakers said more was needed to prevent the Supreme Court from interfering with budgeting.

http://www.kansas.com/2012/05/19/2340955/education-funding-in-limbo-as.html

A recent study by the federal government showed that Americans who attain a college education live about nine years longer than those who do not graduate from high school.

The study found that in 2010, 31 percent of adults ages 25 to 64 with a high school diploma or less were smoking, compared to 24 percent who had some college and 9 percent with a bachelor’s degree. The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed higher obesity rates in households where the heads of the family had less than a high school education.

Amy Bernstein, the report’s lead author, said: “Highly educated people tend to have healthier behaviors, avoid unhealthy ones and have more access to medical care when they need it. All of these factors are associated with better health.”

People should not have to graduate from college to learn good health habits. Most schools are trying to teach healthy behavior. Many factors are involved. Access to medical care is crucial. A clean environment to live in. Nutritional food. Exercise.

The study suggests an inequity that should not be. Level of education should not determine health.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/article/20120520/OPINION01/705209971/1036

This was written by Vicki Abeles, a parent of three and the director of the documentary, “Race to Nowhere” and Jo Boaler a professor of mathematics education at Stanford University. “Race to Nowhere” challenges common assumptions about how children are best educated.

By Vicki Abeles and Jo Boaler

Welcome to standardized testing season, when students nationwide are clearing their desks, sharpening their pencils and fighting feelings of anxiety to meet our schools’, states’, and federal government’s desire for a simple, quantifiable way to measure them. Is this really what education is about?

It shouldn’t be. Educators across America agree that high-stakes testing has taken the place of meaningful teaching and learning in our schools. They’re united in their conclusion that it’s a poor tool for assessing a child’s educational progress and needs. They agree that an over-reliance on standardized testing actively worsens the quality of American schooling. At best, they say, it leads to a narrowed, inflexible curriculum aimed at test prep and regurgitation. At worst, it erodes our students’ abilities to grow into lifelong, creative learners and inquisitive problem solvers.

But the perception that parents and the taxpaying public want standardized tests — that we in fact need them in order to hold our teachers and school boards accountable for our children’s educations — persists. And so standardized testing remains ascendant across American school districts. As our classrooms have been turned into test prep centers, important subjects that are not emphasized such as science, history and art have been significantly reduced in schools. In turn, students are becoming disengaged, stressed, checked out and — worst — dropouts.

Even for those students who stick with it, tests degrade the educational experience, fueling performance anxiety and the false impression that academic success is about speed, accuracy and competition. In the elementary schools of Palo Alto, California, for example, students as young as first grade are given a district-mandated test of 50 math questions to solve in three minutes. Children often cry when they’re given these tests. Worse, they imbibe the message that math is a performance subject and success is all about reproducing facts under pressure even though the latest science tells us that speed tests are a direct cause of math anxiety and that they impede mathematics learning.

And the pressure is harsh, indeed. At a high school in the Bay area, the principal announces whether his school has performed better or worse than neighboring schools over the PA system. And the statewide test scores appear on students’ transcripts — an inclusion that’s prompted some teachers to remark to students that the scores will “follow you for the rest of your life.” Such public anxiety is found across grade levels. At a screening of the film, “Race to Nowhere,” held at the California Teachers Association, several educators volunteered that the state of California has developed an official protocol for what to do when a young child vomits on a standardized test. Enough said, no?

Perhaps even worse than the anxiety they create, standardized tests also erode the student’s relationship with his or her teacher. As Deborah Stipek, former dean of education at Stanford University, has pointed out, standardized testing doesn’t just limit the teacher’s ability to innovate her curriculum or pace his lessons to individual student needs. It also destroys teacher’s ability to cultivate the trust, respect and sensitivity that turn her students on to learning. “When tests become high-stakes, teachers naturally focus their attention on the knowledge and skills the tests measure,” she writes. This leaves little time for educators developing what Stipek calls “a secure relationship” between the teacher and the student. And it undermines the benefits of that relationship, which is a student who is unafraid to ask questions and undeterred by challenges.

Beyond the educational sector, industry and government entities recognize the risks of an over-reliance on standardized testing, too. A 2010 IBM survey of more than 1,500 chief executive officers from around the world found that executives hire for creativity, not for rote memorization and test-taking chops.

Meanwhile, a recently released report by the National Endowment for the Arts found that disadvantaged students do better academically if they are deeply involved in in-school or extracurricular arts programs. And the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, in conjunction with the Education Department, has announced a plan to bring art, music, dance, theater and other forms of creative expression into eight struggling schools in Washington D.C. — to make them better.

These shifts are promising — but only if they signal national reform that de-emphasizes standardized testing countrywide and reintroduces educator autonomy and curricular versatility in every classroom. As it stands, American students will spend the better part of a week this month taking standardized tests. They will be denied the opportunity to develop their passions, to think deeply, and to experience critical thinking, innovation and teamwork. And they’ll be taught that it’s fill-in bubbles and timed answers that measure their academic worth and growth.

This is why we support the National Resolution on High-Stakes Testing. Inspired by a statement that has been adopted by more than 360 Texas school boards to date, this resolution is backed by a coalition of major national education, civil rights, and parents groups. It calls on federal and state policymakers to reduce standardized test mandates and instead base school accountability on multiple forms of measurement. Initial signers include the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Parents Across America, the National Education Association, and the National Center for Fair Open Testing

We urge everyone who is concerned about the future of education in America to read this resolution and to endorse it, publicly and vocally, in communities and before school boards across the United States. For too long, state and federal policymakers have claimed that it’s the public — parents and taxpayers at large — who demand standardized testing as a tool of measurement and liability for the American education system and its educators. It’s time to demand a new model: classrooms that eschew rote memorization and test prep; teachers with the power to implement effective and flexible teaching strategies; students who are connected to their teachers and love to learn. Policymakers will find it hard to argue with that.

-0-

Follow The Answer Sheet every day by bookmarking www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/is-this-really-what-education-is-about/2012/05/19/gIQAoEf4bU_blog.html

This is a sampling of The Education Report, Katy Murphy’s Oakland schools blog. Read more at www.IBAbuzz.com/education. Follow her at Twitter.com/KatyMurphy.

May 15: All year long, people have been complaining about the Oakland school board’s decision to close five elementary schools — and how they did it.

Almost everyone who goes through a school closure must suffer to some degree, regardless of the process or the timing. But as I reported a story about the closure of Civicorps Elementary, a publicly funded, independently-run charter school in North Oakland, I couldn’t help but compare it to the Oakland school district’s much-derided closure process.

First: There was a process. I’ve lost track of how many meetings I’ve attended in Oakland Unified this year about school closure and student placement. I would have run through my newsroom’s entire paper stash had I printed every document the district produced to make its case to the public about the need to close schools, and to justify which ones it chose.

I’m not saying OUSD did the right thing or not by closing schools, or that there weren’t problems along the way (See: Lazear Elementary). But the board made its decision on Oct. 27, 10 months before the start of the next school year. Displaced families received priority when choosing their Plan B. And, because the district’s school

board members are elected, members of the public are free to vote them out of office if they feel misrepresented.

Now, take Civicorps Elementary. The Civicorps governing board (an appointed body that oversees the charter elementary school, as well as an academy and job-training program for high school dropouts) held a board-only retreat in February and decided it might be best to dissociate the elementary school from the organization, for financial and strategic-planning reasons.

When it didn’t prove feasible to make such a major transition in a matter of months — turning the school into an independent charter or having another charter management organization absorb it, either of which would require the approval of Oakland Unified — the Civicorps board called a special meeting and voted to close the elementary school. That was May 8.

Until word got out about the special board meeting, a few days beforehand, no one at the school seemed to know that closure was even under consideration.

As of this afternoon, nothing about the closure, besides a closure “update” listed on the May 16 agenda, had been posted on the board’s web page. No supporting documents, no public hearings, no announcement.

After more than 10 years in operation, the school will be gone in a flash.

READER RESPONSE

OUSD Parent: I feel sick for these kids and their families. Is there any way to track these kids to see where they land next fall? I think that would be a valid story. What kind of support will the families get in finding a new school?

Cranky Teacher: How ironic: “We are a public charter school founded on academic rigor, creativity and purpose. Our young scholars engage in learning through dynamic experiences grounded in an atmosphere of mutual respect and trust.”

Mara: As a Civicorps Elementary School parent, I can tell you that OUSD has stepped up and has been accessible to “help” with the transition. However, we are months past the initial lottery selection process and OUSD will not place our children now. Once our paperwork is submitted it will be weeks — possibly months, running into the start of the next school year — before we know where our children will be placed. Our teachers are suddenly unemployed, our students and families are abruptly displaced by the hasty and irresponsible decision by the board. And yes, Cranky Teacher, you are absolutely right, the board’s decision goes against everything their organization claims to stand for. … It is shameful what the board has done.

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_20660453/education-report-sudden-school-closure-oakland

The FCAT writing fiasco is not a failure — it’s an opportunity to slow down and get things right. But you do have to wonder, after a decade of increasing education standards and accountability, is the point to strengthen public schools or to destroy them?

As a mother of two sons who graduated from Florida public high schools, I’ve always been a supporter of tougher education standards. You raise the bar and students will rise to the challenge, as long as they are adequately prepared.

In fact, the FCAT, for all the whining by some parents and educators, has never set the bar that high. A passing grade in reading, math or writing shows adequate proficiency, nothing more. Surely our children can meet that bar. And they do, rich and poor, black, white, Hispanic — they can and do achieve, even those from poor homes or learning English as a second language.

But the FCAT results still show a disproportionate number of black and Hispanic students struggling to pass the test even as the gap with white non-Hispanic students is closing. Poverty can drag down excellence, to be sure, when kids don’t have access to computers or help at home with homework or a full meal in their bellies. The FCAT was meant to spot those trends and push administrators and teachers to address them with extra tutoring, Saturday classes or whatever else would propel them forward.

And there’s the rub, because even as standards have been rising, so have the challenges of rising poverty and tighter public school budgets that have lost billions of dollars statewide since before the recession. Too many public schools, particularly in urban areas, are in need of major repairs. Teachers’ morale is plummeting as they are asked to do ever more while their meager salaries are eaten away by higher costs in health insurance and other benefits. Adding insult to injury, now teacher salaries will be tied directly to their classroom’s FCAT results.

Inject Tallahassee politics — including Gov. Rick Scott’s attempt to diminish the state’s public labor unions, even risking the unconstitutional taking of teachers’ and other public employees’ income to help close a state budget hole, and a failed push by the Legislature to give charter schools more cash for construction even as traditional public schools get nada — and we have an insurrection.

Florida Education Commissioner Gerard Robinson didn’t do his governor any favors with the latest flap over the writing test. With almost three-fourths of all students in fourth grade flunking the writing test under new, tougher parameters, parents joined educators to force a grade curve.

The grading curve just gets us back to the same requirements of last year, so nothing lost, nothing gained.

But politically, Republican elected officials are in trouble with the voters on either side of the FCAT debate after this latest fiasco. Conservatives rightly wonder, why raise standards if you’re going to buckle as soon the tougher results show failure? Liberals rightly point to the dwindling public school budgets, a testing “craze” that zaps teachers’ creativity in the classroom, a revolving door of good teachers exiting to other careers, and they see a Republican assault on public education.

Having pushed out Education Commissioner Eric Smith, who had a strong staff to carry out the state’s education initiatives, Scott picked Robinson to push more reforms last year, leaving little time to implement the changes statewide. Robinson came from Virginia and served as that state’s education secretary after spending years as a charter schools proponent and owner. His staff is relatively new.

Robinson failed on several counts in the FCAT writing fiasco. He failed to properly inform the state Board of Education. The change in the test — giving more attention to spelling and grammar and bringing in two scorers for each test instead of one — was announced to school districts last July or August. Incredibly, the Board of Education wasn’t clued in, never got an impact study to see how the new, more rigorous rubric might affect scores so that the state could take that into account beforehand and — presto! — the writing test turned out to be a political catastrophe.

If the point of reform is to improve each child’s performance — we can only hope — and not to destroy public schools’ reputation so that the entire state turns into a for-profit charter-schools factory, then Florida needs to find the money to improve teacher salaries so we can attract and retain the most talented and pay them their worth. (I support charters as a public choice, by the way, just not their latest construction-money grab while public school students are left in near crumbling schools.)

Despite the dwindling dollars and low morale, public school teachers and principals are creating miracles every day. They are being held accountable. Now taxpayers must hold our elected officials accountable for not investing in public schools. Talking up excellence and producing more rigorous tests — without targeting problem areas for extra funding — produces one result: mediocrity, over and over again.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/19/2807410/hold-politicians-accountable-for.html