Using a two-week-old book review as the springboard, Andy "Eduwonk" Rotherham leaps into the Rod Paige muck.  Apparently, the review of Paige's book is awful because it doesn't criticize teacher unions enough and Paige's book is "lousy" because it distorts the debate about how to best trash teacher unions.

Bonus slime: Rotherham offers up a perfect example of his particular brand of smear artistry by repeating the reviewer's only criticism of teacher unions and adding an odd list of liberals who don't like teacher unions.

Our post about the review, which we did, uh, two weeks ago when the review first ran, is here.

Posted by John at 05:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Starting with that question, sort of, Sherman Dorn offers a smart (and cynical?) explanation of how the conflict of interest charges associated with Reading First could have been avoided.

Posted by John at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The AFT Charter Schools Week statement, released today, includes this quote from AFT President Edward J. McElroy:

"Teachers in all public schools, whether traditional or charter, deserve the opportunity to bargain collectively for fair salaries, benefits and a voice in making their schools excellent. Students benefit when teachers and their unions are partners with their school districts."

The statement also announces the launch of the Alliance of Charter Teachers and Staff, or ACTS, to represent the interests of AFT-represented charter school educators nationwide. 

Link to statement coming soon is here.

Posted by John at 10:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of my favorite bloggers is Mr AB of From the Trenches.  I want to congratulate him on earning his tenure and question his assertion that two years isn’t enough time to determine whether his potential firing should be governed by due process protections.  I'm betting he's earned those protections.  It's my hope that if he ever really stopped being a good teacher that management would bring charges and that Mr. AB would agree to some sort of remediation effort that would work (or not) within a reasonable time span. Failing all this, it's my hope that the now incompetent Mr AB's union would use his protections to defend him as well as is possible and that they would lose the arbitration.  

Mr. AB is also critical of his union for standing in the way of restructuring a chronically low performing school. I don’t know the details, so I won’t comment specifically on that situation. But, in general, I think the union has a responsibility to be a good partner in efforts to turn around schools that aren't working.  That doesn’t mean rolling over to management, but it does mean helping to change a status quo that is clearly failing. We’ve had a project, Redesigning Schools to Raise Achievement, for almost a decade now that specializes in providing support to union leaders and  school administrators grappling with just this type of situation.  Part of this program is folded into our biennial educational issues conference. The theme for that conference this year is Strengthening Public Schools: Our Union's Work.  We'll have more about the conference in coming months, but I wanted to let Mr. AB know that we do think this is an important issue.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 11:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

EdWeek did a nice piece on the online professional development offerings of the AFT and the NEA, showcasing what we often say but no one listens to: unions are not big, bad and mean.  We actually care about helping children and strengthening instruction.

The AFT’s current online professional development offering is www.t-source.org. Participate in the discussions and check out the timely information.

Plus, we’ve got this great blog…

Posted by Beth at 11:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A survey of over 650 New York teachers reveals what teachers think of NCLB in their classrooms. Not surprisingly, teachers don’t believe that this law is helping their instruction or their students’ learning.  Here are two of the findings that were most striking to me:

• 79 percent indicated that the emphasis on testing encourages them to eliminate curriculum material that is not being tested.

• Just 7 percent believe that NCLB’s AYP requirements for schools are helpful in closing the achievement gap.                    

As one teacher said, “Students seem to be better test-takers, yet they are less academically prepared. Many creative activities have been replaced by test preparation.”

And Maria Neira, Vice President of New York State United Teachers said, “We are no longer educating the ‘whole child.’ We are educating the ‘fill-in-the-blank’ child.”

Check out the complete survey results here.

Posted by Beth at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I’ll start this week's Labor Blog Roundup with some EFCA blogging, Elaine Chao, the Secretary of Labor is hitting the hustings with an anti-EFCA message. And friend-of-the-blog Joe Slater has an op-ed in the Akron Beacon Journal making the case for EFCA. (Final Score: Joe 17, Elaine 0.)

Global Labor Strategies is a group that does some fascinating stuff on China and on labor rights and unionism generally. They make the blog roundup this week for a series of posts on organized labor and global warming.  The last of the series has a nice analysis of how the Steelworkers have responded to the issue. In addition to being on top of global warming, and wanting to organize student atheletes, the Steelworkers also are forming alliances with overseas unions in an effort to respond to the globalization of capital. Harold Meyerson supplies the analysis.

The other day I blogged about how Edweek has a MySpace page.  It turns out that Eugene Debs does too.

When I read in this article that the replacement to the ballpark I grew up with will have "22% less general seating, and 29% more luxury boxes," it once again raised the question "Who is New York City for?" The Drum Major Institute has been all over this question, with a new report on "Saving Our Middle Class."

The AFL-CIO has released a report on workplace safety. Fewer workers are dying on the job, but more are being injured. AFL-CIO Now has a lot more on what is and what we should do.

On a happier note, I’ve been a big Ry Cooder fan from the first time I heard Into the Purple Valley.  I even saw him open for Clapton at the Meadowlands back in the day.  Mariser at Jockey Full of Bourbon recommends Ry’s latest. Click on over and check out the track "Three Chords and the Truth."

Posted by Ed at AFT at 01:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tuesday, we asked whether employees at the U.S. Department of Education (ED) watched a political PowerPoint presentation created by Karl Rove's office.  Today's Washington Post gives us the answer:  Yes.

Investigators are looking into whether the presentation violated federal law, but they're not likely to get much cooperation.  When this administration, and especially ED, has been give the choice between coming clean or heading for the bunker, it always chooses the bunker. 

Its handling of the Karl Rove Show was no exception.  The Post reports:

"By the end of yesterday afternoon, all of those describing the briefings on the record had adopted a uniform phrase in response to a reporter's inquiries: They were, each official said, 'informational briefings about the political landscape.'"

Posted by John at 09:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new report confirms what we already know: NAEP’s definition of proficiency is too high, as shown by the fact that only a handful of Asian countries could do better than the U.S.  On the other hand, here is general agreement that many states are setting their own proficiency bars too low.  The extreme example is Mississippi, where 71 percent fewer are “proficient” on NAEP than on the state assessment. And Mississippi has plenty of company---every state has a gap between the percentage of students deemed proficient on NAEP and the percentage on the state assessment.

So, Goldilocks, what’s a just right standard of proficiency?  And what to do about the current inconsistency? The "sunshine and shame" tactic of comparing NAEP results to state standards is getting policymakers' attention now but will get tiresome after years of little or no change. Allowing states to do what they want, including lowering proficiency standards, is equally problematic for a Congress and administration touting an education law that is supposedly built upon high standards and accountability.

I am not sure what "just right" is, but the AFT is recommending what could be a compromise until everyone figures it out: grants to consortia of states to develop common standards, assessments and curricula as a step toward consistency and higher quality.

Posted by Beth at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Rep. Tim Walz (D.-Minn.) doesn't have a monopoly on setting good education policy, but he has one unique qualification:

"Of the 535 members of Congress, Mr. Walz, 43, is the only active schoolteacher, still a tenured faculty member here [in Mankato, Minn.]. As the federal government has grown deeply enmeshed in public education, exemplified by the No Child Left Behind law now up for reauthorization, only Mr. Walz among his colleagues has experienced its effects in his own classroom."

And in case Rep. Walz goes native here in Washinton, he'll likely get a reminder from his wife about how education policy works on the front lines -- she's in charge of NCLB compliance in Mankato.

Samuel Freedman profiles Rep. Walz -- a teacher, soldier and lawmaker -- in today's New York Times.

Posted by John at 09:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

TPM Cafe has the full text of a speech by Rep. Rahm Emanuel, to be delivered at Brookings this morning.  The speech includes references to the Bush administration's over-politicization of education policy:

"Even federal efforts to help students learn and afford college aren’t off-limits to manipulation. The Washington Post recently reported that Matteo Fontana, a senior official in the Department of Education’s financial-aid office owned about $100,000 worth of stock in a student loan company that has been subpoenaed by New York officials.

"Last weekend, we learned of an investigation into President Bush’s Reading First program and allegations that officials improperly profited when implementing the program and the case has now been referred to the Justice Department.

"The Bush Administration memorably demonstrated its willingness to enrich those who helped carry out its political agenda. Seeking to build support among African-Americans for the No Child Left Behind law, the Administration paid Armstrong Williams $240,000 in taxpayer funds to promote the law on his nationally syndicated TV show."

 ***

"The saddest legacy of the Bush Administration’s six-year trail of cronyism and corruption is that it contributes to the public’s already cynical view of government. This makes it even more difficult for those of us who believe that the purpose of government is to secure a better future for our country and all of its people."

Posted by John at 09:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’ve often wondered what exactly people mean when they say they’d like to add high school to NCLB.  I figured it could either be ensuring that Title I funds go to high schools or increasing the number of high school grade levels that are tested or both.

Now, a bipartisan group of senators have introduced the Graduation Promise Act (GPA—get it?), which seems to be focusing on improving instruction in high school, including strengthening state systems to identify and target resources to low performing high schools and supporting state efforts to align their systems with expectations of college and the workforce. 

A real criticism of NCLB is that it focuses on inputs rather than outputs, sacrificing a focus on instruction for a focus on accountability.  I haven’t read the GPA bill yet, but if the focus is really on improving instruction, it seems like it could be a model for NCLB reauthorization.

Posted by Beth at 04:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Drip, drip, drip.  First, there was the controversy swirling around the showing of a Karl Rove PowerPoint presentation to political appointees at the General Services Administration. That led to calls for the GSA's top political appointee to resign.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports, "...similar presentations were made by other White House staff members, including Rove, to other Cabinet agencies. During such presentations, employees said they got a not-so-subtle message about helping endangered Republicans."  (H/T Think Progress.)

Investigators could be asking tough questions of the Bush administration:

Did the White House pressure the political appointees at Cabinet agencies to make policy decisions that would help elect Republicans? 

Did they give in to that pressure? 

Investigators would then determine if there were any violation of the Hatch Act, which limits government employees' involvement in political elections.

The "other agencies" are not named in the LA Times article, and it's possible that ED is squeaky clean on this issue.  But, given ED's recent history, it's easy to believe this investigation could lead back to the folks at ED who have given us Armstrong Williams, fake TV news stories, Reading First mismanagement, the student loan fiasco, and so much more.  Stay tuned.

Posted by John at 12:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It looks as if Ohio-based KnowledgeWorks is on the verge of launching a blog.  Richard Riley, former Education Secretary, former South Carolina governor (and my former boss), is on the board, so I have hopes that KnowledgeWorks' blog will take a swat or two at the Gadfly, which also has Ohio roots.

Posted by John at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What could be better? Last week AFT Executive Vice President Toni Cortese and Joel Packer of the NEA took part in an online chat at Edweek about the role and perspectives of teacher unions in NCLB policy.  You may need to register to view the transcript, but if you haven’t already registered at Edweek this is the perfect opportunity.

And  did you know Ed Week has a MySpace page? Apparently Editorial Projects in Education is 28, a Virgo and single.   So, does this explain why Russo wanted to move his blog over to Ed Week?

Posted by Ed at AFT at 09:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

We note with sadness and anger the death on April 9 of Santiago Rafael Cruz, an organizer with the AFL-CIO’s Farm Labor Organizing Committee. Cruz had recently come to Monterey, Mexico to support farm workers entering the US with guestworker visas and to protect them from exploitation in what is often a shady and corrupt process. He was killed in his office by unknown assailants. FLOC’s offices there had already been broken into and its staff harassed by those whose business is extracting a profit by “brokering” services for migrant workers. Many close to the situation suspect that Cruz' work was the cause of the foul play.

For more on FLOC and the essential work they do see their website.  To really get a sense of their work look at this picture at Majikthise.  And for more on how workers with these sorts of visas are exploited, check out  AFL-CIO Now and see Lindsey Beyerstein and Larisa Alexandrovna's piece at the Raw Story.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mayor Bloomberg, the UFT and its coalition partners (including community groups) have reached an agreement on the Mayor’s plan to once again reorganize the city school system.  Edwize has the details of the agreement.  I’ve got reservations about parts of the school level weighted student funding idea but I also think there are parts of it that hold some promise and that this takes some steps forward, so I'm hopeful about this.

The Times has coverage of the agreement.  I thought the article contained a subtle misstatement: “The changes mean that it will be harder… for the mayor to redistribute senior teachers, who tend to cluster in middle-class neighborhoods, more evenly across the school system.” To my eyes, this implies intentionality on the part of teachers. But the research indicates that the biggest reason schools with more affluent populations have more qualified staff  is not because of transfers in but because fewer teachers move out.  Clustering is created because schools serving higher proportions of at-risk kids are less able to keep their qualified teachers. The cause of the problem is the working conditions in this latter set of schools. This speaks to putting proper resources into these schools before sticking it to teachers in the other schools.  (And note: if the mayor’s funding formula provides a step forward here, the dismantling of the Chancellor’s district was a big step back—this smacks of Spinning Wheels style faddishness).

There are also strong words from a member of Joel Klein’s parent advisory council.  Apparently the council, unlike other parent and community groups, wasn't at the table.  Joe Williams seems to think that this is the UFT’s fault. But we're talking about the chancellor’s parent advisory council and the quote was “Not one elected parent leader stood with the mayor today.”  So, I too think he’s pointing in the wrong direction.  Joe also liked the quote from Andy Rotherham, as did I. It fits to a T the conventional wisdom about selfless technocrats having to treat with the self interested folks who send their kids to schools or do the work in them, thereby endangering their flow charts and spread sheets. Some might say the quote is worthy of a young  Jack Jennings. If I ever were to say that, it would be high praise indeed. Kidding aside, I'm not sure that's the vision Andy meant to convey, but it was the one I received. The Times is also reporting that reorganization will lead to the decriminalization of Success for All in NYC schools, which is very good news.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 12:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Education reporters are going to have to choose between these two terms or similar ones from now when they write about the U.S. Department of Education (ED). 

Over the weekend, the mismanagement of Reading First was below the fold on page one of the Washington Post and the growing student loan scandal was above the fold on page one of the New York Times.

The Times article focuses on lenders' practices rather than ED's failure to oversee the program, but Saturday's Post also included an article (front page of the business section) by Amit Paley.  Here's the lead: "The No. 3 official in the U.S. Department of Education, who oversees the student loan industry, had more than $10,000 invested in student lenders...." 

The amounts are relatively small, less than $2,600 in the stock of any single lender.  Still, it seems like a no-brainer, especially given ED's well-publicized ethical lapses during the Bush years, that the folks at the White House, for political if not ethical reasons, would make sure none of the president's appointees holds any stock in companies that could profit from the appointee's official  actions.

(And, to add to ED's misfortunes, www.ed.gov was down for at least part oft he weekend. Again.)

Posted by John at 06:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The inspector general at the U.S. Department of Education has made criminal referrals to the Justice Department, according to AP. 

Maybe I should to update that earlier post on titled, "Reading First: New Smoke But No Fire?"  With criminal charges possible, the Reading First scandal would seem to have officially caught fire.  But the IG didn't actually say "criminal," so it remains to be seen whether anyone will get burned.

UPDATE: The current AP story has it as "referrals" rather than "criminal referrals."  USAToday.com sticks to the facts, saying the IG has "referred the matter" to Justice.

Posted by John at 05:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Washington Post reports today that House education committee chair George Miller "wasn't pleased to find that the Department of Education waited until this week to provide data" showing Reading First to be effective.  The Department says it doesn't know what Miller is talking about.

The Department's Reading First evidence probably won't be enough to satisfy critics, including August, a commenter on this blog, who asked why an AFT press release referred to the program as "effective." But stay tuned.  More Reading First research is due out later this year, and that should  muddy the waters end the debate about the program's effectiveness.  Also, Rep. Miller held a Reading First hearing today.

Posted by John at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That seems to be the reasoning of Fairfax County, Va., and other Virginia school systems that announced yesterday that they would comply with the provisions of NCLB and administer the standard English language arts assessment to their English language learners.

After a months-long standoff, we get this summary from a local superintendent: "It does not make educational sense or academic sense, but the U.S. Department of Education does not make sense either."

(And yes, Kevin, sometimes schools make educational decisions based on funding needs.)

Posted by Beth at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the purposes of the AFT’s decision to have a blog was to start some conversations on issues.  What’s interesting is that a lot of the best conversations that we’ve helped start are on other blogs, and we are very thankful to those who have helped out in this regard.  I want to particularly call your attention to a diary by Teacher Ken over at Daily Kos that builds from some of the data in our salary survey.  One point from Ken that brings it home:

Meanwhile, if we do not want to continue digging ourselves into a deep hole educationally, we need to address the issue of the compensation of the teachers we currently have that we want to keep. The more experience we lose the harder it will be to expect that other educational policies will result in more learning. If teacher compensation continues to lag compared either with inflationary pressures or with the increases available in other professions, we will find an increasing number of experienced teachers leaving the field while they could still be productive, and fewer qualified people willing to enter the field. 

There are more than 200 comments, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all of them, I appreciate seeing them.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 09:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just found out that yesterday marks the 5th anniversary of the founding of Eschaton, Duncan Black's blog.  I like Eschaton in part because I think Atrios' critique of the Washington media and foreign policy establishments can often apply equally to the education establishment. Hence my referral from time to time to the cocktail party consensus of education policy.

It turns out if you look at the very first page of the blog's archives you get this very brief post:

"Privatizing Schools. This will end really badly, the only question is how long will it take."

The New York Times link refers to the privatization of management of 42 schools in Philadelphia.  I think the answer to the question is not long at all at least to tell it's not working. And about five years for the overall impact ($90 million above and beyond the costs for the traditional system) to begin to undermine the quality of services elsewhere in the district. Unless you believe Edison's consultants.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 01:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In today's Washington Post, Richard Kahlenberg pans Rod Paige's book-length tirade about teacher unions, noting that Paige's book does nothing to advance the debate about how to improve public  education:  "The important question to grapple with is not which adults are selflessly concerned about students, but whose interests line up most closely and most often with what is good for students. None of that analysis can be found in this polemic."

And a New York Sun interview covers the book, Paige's take on NYC schools, and the all-important question of whether Paige's criticism of teacher unions will hurt his company's profits.

Posted by John at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I’m late getting to it, but Sara Mead writes about the Independent Women’s Forum and vouchers. Yes, she makes some good points and yes you should read it. I think the critique fits with voucherdom’s approach to special ed, being the child of a military veteran and whatever other boutique privatization program is being contemplated this year. And she’s right about brain science too.

But, as a blogging narcissist, this gives me the opportunity to write about something that’s been on MY mind: Anna Nicole Smith.  I’m interested in IWF in part because it is funded by the Koch brothers, who have deep ties to the TABOR movement.   They also provide a lot of money to George Mason University. How does this lead to Anna Nicole Smith?  

Ms. Smith’s late husband served on the board of Koch industries, and as part of the battle over his estate she ended up suing Koch Industries “for allegedly conspiring with her stepson to defraud her of $474 million in Koch Industries stock.”  Marrying a septuagenarian isn’t how I’d go about it, but I admired her resolve in standing up to these folks. The Koch funded IWF, on the other hand, did not.  After her death, their blog approvingly quoted a George Mason journalism professor who said in an interview:

Anna Nicole Smith’s story really is the old morality tale of a girl who strays, becomes a stripper and a gold-digger, falls in with even more unsavory people, and finally comes to an appropriately bad, sad end.

Classy. And they are wrong on vouchers to boot.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 10:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Those who argue against the expansion of tuition-free prekindergarten programs based on the belief that poor and/or minority families prefer not to send their children to prekindergarten should check out the findings from this study out of the University of Albany, SUNY.

The researchers show that children in newcomer families (defined as having at least one immigrant among them) are less likely to attend prekindergarten than children in which all members of the family are born in the U.S. That’s not news—it was in the 2000 Census. What’s news is that children in Mexico (the country of origin of 40 percent of children in newcomer families) attend preschool at a rate of 85 percent, while children in newcomer families in the U.S. attend preschool at a rate of 55 percent, and children in all-U.S.-born families attend preschool at a rate of 71 percent.  The difference? Preschool is free in Mexico; for the most part, it is not in the U.S.

What to do to level the playing field? The researchers recommend:

• Ensure availability and access to tuition-free preschool for newcomer families;
• Examine the effectiveness of language development programs in preschool;
• Facilitate parental involvement of immigrant parents; and
• Provide literacy programs that target parents as well as their preschool students.
  

Posted by Beth at 07:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

• I want to catch up to two blogs we’ve visited before: Carl Luna continues to write engagingly about the ongoing issues facing unionized grocery workers in California.  And Don Jones is writing about the Employee Free Choice Act. Jones, who is a heart transplant survivor, started blogging on union issues after retiring from a job at Goodyear.
• You might have watched a bowl game and looked at graduation rates and thought the university was cheating its student athletes in some way.  But you didn’t think joining the Steel Workers would be the answer did you? If only Maurice Clarett had had a union. 
• Our first lady chose to read Duck for President at the annual White House Easter Egg hunt.  The Bellman follows the analogies, but misses the voter fraud subplot in which ballots are found stuck to the bottom of the Vice President. Duck is an icon at my house because my son likes when I quack “Born to Be Wild” while reading the talent show scene in Dooby Dooby Moo. The first book in this series was Click Clack Moo, in which not only do the cows go on strike but the chickens engage in a secondary strike.  (Awesome! but given that such actions are illiegal under the NLRA, there should be some sort of disclaimer, you know, "kids don't try this at home.")
• A low wage/high turnover employer that’s very image conscious and engages in union busting? That means threatening and even firing employees who want to have a union. This time I’m not writing about charter schools but about Starbucks.  You should check out this Washington Post article simply because David Segal describes Daniel Gross as "The Norma Rae of the caramel macchiato."

Posted by Ed at AFT at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Could it be that lenders, knowing that a crackdown is coming soon, are rushing to download all of ED's information on students with loans so they can flood the students with additional loan offers?

Whatever the reason, www.ed.gov was down around noon today.

Network Error (tcp_error) A communication error occurred: "" The Web Server may be down, too busy, or experiencing other problems preventing it from responding to requests. You may wish to try again at a later time. For assistance, contact your network support team.

UPDATE:  It was down for a few hours, is now back up.  Student lenders, please feel free to resume your data mining.  UPDATER:  Hey, I was only kidding about the lenders causing the crash, but an ED spokesperson shoots down that theory in today's Post.

Posted by John at 11:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Statement from AFT president Edward J. McElroy:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – From those of us in the education community, our hearts, thoughts and prayers go out to the Virginia Tech victims, their families and the community at large.  Academic campuses—from preschool to higher education—must be havens for peaceful learning.  Today, we see the painful evidence that this is not always so.

(AFT is the largest higher education union in the country, representing approximately 160,000 higher education faculty, professional staff and graduate employees.)

Posted by John at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"This is just the money of the Teachers Union at work. If they aren't getting something out of it tear it down. The Dems get money from special interest and they didn't create it, its working so they have to find fault and tear it down..... Our government showing how money works in Washington."
                            A commenter on USA Today's Web site.

You have to laugh. The comment above is attached to a Greg Toppo article* about the Reading First scandal.  There are only a few things wrong with the commenter's reasoning.  First, Toppo's article doesn't mention unions.  Second, Sen. Kennedy and Rep. Miller, the two Democratic lawmakers cited in the article, did "create it" -- they helped write and pass NCLB, of which Reading First is a part. Third, the AFT thinks Reading First is a pretty good program.

Here's the AFT statement on one of the inspector general's reports (emphasis added).

Reading First is a successful and effective program in the classroom.  It is extremely important to teachers and to disadvantaged students.  Today's report, however, is a devastating account of mismanagement at all levels of the U.S. Department of Education.  Federal officials should not intervene to influence a state's selection of reading programs; such intervention leads to favoritism and could jeopardize the program's success.  The department should follow the law and not exclude providers who meet the established criteria.

The Department of Education advocates high standards and accountability for students, schools and teachers; they should be held to the same standards.

Wow! What a blistering critique of Reading First by those anti-reform unionists!

*Alexander Russo's take on the article and the scandal is on target.

UPDATE:  A commenter on our blog continues the fact-free anti-union ranting, saying unions oppose NCLB because it is "a Republican proposal" -- despite the role of Sen. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Rep. Miller (D.-Calif) in its creation. 

Posted by John at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Horrible news out of Virginia Tech University:  A shooting spree on campus today has resulted in the deaths of at least 21 33 people so far, including the suspect, and many injuries.

Posted by John at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bill Ratliff was the Texas state senate education chair back in the days when that state’s accountability regime was being constructed.  As we all know, that regime became a model for NCLB.  He is one of the main architects of the Texas approach to school accountability. This from a 2001 NCSL magazine profile:

In 1995, on his notebook computer, Ratliff rewrote all 1,100 pages of the state's education code except the financing section he'd written in 1993. He kept a no-pass, no-play requirement for school extracurricular activities, and a requirement the state maintain class sizes no larger than 22 students per teacher, but threw out most requirements about how teachers should teach. He replaced them with tests designed to see what students had learned.

"We removed all the methodology dictates and said, 'You go teach,'" Ratliff says. "All we want to do is say, 'This is what they need to know, and we're going to check to see if they know it.'"

 A few days back Ratliff testified in front of the Texas house education committee.  He said that the system has become so complex and unfair that Texas should "not try to fix it one piece at a time" but instead should "wipe the slate clean and start over."  According to my friends in Texas, the goal, he said, should be a system that is "understandable to parents, meaningful to educators, and consistent with national requirements."  Ratliff stressed that the proposed overhaul is "not about dismantling accountability" but about undoing the contradictions and complexities in the state system that have resulted from add-ons and from the additional layering of “NCLB on top of it."  Ratliff actually described the system as having  "gone berserk." He noted "as the father of the system," that "it was designed as a pretty simple system that tested math, English, and reading.  It was mostly diagnostic and served as a report card to the community as to how schools were performing."  In his testimony Ratliff decried a system that has gone from diagnostic to “"too complex for parents and educators to understand and too punitive to produce constructive results." The Austin American Statesman took up his call.  Ratliff is working with a group of business leaders under banner of Raise Your Hand Texas. Their goal is to repeal the current accountability system and start over.    

Posted by Ed at AFT at 10:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Education Sector's Kevin Carey recently engaged in a little grammatical exegesis about a post on this blog: "Rule of thumb in sentence construction," Kevin wrote, "The word "but" does not belong after the words 'falsifying documents is wrong.' Whatever you're writing is sure to go downhill from there." 

I thought it was just the result of writer's block and Kevin's desire to put something up on the blog on Friday, but then I saw this announcement from one of Ed Sector's funders and realized it signaled a new direction for Ed Sector.

The Deep Pockets Foundation has awarded Education Sector a $240,000 grant to analyze the use of conjunctions, prepositions and articles in teacher union communications. Ed Sector's Kevin Carey, who will take the lead on the analysis, says, "No word is too small when it comes to unions.  There's a local in Alabama that almost always uses 'a salary increase' instead of 'the salary increase,' and that sends a clear signal about the union's resistance to education reforms."

Marguerite Roza, who will co-author report, says that cleaning up union communications will lead to billions of dollars in savings if she can put together the right formulas. Education Sector senior fellow Joe Williams is expected to analyze the NEA's communications.  "They typically use a series of prepositional phrases when a possessive is called for.  It's a clear attempt to put some distance between the NEA and the views it espouses."

Carey says the new grant likely will be the first of many.  "We used to think about ways to improve teacher quality and student assessments, but we agree with our funders that the path to better education is through a laser-like focus on unions and their blogs."

The Deep Pockets Foundation's annual report lays out an ambitious education policy agenda for 2008, with several new grants coming to Ed Sector, a nonpartisan, pro-union think tank:

• An upcoming study will look at the use of recycled paper in collective bargaining agreements,
• A panel of education experts will debate whether unions give 95% or 99.5% of PAC money to Democrats, and
• A white paper will propose to eliminate teachers' school lunch subsidies so the money can be used to pay teachers for bathroom duty.

Posted by John at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In this decade-old program, this is the first I’ve heard of any CA district getting in trouble for falsifying class size documents in order to get state class size money. I will say that it happened all of the time, both in the school where I taught and in colleagues’ schools.

Here’s how: school starts in September and teachers get their class rosters with 19 or 20 students. In the first couple of weeks of school, six or seven of those students don’t show up, but seven or eight others do.  Students get shifted between classrooms to even out the class sizes.  Sometimes teachers have to shift grades and sometimes additional teachers—usually substitutes—are hired.  If a school is lucky, it has an extra classroom or space for a portable and a class of twenty students is cobbled together.

Santa Ana is a city with high poverty and high mobility, and is a first stop for many immigrants.  In such school systems, students enter and leave school all of the time. Sometimes they return; sometimes they don’t. When class sizes tip over 20 students, a principal has to decide whether and how long to wait before hiring some adult to teach a newly formed class.

What’s a teacher to do? We could have complained, but it did seem like the schools were trying their best to keep class sizes under 20.  Plus, it was pretty obvious that the school needed money for everything—textbooks, a social worker, bilingual paraprofessionals, soap for the bathrooms, etc.

The benefits of small class sizes, especially for students in poverty, are indisputable. But, there is not a good way to manage a class size reduction program in a school or district with exactly the students most likely to benefit from small class sizes—one with very high mobility rates, overcrowded schools, and an inability to attract enough certified teachers.  There is also the issue of whether it a good idea to take a couple of students out of a classroom with a certified teacher and place them in a room presided over by a substitute so that the schools gets desperately needed funds.

Yes, deliberately falsifying documents is wrong, but, based on the reports so far, I believe that the district was doing its best to provide some semblance of a sound and stable education while securing needed funds.

Posted by Beth at 05:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Posted by Ed at AFT at 03:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is a list of expected attendees for President Bush's meeting yesterday with civil rights, business and education leaders:

Secretary Margaret Spellings, Department of Education

Jeanne Allen, Founder and President, Center for Education Reform

Dr. Craig Barrett, Chairman of the Board, Intel Corporation; Member, Aspen Institute’s Commission on No Child Left Behind

John Castellani, President, Business Roundtable (Washington, D.C.)

Tom Donohue, President and CEO, U.S. Chamber of Commerce (Potomac, Maryland)

Shelia Evans-Tranumn, Associate Commissioner of Education, State of New York

Tom Luce, III, CEO, National Math and Science Initiative; former Assistant Secretary, Department of Education (2005-2006)

Janet Murguía, President and CEO, National Council of La Raza (Washington, D.C.)

Ed Rust, Jr., Chairman and CEO, State Farm Insurance Companies; Member, Aspen Institute’s Commission on No Child Left Behind

Art Ryan, Chairman and CEO, Prudential Financial Inc. (Mendham, New Jersey)

Bill Taylor, Chairman, Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights (Washington, D.C.)

Paul Vallas, CEO, School District of Philadelphia (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)

Dr. Susan Zelman, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Ohio Department of Education (Columbus, Ohio)

This afternoon, the president will be conducting another education meeting.  Rumor has it that this time the attendees will be representatives of private schools.

So, lots of education activity at the White House, lots of NCLB activity on the Hill.  It's still not clear whether all the activity will translate into NCLB reauthorization this year. 

Posted by John at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another report from Paul Peter$on, the right wing's favorite Harvardish professor, finds that private companies are great at running public schools.  What's makes this report special is that it was partially funded by Edison, one of the private school operators in the study. 

The Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News properly reported that Edison had paid for the research.  Knowing about the funding would almost seem like a reason not to write about the study at all, but, hey, the two Philly papers deserve credit for being light-years ahead of the New York Sun, which made no mention of the Edison funding in its coverage.  That's weak journalism, especially since Peterson's press release* acknowledged the Edison connection.

*Note to Peterson's flacks: Rule #1 in your line of business is to keep the funders happy, and that means not only making sure the research turns out the "right" way but also knowing the funders' names.  You did great with the research thing, but, next time, remember that it's "Bradley Foundation," not "Bradely Foundation."

Posted by John at 04:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The president's comments (transcript here and video here) offer little new.  Will update if there's anything interesting from others in the meeting.

UPDATE:   The White House said it was meeting with civil rights leaders to discuss NCLB.*  Indeed, there were civil rights leaders there.  La Raza was represented, and I'm trying to get my hands on a list of attendees.  But some in attendance aren't usually thought of as civil rights types -- business leaders and Jeanne Allen of the Center for Education Reform. I guess I've forgotten the passage in the Letter from Birmingham Jail that referred to lowering the minimum wage and loosening
restrictions on charter schools.

*In my zeal to blog about this breaking news, I misread the White House transcript, stopping at the end of the line instead of the end of the sentence. The president actually said the meeting was with "leaders of the civil rights movement, education leaders from around our country, business leaders who are concerned about America's competitiveness," which explains why Jeanne Allen and the business leaders were there.

Posted by John at 12:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Here, Alexander Russo cites a parent who says that an Arizona public school, which had been given more latitude than most public schools, might have been more likely to allow a predatory adult in the school. Here, Russo objects to the notion that companies contracted to perform school services are more likely to skip the mandatory background check and let a predatory adult in the school.

This amounts to More autonomy can endanger kids, but only when I say so.

Background checks conducted by school districts don't always weed out people who shouldn't be around kids.  But it's ludicrous to accept Russo's rationale for ignoring the risks of privatization "...it's not like traditional (direct) hiring has prevented schools from hiring thieves, pedophiles, and all the rest...."  What's that?  Some people slip through now, so let's do something that we know is likely to lead to more people slipping through.

I worked on a successful campaign to block an ill-considered privatization attempt in Oklahoma City's schools a few years back and studied privatization in other cities.  Short-circuiting mandatory background checks is a common complaint about privatizers, but it's just one reason that privatization of school services is generally a bad idea, particularly when it's done recklessly or for ideological reasons.  Despite promises of greater efficency and cost savings,  the typical result is less accountability, weaker enforcement of policies that keep children safe, and, often, greater expense.

UPDATE: Russo responds, "Apparently my fairly bland observation that traditional schools struggle with screening out criminals just like charter schools didn't sit well with the folks at the AFT blog."  But his bland observation wasn't about charter schools -- it was about a company with a contract to provide transportation for students.  He did clarify his position, though.  He's against lax enrollment policies and for lax hiring policies.

Posted by John at 12:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If we can name an airport after President Reagan, who busted the air traffic controller's union, I suppose we can name the University of Florida's College of Education after former Gov. Jeb Bush.  (Via Wonkette)

Posted by John at 11:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Seems like the folks in Houston don’t like the state standardized test and want to move to end-of-course assessments. Makes sense to me, though I would think that this would only apply to high school courses, rather than elementary or even middle school. A potential downside, depending on your view, is that this may lead to some folks asking for more NCLB-related testing in high school. Now, the state standardized test probably covers a few grade levels worth of subjects like biology, chemistry and earth science, while the end-of-course test would only assess, well, content for that course.  Seems like you’d want to make sure that students mastered the range of high school content, not just what students happen to be taking in, for example, 10^th grade.  The upshot is that it would mean that the focus would be on course content rather than test preparation. 

In other test related news, a bunch of states have figured out a way to give a common Algebra II test.  That nicely aligns with the AFT’s NCLB recommendation that the feds should provide grants to voluntary consortia of states to develop common academic standards, assessments and curricula.

Posted by Beth at 08:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted by Ed at AFT at 05:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to Construction Outlook 2007, a publication of McGraw Hill, education and school building construction totaled 273 million square feet in 2001.  In 2004 it totaled 209 million or 23 percent less. 

The Northeast and Great Lakes had heavier losses, with an average decline in new constuction of over 35 percent.  For every 3 square feet built at the start of the decade, they were building two. In Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota and New York, there were declines of more than 50 percent.  But this decline happened in al all regions in the country, with the South Atlantic states having a 13 percent drop and the West having a 10 percent drop in the rate of new construction. 

It is possible that this was entirely a result of the state fiscal crisis that lasted from 2001 to 2005.  But we’re only seeing a few cases, notably the District of Columbia and California, where the pace has noticeably stepped up. In many places more needs to be done. We believe that means both expanding budgets for school construction and building and modifying facilities in a way that is conducive to learning and to students and staff’s well being.

Posted by Ed at AFT at 03:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What's the recipe for waste, frau