By Scott J. Cech

Education Week

Published Online: November 5, 2007

Despite dramatic growth in the number of high school students taking Advanced Placement courses, most of those classes teach material worthy of the name, according to the first-ever audit of AP-course quality.

The New York City-based College Board, the nonprofit organization that owns the Advanced Placement brand, said more than two-thirds of the 134,000 ostensible AP-course syllabuses submitted for review by teachers from 14,383 secondary schools around the world were immediately approved. College Board officials also said that approximately 17,000 teachers did not meet the initial criteria to submit a syllabus for the audit, which Trevor Packer, the vice president of the Advanced Placement program, described as “the largest curricular review that’s ever been undertaken in American history.”

However, College Board officials did not immediately provide a total number of courses that have been approved for posting on a new, searchable registry of AP classes, known as the “AP Course Ledger,” which was announced to the public today. Officials also said that, at this point, they could not provide a percentage of courses that had been rejected.

“As a result of this work, college-admissions officials, students, parents, and educators can have continued confidence that the AP designation on students’ transcripts is only allowed for syllabi that have been approved by college faculty,” Mr. Packer said.

The review, paid for by the College Board, analyzed AP-course documents that teachers submitted between January and June 1 of this year. The deadline for submitting syllabuses has been extended until this coming Jan. 31 for teachers of two new AP classes—Chinese and Japanese—and for some block-schedule teachers.

The course syllabuses were reviewed by 839 college and university professors in the 37 subject areas taught in AP classes, which are designed to teach college-level material and prepare students to pass end-of-course AP exams that can qualify them for college credit.

Teachers could consult a syllabus checklist the College Board posted on its Web site showing what ingredients their course outlines should have.

Guidance Offered

The College Board also posted evaluation guidelines for teachers, as well as several sample syllabuses for the 52-year-old AP program. About 67 percent of AP teachers’ course outlines were approved immediately. Teachers whose outlines were rejected on the first try were given two more chances to rejigger the documents, with feedback from the professors about how to improve their chances.

In at least one state, College Board officials went so far as to conduct in-person workshops to help teachers.

“It was about, ‘Here are the things we’re going to be looking for,’ ” said W. Tad Johnston, a mathematics specialist and regional representative for the Maine Department of Education, which invited the officials.

But the process was far from a cakewalk for some teachers, Mr. Johnston said—even those who have been teaching AP for years.

“We have an [AP] U.S. History teacher with a strong track record—a lot of her students score four or five [out of five possible points on their AP exams], and it’s rare she has a student score less than three, but her syllabus took several resubmissions,” he noted.

While some teachers only had to put in as few as three hours into preparing their syllabuses, Mr. Johnston added, some took up to 40 hours on the task.

“I’m not really surprised that AP courses are AP-level,” said Dan Fuller, the director of public policy for the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, an Alexandria, Va.-based nonprofit organization of about 180,000 administrators and teachers. “It’s sort of circular logic, but schools and educators know what they’re doing—they know what things are up to snuff and what aren’t.”

No ‘AP Study Hall’

The College Board has said it plans to follow up its reviews during the 2008-09 school year with a few in-person visits by professors to schools with especially low AP-exam scores. Mr. Packer said in an interview, however, that those observations of how syllabuses are being followed will only be conducted with advance notice.

While Mr. Packer conceded that prearranged visits would allow schools with subpar teaching to put a good face on potentially lackluster pedagogy, he said the audits were “not a policing mechanism. … [W]e are not a police force.”

Thomas Matts, the College Board’s director of the AP-course audit, said college-admissions offices have historically looked favorably on AP courses on students’ transcripts. Yet with the number of students taking AP classes jumping 150 percent in the past 10 years, “the admissions offices came to us asking us to provide them with some evidence that teachers … hadn’t watered down their standards to accommodate this fantastic growth.”

Barmak Nassirian, the associate executive director of the Washington-based American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers, said colleges’ view of AP coursework’s rigor has dimmed over the years.

Over time, he said, “it became a tool solely for admission purposes, not as a [mark of an AP course’s] college equivalence, but even that began to suffer a little bit when course designation got a little loosey-goosey.”

Mr. Packer said the audit, which higher education officials asked in 2004 that the College Board conduct, was launched because, among other reasons, “[college-] admissions officers wanted assurance that ‘AP’ wasn’t being attached to courses that weren’t AP, and that any course labeled ‘AP’ had been examined by college faculty.” He said he had heard from admissions officials who were examining college applicants’ high school transcripts and wanted to know, for example, if there was really such a class as “AP Study Hall.”

School advocates worry that inaction may extend current law for 3 years.

By David J. Hoff

Education Week

Published in Print: November 7, 2007

For all the discord over the No Child Left Behind Act, supporters and critics agree on one thing: It should be fixed, and quickly.

Now it’s looking increasingly likely that Congress won’t make much progress in addressing the law’s flaws this year, endangering the prospects that the task will be completed before President Bush leaves office.

Efforts to revise the law are mired in backroom negotiations in both the House and the Senate and show no signs of gaining the momentum necessary to ensure completion of the reauthorization in 2008.

With Congress’ agenda filled with other tasks, including a potentially protracted fight with President Bush over spending on education and other domestic programs, it will be difficult for lawmakers to meet their self-imposed goals of ensuring passage of NCLB bills in both the House and the Senate this year, followed by a compromise version the two chambers can approve in early 2008.

“It is unlikely that we will be able to get a bill off the House floor this year,” Tom Kiley, a spokesman for Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, said in an e-mail. “However, we continue to work hard on the legislation, and we continue to meet with Republicans and education organizations.”

In the Senate, there is more optimism about passing an NCLB bill in 2007.

“We’re negotiating [and] still hopeful it can get done this year,” said Melissa Wagoner, the spokeswoman for Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, the chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Deadline Looms

Despite wide agreement that the NCLB needs revision, negotiating which changes to make will not be easy.

Lawmakers are “trying to find the center … in a way that preserves what’s meaningful in the law but doesn’t lose what makes it worthwhile,” said Gary M. Huggins, the director of the Commission on No Child Left Behind, a private, bipartisan panel organized by the Aspen Institute that proposed a long list of changes to the law in February. “That’s a heavy political lift.”

But, Mr. Huggins added, it’s important that Congress make progress on the reauthorization soon. He and other supporters of the law acknowledge that its accountability rules need to be tweaked, such as by using students’ academic growth over time, rather than comparisons of different cohorts of students passing through a given grade, to gauge schools’ and districts’ progress.

Renewal Efforts in 2007

Significant events this year for reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act:
• Jan. 8: President Bush marks the fifth anniversary of signing the law by meeting with the chairmen of Congress’ education committees and urging them to produce a bill to renew the law this year.

• Jan. 24: The day after the president’s State of the Union address, the Department of Education releases its “blueprint” for NCLB reauthorization, proposing to give vouchers to students in persistently low-performing schools.

• March 13: The Senate and House education committees hold a rare joint hearing on general issues facing the NCLB law. Throughout the spring and summer, both panels individually hold hearings on specific issues such as accountability, teacher quality, and supplemental educational services.

• July 30: In a speech at the National Press Club, Rep. George Miller, D-Calif., the chairman of the House education committee, says the law “is not fair, not flexible, and is not funded.” He says he wants his committee to approve a reauthorization bill by the end of September.

• Aug. 28: Rep. Miller and his Republican counterpart release the first installment of a draft bill to reauthorize the measure, covering Title I of the law. A draft bill covering other sections is released Sept. 6.

• Oct. 15: President Bush says he would veto any NCLB bill that would “weaken” the law’s accountability requirements.

• Nov. 1: The month begins with no formal committee action on the next version of NCLB and little time left on the congressional calendar in 2007. Political experts say it would be difficult for Congress to complete reauthorization while the political world is focused on the presidential nominating process.

SOURCE: Education Week

If such changes aren’t made soon, he and others predict, too many schools may be unfairly tagged under the federal law as needing improvement.

Schools that fail to make adequate yearly progress in raising achievement in reading and mathematics, whether for students overall or certain subgroups, face increasingly tougher sanctions under the law.

Many school officials at the local level and their representatives on Capitol Hill want more significant changes to NCLB than Mr. Huggins does, and they too want Congress to act soon to amend some of the law’s rules and align them with states’ accountability systems.

“At times, it’s very frustrating operating under the dual system that’s been established” under the federal law and Texas’ own legislation, said Randy Mohundro, the superintendent of the 700-student DeLeon Independent School District, about 80 miles west of Fort Worth.

What’s more, Mr. Mohundro said, the law’s requirements for assessing students with disabilities and English-language learners virtually ensure those students’ failure. “We’re causing kids to fail tests that they’re not ready to take,” he said.

At the beginning of the year, President Bush discussed the future of the law with the chairmen and Republican leaders of the House and Senate education committees. They all agreed that they would work toward reauthorizing the law.

Although funding authority for the law technically expired Sept. 30, the law includes a clause that automatically renewed it for the 2008 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1.

“We’ve all agreed to work together to address some of the major concerns that some people have on this piece of legislation, without weakening the essence of the bill, and get a piece of legislation done,” President Bush said after the Jan. 8 meeting. That occasion marked the fifth anniversary of Mr. Bush’s signing of the law, which he considers one of his top domestic accomplishments.

While the president and congressional leaders at the meeting didn’t announce a timetable for reauthorization, most Washington policy experts said it would be best to finish an NCLB bill in 2007. The presidential-nominating process will begin in earnest with the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary in early January, and will dominate the political world, making it hard for Congress to pass large, difficult bills such as the NCLB renewal.

If Congress doesn’t act soon, the current version of the law could stay in place for another three years.

Just as it’s difficult for Congress to enact major bills during a campaign season, particularly with a president nearing the end of his second term, the arrival of a new president can also delay the schedule. With a change in the White House, it often takes a year or more to finish detailed bills such as the NCLB law that have been left hanging since the previous administration.

Now ... or 2010?

President Bush signed the NCLB law two weeks before the first anniversary of his inauguration. It took almost two years of President Clinton’s first term for Congress to produce a bill to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The NCLB law is the latest version of the 42-year-old ESEA.

State and local officials don’t like the prospect of waiting until 2010 to make significant changes to the law.

“State officials and others would be disappointed if Congress failed to act on the issue,” said Ronald R. Cowell, the president of the Education Policy and Leadership Center, a Harrisburg, Pa.-based group that works with Pennsylvania schools.

In addition to the headaches of implementing a law they consider flawed, local officials fear that large numbers of schools would be declared in need of improvement under the current NCLB accountability system. Many of them wouldn’t deserve that label, argued Reginald M. Felton, the director of federal relations for the National School Boards Association, in Alexandria, Va.
“What does that do to the public buy-in for public education?” he said.

By Cynthia G. Brown, Robin Chait

Center for American Progress

October 1, 2007

Recent research has demonstrated what we all know—great teachers are critical to high levels of student achievement, particularly for low-income and minority students. Yet today poor and minority children are least likely to get our best teachers.

Congress is considering proposals for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act that would provide federal incentives to reform the teacher compensation systems in high poverty schools.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller has spent his career fighting to improve the quality of America’s teaching force—and, at the same time, to protect the rights of American workers to join a union. As part of his plan to fix Title II of the No Child Left Behind Act, he and Ranking Committee Member Howard McKeon have proposed a grant program for school districts that pay more to the highest-performing teachers who commit to stay in the highest-need schools for at least four years.

This is an important initiative that deserves support on both sides of the aisle—especially from progressives who believe in strengthening public education for low-income students.
Unfortunately, critics of the proposal have been spreading misleading information that has obscured the facts. Let’s take a look at some of their claims.

CLAIM: The federal government, through this proposal, would mandate the use of test scores to evaluate teachers.

FACT: The new proposal for Title II, Part A does not mandate the use of test scores to evaluate teachers. It is a voluntary grant program in which states and districts can choose whether or not to participate. If they choose to participate, growth in student achievement, rather than absolute student achievement, is used as one measure for evaluating teachers. Consequently, teachers aren’t penalized for teaching low-performing students. And test scores are not the sole measure used to evaluate teachers—classroom evaluations conducted by multiple professional educators must be used as well.

CLAIM: Teacher compensation is a matter of collective bargaining subject to state and local law and not federal law.

FACT: The proposed Title II provides protections for collective bargaining—it does not override it. Employment contracts are negotiated and agreed to at the local level and are subject to state law.

CLAIM: Decisions about how to evaluate teachers should be made at the local, not federal level.

FACT: The Title II proposal requires districts to design their own evaluation programs working in collaboration with teachers. While the programs are subject to some general guidelines, most of the decisions about how teachers are evaluated will be made at the local level.

Moreover, the federal role in education is and should be about addressing issues of educational equity and ensuring that students in high-poverty schools receive a high-quality education. Performance pay is one tool districts can use to attract outstanding teachers to high-poverty schools. Many districts will welcome this federal support.

CLAIM: Performance pay programs are premature because methods to determine the value that individual teachers add to student learning haven’t been thoroughly researched and evaluated.

FACT: Performance pay is still a new idea, but the record from recent research and experiments around the country is encouraging. Recent summaries of research on performance pay programs demonstrate that these programs have positive effects on student achievement.[i] An evaluation of 130 schools participating in the Teacher Advancement Project, a comprehensive professional pay system that includes pay for successful performance, found that these schools are now getting better results than similar schools.[ii] Programs developed in consultation with teachers in Denver and Minnesota are also proving effective and popular among teachers.

Until we find a better way to attract and retain great teachers in our highest-poverty schools, we need to keep trying promising reforms, including performance pay.

CLAIM: Attention and resources are better spent on reforming the whole school, improving working conditions for teachers, and providing professional development.

FACT The proposed Title II does provide funding for professional development. Part B is a large formula grant program for states that support professional development activities in the neediest schools. Moreover, districts that participate in the Part A performance pay program are also required to improve working conditions for teachers. Title I of NCLB provides significant funding for whole school improvement.

CLAIM: Performance pay programs will spark unhelpful competition among teachers and create a disincentive for them to collaborate and share information.

FACT: Research has found that performance pay programs do not create negative, competitive environments if the programs are designed appropriately and with teacher input. Moreover, nothing in the performance pay provisions in the Title II proposal stops districts from providing awards to all teachers at schools that show gains, not just to individual teachers. As we know from endeavors ranging from military service to athletics, commitment to the team and recognition of individual excellence are perfectly compatible.

Democrats, Republicans and teachers see flaws in Calif.'s Rep. Miller's proposal to renew the 2001 education law. He's not giving up.

By Nicole Gaouette

Los Angeles Times

October 30, 2007

WASHINGTON -- Rep. George Miller (D-Martinez) has never been one to back away from a brawl -- he once warned an adversary that if he wanted to fight, it was going to take a while, so he'd better bring lunch. But as Miller pushes to renew the landmark education law known as No Child Left Behind, he faces so many fights that the fate of the bill is increasingly in doubt.

As chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, Miller is sparring with Republicans who see his proposed changes as an unacceptable watering down of the law's core standards.

Teachers object to his proposal to link pay to performance.

Even his fellow Democrats -- particularly freshmen who campaigned against it and members of the Congressional Black Caucus -- are giving him a hard time, largely for not doing enough to soften the law's most rigid requirements.

Some critics of the law say the emphasis on math and English testing has squeezed teaching time for history, science and other subjects. Others say that the law is too strict and punishes schools that are doing a fairly good job.

"People have a very strong sense that the No Child Left Behind Act is not fair, that it is not flexible and that it is not funded," Miller said in a recent speech. "And they are not wrong. The question is what we are going to do next."

The 2001 law, President Bush's hallmark domestic achievement, is supposed to be renewed every five years, although it remains in effect even if lawmakers fail to do that.

Democrats pledged to rewrite it this year, but time is short and political tensions are high. Congress plans to adjourn for the year in a few weeks. And some Democrats are loath to give Bush a victory on No Child Left Behind when he refused to compromise on the Iraq war.

The administration has also made clear it wants just minimal changes.

No Child Left Behind was designed to end what the president called the "soft bigotry of low expectations" by forcing schools to track data on low-income and minority students and holding the schools accountable if those pupils did not do well. Schools also have to show that all students are making adequate yearly progress in math and English, or face tough sanctions.

Miller drafted 1,036 pages of proposed changes with the committee's lead Republican, Rep. Howard P. "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita. But as Miller has tweaked that proposal to appeal to Democrats and teachers, he has lost Republicans.

The balance he seeks is between those who think the law's standards are too rigid and those who want them as tightly defined as possible.

A 33-year veteran of the House, Miller is known for his pragmatism, his ability to make a deal and his close ties to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), all of which may help him find an answer in the few weeks he has left.

"We're certainly not in full agreement," Miller said, mentioning talks with committee Republicans. "Not between my caucus and their caucus, not between Mr. McKeon and myself. Whether we can reach an agreement remains to be seen. We're pushing as hard as we can."

McKeon said he was hopeful that he and Miller could reach a compromise, but he expressed concern "that some provisions in the draft would weaken accountability, allowing schools to mask a lack of achievement in the fundamentals of reading and math and obscure the information provided to schools and communities."

For Miller, who has made children a focus of his career and has long advocated greater teacher accountability, working on the first No Child Left Behind bill was a natural cause. A staunch liberal, he was an odd partner for Bush, but they worked closely enough for the president to dub the burly former football player "Big George."

In the five years since Miller and Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) helped write and pass No Child Left Behind, they complain, the administration has never fully funded the law in a way that would help schools meet their additional burdens. Republicans counter that few laws are fully funded.

The law has frustrated some parents and teachers who dislike its effect in local schools.

Rep. Albert R. Wynn (D-Md.), a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, has told Miller that his draft continues to overemphasize standardized tests.

The cost, Wynn says, includes "extraordinary pressure placed on students and the loss of important instruction in music, art and other elements of a well-rounded education."

Some critics say that too many schools are sanctioned under the law. Schools that fail to meet goals for three years must offer students free tutoring or the chance to switch schools. After five years of failure, the law mandates, a school must be restructured with a new staff or new leadership or be converted to a charter school.

Miller's draft bill would broaden measurements of students and schools -- for instance, letting states measure how much students improve over a year and not just whether they meet the bar set by No Child Left Behind.

Miller also wants to expand the standards by which schools are judged beyond math and English scores -- a shift McKeon strongly opposes. Under Miller's proposal, up to 15% of an elementary school's evaluation could be based on assessments of history, science, and civics and government classes. For high schools, rates for graduation, dropouts, attendance and college enrollment could be considered too.

Some of the strictest sanctions would be relaxed under Miller's bill. For example, it would loosen a rule that puts an otherwise successful school on probation if a small group within it -- such as learning-disabled children -- fails to meet the standards.

The draft would also change the way English-language learners are evaluated, allowing them to be tested in their native language for up to five years instead of the current three years, and permitting a two-year extension for some. Republicans say this would mean a child who spoke no English could enter the public school system in fifth grade and graduate from high school without ever being evaluated in English.

Teachers unions have objected to Miller's proposal to allow high-needs school districts to give $10,000 bonuses to outstanding teachers and up to $12,500 for teachers of math, science, special education and other subjects that are short of instructors. Criteria for the awards would be developed with input from the unions.

Critics of the unions say teachers are trying to avoid accountability. The unions say Miller's plan -- which McKeon backs -- is not workable.

"You can be a better teacher than I am, but based on conditions that you have to work in, it makes it much more difficult for you to do the same job," said National Education Assn. President Reginald Weaver. "Plus, paying teachers based on student performance hasn't really made a difference in how students achieve."

In the Senate, Democrats and Republicans are in talks about the bill, and Kennedy hopes to begin formal discussions in the education committee in the next few weeks.

Miller, meanwhile, continues to search for a compromise that can win enough support to pass the House.

"We would be wrong to waver when it comes to the existing goals and standards of the No Child Left Behind law," he said. "We would also be wrong if we failed to respond to the serious concerns with the law raised by people who sincerely care about America's educational future."

Bridging Differences

Deborah Meier and Diane Ravitch have found themselves at odds on policy over the years, but they share a passion for improving schools. Bridging Differences will offer their insights on what matters most in education.

October 30, 2007

This Is Not Good Education

Dear Deb,

There are times when I feel that we are on the same wavelength, and times when I know we are not. Right now, my frustration is multiplied because in the course of your last mini-essay, I found myself alternately agreeing and disagreeing with your assertions.

I said that many people who have spoken out about the recent round of NAEP scores seem not to have read the report in which the scores were embedded. I expressed the wish that the commentators would take the trouble to read the report before characterizing what they read in the newspapers, which is third-hand at best. This observation sent you into musing about how the original sources themselves are “an interpretation of data,” and how we all rely on the writers that we trust—or happen to agree with.

But that was not my point. The NAEP data are an original source for those who wish to discuss the latest round of national tests. They are not an “interpretation of data.” They are the data. I assume that you mean to say that you are unimpressed by NAEP, that you do not like the content of the NAEP frameworks or the methodology of the NAEP assessments. That is fair enough. But that is a different discussion from the one I raised.

Policymakers in Washington and the state capitols are influenced by the every-other-year reports from NAEP about state and national progress. It is your right to dismiss NAEP out of hand, but the people making important decisions about education policy are on a different trajectory. They look at the numbers and they see a reality that you dismiss as trivial and unimportant. Maybe you are right and they are wrong.

My point is that if public policy is going to be affected by NAEP—and I believe it is (and should be)—then at least the people who write about the NAEP scores should read the data and not rely on second-hand or third-hand accounts. Like the tests or hate them, they are the best measure we have right now. As the recent report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute (“The Proficiency Illusion”) showed, the state tests vary widely and randomly in terms of their expectations and standards.

As I said in my last post, the progress on NAEP in most areas has been slight or insignificant from 2003-2007. I take this to mean that NCLB has had trivial effects on student achievement in reading and math, the subjects tested every other year. Now that the president and the U.S. Department of Education have made it their business to show that federal legislation can and will raise test scores, every release of NAEP data is accompanied by a press statement from the U.S. Secretary of Education that magnifies slight gains as huge achievements.

This is troublesome. It is troublesome because the federal government’s role as the honest, impartial collector and distributor of information gets corrupted when it acts as a cheerleader. And it is troublesome because it is unrealistic to expect test scores to make major leaps in a few years. When they do, one should suspect chicanery of some kind.

NAEP shines a light on state testing practices, as the Fordham report shows. Many states are reporting unrealistic leaps in achievement and high levels of proficiency to satisfy the absurd demand of NCLB for a trajectory that will bring every child to "proficiency" by the year 2014. NAEP shows how unlikely it is that any state will meet that goal and how inflated most of the states' claims of achievement are.

You make a transition from national testing to the dangers of a national curriculum. We have discussed this often. Like you, I would like to see schools where children have time to build, to create, to explore, to experiment, to play. I would like to see kids in the primary grades building castles and fortresses and stores with blocks. But unlike you, I don’t think this kind of playful learning is at odds with a national curriculum.

What is really frightening today—due in large measure to NCLB—is that we have a national testing mania without any curriculum at all. So now our schools are obsessed with preparing to take tests, getting good scores on tests, and then starting the test prep all over again. Out the window goes any thoughtful or playful engagement with history, literature, or the arts, as well as time for physical education (in many New York City schools, children are lucky to have one period a week for physical education). This is outrageous. This is not good education.

So here is where we find our differences and we find our agreements. Unlike you, I am not frightened by a national curriculum and national testing; I believe we already have both, supplied by commercial publishers of textbooks and tests. And what we have is low-level and antithetical to good education. Where we agree is that we have a vision of what good education is and should be. Even if we don’t agree on every detail, we do agree that what we have now is far from good education.

Diane

October 25, 2007

What Frightens Me About a National Curriculum

Dear Diane,

Your frustration about folks avoiding original sources is reasonable. Especially when it's actually easily available. But, of course, the "original source" itself is an interpretation of data. In short, we fall back on easier, less time-consuming ways. ("We" being me. See the back-and-forth comments about—presumably—the same data between Erin Johnson and myself.)

In fields that I don't feel deeply connected to, I mostly look for the experts I "trust". There's no way to be an expert in all the subjects I need to have an opinion about! So I go along with the consensus in some cases (like climate) and rely on "my" experts (generally via the magazines I read) on foreign policy and economics—e.g. Richard Rothstein, or Paul Krugman. So why should I expect folks to do otherwise about schooling?

But it's why it is so easy to get myths out there into the public sphere as though they were facts. In our field, there's the myth about the good old days. It rests in part on how often opinion leaders of all political stripes refer casually to the "decline" of public education; ditto for the assumption that most other nations are doing better at something called "schooling" or "education" without our having stopped to define what either means. We fall back on test scores whose contents and assumptions few question, whose methodology even education reporters know little if anything about, not to mention the narrowness of the measures—or the way scores are set. We use a language that assumes that being well-educated is a zero-sum game, in which the progress of others has to injure us.

We trust these assumptions because to think otherwise would require going against the grain and becoming an expert oneself. Rothstein's piece in American Prospect is not the first masterly complicating of the economic/schooling myths, but precisely by complicating it he loses part of his audience. For example, he reminds us that we "forget" that there's a 20-30-year gap between when the tests are administered and when that age group has an impact on the economy. In the information age, resources are also not evenly distributed. While, for example, FairTest—the only national organization that is in the business of being skeptical about test data, has a budget of less than half a million, the three or four leading testing agencies each spend many millions on promoting the idea that tests are the one true measure. (Disclosure: I'm on the board of FairTest.)

It leads me to wish we had a very different way of spending those 13-20 schooling years—preparing people to assess the events that surround them, independently sorting out pros and cons. I'm for the "liberal arts"—but not at the expense of "making sense" of the world around us, those "habits of mind" we build our curriculum around at schools associated with the Coalition of Essential Schools. The traditional liberal arts might even support such habits, if we designed them with this in mind. It would, for example, take a very different definition of advanced mathematics. The public's much-criticized lack of interest in advanced math may, in fact, betray their good sense, not their bad. Calculus-driven math may be foolish-driven math, that mis-prepares us, leaving us disarmed before the realities of our world. Perhaps a "statistics-driven" math would be equally tough and "advanced" but more suitable for a democratic citizenry?

In short, what frightens me about a national curriculum is not merely that I think it's more exciting to teach based on the particular interests and events that swirl around the young but because I think I can even "cover" more stuff of importance if I begin with what grabs our interest—from dinosaurs, mummies, castles, to modern Iraq or climate claims. I can better engage kids with the world they live in—including its history—if I make that the central aim of my work. Diane, it seems unlikely we can get a national consensus around the kind of experimentation that many of us think needs to take place. Nor should we! But suppose I'm right, that more "coverage" of the traditional fare won't make us either scientifically more sophisticated or mathematically more at home in this world? I'm not interested in banning traditionalism, but I'm also not interested in prohibiting us from the kind of exploration that needs to take place. Nor do I want to leave it all to private schools to experiment with the age-old conundrums. I think there are responsible ways to engage in this work, not just in private but also in public schools.

Our scientific future depends, I believe, on our remaining a nation that appreciates "play"—the non-utilitarian (or at least not immediately so) mindset that we're born with. We are systematically cutting ourselves off from the roots of human intellectual inventiveness. We need to find the equivalent of a generation-old practice of taking cars and radios apart to see how they work and building fortresses out of whatever is on hand. Computer-programmed games can't replace the old chemistry sets. Finding the modern equivalents requires us to experiment, not to return to the 1896 Ivy League consensus, great as it was. Some of us were lucky to have had both, but too many kids today have neither. They thus develop an acquiescent mindset or else a merely rebellious one, but an insufficiently curious and self-disciplined one.

As I meet with teachers and principals and parents I hear a lot of anguish and fear. Of course my sample is biased, but…. Read Dan Brown's book, "The Great Expectations School: A Rookie Year in the New Blackboard Jungle" for a moving account of why we may be entering an era of temp teachers.

Deb

October 30, 2007

Why They Called It the Manhattan Project

By WILLIAM J. BROAD

By nature, code names and cover stories are meant to give no indication of the secrets concealed. “Magic” was the name for intelligence gleaned from Japanese ciphers in World War II, and “Overlord” stood for the Allied plan to invade Europe.

Many people assume that the same holds true for the Manhattan Project, in which thousands of experts gathered in the mountains of New Mexico to make the world’s first atom bomb.
Robert S. Norris, a historian of the atomic age, wants to shatter that myth.

In “The Manhattan Project” (Black Dog & Leventhal), published last month, Dr. Norris writes about the Manhattan Project’s Manhattan locations. He says the borough had at least 10 sites, all but one still standing. They include warehouses that held uranium, laboratories that split the atom, and the project’s first headquarters — a skyscraper hidden in plain sight right across from City Hall.

“It was supersecret,” Dr. Norris said in an interview. “At least 5,000 people were coming and going to work, knowing only enough to get the job done.”

Manhattan was central, according to Dr. Norris, because it had everything: lots of military units, piers for the import of precious ores, top physicists who had fled Europe and ranks of workers eager to aid the war effort. It even had spies who managed to steal some of the project’s top secrets.

“The story is so rich,” Dr. Norris enthused. “There’s layer upon layer of good stuff, interesting characters.”

Still, more than six decades after the project’s start, the Manhattan side of the atom bomb story seems to be a well-preserved secret.

Dr. Norris recently visited Manhattan at the request of The New York Times for a daylong tour of the Manhattan Project’s roots. Only one site he visited displayed a public sign noting its role in the epochal events. And most people who encountered his entourage, which included a photographer and videographer, knew little or nothing of the atomic labors in Manhattan.

“That’s amazing,” Alexandra Ghitelman said after learning that the buildings she had just passed on inline skates once held tons of uranium destined for atomic weapons. “That’s unbelievable.”

While shock tended to be the main reaction, some people hinted at feelings of pride. More than one person said they knew someone who had worked on the secret project, which formally got under way in August 1942 and three years later culminated in the atomic bombing of Japan. In all, it employed more than 130,000 people.

Dr. Norris is also the author of “Racing for the Bomb” (Steerforth, 2002), a biography of Gen. Leslie R. Groves, the project’s military leader. As his protagonist had done during the war, Dr. Norris works in Washington. At the Natural Resources Defense Council, he studies and writes about the nation’s atomic facilities.

Dr. Norris began his day of exploration by taking the train to New York from Washington, coming into Pennsylvania Station just as General Groves had done dozens of times during the war to visit project sites.

“Groves didn’t want the job,” Dr. Norris remarked outside the station. “But his foot hit the accelerator and he didn’t let up for 1,000 days.”

For tour assistance, Dr. Norris brought along his own books as well as printouts from “The Traveler’s Guide to Nuclear Weapons,” a CD by James M. Maroncelli and Timothy L. Karpin that features little-known history of the nation’s atom endeavors.

We headed north to the childhood home of J. Robert Oppenheimer, the eccentric genius whom General Groves hired to run the project’s scientific side as well as its sprawling New Mexico laboratory. Last year, a biography of Oppenheimer, “American Prometheus” (Knopf, 2005), won the Pulitzer Prize.

“One of the most famous scientists of the 20th century,” Dr. Norris noted, got his start “walking these streets” and attending the nearby Ethical Culture School.

Oppenheimer and his parents lived at 155 Riverside Drive, an elegant apartment building at West 88th Street. The superintendent, Joe Gugulski, said the family lived on the 11th floor, overlooking the Hudson River.

“One of my tenants read the book,” Mr. Gugulski told us. “So I looked it up.” To his knowledge, Mr. Gugulski added, no other atomic tourists had visited the building.

The Oppenheimers decorated their apartment with original artwork by Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir, Van Gogh and Cézanne, according to “American Prometheus.” His mother encouraged young Robert to paint.

By the late 1930s and early 1940s, blocks away at Columbia University, scientists were laboring to split the atom and release its titanic energies. We made our way across campus — with difficulty because of protests over the visit of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, which is widely suspected of harboring its own bomb program.

Dr. Norris noted that the Manhattan Project led to “many of our problems today.”

The Pupin Physics Laboratories housed the early atom experiments, Dr. Norris said. But the tall building, topped by observatory domes, has no plaque in its foyer describing its nuclear ties.

Passing students and pedestrians answered “no” and “kind of” when asked if they knew of the atom breakthroughs at Pupin Hall. Dr. Norris said the Manhattan Project, at its peak, employed 700 people at Columbia. At one point, the football team was recruited to move tons of uranium. That work, he said, eventually led to the world’s first nuclear reactor.

After lunch, we headed to West 20th Street just off the West Side Highway. The block, on the fringe of Chelsea, bristled with new galleries, and Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses. On its north side, three tall buildings once made up the Baker and Williams Warehouses, which held tons of uranium.

Two women taking a cigarette break said they had no idea of their building’s atomic past. “It’s horrible,” said one.

Dr. Norris’s “Traveler’s Guide” fact sheet said the federal government in the late 1980s and early 1990s cleaned the buildings of residual uranium. Workers removed more than a dozen drums of radioactive waste, according to the Department of Energy in Washington. “Radiological surveys show that the site now meets applicable requirements for unrestricted use,” a federal document said in 1995.

We moved to Manhattan’s southern tip and worked our way up Broadway along the route known as the Canyon of Heroes, the scene of many ticker-tape parades amid the skyscrapers.
At 25 Broadway, we visited a minor but important site — the Cunard Building. Edgar Sengier, a Belgian with an office here, had his company mine about 1,200 tons of high-grade uranium ore and store it on Staten Island in the shadow of the Bayonne Bridge. Though a civilian, he knew of the atomic possibilities and feared the invading Germans might confiscate his mines.

Dr. Norris said General Groves, on his first day in charge, sent an assistant to buy all that uranium for a dollar a pound — or $2.5 million. “The Manhattan Project was off to a flying start,” he said, adding that the Belgian entrepreneur in time supplied two-thirds of all the project’s uranium.

We walked past St. Paul’s Chapel and proceeded to the soaring grandeur of the Woolworth Building, once the world’s tallest, at 233 Broadway.

A major site, it housed a front company that devised one of the project’s main ways of concentrating uranium’s rare isotope — a secret of bomb making. On the 11th, 12th and 14th floors, the company drew on the nation’s scientific best and brightest, including teams from Columbia.

Dr. Norris said the front company’s 3,700 employees included Klaus Fuchs, a Soviet spy. “He was a substantial physicist in his own right,” Dr. Norris said. “He contributed to the American atom bomb, the Soviet atom bomb and the British atom bomb.”

So how did the Manhattan Project get its name, and why was Manhattan chosen as its first headquarters?

Dr. Norris said the answer lay at our next stop, 270 Broadway. There, at Chambers Street, on the southwest corner, we found a nondescript building overlooking City Hall Park.

It was here, Dr. Norris said, that the Army Corps of Engineers had its North Atlantic Division, which built ports and airfields. When the Corps got the responsibility of making the atom bomb, it put the headquarters in the same building, on the 18th floor.

“That way he didn’t need to reinvent the wheel,” Dr. Norris said of General Groves. “He used what he had at his fingertips — the entire Corps of Engineers infrastructure.”

Dr. Norris added that the Corps at that time included “extraordinary people, the best and brightest of West Point.”

In time, the office at 270 Broadway ran not only atom research and materials acquisition but also the building of whole nuclear cities in Tennessee, New Mexico and Washington State.
The first proposed name for the project, Dr. Norris said, was the Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials. But General Groves feared that would draw undo attention.
Instead, General Groves called for the bureaucratically dull approach of adopting the standard Corps procedure for naming new regional organizations. That method simply noted the unit’s geographical area, as in the Pittsburgh Engineer District.

So the top-secret endeavor to build the atom bomb got the most boring of cover names: the Manhattan Engineer District, in time shortened to the Manhattan Project. Unlike other Corps districts, however, it had no territorial limits. “He was nuts about not attracting attention,” Dr. Norris said.

Manhattan’s role shrank as secretive outposts for the endeavor sprouted across the country and quickly grew into major enterprises. By the late summer of 1943, little more than a year after its establishment, the headquarters of the Manhattan Project moved to Oak Ridge, Tenn.

Despite this dispersal, Dr. Norris said, scientists and businesses in Manhattan, including The New York Times, continued to aid the atomic project.

In April 1945, General Groves traveled to the newspaper’s offices on West 43rd Street. He asked that a science writer, William L. Laurence, be allowed to go on leave to report on a major wartime story involving science.

As early as 1940, before wartime secrecy, Mr. Laurence had reported on the atomic breakthroughs at Pupin Hall.

Now, Dr. Norris said, Mr. Laurence went to work for the Manhattan Project and became the only reporter to witness the Trinity test in the New Mexican desert in July 1945, and, shortly thereafter, the nuclear bombing of Japan.

The atomic age, Mr. Laurence wrote in the first article of a series, began in the New Mexico desert before dawn in a burst of flame that illuminated “earth and sky for a brief span that seemed eternal.”

In Manhattan, the one location that has memorialized its atomic connection had nothing to do with making or witnessing the bomb, but rather with managing to survive its fury.

The spot is on Riverside Drive between 105th and 106th Streets. There, in a residential neighborhood, in front of the New York Buddhist Church, is a tall statue of a Japanese Buddhist monk, Shinran Shonin, who lived in the 12th and 13th centuries. In peasant hat and sandals, holding a wooden staff, the saint peers down on the sidewalk.

The statue survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, standing a little more than a mile from ground zero. It was brought to New York in 1955. The plaque calls the statue “a testimonial to the atomic bomb devastation and a symbol of lasting hope for world peace.”

The statue stands a few blocks from Columbia University, where much of the bomb program began.

“I wonder how many New Yorkers know about it,” Dr. Norris said of the statue, “and know the history.”

Education Week

Reading Aid Seen to Lag in ELL Focus

By Mary Ann Zehr

Educators and experts across the country who work with English-language learners are moving toward a consensus that the federal Reading First program needs to be refined to become more effective for children acquiring English.

Administrators in several big-city districts with large numbers of such students are stepping up their training of teachers on how best to teach second-language learners to read under the No Child Left Behind Act’s flagship reading program, which serves grades K-3.

Last school year, the 410,000-student Chicago public school system established a new position at the district level for a bilingual specialist to coach teachers at the city’s 17 Reading First schools with large numbers of ELLs on how to tailor reading instruction to such students.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, where 38 percent of the 708,000 students are ELLs, started an institute for Reading First teachers this school year on reading strategies for ELLs.
And since last school year the 1.1 million-student New York City school system has been providing workshops and coaching to Reading First teachers and administrators on the same topic.

The U.S. Department of Education’s 11-member Reading First Advisory Committee has enough concerns about whether ELLs are getting what they need under the $1 billion-a-year program that it set up a subcommittee to look into the issue last week, according to Kris D. Gutiérrez, a committee member and a professor of social-research methodology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“My opinion is we have a long ways to go to meet the needs of English-language learners under the current policies and practices of Reading First,” Ms. Gutiérrez said. Among the program’s problems, she said, are that students’ reading skills are tested before they learn English, the literacy curriculum is too narrow, and teachers are not prepared to work with ELLs.

Education Department officials, asked last week if Reading First is working for ELLs, said “state-reported annual performance data show that many Reading First sites are showing improvements in reading fluency and comprehension for their English-language-learner students,” according to an e-mail message from Elaine Quesinberry, a spokeswoman for the department.

New Language

Concern about how to refine reading instruction for English-language learners also has spread to Capitol Hill.

A draft bill to reauthorize the NCLB law, put forth by the House Education and Labor Committee, calls for Reading First programs to be “linguistically appropriate”—a term not included in the current federal education law.

Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, a Texas Democrat and a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, was one of the lawmakers who helped get the phrase into the draft, according to Elizabeth Esfahani, his press secretary. The phrase is mentioned 11 times in the draft.

A number of reading experts and educators said that even though “linguistically appropriate” is a vague phrase, its addition to the law would likely be beneficial for English-learners.

“The advantage of the new [legislative] language is it’s going to nudge states and districts, as they submit their plans, to stress more how teacher training and coaching will lead to teaching English-language development better,” said Russell Gersten, the executive director of the Instructional Research Group, an educational research institute in Long Beach, Calif.
Mr. Gersten headed a panel for the Education Department to write a“practice guide” for education of English-language learners, released in July, and has been a consultant for Houghton Mifflin Company’s reading textbooks.

Margarita Calderón, a professor and research scientist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, agrees with others who say Reading First has not worked well for ELLs. The additional language “would be an improvement,” she said, “because schools will have to be accountable and show they are doing this in a linguistically appropriate way.”

But, aside from agreeing on the need for more teacher training, educators’ views of how Reading First needs to be improved sometimes contradict each other, particularly on whether students’ native languages should be used to teach reading.

Mr. Gersten said teachers should teach English structures, such as “compare and contrast” or “cause and effect,” and help students practice them. It’s also helpful for teachers to preview reading lessons with students to ensure that they know what a story is about, he said. Pictures or Web sites can be useful for previewing, Mr. Gersten noted.

But he said it would be a mistake for the words “linguistically appropriate” to steer schools to use students’ native languages for reading instruction. He hasn’t found studies concluding that bilingual education is more effective than English-only methods to be persuasive.

On the other hand, Miriam Calderón, who is not related to Margarita Calderón and is a policy analyst at the Washington-based National Council of La Raza, said her group lobbied members of Congress to add linguistically appropriate to Reading First particularly for that purpose.

And Johns Hopkins’ Margarita Calderón believes that including the term “linguistically appropriate” in the law could encourage the teaching of reading to ELLs through their native languages at the same time they are learning English.

Varying State Policies

While reading experts favored the proposed changes in Reading First for ELLs, state education officials in several states with large populations of English-learners were indifferent. Officials in Arizona, California, and New Jersey all said they already are implementing Reading First in a linguistically appropriate way.

Their approaches, all approved by the Education Department, differ widely, however. State plans vary in how they implement the Reading First program for English-language learners.

Arizona

• Requires instruction and materials to be in English.

• No approved list of materials school districts must choose from.

California

• Requires school districts to select materials from an approved list that includes textbooks in Spanish and English. No separate textbooks designed for English-language learners.

• No separate block of time for English-language development.

New Jersey

• Requires that schools provide reading instruction in Spanish if they have a critical mass of Spanish speakers who are ELLs.

• Requires school districts to select materials from an approved list that includes textbooks in Spanish and English and has separate English-language development textbooks tailored for ELLs.

• In addition to the regular 90-minute reading block, schools must teach English-language development to ELLs for a minimum of 30 minutes each day.

SOURCES: State education departments in Arizona, California, and New Jersey

New Jersey, for instance, requires that Reading First schools provide instruction to ELLs in Spanish, while Arizona requires that all Reading First instruction be in English. California permits schools to use Spanish instruction for Reading First in bilingual classrooms that meet state restrictions for using that educational method.

New Jersey also requires schools to select Reading First materials from an approved list that includes core materials in Spanish or English and has separate materials for teaching English-language development to ELLs.

But California has not adopted separate materials for ELLs, and the state board of education’s refusal to enable such an adoption is controversial. In the state’s next adoption process, however, textbook publishers will have to meet specified criteria to address the needs of ELLs. For example, they will need to provide ideas for teachers to preview reading lessons for ELLs.
Shelly Spiegel-Coleman, the executive director of Californians Tomorrow, a coalition of 17 groups that advocate in behalf of ELLs, said the increasing gap in reading achievement in California between native speakers of English and ELLs demonstrates that the nearly 6-year-old Reading First program isn’t working.

As evidence, she said the achievement gap in reading between native speakers of English and ELLs in Los Angeles schools, the state’s school system with the most ELLs, has stayed the same or widened from last year to this year at every grade level tested. Ms. Spiegel-Coleman, who just retired as director of the multilingual-academic-support unit of the Los Angeles County Office of Education, criticized the Open Court Reading materials used for the program, and also said the instruction gave students little chance to practice English. The core language arts series is published by SRA/McGraw-Hill.

Julie Slayton, the executive director of strategic planning and accountability for the Los Angeles school district, said the Open Court materials are high-quality, but noted that the quality of instruction “varies widely.”

David L. Brewer III, the superintendent for LAUSD, said in an e-mail message that, like any other materials, Open Court “gets results when skillful teachers use it properly.” He said the Open Court program “will need to be modified somewhat to better accommodate ELL students, especially teacher professional development,” which he expects to happen in the next textbook-adoption cycle.

The addition of the phrase “linguistically appropriate” to the federal education law, Ms. Spiegel-Coleman believes, would force California officials and school districts to do more for ELLs.
“California has a reading initiative, and Reading First is just more of the same—more assessments, coaches, more intensity, more monitoring.” She added, “You can’t do the same old thing. If you have kids who don’t speak English in Reading First who aren’t doing well, you have to do something else.”

Teachers union gets wiggle room against rival

By Michael J. Mishak

Las Vegas Sun

The Nevada State Education Association's push to boost taxes on gaming offers the union an advantage on another front. The tax plan provides leverage as the association tries to fend off a rival union.

The education association is locked in a struggle with Teamsters Local 14, which is campaigning to represent Clark County teachers. To win, the Teamsters must persuade more than half of those teachers to oust the education association as their representative.

But the association has painted the Teamsters into something of a corner by asking voters to boost the gaming tax so the state could grant teachers a raise.

The Teamsters local and two of its sister locals have workers spread throughout the gaming industry. The union is likely to oppose the higher taxes, which would leave it working to defeat a statewide ballot initiative whose purpose is to help teachers.

The Teamsters said Wednesday they will continue their organizing campaign and predicted the education association would fail to raise gaming taxes.

The association needs to secure nearly 60,000 signatures to place an initiative on the statewide ballot in 2008. If it's approved, voters would need to pass it again in 2010. The association seeks to bump the tax on gaming revenue from 6.75 percent to 9.75 percent.

The association's proposal is the latest in a series of hurdles facing the Teamsters local. From the outset, the union faced the challenge of organizing a largely apathetic and transient membership. Fifty percent of Clark County's teachers typically leave within five years. Also working against the Teamsters is the absence of a record of ever representing public educators.

The Teamsters originally expected their organizing drive would last through most of 2008. But the education association and Teamsters recently agreed to shrink the timeline. The campaign is now expected to conclude by the end of next month.

To be sure, the teachers union has weaknesses, and the Teamsters clearly see an opening. Members are frustrated by years of small raises and saw their union as largely ineffectual in this year's legislative session.

Education lobbyists made the mistake of going around Assembly Democrats to cut a deal with Senate Republicans on education funding. The move irritated the teachers' natural allies and could mean less clout with Assembly Democrats in future Legislatures - not a comforting thought.

The Teamsters say the education association's leadership is now lashing out at the most powerful interest in Nevada - the gaming industry - to deflect attention from its failures.

Ron Taylor, a district teacher who launched a grass-roots effort to decertify the education association and now works for Teamsters Local 14, said the tax proposal was a direct response to the Teamsters organizing effort, which he said is picking up steam.

"It's obvious this action was done because of us," Taylor said. "The NSEA is trying to protect their cash cow - the Clark County Education Association. They have no shot, but this is a way to tell teachers, 'We're fighting for you.' It's transparent."

The state education association represents more than 18,000 teachers across Nevada, including about 13,000 in Clark County.

The Teamsters say they have collected more than 2,000 signed authorization cards. The union needs 7,500 cards by the end of November to make the case for an election, which, if sanctioned by the state labor board, could take place next spring, said Gary Mauger, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 14.

As for the teachers union tax plan, Mauger said he would consult with the Teamsters executive board and the Nevada AFL-CIO before rendering judgment. Still, he added, "Going and putting the burden on the hand that feeds you sometimes doesn't make for a good way to go."

Richard Hurd, a labor expert at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, said the gaming tax proposal could galvanize the teachers union, slowing - if not killing - the Teamsters' momentum.

"It could be that what the education association is doing now is attempting to demonstrate that they have the potential to deliver," Hurd said.

Terry Hickman , the education association's executive director, said the union's plan was purely a response to a state that chronically underfunds education. Nevada ranks 49th in the nation in education spending.

"It's not enough to complain," Hickman said. "If you are not solution-based, get out of the way. Any association that opposes funding for our kids, I wonder what their values are."
And yet, the teachers union is going it alone.

Danny Thompson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Nevada AFL-CIO, said the 200,000-strong labor federation would vote on the teachers' tax plan, but he said support was unlikely. The AFL-CIO supports the Teamsters organizing effort.

"We support broadening the tax base away from one industry," Thompson said. "If you raise the gaming tax without raising others' taxes, you increase your dependency even more."

by Chip Mosher

Las Vegas City Life

October 11, 2007

THE TEACHER WAS ON THE PHONE asking a simple question. What happened to his arbitration hearing regarding the issue of a rogue administrator severely punishing him for doing the right thing? On the other end of the line, a Clark County Education Association (teachers' faux union) representative, Steven Horner, confessed confusion as to why, after nearly four years, the arbitration hadn't been held, since the average turnaround time to conduct such an independent hearing was 12 to 18 months. He said he'd find the problem and promised to call the teacher back with his case's status.

The teacher never heard back from Horner. Following multiple failed attempts to contact him again by phone and e-mail, the teacher finally gave up in a despair common to teachers who've had to rely on their faux union for such amateurish support in labor disputes.

Months later, the teacher ran into the evasive Horner at a picnic and, because they'd never met, introduced himself. The conversation went something like this:

"Yes, I know who you are," said Horner.

"Why didn't you call me back, as you promised to, about my arbitration that simply vanished into thin air?" asked the teacher.

"Because my boss told me not to contact you. I was just following orders," he answered.

"Like the Nazis?" the teacher said.

"Hey. Even you teachers have to bend over for your jobs on occasion, too," explained Horner.

"Only because teachers have been stuck with the Clark County Education Association to represent them against the school district," the teacher replied.

With that, Horner turned and walked away. How do I know this? Because I was the teacher.

That was last spring. This past week Horner's name popped up again at a local school. Recently, much to the amazement of many veteran teachers, their faux union is surprisingly showing up on campuses, trying to improve its decade-long image as an absentee, ineffective union. Sadly, though, this is not to fix its chronic incompetence, but rather the union is suddenly erecting a false front of concern for teachers -- in order to counter Teamsters Local Union 14, which also is vying for the right to represent the valley's teachers.

As part of the faux union's propaganda push, Horner was scheduled to appear at a school where, for teachers, he was a no-show. Exhausted teachers waited for him long after the school day ended. They had questions. Serious questions. Yet he didn't arrive. In his defense, Horner has said he came to the school's cafeteria, but didn't know exactly where to go for the meeting. After going to the main office, he apparently didn't possess the mental acuity to phone or page his female contact at the school, about where the meeting was. It was in her room, where the tired teachers were waiting, seemingly for Godot. Or, for a union to finally represent their interests.

And Horner's explanation?

"I did arrive at 2:05 and tried to check in no one [sic] was at the front desk however [sic] the AP [assistant principal's] secretary gave me directions, [sic] I will gladly reschedule at your convenience" [sic], Horner wrote to an unhappy teacher.

Note the shaky grammar.

Last year another teacher, being brutally terminated by the district, had been represented by Horner. Although she'd had many years of excellent evaluations in the L.A. Unified School District, this was her probationary year teaching in Clark County. Here, according to her, she'd been railroaded by a mean-spirited, vindictive principal -- a common occurrence in the district. Her contention was supported by several colleagues.

"I have called numerous times and I have not received any response to my inquiries regarding my termination. I am requesting a phone call from my union representative," she e-mailed Horner.

Days later, Horner e-mailed back: "As i told at our last meeting once the letter of non-renewal is issued then I turn over the documents to the lawyers. They will handle the the issues"

Again, note the grammar. This, from a man who represents teachers against district lawyers in disciplinary hearings.

The unlucky teacher, now gone from the district, responded to Horner: "That's the point. There have been no additional meetings, nor have you responded to my phone calls since the notice of my non-renewal."

Unfortunately, the elusive Steven Horner typifies the representation too many teachers get from their faux union, the Clark County Education Association. Sad to say.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher and faux union member.

by Chip Mosher

Las Vegas City Life

October 4, 2007

DEAR READER, I wanted to avoid the banality of school district issues this week by writing about the passing of French mime Marcel Marceau, and dead Buddhist monks on the streets of Myanmar. By writing about the death of such beautiful silence and, again, about the death of such beautiful silence. But not to be. C'est la vie.

Instead, I made the mistake of viewing local journalist Jon Ralston's gripping TV show Face To Face, which this past week featured leaders of two unions vying to represent teachers' interests in Las Vegas. Mary Ella Holloway, president of the Clark County Education Association -- teachers' current faux union -- verbally squared off against teacher Ron Taylor, a spokesperson for Teamsters Local Union 14.

The program started out predictably enough, each participant rhetorically jabbing and parrying politely, with both scoring minor points. Until halfway through the all-too-short 15-minute debate -- when Holloway, attempting to forensically sucker-punch Taylor, blurted out a doozy.

"We have access to his files," said Holloway, sounding and looking like J. Edgar Hoover in drag, while trying to discredit Taylor, a former member of her union.

Preceding and provoking this incendiary comment, the pit-bull-like host Ralston quoted, from an old news report, the executive director of the teachers' faux union, John Jasonek, who'd disparagingly said that Taylor had worked at five different local schools. But Taylor, a sought-after computer expert, responded -- honestly, it seemed -- that it was really six schools, in 15 years, where he was recruited by principals for his expertise.

On a video news clip, the faux union's Executive Director Jasonek, to trash Taylor, said: "Instead of being some righteous effort to make change from within, his [Taylor's] goal was to land a job with the Teamsters."

It's an odd statement from the top man at the teachers' faux union. Why? Because, according to inside sources, Jasonek led an effort last year to successfully oust Ron Taylor from this union, due to Taylor's efforts to create change inside the union -- the one which provides the bread and butter of Jasonek's documented personal financial affluence.

Following this insightful news clip, the debate took a turn toward the heart of the matter facing local teachers. This was the dialogue:

Ralston: You're just trying to hurt his (Taylor's) credibility, aren't you?

Holloway: We have access to his files -- but we can't talk about it.

Taylor: You have access to my files? You have access to my personnel files?

Holloway: No, no, no. The ones that are-- I-- I-- when CCEA--

Ralston: You see why he's so upset, if you have access to his personnel files? And it's said the school district is in bed with you--

Holloway: Please. Please. Please, Jon. It's not the personnel files. It's the files we have at CCEA when we do business with our-- with our people.

Ralston: That would have nothing to do with whether he's recruited by the principal of one of these schools or not.

Holloway: I think it would tell why he's changed schools so many times.

Whoops. After admitting she had access to Taylor's files and that she "can't talk about it," Holloway actually spoke about Taylor's files. "I think it would tell why he's changed schools so many times," she unethically said to Ralston. Thus, in her floundering, she ignored her own words and, even worse, Taylor's right to privacy.

On top of that, Holloway's weak implication that there was something nefarious about Taylor because of his "files" does little more than make a veteran teacher laugh. To many of those who have been around the school district a while, it is believed that many devious principals have often tried to keep good teachers in their schools by poisoning those teachers' personnel folders with outright lies. It's a pattern of Clark County School District ruthlessness against which the faux union's leadership, Holloway and Jasonek specifically, has consistently failed to protect teachers. Together, Holloway and Jasonek have bungled guarding the salaries and rights of Las Vegas teachers for most of a decade.

And during that time, 5,000 new teachers have disappeared from the district every five years. With the quietude of mimes. Or the silence of dead monks. Each with his own horror story to tell about those in charge, who, apparently, have had access to their files. C'est la vie.

Chip Mosher is a simple classroom teacher and faux union member.

Teaching Secrets: Organizing Middle Schoolers

By Laurie Wasserman

Teacher Magazine

What characteristic is most common among brand-new middle school students? It's not a physical trait (they come in an amazing assortment of shapes and sizes) or an emotional state (adolescents are famous for their mood swings). What they most have in common is this: They are disorganized. And why wouldn't they be? In most cases, new 6th graders have spent their first five years of school with a single teacher for the majority of the day. They entered elementary school each morning, hung up their coats, and stowed away their lunch boxes. Their homework, pencils, lunch money, and personal gear were stuffed in a nearby book bag or in their desk. Their textbooks were neatly stacked in a single, familiar classroom. Now, suddenly, they're middle schoolers, and the world's turned upside down.

They are given a combination lock, a hallway locker, a homeroom, and a schedule that often has four or more subject-area teachers whom they will see on any given day. There's more work to do – and more teachers who expect them to do it. This is where the child with significant organizational challenges becomes both overwhelmed and frustrated.

As educators, what can we do to support these students who often come to our classrooms without their necessary materials and homework assignments? Here are some tips from my special education classroom that can help any student bring order to chaos.

Agenda Books – If a school can provide each child with an agenda or assignment book, this is a terrific, consistent strategy. There are companies that sell them for $5 or less. Teachers can begin their classes by asking students to take out their agenda notebooks, and then write the next homework assignment on the board as students jot it down. In my own classroom, I stroll around the room checking to make sure each of my students has copied the assignment down correctly and written it in the right place (middle schoolers will often write it in the wrong day – or month!). If funds aren't available to purchase agenda books, I’ve run off assignment checklists on the copy machine and distributed them each Monday in stapled sets of five. It’s not as ideal, but still quite feasible.

Schoolnotes.com – This is a free Internet tool that allows educators to post our assignments online. All a parent or student needs to do is go to the site (from home or a public library) and type in their zip code. Any teacher who uses the service will be listed in alphabetical order, under the name of the school, and by grade or subject. Teachers can also provide their school email address, in case a parent or student needs homework clarification at night or wants to send a document when there's no printer available. Many parents who have Internet access at their jobs welcome the opportunity to check their child’s next-day assignments before they leave work. Imagine the look on their child’s face the first time mom or dad asks them if they brought home their study guides for tomorrow’s science test!

Preparation Grade – As a strategy to promote organization, I count preparation as part of my students' overall subject grade. I allow them to go to their lockers, if they forget a book or a pencil. But each trip to the locker costs them 1 point from their preparation grade. It sounds harsh (and most of my students have ADD/ADHD), but I find if they know my policy ahead of time, and I’m consistent with it, they learn by trial and error. I also loan them pencils, but ask for a sneaker as collateral. Their missing sneaker helps them to remember to return the pencil as they leave the room.

The Absent-Student Crate – I print assignments out and place them in a 3-ring binder titled "Schoolnotes," which resides in the Absent-Student Crate. This gives the kids a running record of what assignments they have missed while they were out. I also keep a 3-ring binder for each subject I teach, with the various handouts I have distributed, so the students have an archive to reference. I keep track of who's absent by asking the student who is passing out papers to write the names of any absentee on the handout and place it in an accordion folder also kept in the crate. When the absent child returns, I remind him or her to check the crate for any handouts or incomplete assignments. Basically, I'm modeling good organization for my kids.

The I.O.U. Board – I have an I.O.U area on my board with the assignments students owe me (with their names listed below each assignment). If a child is absent during a test, or owes me a project, he or she can immediately see their debt. In my special ed classes, I also use this for students who owe work to their mainstream teachers.

The TEAM Homework Area – I keep a running list of all homework assigned by the teachers on my 6th grade teams. The students can refer to this board if they've forgotten to copy any assignments down in other classes. I also utilize this board for my regular-education homeroom students.

Pocket folders, a cheap way to help kids – An inexpensive way for students to keep track of various written assignments they need to complete is to take a 2-pocket folder, available at any office supply store, and label the left side with “To Do” and the right side with “Completed.” They are ONLY allowed to put works-in-progress in this pocket folder. Once the assignments have been completed, the work can be transferred to the appropriate binders or notebooks that the teacher may require.

A final thought: Kids will be kids. It’s hard sometimes to realize that students don’t deliberately misplace papers, forget pencils, or lose track of assignments. They just don't have our experience or habits of mind. It’s our job to teach them the tools and strategies for getting organized and feeling successful.

Laurie Wasserman is a 6th grade special educator in Medford, Massachusetts. A National Board Certified Teacher, she works with students who have learning disabilities, both in self-contained and mainstream classrooms.

Education Week

By Sterling C. Lloyd

In 2007, an estimated 1.2 million students failed to earn high school diplomas with their graduating class. Given that high school graduates, on average, enjoy higher earnings and require fewer government services than non-graduates, the costs of dropping out are high for both individuals and the nation as a whole. As a result, effective interventions that help keep students in school are likely to pay significant dividends. This is especially true if they successfully target those most at risk of dropping out. This Stat of the Week examines the high school pipeline in order to find the point at which the most students are lost.

The 2007 edition of Education Week's annual Diplomas Count report analyzes the high school graduation process as a series of grade-to-grade promotions using the Cumulative Promotion Index. The CPI allows researchers to pinpoint where, in the high school pipeline, students are lost. The results show that the 9th grade is the leading source of student loss. In fact, more than one-third of non-graduates, in the class of 2003-04, failed to make the transition from 9th to 10th grade. This finding suggests that programs to increase graduation rates may need to help 9th graders get off to a good start in high school.

Where are students lost?

Nationally, more than one-third of the students lost from the high school pipeline failed to move from 9th to 10th grade.

Understanding the causes underlying freshman-year loss could be crucial for improving the prospects of youth at-risk of dropping out. To that end, a July 2007 report from the Consortium on Chicago School Research identified four predictors of whether Chicago public high school students would graduate within four years. The researchers found that 9th graders were more likely to graduate on time if they: (1) remained on-track (by accumulating at least ten semester credits and earning no more than one semester "F" in a core academic course), (2) earned higher GPAs, (3) failed fewer semester course, and (4) had fewer absences.

The report notes that, "for many students, freshman year is like a bottleneck" where sub par academic performance puts them so far behind that they are unable to catch up. This finding about the 9th grade underscores the importance of reform strategies designed to assist students early in high school. The Chicago researchers suggest that interventions such as summer school and tutoring programs would be more effective by targeting students who fail one to four courses in the freshman year.

by John Cronin, Michael Dahlin, Deborah Adkins, G. Gage Kingsbury
10/04/2007


"The Proficiency Illusion" reveals that the tests that states use to measure academic progress under the No Child Left Behind Act are creating a false impression of success, especially in reading and especially in the early grades.

The report, a collaboration of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and the Northwest Evaluation Association, contains several major findings:

States are aiming particularly low when it comes to their expectations for younger children, setting

elementary students up to fail as they progress through their academic careers. The central flaw in NCLB is that it allows each state to set its own definition of what constitutes "proficiency."

By mandating that all students reach "proficiency" by 2014, it tempts states to define proficiency downward.

Although there has not been a "race to the bottom," with the majority of states dramatically lowering standards under pressure from NCLB, the report did find a "walk to the middle," as some states with high standards saw their expectations drop toward the middle of the pack.
In most states, math tests are consistently more difficult to pass than reading tests.

Eighth-grade tests are sharply harder to pass in most states than those in earlier grades (even after taking into account obvious differences in subject-matter complexity and children's academic development).

As a result, students may be performing worse in reading, and worse in elementary school, than is readily apparent by looking at passing rates on state tests.

Click here to read the full report.

The teachers of Clark County are currently facing a tough choice. Unfortunately, the choice they are being offered is between two unions, neither of which is designed to address the needs and interests of today¹s educators.

As more and more teachers in Clark County have expressed discontent with their representative unit, the Clark County Education Association, the Teamsters have decided to throw their hat in the ring. The Teamsters are saying that the status quo, the CCEA, is not meeting the interests of the teachers they represent. The CCEA says the Teamsters are unprofessional and are not capable of representing teachers effectively.

The fact of the matter is neither the CCEA nor the Teamsters are looking out for the best interests of teachers. Teachers are professionals who deserve a professional organization that will engender the type of respect and recognition that unions do not bring to the table. No matter what name a union goes by, whether it is the NEA, AFT or the Teamsters, the union model is the same. The Teamsters are no better a solution to the concerns of the teachers of Clark County than the CCEA.

The militant labor union mentality is inherently wrong for teachers. Industrial-style unionism neither advances the respect and compensation that educators deserve, nor does it improve the quality of education for kids.

Teachers have been tasked with the education of our nation¹s children, and must be the best and the brightest. The union model rewards teachers who act in a way that belies the nature of their profession. They are indeed professionals and should act and be treated as such. If teachers strive to be taken seriously as a profession, they need to align themselves with groups whose priorities do not center on political agendas that have little to do with the classroom.

The problem is that the unions currently in charge have a tight grip on information that is provided to teachers, and because of this lack of free flow of information, most teachers are unaware they have choices regarding who represents them. Most teachers believe that their only choice is to join the union or nothing at all. The move by the Teamsters to represent teachers in Clark County is good in a way because it is informing teachers that their choice is not the union or nothing.

However, if the Teamsters are successful and unseat the CCEA, the current problems will still exist. Teachers will continue to come in second place to union interests, and they will still not get the recognition they deserve as professionals.

It¹s understandable that Clark County¹s educators are wondering if there are better options than a union. The answer is yes. In fact, there is a groundswell among America¹s teachers, who are leaving traditional teacher labor unions, to join non-union professional associations. Nearly 300,000 teachers nationwide have opted to join non-union educators associations such as the Association of American Educators, which has members in all 50 states. Members can get most of the benefits that the unions provide but at a fraction of the cost.

It¹s a common sense option. Attorneys have the American Bar Association. Physicians have the American Medical Association. Why shouldn¹t educators belong to an organization that respects them as the academic professionals that they are?

Clark County teachers have a unique opportunity to do what¹s best for their profession and for the kids they teach. There have indeed been problems with the CCEA¹s representation and teachers should want change. However, the Teamsters¹ outdated labor model is no more appropriate for today¹s teachers than is the NEA. Teachers deserve a professional choice.

Gary Beckner is executive director of the Association of American Educators. www.aaeteachers.org

Union making play for teachers

Teamsters say CCEA representation lacking

By ALAN MAIMON

Las Vegas Review-Journal

Armed with a litany of complaints against the Clark County Education Association, a local Teamsters union is fighting to bring teachers into its fold.

For months, representatives of Teamsters Local 14 have scoured public records and crunched numbers in search of ways to discredit the union that represents teachers.

At a news conference this afternoon, they plan to share their findings.

The goal is to convince a majority of the district's 18,000 teachers that the Teamsters can provide more effective representation, said Ron Taylor, a school district teacher and Teamsters organizer.

It's new terrain for a local affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, a spokesman said.

Galen Munroe, who is based in the group's headquarters in Washington, D.C., said he isn't aware of any school district in the country whose teachers are represented by Teamsters.
Taylor, a computer science teacher at High Desert State Prison in Indian Springs, hopes that will soon change.

"The biggest concern is that an association that represents teachers isn't watching out for the concerns of teachers," Taylor said. "That's what we'll do."

Local 14, which was chartered in 1955 and represents about 3,300 blue- and white-collar workers in Southern Nevada, needs to win the support of more than half of all teachers in the district to oust the current union.

The Teamsters couldn't meet that threshold when it recently tried to take over representation of the school district's support staff.

It plans to make a formal challenge to the teachers union as early as November.
To help woo teachers, the Teamsters are targeting both the education association and a community foundation that partners with the union.

Union officials also have concerns about the solvency of the Teachers Health Trust and the relationship between the union and school district.

A common thread through more than 100 pages of public records compiled by the Teamsters is the activities of John Jasonek, executive director of the teachers union and community foundation.

The foundation uses government funding and private donations to administer grants and other education-related programs.

A Review-Journal analysis of documents independently obtained by the newspaper raises questions about Jasonek's roles in the organizations.

He received $129,000 for 12 hours of work per week at the foundation between Sept. 1, 2004, and Aug. 31, 2005, according to the foundation's most recently available federal tax forms.
Another official received $124,500 in compensation from the organization.

Those payments accounted for a large chunk of the $625,000 the foundation spent on overhead that year. The foundation administered $813,000 in program services, which accounted for only 57 percent of its overall expenditures.

Both Jasonek's salary and the amount the foundation spent on administrative costs are far above national averages, according to Charity Navigator, a New Jersey-based evaluator of charities.

Several larger foundations in school districts including Houston and Dallas have spent less than 10 percent on overhead in recent years, a Review-Journal analysis of tax forms shows. None of the officers in those foundations has made a penny for their work.

Jasonek said the Teamsters are looking only at salaries and ignoring the good work of the foundation.

"I'm a little bit tired of it," Jasonek said. "You end up with a lot of innuendo and no charges. ... If somebody thinks we're doing something wrong, they should take it to some agency. I'm not going to sit here and justify what we do."

Since forming in 2000, the foundation has launched several initiatives, including the Student to Teacher Enlistment Project (STEP), a program that pays for the tuition and books of a group of Nevada State College and College of Southern Nevada students who commit to teaching in the district for four years after graduating from college.

Jasonek said his foundation's 2004 tax return, which was submitted to the federal government after several delays, doesn't tell the whole story.

For one thing, he works more than 12 hours a week, he said.

"I don't know where that number comes from," he said.

Public records show Jasonek made another $134,000 in the 2004 tax year in his role as executive director of the teachers union. The foundation's tax return says the union and foundation "reimburse each other" for certain expenses.

Jessica Word, an assistant professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, who specializes in the management of nonprofit groups, said that line is troubling, "In general, if someone has decision-making authority over both sets of organizations and funding is passed back and forth, it's a basic conflict of interest," she said.

Taylor said he wants the teachers union and foundation to address his group's concerns. "Every time I confront anybody about this stuff, I get a different answer," he said. "I'd like to see them step up and explain what's going on."

By Jean-Paul Renaud | South Florida Sun-Sentinel

September 7, 2007

Broward County teachers today are voting on a contract that more generously rewards the top union officials who negotiated it than rank and file educators.

If it is approved, about two-thirds of Broward's 17,000 public school teachers will receive raises of 5 percent or less. The most substantial increases, as high as 17 percent, will go to the most senior teachers — less than a third of Broward's educators.

In contrast, more than two-thirds of the 22-member Broward Teachers Union executive board, which negotiated the contract, have the seniority to qualify for the most generous raises, records show.

"I'm not surprised at all because one would assume that the people at the top level are the ones that are on the negotiating team," said School Board member Stephanie Kraft. "I don't think that sounds right. I guess it would be nice if they would look after all the teachers equally."Several board members said the situation, though not unusual for a school district, reflects the power of unions. Some teachers said it shows union leaders are out of touch with the rank and file.

School districts across the state have a complicated system of setting salaries, mostly based on seniority levels that officials call "steps." In Broward, there are 22 steps, and teachers typically do not see substantial pay raises until they reach the 20th level — or their second decade educating children. All salaries are based on 196 days of work and can be increased if teachers obtain additional academic degrees and training.

The executive board of the teachers union helped craft the contract with the school system. The board includes 15 educators with more than two decades of service to the district. Union leaders say their board's makeup is dynamic and diverse, and this year members argued about how to divide the raises.

"It's become much more diverse," said Pat Santeramo, who as union president collects a $150,000 salary. "There are quite a few younger people. They are all very opinionated, similar to the School Board."

Teachers at the beginning and middle of their careers often complain about the salary system.

"Everyone should be taken care of across the board," said Denise Haltrecht, a first-grade teacher at Coconut Palm Elementary in Miramar. "One step should not be neglected over the other. We all work just as hard. Just because you're at year 20 doesn't mean you're working any more than a beginning-year teacher."

On her 13th year as a teacher, Haltrecht and her 467 colleagues on that step will receive a 4 percent raise.

Some School Board members say the system is unfair.

"Everybody should be treated equally," said Chairwoman Beverly Gallagher. "I didn't agree with the step system. But if we don't agree to the steps, then we would be at an impasse and nobody would get anything. Everybody would just be waiting."

But Santeramo said there should be rewards for "longevity, skills, knowledge."

"How we do that could be restructured," he said, adding that the union will sit down with school district officials in the new year to devise a less complicated way of doling out raises.

One person on BTU's board is on step 20. The 419 other teachers on that step will be paid a base salary of $53,377, a 7 percent raise.

Another board member is on step 21, along with 413 other teachers in Broward. Their salaries will jump to $62,677, a 17 percent increase over last year.

And 13 board members are on step 22 and will see their base salaries climb to $70,000 — a 12 percent increase that will make the 4,000 teachers with that seniority among the highest paid in the tri-county area.

"It's just another example of people who are not experiencing what most teachers are experiencing," said Donna Shubert, a kindergarten teacher at McNab Elementary in Pompano Beach. "They have the years in and they're negotiating with their own mind frame."

Shubert has been a teacher for nine years and will receive a 5 percent increase that will raise the salaries of educators on step 9 to $40,980.

Santeramo, however, says the makeup of the union's executive committee has little to do with the way senior teachers are compensated.

"We look at trying to provide a fair and equitable salary for all the employees," he said. "We represent all 17,000 teachers."

One School Board member has a solution for those teachers who think their union doesn't represent them.

"This is a perfect example of why beginning teachers and those that are a few years into their careers need to be more involved and engaged in their union," said Board Member Jennifer Gottlieb.

Jean-Paul Renaud can be reached at jprenaud@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4556.

Union Negotiates Pay Raises… For Union Chiefs
Posted on September 14, 2007 at 9:30 am by WTH

I suppose we shouldn’t be surprised when union representatives negotiate themselves bigger raises than they do for their own membership. But, it still rankles every time it happens… and it happens almost every time!

In this case it is the Broward County, Florida teacher’s union that has fenagled a higher raise for the top earners in the District than those at the lower end of the pay scale. It seems they have invented an absurdly complicated “steps” plan (there are 22 of these “steps”) where folks at the low end will forever get smaller raises than folks at the high end. Naturally, the union reps are all at the highest end of the scale.

Big surprise, eh?

Broward Teachers Union negotiates big raises for vets, little for newcomers

“Broward County teachers today are voting on a contract that more generously rewards the top union officials who negotiated it than rank and file educators.

If it is approved, about two-thirds of Broward’s 17,000 public school teachers will receive raises of 5 percent or less. The most substantial increases, as high as 17 percent, will go to the most senior teachers — less than a third of Broward’s educators.”

I thought that unions were all for the ‘little people”? What happened to that whole egalitarian concept that unions claim is their chief motivation?

I guess where it concerns getting raises for union bosses, the little guy will have to wait!

You know, they are only out to “help” you, dontcha?

Teamsters Assist CCEA Drop

Several teachers have indicated that they missed the
open window to drop CCEA. Since CCEA does not actively
advertise this open window, it seems only fair
teachers should be given another chance to drop. While
CCEA spent thousands of dollars recruiting new
teachers, they neglected to tell them that as a
probationary teacher they can’t really represent them.
They also failed to notify new members and old of the
fact that dues are increasing. The Teamsters feel this
is a travesty and are willing to assist teachers in
dropping from CCEA.

Any teacher wishing to drop simply send an e-mail
indicating their desire to drop and Teamsters is
providing a lawyer to handle the case. Free of charge
to teachers, nope, you don’t even have to sign an
Authorization Card. We would prefer you did, but this
is too important and we feel this is a just cause.

Go to the Teachers4Change website to complete this
email.

We have also heard that some teachers who dropped
their membership in CCEA are still having their dues
taken from their paychecks. These folks need to send
Ron Taylor (at the T4C website) an email.....

Don't forget the Open House at the Teamsters Hall on
Saturday, September 15..... Many folks have questions
regarding the the Health Trust...... Be there!!!!!

Ken
CCTL Moderator

It has been reported that Teamsters representatives were handing out organizational/campaigning materials at one of our New Teacher Orientations. It is inappropriate for any labor organization to engage in campaigning activities on District property during District time, the representatives were directed to immediately case and desist. CCEA has since asked for confirmation that the District will prohibit such conduct now and in the future, and that confirmation has been given. Please make sure everyone with supervisory responsibility over personnel and/or District facilities knows that the District cannot and will not allow any labor organization campaigning activities on District property during District time.

CLARK COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT

LEGAL OFFICE

INTRA-OFFICE COMMUNICATION

August 30, 2007

To: Executive Cabinet

From: Bill Hoffman

Subject: Collective Bargaining Campaign Activities
__________________________________
I am informed that the incumbent bargaining agent which represents District licensed personnel is being challenged by at least one other bargaining agent to become the recognized bargaining agent. It appears that campaign activities are occurring in some school sites. Please distribute the following memo, which discusses campaign activities, to appropriate administrators:

1. Pursuant to Article 2-1 of the existing collectively bargained agreement (CBA) between the District and the Clark County Education Association, the Association is the exclusive representative of all licensed personnel employed by the District. The District may not condone or approve of practices which would undermine CCEA’s exclusive rights of representation.

2. Article 7 of the CBA grants to the CCEA specific contractual rights regarding the use of School District facilities which are not available to other persons, entities, businesses or non-recognized labor organizations.

The District has the right to restrict the use of its facilities in a manner consistent with the CBA and the District’s Policies and Regulations.

a. School Mailboxes, Interschool Mail Service, and Faculty Bulletin Boards. The Association shall have the use of school mailboxes and the inter-school mail service for the distribution of non-defamatory and non-campaign related material initiated by the Association. The Association shall have the use of faculty bulletin boards for posting of non-defamatory materials and non-campaign related materials.

Copies of all materials shall be given to the building principal. The material will be clearly identified and the

Association accepts the liability for such material.

District teachers shall be permitted use of School District mail services for district-related business, but not for campaign related materials. School facsimile machines and copiers may only be used for district-related business, but not for campaign related materials. School mailboxes, mail services, and faculty bulletin boards may not be used for campaign purposes.

b. InterAct. The Association, the Teachers’ Health Trust, and the CCEA Community Foundation shall have the use of the District’s electronic bulletin board/messaging system through InterAct for posting of non-defamatory and noncampaign related materials. In addition, there shall be a link through InterAct to the Association’s website. This link may not be used for purposes of soliciting membership.

Messages, materials and announcements posted on InterAct must be approved in advance by the Associate Superintendent, Human Resources Division, or her designee. InterAct may not be used for campaign purposes.

c. Facilities. The Association shall be allowed the use of school buildings and premises for association meetings and activities on regular school days as long as arrangements have been made with the principal of the building. Such activities shall not conflict with any regular or special educational activities and shall not involve additional or extra custodial services and/or other unusual expenses to the School District. Use of the buildings on other than school days requires the approval of the Superintendent in addition to the school principal. Any added expense resulting from the Association use shall be paid by the Association. Individual teachers will not be prohibited from the responsible use of the school facilities.

3. Access by non-employee representatives for purposes of campaigning. As a general proposition, the District may refuse to allow non-employee representatives from nonrecognized union organizations to have access to District property, provided there is an adequate opportunity for organizers to contact employees without entering District “Non-working time” means break times and duty-free lunch 1 periods as well as those periods of time before work and after work.

“Non working areas” means areas where employees are not 2 performing duties associated with their employment, for example, the teachers’ lounge and school parking lots.

Help with test may lead to suspensions

Teachers would get five days for reading questions to students

By Emily Richmond

Las Vegas Sun

Apparently believing their students were being set up to fail, two Clark County special education teachers refused to follow testing regulations and instead read aloud the questions on a statewide reading exam.

The state education department has recommended the teachers each be suspended for five days, even though Keith Rheault, Nevada's superintendent of public instruction, originally wanted them suspended for 30 days.

The incident took place March 22 at Doris French Elementary School during a standardized test used to measure student progress, as required by the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Schools that score poorly face progressively harsher penalties.

The suspensions must be approved by the State Board of Education, which oversees teacher licensing issues. Darrin Purana, assistant director of employee-management relations for the Clark County School District, said he could not discuss the specifics of the incident at French. However, his office conducts its own investigation when this type of situation arise s , and teachers can face penalties at the district level as well, Purana said.

Rheault said he supported the scaled-back sanctions after taking a closer look at the circumstances. He said it's possible the teachers were trying to spare the students from what was perceived as an unreasonable demand for performance, rather than attempting to inflate test scores.

Although the U.S. Education Department has expanded the list of how students with special needs can be accommodated in testing, teachers say the questions are still beyond the grasp of many of their pupils. Students not fluent in English also struggle with the tests.

In cases similar to what happened at French, teachers' actions, although misguided, are often an "act of caring," said Sue Daellenbach, testing director for the Clark County School District.
"Taking these tests can be a stressful thing for students, particularly those who are severely disabled," Daellenbach said. "Teachers are by nature caring people, and it's a tough thing to have to watch your kids struggle. But even if you think you're helping your student, you still have to follow the law."

At French, "the teachers admitted they were aware it is not permissible to read a reading test aloud, but believed they were acting in the best interest of the students," according to a state report summarizing the incident.

In addition to the suspensions, the state recommended a letter of admonition be placed in each teacher's personnel file.

The names of the teachers involved were not released by the district. Three other Nevada teachers were charged with improperly helping students with tests during the 2006-07 school year. Two teachers received 30-day suspensions, and the remaining case is to be heard next week.

For cheaters, iPods are playing their song

Students use devices to save answers, data for exam day, state report says

By Emily Richmond

Las Vegas Sun

Move over, cell phones and calculators. There's a new device joining the list of banned items for Nevada's test-taking students - the iPod.

The usual suspects - cell phones, passed notes and the good ol' peek over the shoulder - still lead the list of cheating techniques.

But the state education department's annual report on testing improprieties for the first time includes incidents of students sneaking iPods into exams. In some cases teachers allowed the devices to be used, apparently unaware they could help student s cheat.

"Kids are getting clever, aren't they?" said Sue Daellenbach, testing director for the Clark County School District.

Keith Rheault, Nevada's superintendent of instruction, said iPods may not seem like an obvious choice for cheaters. But "you can put anything on those things," Rheault said, including audio recordings of class lectures, recitations of mathematical formulas or other content that could help a student answer questions on an exam.

The report itemizes all testing mishaps and cheating reported by schools on the high school proficiency exams and standardized tests given in grades three through eight. The tests are used in part to measure student progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. Students must pass the high school proficiency exam to graduate.

For the 2006-07 academic year, more than 300,000 students were tested at more than 600 locations. There were 130 reported irregularities, such as missing answer sheets, a 10 percent drop from the prior year.

The total includes 47 incidents of students cheating, a slight increase over the prior academic year but more than double the 23 incidents reported in 2004-05. Educators say the cheating figures for the past two years can be considered a trend, even though the raw numbers are low in the context of the number of tests taken.

Rheault said he wants schools to tackle the largest source s of problems - cheating with electronic devices, and teachers misunderstanding what kinds of extra help they are allowed to give students with special needs.

"We're still getting a lot of teachers who either didn't provide accommodations when they could have, or provided them when they shouldn't have," Rheault said.

Part of the problem is that Clark County, which accounts for about 70 percent of the state's K-12 students, has to train more than 2,000 new teachers annually in proper testing procedures and policy.

"There's a constant learning curve," Daellenbach said. "Even with the best training , there are going to be schools that have someone doing something for the first time, and there are going to be human errors."

Among the reported incidents:

• At an alternative high school in Carson City, a teacher's cell phone rang during the math proficiency test . He left the room to take the call. When later questioned, 15 students admitted either cheating or using their cell phones during his absence. The tests were invalidated.

• At Churchill County High School, two students turned in identical answer sheets on the math proficiency test after helping each other with the answers. They were also permitted to listen to their iPods during the exam.

• At the Clark County School District's Community College West High School, a student was observed using his cell phone during the 11th grade writing proficiency test. The student later admitted using the phone to look up a vocabulary word.

• Testing at four schools was interrupted by fire alarms. Three may have been caused by pranksters, but at Mt. Charleston Elementary School in Nye County, there actually was a fire.

A Hot Topic
The first day of school has Junior High School Teacher sweating bullets—and it’s not from nerves. Although her classroom’s sweltering temperatures are “unbearable,” JHS says there’s no relief in sight:

A few years ago, I complained that the fan system (we have no AC) in my room wasn't working. Or that it was working, but only when I turned on the heat. That wasn't going to do. I brought in fans from home, but still, my room was in the low 90's for three days in a row.

They finally came to address the problem.
And removed the thermostat.

Teaching Secrets: Establishing Your Professional Identity

By David Cohen

Teacher Magazine

By changing jobs several times earlier in my teaching career, I had a chance to work in schools large and small, public and private, in various regions, and even in another country. Here’s a paradox I’ve observed: Schools are like people—unique and yet predictable.

For all the factors that make a given school different from others, there are certain types of people and situations you can expect to encounter. But, as a new staff member, you will learn not only about teaching in this new setting, but also about fitting into the school culture, and working with new colleagues. And although the students and the classroom are your top priorities, it’s never too early to think carefully about how early experiences in your career can help you establish a professional identity—about how you can collaborate with others and engage in the profession. Here are some hints to help you think about and establish a professional identity.

First, find your allies. Whether they are teachers, custodians, secretaries, parents, librarians, aides, coaches, or counselors, these are the people who want to help you succeed with students. You’ll hear this advice from others who quite rightly want you to recognize how these people contribute to your effectiveness in the classroom. But, besides helping you in your teaching, true allies will start motivating you and validating your efforts, even beyond what you might think you deserve. Consider what a vote of confidence does for your students, and give yourself permission to actively seek out the same for yourself.

I worked in one school where a custodian, adopting a parental tone, said, “I always look out for my teachers,” and often told me how great I was, though she never saw me teach. Thinking back several more years, I recall another ally, Jean, who became an early mentor to me because of her sincere curiosity. She would always ask me, a student teacher at the time, how she, a thirty-year veteran, could improve a lesson I observed. She was a model of inclusive, reflective, and collaborative professionalism.

New teachers have intelligence, energy, and a fresh perspective, so you should maximize the time you spend with people who recognize your brilliance while still pushing you to question and reflect. Find allies who are modeling a professional community and who support their colleagues to ensure that the school is committed to sustained professional development.

Avoid the Ax Grinders
My advice may seem unorthodox, but I’m merely suggesting that you need to be yourself, be authentic, and be principled—and don’t wait.

Here's another piece of advice: Look out for the complainer. Someone in your school doesn’t like being there anymore, or doesn’t like someone else in the school. Needing validation, the complainer will want to present evidence to you so that you will join his or her ranks. Often, this person has a permanent spot in the office or lounge. In that case, make yours a coffee-to-go. You have nothing to gain from listening to gossip, slander, or the repetitive spinning of an ax-grinder, and even less to gain by trying to match stories, if you’re so tempted. It's a trap easily fallen into.

Moods are contagious, so spend your time with people who love what they do. I don’t mean to suggest teachers shouldn’t vent frustration sometimes, or that criticisms lack value. The important distinction is that complainers consistently tell negative stories to impress you with their suffering, while allies might sometimes tell a negative story to check their thinking or to illustrate how they learned something valuable and applicable to future situations.

Speak Your Mind
Finally, learn from my own mistake: Don't keep too quiet early on at a new school. Staff members play roles in the drama (or comedy) of school cultures, so choose your early roles well to avoid typecasting. My problem is that it’s my nature to lay low and observe carefully before fully engaging in a group. Many people take a similar approach in schools, I think, and might even tell you “don’t make waves, keep quiet until you’re tenured.”

But my good friend and colleague Adam showed me the importance of speaking your mind from the start. When we taught together in Chicago, we found each other quite compatible in our values and priorities, and we sometimes found ourselves trying to express the same dissenting view on a decision or policy within our school. The key difference is that Adam was more effective at this than I was, because his professional identity was already well established. Everyone knew what he stood for and knew that he would express respectful disagreement when necessary. That was Adam’s role, and his voice could put an end to thoughtless groupthink and encourage people to reconsider an idea.

I, on the other hand, sat back when I first came to the job, letting others guide debates and decisions. With time I gained the confidence to speak up, but either because I waited too long or spoke too equivocally, I was not heard the same way that Adam was. My advice may seem unorthodox, but I’m merely suggesting that you need to be yourself, be authentic, and be principled—and don’t wait.

Within a school community, your professional identity forms early, and can contribute greatly to your job satisfaction and effectiveness. With the support of a collaborative, appreciative community, and by steering clear of negativity, you can find your voice early and grow into the roles you’re hoping to play as an educator.

David Cohen is a 13-year teaching veteran, a National Board-certified teacher, and a graduate of Stanford University’s Teacher Education Program. He currently teaches English and serves as a reading-teacher advisor at Palo Alto High School in California.

Teachers Tell Researchers They Like Their Jobs

By Vaishali Honawar

Education Week
Ninety-three percent of teachers reported satisfaction with their jobs 10 years after entering the field, according to a new survey that also found attrition rates for teachers were actually lower than for other professionals.

The report, released this week by the National Center for Education Statistics, surveyed 9,000 graduates who received their bachelor’s degrees in various disciplines in the 1992-93 school year. Nearly 20 percent of those graduates entered the teaching profession.

The findings from the survey debunk several long-held views on teacher pay, turnover, and job satisfaction. For instance, it found that only 18 percent of those who entered teaching changed occupations within four years of getting a degree. Given that other professions experienced attrition rates between 17 percent and 75 percent during that period, the number of career-switchers from teaching was on the low end of the scale, according to the data. More than half those who became teachers were still teaching 10 years later.

Teacher advocates and unions have long claimed that turnover among new teachers ranges from 30 percent to 50 percent within the first five years.

“The take for a long time was that there is this incredibly high attrition among teachers from schools,” said Mark Schneider, the commissioner of NCES, an arm of the U.S. Department of Education. The report, he said, shows that teacher-turnover rates are actually lower than those in other professions.

“I understand why schools and school districts are upset about losing teachers, but it is part of the normal sorting process” in a dynamic job market, Mr. Schneider added.

The survey also stands on their head some commonly held beliefs about teacher salaries. Teachers’ unions have often cited low pay as a major reason for teacher dissatisfaction. But only 13 percent of those who left teaching by 2003 gave it as the reason for leaving. Forty-eight percent of those who remained in the profession said they were satisfied with their salaries.

Kate Walsh, the president of the National Council on Teacher Quality, a research and advocacy group in Washington, called the findings “explosive.”

“What was surprising is how cheery the [teachers’] responses were,” she said. Education groups, including the unions, she contended, often cite teachers’ unhappiness in order to pressure districts and states for concessions.

Spokesmen for the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers said they were unable to comment on the report before the story was posted.

Racial Differences
The report’s findings are based on the NCES’ survey of baccalaureate-degree recipients conducted between 1993 and 2003. Participants answered questions via phone and the Internet and during in-person interviews. The report was prepared by MPR Associates in Berkeley, Calif.

Of those surveyed who were still teaching 10 years after earning their degrees, 90 percent said they would choose the same career again, and 67 percent said they would remain in teaching for the rest of their working lives.

The rate among African-American teachers, however, was significantly lower, with 37 percent saying they would choose to remain in the profession, compared with 70 percent of white teachers.

Nearly 20 percent of black teachers said they would leave if something better came along, compared with fewer than 10 percent of white teachers.

Ms. Walsh said the higher rates of dissatisfaction among black teachers could be due to the fact that more black teachers teach in high-poverty schools.

The study reaffirmed that attrition rates were higher among male teachers. While women (29 percent) were more likely to leave for family-related reasons, men (32 percent) usually left for a job outside the field of education.

A candidate’s age when he or she attended college also appeared to play a role in attrition rates: Those 30 or older when they obtained their degrees were more likely than younger graduates to remain in teaching.

Those who earned better grades in college were more likely than those with lower grades to remain in teaching.

The study offers a window into how college graduates perceive teaching. For instance, nearly half of all bachelor’s degree recipients in 1992-93 said they had never considered teaching or taken any steps to become educators.

Lack of interest, having another job in hand, and inadequate pay were the most commonly cited reasons for not pursuing teaching.

Math, science, and engineering graduates were among those most likely to leave teaching jobs to work outside education.

Doubts Cast on Math, Science Teaching Lures

By Sean Cavanagh

Education Week

Few strategies for luring more students and working adults into math and science teaching have proved as popular among elected officials as financial incentives, which try to make one of the least appealing aspects of the job—low pay—a little less daunting.

Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are considering a number of bills that would expand existing incentives, such as scholarships and loan forgiveness for aspiring educators, and create new monetary inducements. Dozens of states, meanwhile, already offer their own incentives for teachers in subjects with shortages, including mathematics and science.

But those who have studied financial incentives say evidence is scant that they are attracting substantial numbers of college students and career-changers to math and science teaching, despite years of investments in those programs.

Opinions vary on why incentives have not shown greater results. Some believe the money available is relatively insignificant when weighed against potential job candidates’ worries about poor salaries and working conditions. Others say the hodgepodge of federal, state, and local incentives is so fragmented that few potential teachers are aware of what’s available.

“There’s been virtually no research on how effective [these] options are,” said Dan Goldhaber, a research professor at the Center on Reinventing Public Education, based at the University of Washington in Seattle. “We ought to be making decisions about these programs based on something more than what might be effective, and instead base it on empirical evidence.”

Yet backers of incentives believe they can offer an important carrot for college students and for people already in the work world. Even if that extra money is of secondary importance to job candidates, it can make the teaching profession more appealing to math and science majors who are likely to have more lucrative options in the private sector.

Teaching for Dollars
In addition to the myriad state financial-incentive programs, the federal government oversees a number of monetary hooks to recruit and retain teachers in high-need fields, including math and science:

The Robert Noyce Scholarship Program, administered by the National Science Foundation, offers scholarships of $10,000 annually, for two years, to students majoring in math- and sciencerelated fields, as well as to working professionals.

The Teacher Loan Forgiveness Program, signed into law in 2006 and administered by the U.S. Department of Education, makes teachers of math, science, and special education eligible for up to $17,500 of loan repayment.

Teachers of math and science also can have up to 100 percent of their Perkins Loans canceled, with the amounts depending on years of service in the classroom.

The federal Transition to Teaching program provides money to school districts and colleges to pay for financial incentives of up to $5,000, total, to midcareer professionals, including paraprofessionals, interested in becoming trained as teachers in high-need schools.

SOURCES: U.S. Department of Education; National Science FoundationAnna M. Swenty, 26, credits an incentive program with having changed her thinking about teaching.

After earning a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of Missouri-Columbia three years ago, Ms. Swenty was considering graduate school and research jobs, but those career paths seemed too specialized. It wasn’t until she learned about the federal Robert Noyce Scholarship Program that the idea of teaching began to take hold.

The program, which is financed through the National Science Foundation at about $9 million a year, provided her with a total of $10,000 to return to school and earn a teaching certificate. In return, she agreed to work in a high-poverty school. She now teaches biology and earth science at Narrows High School in western Virginia.

“It was a godsend,” Ms. Swenty said of the scholarship. “I was worried about going into debt. … No one ever told me in my [undergraduate] program that teaching was a viable option.”

Financial Hook
Noyce money flows to colleges and universities, which give it to qualified applicants: college majors in math and science subjects who want to go into teaching, and working professionals with expertise in those areas. The program’s effectiveness is being evaluated, a process that is expected to be complete next year, said Joan T. Prival, the program’s lead director at the NSF. Separate bills approved by the House and the Senate would expand the program.

House lawmakers also recently approved a bill that would provide scholarships of as much as $16,000 to college students who agree to work in high-need subjects in schools serving large numbers of low-income students A measure that cleared the Senate this month would tie loan forgiveness to teachers’ income levels and lengths of service.

Low pay is just one of the factors that most frustrate teachers about their profession. Surveys show lack of administrative support and poor working conditions are of equal or greater concern.

Schools nationwide struggle to find qualified teachers in math and science. About 36 percent of secondary school math classes are taught by teachers who lack even a minor in math or a related subject, compared with 24 percent in all core academic subjects, according to the Education Trust, a Washington-based policy organization.

The pressure on schools to find teaching talent is likely to grow. About one-third of today’s teaching corps is expected to retire by 2010, according to one estimate. And the United States will need about 280,000 new teachers in math and science by 2015, a recent report says.

Although he believes financial incentives can make a difference to potential teachers, Gerald F. Wheeler, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, in Arlington, Va., said pay plans that offer higher salaries to math and science teachers have greater potential, because they bring educators’ yearly pay closer to those of jobs in the private sector.

“It doesn’t have to be equal” to other professions, he said, “but they have to be able to play in that marketplace.”

But grants and scholarships have proved more politically palatable in states than such differential-pay plans or pay-for-performance proposals, which tie teacher compensation to student achievement, said Tricia Coulter, the director of the teaching-quality and leadership institute at the Education Commission of the States, a research organization in Denver.

Thirty-one states have financial incentives for recruiting and retaining teachers, the ECS estimates. They vary in size and scope. Kansas offers $5,000 a year to college juniors and seniors who agree to become teachers in high-need subjects, including math and science.

During the 2006-07 academic year, the state awarded 248 scholarships, 45 of which went to math and science teachers, said Diane Lindeman, the director of student financial assistance for the Kansas board of regents. The state spent $778,000 on scholarships during that year.

The program helped only a small fraction of the number of teachers needed to fill math and science vacancies, Ms. Lindeman acknowledged. “There are so many factors in this other than just throwing money at people for going to college,” she said. “You’ve got to have the people who are actually eligible to do this and want to do this.”

Little Advertised?
Kansas’ scholarships require recipients to teach at a public or private school in the state for at least two years. About 40 percent of awardees in the most recent recorded year did not complete their obligation because they moved out of state or lost interest in teaching, among other reasons. Awardees who do not fulfill that obligation must repay the scholarships. Recouping money from those who renege can be a cumbersome process, Ms. Lindeman said.

Some policy experts warn that incentives can have the unintended effect of encouraging new teachers who lack the necessary talent or enthusiasm for the job to stay to meet financial commitments.

“You lock in some people who you probably do not want to be teaching,” said Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.

Several observers said a greater flaw is that aspiring teachers do not have a single source to tell them about the available federal and state incentives—a common problem in financial aid. A bill sponsored by U.S. Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., would require the federal government to set up a database of public and private scholarships in math- and science-related fields.

“There’s a whole lot of stuff out there, but people kind of stumble across it,” said Margaret E. Heisel, a lead coordinator for the California Teach/Science Math Initiative, a program aimed at recruiting educators into the profession. Students, she said, need a system that tells them that “if you are interested in math or science teaching, we have a way of making sure you don’t have a lot of debt at the end of college.”

The UC and California State University systems in 2005 announced a plan to try to raise the number of math and science teachers who graduate from their collective teacher programs from 1,000 to 2,500 a year. The systems, with private-sector support, offer a host of financial incentives to teachers, including waiving up to $19,000 in college loans.

One state program that appears to have achieved some success is in North Carolina, where teachers of math, science, or special education in high-poverty or academically struggling schools were given an extra $1,800 a year, according to a 2006 study by researchers at Duke University. Turnover among those teachers fell by 12 percent from 2001 to 2004, and might have fallen more if the program, which the state eliminated in 2004 for lack of legislative support, had been better understood by teachers, researchers found.

Many state incentive programs “are new, and they’re relatively small in scale,” said James Brown, the co-chairman of the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math Caucus, a Washington-based group that is backing federal legislation to expand incentives.

“The states are grappling with this just as the federal government is, and it’s going to take a while to get it right,” Mr. Brown said. “The problem is large enough that you need a national role that will get national attention.”

Coverage of mathematics, science, and technology education is supported by a grant from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, at www.kauffman.org.

Survey: Subjects Trimmed To Boost Math and Science

By Alyson Klein

Education Week
Nearly half the nation’s school districts are spending less instructional time on subjects such as science, history, and art in order to prepare their students for the mathematics and reading tests mandated under the 5½-year-old No Child Left Behind Act, says a report released last week by the Center on Education Policy.

In a nationally representative survey of 349 districts, the Washington-based group found that 44 percent reported cutting time from other subjects to focus on math and reading. The decreases were relatively substantial, according to the report, totaling about 141 minutes per week across all subjects, or almost 30 minutes per day.

The July 24 report lends credibility to critics’ contention that the NCLB law’s emphasis on reading and math has squeezed out other subjects. It also bolsters arguments that the law should be expanded to include tests in science, social studies, and other subjects.

“This report matches everything we’ve seen,” said Gerald F. Wheeler, the executive director of the National Science Teachers Association, based in Arlington, Va. “We need to be more intelligent about what it means to educate the whole child.”

Mr. Wheeler said the federal government should add science to the NCLB accountability system so that schools will set aside time for it. Beginning with the new school year, under NCLB, states must test students in science three times before high school graduation. States may count those scores for accountability purposes, but they’re not required to do so.

Exposure to subjects such as history can help students master higher-order thinking skills in math and reading, said Theodore K. Rabb, a professor emeritus at Princeton University and the board chairman of the National Council for History Education, based in Westlake, Okla.

But others say schools are right to focus on reading and math, particularly in the early grades.

“If you can’t read, what can you do?” said Sandra Stotsky, who, starting next month, will be an education professor at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. “If you can’t do math, you can’t ultimately do science.”

The CEP reported similar findings in a March 2006 report, which found that many districts had increased instructional time in math and reading at the elementary level, sometimes by giving short shrift to other subjects. ("Study: NCLB Leads to Cuts for Some Subjects," April 5, 2006.)

Little Rock

A one-year moratorium on new teaching guidelines set to take effect this fall is being sought by historians upset with what they say will be a watering down of the teaching of Arkansas history in the public schools.

Tom Dillard, president of the Arkansas History Education Coalition, suggested Saturday that the new guidelines for social studies, approved by the state Education Board this year, violate a 1997 state law on teaching Arkansas history and effectively reverse the group's effort of at least the last 20 years to incorporate the subject into school curricula.

"We now face the prospect of Arkansas history being removed from the curriculum in the schools of our state—at least effectively removed, if not completely so," Dillard said at a news conference at the main library in Little Rock.

Last year, the Arkansas Education Department led a committee of educators to study revising the guidelines, as the agency routinely does for the various subjects. The board then approved the guidelines, combining social studies and Arkansas history into one subject for kindergartners through sixth graders and requiring the teaching of world history in seventh and eight grades, typically when Arkansas history is taught. Dillard noted that the 10-year-old state law, adopted he said after the state Education Department failed to follow through on a promise to beef up Arkansas history instruction in the schools, requires that schools teach a unit of Arkansas history as a social studies subject at each elementary grade "with greater emphasis at the fourth and fifth grade levels."

In addition, he said, the schools must teach a full semester of Arkansas history to students between the seventh and 12th grades.

Dillard said the new guidelines could effectively reduce Arkansas history to a mere mention to young students and could eliminate the subject altogether from a high school student's coursework. He said the world history requirement in the new guidelines most likely would bump Arkansas history into the higher grades, where teachers have no textbooks and few materials on the subject and when students can elect to take other social studies courses to graduate.

"We contend that the new social studies frameworks are in violation of Act 787 of 1997 and we believe it's in violation probably in a variety of ways," Dillard said.

Coalition members will meet with state Education Commissioner Ken James on Thursday, when they plan to ask for the moratorium. Also, Dillard said, the group will ask that Gov. Mike Beebe appoint a blue-ribbon panel to study the guidelines and arrive at changes that preserve the teaching of Arkansas history.

Last week, two new textbooks on Arkansas history were published but they are geared for middle school classes. Dillard said the two decades since Arkansas' 150th sesquicentennial have been a building process with the mission to change the poor condition of Arkansas history education in the schools. He, other historians, and teachers stressed the importance of continuing with that progress.

"What this latest action by the Department of Education has done is to cut the legs out from under the people who have spent time, effort and money in creating these materials," said Tom DeBlack, president of the Arkansas Historical Association and professor of Arkansas History at Arkansas Tech University.

DeBlack stressed the importance of teaching children "where they came from."
"We need to give our students a real awareness of who they are, of how they came to be as a people and what their possibilities are in the future as part of the great American scheme," Dillard said.

Dillard and others expressed disappointment with what they said appeared to be an almost secretive process used by the Education Department to arrive at the new guidelines.
But Julie Thompson, a spokeswoman for the Education Department, said in a telephone interview Saturday that the agency went to great lengths to involve historians and educators in making the revisions.

She acknowledged that committee members were asked not to discuss preliminary changes. But the agency used this "security feature," she said, to prevent a problem that occurred in 1992. In that year, preliminary guidelines for math were released and some schools ended up teaching to the wrong guide, she said.

Thompson said the new guidelines on Arkansas history do not violate state law, and they maintain an emphasis on state history at the lower levels. The guidelines for elementary schools provide more detail and, therefore, create a greater likelihood that students will get more instruction in Arkansas history, she said.

Thompson acknowledged that it was "unfortunate" that the textbook review occurred the same year as the standards were revised, and said the agency might have to take a closer look at what materials are available for teaching Arkansas history in the high schools.

This would be an excellent time to phone in your
questions and comments on the Teamsters, CCEA, and
AAE.

Hope you can join in on this stimulating conversation.
If you have any questions, please forward them to me
at --- keninvegas308@yahoo.com or place them in
this forum. I intend to ask MEH about her salary,
CCEA's poor performance when it comes to negotiations,
and CCEA's procedures on not representing first-year
teachers (probationary teachers) when it comes to
problems with school administrators.

Ken

To the editor:

Because more and more teachers in Clark County have expressed discontent with their representative unit, the Clark County Education Association, the Teamsters have decided to throw their hat in the ring.

But the fact of the matter is neither the association nor the Teamsters is looking out for the best interests of teachers. Teachers are professionals who deserve a professional organization that will engender the type of respect and recognition that unions do not bring to the table. The Teamsters are no better a solution to the concerns of the teachers of Clark County than the association.

The militant labor union mentality is inherently wrong for teachers. Industrial-style unionism neither advances the respect and compensation that educators deserve nor does it improve the quality of education for kids.

Teachers have been tasked with the education of our nation's children, and must be the best and the brightest. The union model rewards teachers who act in a way that belies the nature of their profession. If teachers strive to be taken seriously as a profession, they need to align themselves with groups whose priorities do not center on political agendas that have little to do with the classroom.

It's understandable that Clark County's educators are wondering if there are better options than a union. The answer is yes. In fact, there is a groundswell among America's teachers, who are leaving traditional teacher labor unions to join non-union professional associations. Nearly 300,000 teachers nationwide have opted to join non-union educators associations such as the Association of American Educators, which has members in all 50 states. Members can get most of the benefits that the unions provide but at a fraction of the cost.

Clark County teachers have a unique opportunity to do what's best for their profession and for the kids they teach. There have indeed been problems with the Clark County Education Association's representation, and teachers should want change.

However, the Teamsters outdated labor model is no more appropriate for today's teachers than is the National Education Association. Teachers deserve a professional choice.

Gary Beckner

MISSION VIEJO, CALIF.

THE WRITER IS CHAIRMAN OF THE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN EDUCATORS.

Turning to Teachers

Unhappy with a new curriculum developed by an outside firm, Pittsburgh's school district is diverting money from the company’s contract to hire district teachers and academic coaches as curriculum writers this year. Under the plan, some $2.4 million from the district's $8.4 million contract with Kaplan K12 Learning Services will be divvied up among the teacher-curriculum writers, teachers who provide feedback, and University of Pittsburgh's Institute for Learning, which will provide resources and services to the writers. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, teachers could make $16,000 to $22,000 per course for designing the curriculum—in addition to their regular pay.

Initial installments of the new curriculum introduced by Kaplan last school year triggered a range of complaints from teachers, prompting the district to reconsider the contract. Kaplan Senior Vice President Seppy Basili, however, said it’s normal for school systems to develop more of their own curricula in the second or third years of a contract with Kaplan. "The decision to go in this direction was based on some of the feedback really all through the year from teachers who, I think, wanted a greater voice and greater stake in the process," Basili said.
Posted by Stacey Hollenbeck

A New Yardstick

As the debate over evaluating test scores continues, many schools across the country are shifting their method of evaluating student progress. More than two dozen states, including Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, and Ohio, are looking to a new way of analyzing test scores, called a “growth model,” which assesses individual student's progress as they advance from grade to grade instead of comparing them to the previous year’s class.

The model has been helpful in both urban areas where the student population includes at-risk children, as well as affluent communities which tend to attract top-performing children. While tests scores traditionally have been used to focus on low performing students, the growth model considers students at all levels, thereby putting pressure on high-performing schools that have yet to answer to test scores.

The growth model, however, does not have a universal appeal. Some teachers and parents feel the approach still places too much emphasis on test scores and they find the data incomprehensible. Said Aimee Bolender, president of the Alliance-AFT, which represents 9,000 teachers and staff from the Dallas school district, “You have to be a Ph.D. in statistics to even comprehend it.” Teachers’ unions like the growth model, but reject its use for performance reviews and merit pay. Said Bolender, “It’s detrimental for education. It’s pulling apart teams of teachers and it doesn’t look at why test scores are low.”

In response to the growing popularity of the growth model, Margaret Spellings, U.S. Secretary of Education, said in a statement, “We are open to new ideas, but when it comes to accountability, we are not taking our eye off the ball.”

Posted by Elizabeth Rich

Here is the story you have waited for.

I know, it seems ridiculous that CCEA would be doing this while refusing to represent teachers and negotiate a decent contract. We hope you really think about the implications of what they are doing.

According to several Clark County Education Association officials, the money in question has been accounted for. Yes, we’re talking about the mysterious whereabouts of those exorbitant tuition fees drained from the pockets of hard-working teachers for the Center for Teacher Excellence program, also known as Advanced Studies Certification. In a recent conversation with union insiders, it was revealed that Executive Director John Jasonek has commented he would be more than happy to show the public the union books on CTE. However, he doesn’t, according to our sources, want the public or the union rank-and-file to view CCEA’s overall operating books. Apparently he explained to several officers at a CCEA Senate and Executive Board meeting that the union has $1,000,000 tucked away in various accounts, so the UniServ representatives won’t know about the extra money. (Yes, that’s one million dollars!) It seems these UniServ reps have been seeking raises, and Jasonek has different plans for the stashed cash. Remember the CTE program? It’s the one where teachers paid $3,600 to receive a $3,000 raise; while the state-run program, RPDP, had been charging $810 for the same teacher raise.

After months of Teachers4Change following this pile of money, some courageous teachers have started coming forward with revelatory information. As usual, CCEA tried to close ranks to cover up the dirt in this story, typical of their behavior, but, in this case, they haven’t been able to keep the truth from coming out. Executive Director Jasonek in a board meeting was heard telling the audience that CCEA is using CTE money for a union building fund. Apparently CCEA wants to build an ivory tower to house their hard-working association officers. The idea is to house all union facilities in one central location-- i.e. Association Offices, Teachers Health Trust, etc. Considering what a fine job the union has done to serve the interests of teachers for the past eight years (we jest!), this building fund may be a tough pill to swallow for the average, suffering rank-and-file teacher.

While teachers are trying desperately to figure out how to climb up a last notch on the already-pathetic teacher pay scale by meeting the heavy financial requirement of the CTE program, CCEA is saving for a brand-spanking-new building from the pockets of these teachers. Even further, teachers who are not union members and taking these CTE classes are also contributing significantly to the CCEA building fund. According to one source, Jasonek was happy to report that non-union teachers would be, unwittingly, bankrolling the new CCEA building. In fact, the source said, that was one of Jasonek’s main selling points. And what do you think the name of the new union building is going to be? Hmmm. Does the name Jasonek ring a bell?

Maybe the time has come for teachers (both members and non-members) to bring
a halt to deception like this. Isn’t it bad enough teachers keep coming out on the bottom, over and over again, with this union in charge? Perhaps the time is here for teachers to start paving a new road; to head in a different direction. Because teachers deserve so much better than what they’ve been getting from CCEA.

However, by far the more important issue is who caused AB459’s untimely death and forced its withdrawal. My knowledge and research of many events, experience and observance during the past two years make me believe that this killing of AB459 was committed by the CCEA at the insistence of the Clark County School District. The basis of this belief/position is the following.

1. For months, Mr. Segerblom has told me we needed just one Senate Republican vote to get this bill through the Senate as he would be able to get all the Democrats. It was my responsibility as a Republican to get at least the one Republican vote. I worked hard on this from November to May 16, and it appeared at the end we may have had the one Republican vote--better yet, it was on the Senate Education Committee. The degree of difficulty with the Republicans was not their unwillingness to help teachers but justified animosity toward the teachers’ union.

2. On May 9 at the Senate hearing, Mr. Segerblom reaffirmed we were definitely “very close” to winning if we could get the one Republican vote.

3. On May 9 at the hearing, it appeared the CCSD was quite concerned at losing the Senate vote as they put on a full-scale “dog and pony show” urging the Bill’s defeat with numerous witnesses from several educational organizations, CCSD’s lead counsel, a representative of the administrators’ union, and CCSD’s chief lobbyist. School Board members were present in Carson City and in the Las Vegas audience, and there was at least one major CCSD employee at the hearing. They had both rooms stacked and at the hearing one Republican on the committee made statements that had to cause concern to the CCSD. AT THIS HEARING NEITHER THE CCEA NOR THE NSEA SPOKE IN FAVOR OF THE BILL NOR ADVOCATED FOR IT IN ANY WAY.

4. Within days thereafter (May 12), I received good information that at least one Democrat on the Committee was going to vote against the Bill. That Senator is the one who owes her election entirely to the teachers’ union and teachers money as the union contributed approximately $350,000 of teachers’ dues money to get her elected even though she was at the time employed by the CCSD. Wouldn’t you think that the union could get her vote if they wanted to?

5. In my May 16 pointed conversation with Mr. Segerblom, he emotionally informed me that every Democrat on the committee (Weiner, Horsford, and Woodhouse) were going to vote against the bill guaranteeing its defeat. Some of his other comments about the union and other matters were enough to tell me the union had let him down and put him in a position that he had to walk away from the Bill and not force a vote in the Committee. I ask you and the world who else but the teachers’ union has such power over an Assembly Education Committee Chairperson and an Assemblyman Bill sponsor who has guided the bill to a 42-0 vote in the Assembly to force the killing of this Bill by withdrawal.

6. It is clearly evident that the beneficiaries of this effort by the teachers’ union is the Clark County School District and the three Democrat Senators on the Committee who were saved from having to vote. I do not believe that the four Republican members of the committee were at all hesitant to vote.

7. Most condemning of the teachers’ union is that we know that in important prior acts it has favored the CCSD over its dues paying teacher members.

Conclusion--I am more convinced than ever that the teachers of the Clark County School District have no friends in the education system in Clark County. Even the Nevada PTA with enthusiasm spoke against the bill at the recent hearing though two of its past presidents (Parnell and Smith) and its incoming President (Mo Dennis) as members of the Assembly voted for the Bill. In my well-considered opinion CCSD teachers should now consider four possible actions. These are:

a) Seek and obtain employment elsewhere. b) If you stay teaching in Clark County, seek out union representation other than the CCEA/NSEA as it is foolish to keep spending over $600 per year to have that money used to work against you. In this process be very careful that all your union needs and coverages are secure and safe before making such a change. As a disclaimer, I do not recommend, support, nor am I affiliated with any union of any type. c) Turn your frustration into “action energy” and support with participation all efforts to bring relief to Clark County teachers, and d) If for no better reason than humanity, get the word to teachers that are considering coming to the CCSD to be aware of the teacher abuse problems and issues in the CCSD.

Sincerely,
Charles E. Thompson

Day Wednesday Date May 9, 2007 Time 1:30 p.m. Room 2135

If you cannot attend the meeting, you can listen to it live over the Internet. The address for the legislative website is http://www.leg.state.nv.us. For audio broadcasts, click on the link “Listen to Live Meetings.”

Note: We are pleased to make reasonable accommodations for members of the public who are disabled and wish to attend the meeting. If special arrangements for the meeting are necessary, please notify the Senate Committee on Human Resources and Education at (775) 684-1480.
(R#) Indicates the reprint number of the bill/resolution being considered.
PLEASE PROVIDE 15 COPIES OF YOUR EXHIBITS AND NOTES.
FIRST REVISED AGENDA

A.B. 70 (R1) Revises provisions governing the compensation of the members of the boards of trustees of school districts. (BDR 34-878)

A.B. 432 (R1) Revises provisions governing the suspension and termination of certain educational personnel for failure to maintain a valid license. (BDR 34-1192)

A.B. 459 (R1) Makes various changes relating to teachers. (BDR 34-787)

It wasn’t her teenage students who drove Meghan Sharp out of teaching—it was the crippling inflexibility of her administrators.

All the innovative curriculum ideas and field trips she proposed to engage her 10th grade biology students were promptly shot down, and she left the profession after just two years.

“I still enjoyed teaching, but it was a constant battle with the administration,” says Sharp, who worked in an urban district in northern New Jersey. “I had to do things like submit weekly lesson plans. There was a lot of bureaucracy.” She now goes by her maiden name and asked Teacher Magazine not to identify her old school because she works as an education policy analyst.

According to a recent report on teacher attrition by the federal National Center for Education Statistics, her predicament—and her departure—are common in the profession. Among former teachers who took noneducation jobs, 64 percent said they have more professional autonomy now than when they taught. Only 11 percent said they’d had more influence over policies at school than in their current jobs.

65%: Proportion of former public school teachers who say they're better able to balance work and life now that they're working outside the education field.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Education; National Center for Education Statistics Teacher Follow-up Survey.

The survey, based on interviews with more than 7,000 current and former teachers, also found widespread problems with workloads and general working conditions, and it notes that the percentage of teachers abandoning the classroom continues to grow. Among public school teachers, that proportion reached 8 percent in the 2004-05 school year—up from 6 percent in 1988-89.

The problem, experts say, is that teaching has gotten harder.
“As states have increased their reform orientation and their standards and accountability, a good chunk of that falls on the shoulders of teachers,” says Margaret Plecki, an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Washington in Seattle. Those changes, she notes, add up to increased pressure to perform.

In such a climate, teaching may not feel as rewarding, says Barry Farber, professor at Columbia University’s Teachers College. “My sense is that these numbers reflect the fact that many teachers are still struggling to feel consequential—to feel that their efforts are making a difference.”

The NCES study also showed that less-experienced teachers were particularly at risk of fleeing: 20 percent of public school teachers with no prior full-time teaching experience left during 2004-05—more than double the overall rate.

Jim Ahrens, chief operating officer at Resources for Indispensable Schools and Educators, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that helps public schools hire and retain teachers in low-income communities, says new teachers need extra help. “[They] are still trying to adjust to the rigors of teaching. It’s a very demanding profession, and those teachers are often left unsupported,” he says.

But the University of Washington’s Plecki points out that young people in all fields generally change jobs early in their careers. As shown by the NCES study, she says, “The vast majority [of teachers] are still in the classroom [after five years].”

Zina Wangila woke up Friday morning, pulled on a pair of her favorite jeans and headed off to class at Mojave High School. By 11 a.m. she was on her way back home, having violated the school's dress code. She had worn blue jeans.

Mojave is one of three high schools, 15 middle schools and 25 elementary schools in the Clark County School District that have adopted dress codes more strict than the district's basic wardrobe guidelines, which ban hats, bare midriffs and skimpy skirts.

Principals at an additional 18 campuses want to adopt the tougher guidelines and will find out this week whether the request has been approved by parents.

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