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Aug.25 Niki Hayes - Biographer of John Saxon, math teacher/author/publisher (Saxon Math)
Aug.18 Larry Sand - founder of California Teachers Empowerment Network
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Education News from Around America
Your MEA Dues - Hypocrisy and/or Deception?
In 2010, an entity was registered as a PAC to collect donations. It
was called "Contributions for Citizens Who Support Maine's Public Schools". That
sounds like a great cause. Who doesn't wish great success for public schools? I
am supporter of all education. So I took a look at this impressively named
'non-profit'(?). Here's what I found out - it surprised me!
Sussman, Donald S. $50,000.00
138 Turner Farm Rd.
North Haven Me 04853
Emily's List$250,000.00
1120 CONNECTICUT AVE., NW
WASHINGTON DC 2003
EMILY's List, a community of progressive Americans dedicated to electing pro-choice Democratic women to every level of office. EMILY's List members believe that the power of women as candidates, as contributors, as campaign professionals, and as voters can bring about great change in our country. Working together, we can make a difference.
Wow! The generosity of such concerned groups and individuals. Surely this
money went to support Maine's public schools. Surely, Maine's teachers and
school professionals all wanted to help public schools with their
generosity.
Was this the invite that garnered half a million dollars of donations?
Dear MEA Member: Please do your part to defend your
students' programs by learning more about The NEA Fund for Children and
Public Education. Help us Lead the Way to Great Public Schools for Every
Maine Student. Thanks for your help. Chris Galgay, MEA
President
Very effective. So ... how did the money get spent? Which schools got help from this fund? Of course I checked.
The New Media
Firm $380,581.04 Jobs, Justice And
The Environment PAC $100,000.00 Citizens Unified for Maine's
Future Tax Return Prep $1,980.00
Cool. Wait! What? Let me read that again. "Contributions for Citizens Who
Support Maine's Public Schools". Hmmm. That doesn't seem right. Are these public
schools? No? Well then who are those organizations - The New Media Firm; and
Jobs, Justice And The Environment? I'm always glad to find organizations
focusing their resources on the students and not on some political B.S..
Soooo.....
The New Media Firm describes itself as "a full service political media
consulting and advertising agency specializing in the integration of traditional
and new media for democratic candidates and
progressive organizations." They were paid nearly
$400,000 to run media ads against Paul LePage's run for Governor! Where's the
support for public schools in that?
Well OK, Jobs and Justice sounds cool. We all support jobs and justice. How
was that money spent? What? They spent $100,000 in the campaign against Eliot
Cutler? Huh? I thought this fund was to support public schools. Who would have
thought it would go to oppose two gubernatorial candidates in the race against
Libby Mitchell?
Who are they kidding? Ya. Who ARE they kidding?
You have to wonder why these folks would deceive teachers and other MEA
members into giving to a PAC that looks like something it was not. Sounds
kind of misleading to me. Sounds like a good reason to support
right-to-work legislation. Maine teachers, Maine public schools, Maine
students - you got played. Now you know it. Please do something to stop
your union dues from making a political statement. Maybe you should ask the
union to cut your dues if they are just going to be clumped together for
political purposes.
National Education Association President Van Roekel mocks merit pay as "naïve and short-sighted"
Union prefers treating teachers as interchangeable cogs in the education machine
Education reformers have long advocated the idea that the most
effective teachers (as determined by student achievement)
should get paid more than their peers. Our schools need the
best educators possible, and reformers believe that "merit
pay" is the best way to attract and retain top
talent.
But according to the nation's teachers unions, educators are
indistinguishable and interchangeable, and should be paid
according to a rigid salary schedule that values longevity
over performance.
The union's irrational view was articulated anew by National
Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel. In an
interview with The Lookout, Van Roekel
dismissed the idea of merit pay as "a little naïve and
short-sighted."
Van Roekel pointed to a study which found "if you're doing a
repetitive task, an incentive actually enhances performance.
But as soon as you move into complex tasks, not only does it
not enhance performance, it actually hinders it."
This is an interesting argument for the union president to
make. The NEA and the American Federation
of Teachers continually bemoan the fact that teachers are
underpaid and undervalued. Reformers want to remedy that
situation with merit pay, only to see the union go into full
attack mode against the proposal.
The real reason they are opposed to merit pay is because it
undermines their collectivist philosophy. Teacher union
leaders are political ideologues who value collectivism so
highly that they feel threatened anytime individual
achievement eclipses "the group." That's why when reformers
try to address the concerns over teacher pay, the union
leaders dig in their heels. The unions think all teachers
should get bonuses, or nobody should.
But we the taxpayers are not interested in such a deal.
Dismal academic results have demonstrated over the decades
that collectivism has no place in public schools. If we're
going to give extra money to any teachers, it has to be tied
to positive results. We've already seen the disastrous results
of rewarding mediocrity.
Notice, too, how Van Roekel frames the issue: Instead of
talking about merit pay as a "reward," he refers to it as an
"incentive" and then points to a study critical of incentives,
as if that settles the matter.
No serious education reformer believes that the prospect of a
few thousand dollars at the end of the year is going to
"incentivize" high quality teachers into "stepping up their
game." High quality teachers are motivated by much higher
purposes.
What reformers do believe is that rewarding teachers
for a job well done is the best way to retain the really good
teachers. We've all heard the stories about teachers having to
work extra jobs in the summer just to get by. And we've all
seen studies about the high turnover rate among young
teachers. Reformers believe merit pay is a way to thank top
teachers for their hard work, and make sure they are properly
compensated. This stands in contrast to the union's antiquated
salary schedule that treats all teachers as interchangeable
cogs in the education machine.
from Education Next - a journal of opinion by Jay P. Greene
Coverage of the new Global Report
Card (GRC) that Josh McGee and I developed is gaining steam. The GRC allows users to compare student achievement in virtually every one of the nearly 14,000 school districts in the United States against the achievement in a set of 25 developed countries.
There are an endless number of interesting stories that could be told with this information, but the one that really stood out to us is that achievement in many of our affluent suburban public school districts barely keeps pace with that of the average student in a developed country. People who flee from urban education ills thinking that their children will get a top world-class education in the suburbs may be disappointed. The suburban education is usually better than in the city, but it would may not be preparing students to compete for top paying jobs in an a globalized jobs market.
The last blog post contained some criticisms about whether the assumptions for the analysis were reasonable. Josh McGee replied in the comment section of that post. And NCES Commissioner, Jack Buckley, told Education Week that "The methodology in this report is highly questionable." This assessment is a little strange because what we did was similar to what the U.S. Department of Education has done in several past reports linking international test results to state NAEP results. (See for example this.) We just bring the results down to the district level. If ours is highly questionable, then the U.S. Department of Education's efforts must be at least questionable.
We make no claims that this Global Report Card is a perfect reflection of school district student achievement relative to international norms. The question is whether the limitations of the Global Report Card are acceptable for a first attempt. In essence, we want to know whether we have more information with the Global Report Card than we would have were it never developed and publicized
This was written by Sam Chaltain, a D.C.based educator, strategist and book author. He was the national director of the Forum for Education & Democracy, an education advocacy organization, and the founding director of the Five Freedoms Project, which helps educators create democratic learning communities. His website iswww.samchaltain.com.
from Education news - Boston Globe by Constance Lindner and Emily Sweeney
Abington school officials have decided not to rebroadcast the videotape of a recent School Committee meeting during which the chairman performed a "magic trick'' with a bra.
NASA has recently launched a new application called Eyes on the Solar System. It's
still in beta phase but looks promising, especially in regard to keeping track
of current missions.
"Eyes on the Solar System" is a 3-D environment full of real NASA mission data.
Explore the cosmos from your computer. Hop on an asteroid. Fly with NASA's
Voyager 2 spacecraft. See the entire solar system moving in real time. It's up
to you. You control space and time. AS
Source: solarsystem.nasa.gov/eyes
"Betrayed" - a blog on public education
"Betrayed" is an online chat forum for parents, teachers and community members to offer their
thoughts on what's wrong with public education and how to make it work better for the students.
Public records prompt PDC complaint re: Spokane Public Schools
Posted Oct. 1, 2011
"Since January 2007, I've attempted repeatedly and in myriad ways to persuade Spokane Public Schools' leadership to provide teachers with good math materials so that our children will gain sufficient basic math skills.... A school district's activities should be an open book to the community that pays for them. My blog, book and advocacy all required thorough and accurate information. Therefore, over these nearly five years of effort, I've had to file public records requests with the district in order to obtain pertinent information that wasn't available in any other venue....On Sept. 28, 2011, I filed a complaint with the Public Disclosure Commission relative to Spokane Public Schools. The PDC complaint has to do with RCW 42.17.130. It's based on public records received through public records requests - including one that used "Deana Brower" (a Spokane school board candidate) as a search term and another using "levy" as a search term."[...]
Laurie H. Rogers
Where's the Math?
Book: "Betrayed: How the Education Establishment Has Betrayed America and What You Can Do about it"
Blog: "Betrayed" - a blog on education: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com
Email: wlroge@comcast.net
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Maine Center for Constitutional Studies