So why does this movement persist?

One theory is that politicians have become more enamored with breaking unions than they have been with educating children. Wisconsin is the poster child for that story. Another reason is that business’s hold on education has become pervasive. We have seen the purpose of education change in recent years. Instead of education as a path toward good citizenship as a constitution honoring citizen, the goal of education has become to raise good corporate citizens. Education’s job is to enable individuals to participate in our economy, not in our style of government.

An example of this is Newt Gringrich’s rise in the poll. Prior to this election, a politician guilty of ethics violations would not have a serious shot at winning his party’s nomination. Just a few months ago a disgusting and sad figure of a man, Anthony Weiner, was forced from office. How is it that Newt with his congressional ethics violations, his hypocrisy, absence of morality and empathy, is any less of a bad example than Anthony Weiner?

And does Newt know best? His idea for those receiving unemployment compensation is to have them retrained in order to maintain eligibility to collect unemployment compensation. The government in essence becomes the tool of business in engineering our population into a viable work force. Gone is the free choice of choosing your career. (Sounds like big government to me). Frankly, as a laid off teacher pursuing full time employment in a new district, laid off along with 1500 others, (the numbers continue to rise in Philadelphia as nurses are now being laid off as well)(another public school district being dismanteled), I find his solutions to be exactly the opposite of what the Republican Party says it believes in. But then again, do we really ever know what a politician believes? Heck, Gringrich, Santorum, Paul, and Obama will all tell us they believe in children while at the same time advocating for policies which have been proven to be not in the best interests of children. They value public education while they abandon it. They preach freedom and choice while Gingrich seeks to turn all us into peons controlled by government in our jobs, and Santorum would control our lifestyles, and both seek to control our loyalties. The United States is threatened from within in ways it has never been threatened when our enemies were external. I wish I could be certain that no matter who wins we would not be heading in the wrong direction, but my biggest fear is that train has left the station and is rolling downhill.

P.S. More about Newt’s bad idea.

Cisco Inc. knows employment can be cyclical. When Cisco laid off 6000 employees they offered them 1/3 of their salary plus benefits and stock options, promised them they’d be first in line to be rehired when economic fortunes and the company’s outlook improved, and gave them an additional nine months longer than usual to exercise stock options. This allowed Cisco to maintain ties to its talent pool. A Gingrich plan increases the cost of government while robbing employers of investments made in personnel. Gingrich’s plan appeals to the naïve. It’s an embarrassment they have such influence in their party, but look who really controls them: Big business in the form of the Koch Brothers. The effects of a corporate education are on display within our country.

I know we would all love to be paid more, but I am unsure how merit pay can fairly do that. Is my worth greater because I can successfully teach a small group of students Algebra I, while someone else at more challenging school is attempting to teach a class of 35 students the same course? When asked this question, many people reply with the suggestion of using student growth as a better measure. Unfortunately, student growth seems to just open up more questions. Most of which are related to how student growth can be measured.

I don’t know the answer to any of these questions. I wish I did. Teaching is not a one size fits all profession, but it is a labor of love. I think we need to look more into what we can do to support teachers within the classroom, and a little less on what can be done to define a teacher’s worth.

Defense spending is understandably important for our country. But, this is an education blog, and I won’t go any further on the defense spending topic…

However, why is it that our schools, our institutions of learning, the educational foundation of every citizen’s life, struggles to keep a balanced budget. 

In the struggle to keep those budgets balanced, our schools often lose good programs and services for out students. We see special education programs reduced; art, music, and drama departments eliminated; physical education programs dwindle to once a week classes. Schools place limits on copies made and give teachers a paltry sum to cover any out-of-pocket expenses they make.

Why is it that my school is currently in the middle of our third fundraiser for the school year, but certainly not our last. Selling cookies and pies enables us to keep our “specials:” weekly art, music, and physical education classes. 

It is unreasonable that our schools have to hold fundraisers to make money that supports some basic educational needs for our students and teachers. 

We must demand more of our government and ask that money is redirected into more purposeful areas. 

We dream of a day where our school budgets are limitless and provide for all the needs of our students.

Why this is so comes from several factors, including inequitable distribution across and within districts, and too-large amounts reserved for district administrations rather than used in the actual low-income schools.

Title 1 funds may be distributed, at the state’s discretion, across school districts, even though research shows that this strategy is ineffective in helping low-income students achieve.

Further, Title 1 funds may be inequitably distributed within districts. It often happens that a school may indeed qualify as a Title 1 school but does not receive funds, which are distributed to other schools or for other uses in the district instead.

I don’t know enough of the law to know if this is illegal. I don’t know enough of the law to know if a school is thereby released from any legal obligations. I do know that it feels very unfair to me.

He spends more than just the usual (art supplies, in my case; pencils and specialty papers; office supplies not provided by the district; even reams of paper when we run out of budget at the end of the year, and believe me, all this costs way more than the $150 in teacher money that we received this year, and way more than the paltry budget I have, especially since in our school, most of the student art class fees are waived for free- and reduced-lunch).

I know I’m not as diligent as he, but I’ve spent my share on coats, shirts, shoes and other necessities for very poor students. The sad thing is, my colleague tells me, is that often his first-graders show up to school a few weeks later without the coat. Where did it go? The kids can’t rightly say. So he goes out and buys another coat for the kids. It’s either that or have the kids come to school in shirt-sleeves in 10-degree weather.

The IRS allows a $250 deduction for K-12 teachers who spend out of their own pockets for education-related expenses. I know that I personally spend several times that amount, and I can only imagine what my first-grade-teaching colleague actually puts out–and this in a state with some of the lowest average teacher salaries in the nation.

If teachers could save their receipts and actually document what they spent, and then deduct that from their tax return, the same as they would deduct any charitable deduction, I would bet that most teachers would have a much higher deduction for education expenses.

I would guess that my colleague would be grateful for such a thing. I certainly would!

If there were ever an arena where people can see real need and can reach out to meet it, this would certainly be the classroom. Kudos to my colleague and the millions of teachers who reach into their pockets to benefit poor kids–and a challenge to the government to allow this type of spending as charitable deductions.

Many people think that vouchers have been enormously successful in raising achievement for children living in poverty. This was the group Milwaukee targeted in its voucher legislation. An article entitled “Project on Milwaukee Vouchers Shares Baseline Findings” in the March 4, 2008 edition of Education Week presented research that stated: “The one year snapshot of 2006-07 found little difference in state test scores between students who use the tuition subsidies to attend private schools and those who attend public schools” (Gewertz, 2008, para. 2) This report was co-authored by Jay Greene and John Witte. Green and Witte had previously been on opposite sides of the education voucher debate. In reality the study was nothing new. Since 2000 research groups such as the Economic Policy Institute (Carnoy, 2001) have consistently found no positive benefits for students using vouchers. The lone exception to this was the study by Paul Peterson of Harvard. His conclusions were ripped apart once it was revealed he simply didn’t count the 292 Black kids that the vouchers reportedly helped (Winerip, 2003).

And vouchers don’t save taxpayers money. Property taxes were higher in Milwaukee as a result of their education voucher program (Green, 2008).

A byproduct of vouchers is that regular education students have left the public schools and the percentage of special education students in Milwaukee Public Schools has increased (Ed. Week, 2008). Private schools seldom admit special education students yet their test scores do not exceed the test scores of public schools. This is surprising.

In Cleveland “voucher students enrolled in schools in response to the Cleveland program actually scored lower in all subject areas than their counterparts in the Cleveland public Schools” (Drury, 2000, p. 3) Perhaps this is why Cleveland abandoned their  voucher initiative. They realized education vouchers do not work.

The Arizona Republic neatly summarized the problems with vouchers:

1. Wherever vouchers have been tried scandals have erupted
2. When comparing students from similar demographics, Public Schools have repeatedly demonstrated superior academic results over other alternatives
3. Vouchers circumvent the separation of Church and State

(Martin, 2007)

In Cleveland like Milwaukee, vouchers increased private school enrollment (Zehr, 2003).  The movement to vouchers since it can’t be based on educational results can only be attributed to:

1. Politicians are trying to break unions and are using our children as pawns to do so
2. The religious right seeks vouchers as a method to reestablish the church’s authority

Whichever reason you believe, and it is indeed possible both are true, the bottom line is vouchers are not good for children, parents or society.  “The greater the proportion of our youth who attend independent schools, the greater the threat to our democratic unity. Therefore to use taxpayers’ money to assist such a move is, for me, to suggest that American society uses its own hands to destroy itself” (James Bryan Conent as quoted by Michael Martin, 2007).

References

Carnoy, M. (2001). School vouchers: Examining the evidence (Policy Brief). Washington D.C.: Economic Policy Institute.

Drury, D. W. (2000, Summer). Vouchers and student achievement []. National School Boards Association, 1(2).

(Ed.) (2008, February 28,). Study verifies funding disparity hurts Milwaukee residents . Education Week. Retrieved from http://edweek.or/ew/articles/2008/02/27/57660wivoucherschoolsmps_html?print=1

Gewertz, C. (2008, March 4,). Project on Milwaukee vouchers shares baseline findings. Education Week. Retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles2008/03/05/26voucheh.27html?print=1

Green, E. (2008, February 26,). Mixed results on Milwaukee on voucher plan. The New York Sun. Retrieved from http://nysun.com/national/mixed-results-for-milwaukee-voucher-plan/71881?print=7

Martin, M. T. (2007, November 10,). Vouchers wars hit on 3 fronts. The Arizona Republic . Retrieved from http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/1110satlets3-101.html

Winerip, M. (2003, May 7, ). On Education: what some much-noted data really showed about vouchers. New York Times.

Zehr, M. A. (2003, June 18,). Cleveand voucher aid no panacea for hard pressed Catholic schools. Education Week. Retrieved from http:://www.edweek.org/ew/ew_printstory.cfm?slug=41cleveland.h22

Districts around the nation have been trying variations on merit pay, according to a recent NY Times article.

The article points out that teachers are evaluated mostly on improved test scores, although visits to the classroom bolster the highly-effective rating.

This brings up the unheard voice of the electives teachers–like me! I’m a wonderful art teacher. My principal knows it, and some folks in my district know it, and it’s “proven” because my junior-high students’ art is chosen for state-wide exhibits and wins other competitions.

But there are no test scores in art class. I welcome any and all visitors, but only my principal ever comes around, and I always enjoy his feedback and participation, but I doubt that his kind encouragement will determine that I am a highly-effective teacher.

I love it when my administrators acknowledge that I’m a splendid art teacher. I’d love it even more in the shape of merit pay.

The state has a new law: full-time public-school students may take up to two online classes if they are not provided by their district or charter schools. The district must fork over $700 per student per class when this happens (taking that money away from the local school, by the way), and it can only happen if a student has a full schedule.

Now up pops an ugly issue. For years, LDS-dominated Utah has allowed students to leave campus to attend a “seminary” class, which is religious instruction in Mormon theology, practice, doctrine, and so on. As other religions have entered the scene, the state has also allowed seminary instruction in those religions, usually Catholic, but these students are a small slice of the population pie.

And here’s the kicker: students taking these religion classes are considered to be carrying a full load of classes, so in essence, the state is providing financial support for religious instruction.

In other words, the school gets paid by the state for the time students spend off-campus in religious instruction.

Never mind the troublesome issue that a huge proportion of this funding goes to support one dominant religion.

The more difficult issue is that the state of Utah is financing religious education during the school day. The new law about online education is simply pointing up this very big problem. This is clearly a violation of the separation of church and state.

The Trib article quotes a state senator: “‘I think this practice should be done away with,’ said Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Lehi, of funding schools when students are away for religious release time, ‘and if anything, I think the education community should just be grateful for the windfall it’s received over the years the practice was put in place.’”

Madsen is right. The new law allowing online enrollment has simply clarified a serious  violation of the law that has gone on too long in Utah. Now the Utah legislature will be forced to do something about it.

Lawmakers and school districts seem to think that offering teachers a monetary incentive for their students to do well in the classroom and on standardized tests is the ticket to turning around failing schools.

I see a number of problems with this theory:

1. The theory is that students will be successful if they have a motivated teacher who is willing to do anything (like accept bribe money, er. . . merit pay) to make his/her students learn. Last I checked, I am motivated and I am willing to do anything to get my kids to learn. Am I getting extra money for doing the job I was hired to do? Absolutely not. (Sure, I won’t turn down more money.) Teachers are hired for the job because they are motivated individuals who are willing to do whatever it takes to get their kids to learn. Merit pay or not. That’s the calling of the profession.

2. Getting kids to do well on standardized tests is so much more than making sure the kids know the content. If the students come to school without a good breakfast or with too little sleep, then it is likely that they will do poorly on that test that determines the merit pay given to a teacher. Is that really fair?

3. Students in inner-city areas come to the classroom with a whole host of problems that teachers are constantly addressing. Poverty, single-parent households, lack of childcare options forcing older siblings to take care of younger siblings, no parental support for homework and studying, etc. Inner-city students struggle to stay alert and focused in the classroom. Is it fair to reward teachers who students do well on standardized tests because they get 3 square meals a day, parental support, and basic necessities provided while our inner-city kids struggle to receive all of those things?

4. We assume teachers are the only factor in testing. If students do well on a standardized test, shouldn’t some of that reward be bestowed on the student. Didn’t the student study hard, pay attention in class, put in good effort on the test, use her critical thinking skills, etc.? Why is only the teacher we are choosing to reward with merit pay? 

5. What about the fact that we shouldn’t be rewarded for what we are supposed to be doing. We are supposed to educate students to be successful. Why should we  get a reward for that. We bemoan the fact that today’s youth get rewarded for every little thing they do and the things they are expected to do, at that! Merit pay is going to turn into the “giving every kid a trophy at the end of the soccer season ritual.” Is that what we want?

I think the key to remember here is that we are called to be educators. We are called to guide our students through a successful educational experience. That is the calling of the profession and we should not be willing to give anything less than our best to help students achieve.

If you examine these schools in terms of technology resources, you will see that the traditional high school has some technology, the magnet school has a wealth of technology, and the school working towards improvement has the latest technology.  The amount of technology correlates with the funding available to the school and the school’s interest in utilizing new technology.  

The underlying question is “Why are these three schools funded so differently?” considering they are in close proximity.  The reason could be that there are variety of funding streams available to schools depending on their needs and programs.  Is it equitable?  Yes, no, maybe?  Special programs like career major programs do need additional funds in order to truly provide students with the preparation and experience related to a specific career.  Struggling schools also need extra funds to implement new strategies to make changes for improvement.   In contrast, I can also see how a traditional, appropriately performing high school could also benefit from the extra funds that other schools can access.