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News Clips
– TOP OF
PAGE Residents polled about
state budget, health care, taxes Gerold Shelton, Northern Star Campus News (NIU) A survey conducted
earlier this year by the NIU Public Opinion Laboratory showed that
58 percent of the people surveyed would be willing to pay an additional
$25 a year to maintain the current service levels of higher education
standards. It also showed that
residents are concerned the quality of K-12 education is slipping.
“School funding has
been on voters’ minds,” said Michael Peddle, who oversaw the survey.
“The surveys really seem to give them a reason to pay attention.”
The surveys covered
a wide variety of topics facing “Legislators do pay
attention to the surveys,” Peddle said. Interviews were conducted
over the telephone to men and women 18 years of age and older, with
1,262 respondents and a 95 percent confidence interval. The interviewing portion
was conducted by the opinion laboratory between November 2003 and
January 2004. The lab is made up of about 30 interviewers. The state
is broken up into six regions and is then reweighted
to represent the state and attain the desired confidence interval.
Results take about
a month to tabulate. Two or three people, including Peddle, go through
the survey in depth to get the results. “It is very definitely
a long process to put it all together,” Peddle said. “We try to get
200 people in the different areas of the state, and some surveys are
done in Spanish, too.” Peddle is in his first
year overseeing the surveys but has been involved with the process
for 15 years. “We have done these
since 1984,” Peddle said. “We do these in an effort to inform public
policy makers.” Within the next few
weeks, the survey results will be posted online at www.cgsniu.org. House
votes to keep scholarship perk Dave McKinney, Sun-Times
A bid to eliminate
the legislative scholarship program drew only 54 votes, six fewer
than were needed for passage. Sixty-three others voted against the
plan. Its sponsor, Rep.
Naomi Jakobs son (D-Urbana), kept it alive for a possible later
vote through a parliamentary maneuver. The program was established
in the early 1900s and gives legislators authority each year to grant
eight years of free tuition at the But it has been beset
by scandal in the past, with instances of legislators passing on the
perk to relatives or to the children of lobbyists and political donors. "The abuses of
the past smell like yesterday's Swiss cheese sandwich,'' said Rep.
Bill Black (R-Danville), who voted to scrap the program. But others defended
it as a way to reward high-achieving students and give teens in underprivileged
areas a way off crime-ridden streets. "This is the
only thing I know that can be directed from my office where students
can benefit instantly,'' said Rep. Calvin Giles (D-Chicago), who voted
against the bill. Thursday's vote represents
a departure for the House, which in recent years voted three times
to kill the program in the wake of several media exposes. Elsewhere at the Capitol,
the Senate confirmed several new appointees to state boards and commissions,
including the wife of U.S. Rep. William Lipinski (D-Ill.). Rose Marie Lipinski
was tabbed by Gov. Blagojevich for a $50,893-a-year seat on the Court
of Claims, a part-time panel that rules on claims against the state. Students
need family, schools on their side Column by Judy Emerson,
Readers responded
resoundingly that parental involvement is key
to academic success for children of all races and economic levels.
I had asked for feedback
about what can be done to improve black and Hispanic students’ representation
in the top tier of this district’s academic achievers. Dennis Dotson of “Young black men have
to have strong fathers at home that will sacrifice in order for them
to excel,” he wrote. “The father has to give up most of his free time
to teach or find somebody who can; he has to set educational goals
for his children; he has to expose the child to success; he has to
be involved in his life. Really involved. Not just taking them to the movies sometimes,
or buying them a pair of shoes.” Former “My solution: Kill
and dismember the beast. Cut the district into pieces ... It would
put much more power and money into the classrooms and eliminate ineffective
central administrators.” Being a student is
a wonderful thing, but graduating from high school is the very minimum
level of achievement for young people to have any chance at success.
A recent report from
The report claims
that individual districts and most states manipulate their graduation
rates to appear better than they are. The researchers used a formula
they say is more accurate to calculate the rates. By their reckoning,
Businessman Ron Tenin, father of one of this year’s Academic All Stars from
the “Most of these kids
who were honored started life with advantages,” he wrote. “Let’s say
they hit a double before the game even started.” One advantage his
daughter had was quality preschool, Tenin
said. He suggests that the government offer incentives to good preschools
to subsidize spots for low-income minority children. Affluent families
might be willing to pay a bit more tuition to improve diversity, he
said. Bright teens and preteens
could put in some weekend hours tutoring young children at community
centers and churches. “Community passion
and pride along with economic incentives can help create a better
atmosphere for minority kids to succeed,” he said. “It’s a reflection
on all of us when so many aren’t offered anything close to the same
opportunities, and we sit by with only our own families’ best interest
at heart with little left for the less advantaged.” By TOM POLANSEK, STATE
CAPITOL BUREAU, Kris Kerwin,
a senior at James Garcia, president
of his senior class at Both are among 100
students statewide accepted this year to the Golden Apple Scholars
program for would-be teachers committed to working in underprivileged
schools. But their dreams might
end up the victims of state budget cuts. Gov. Rod Blagojevich
has proposed eliminating the program’s $3.8 million funding from the
budget for the fiscal year that begins July 1. “It’s like I get to
do what I love and, hey, I get to blow stuff up,” Kerwin,
17, said about his favorite subject. “But
it’s more than that. I enjoy the challenge of not knowing something
and then using the rules of math and science to figure it out. The
curiosity is what fascinates me.” For four years, the
scholars receive $5,000 annually to attend college and $2,000 annually
to participate in summer programs, where they gain a “master’s teaching
level understanding,” said Dominic Belmonte,
director of teacher preparation for the program. Over the summer, they
learn how to handle the challenges of teaching in a “school of need”
without burning out, he said. “We’ve discovered
that that combination of advanced teacher preparation and classes
is what makes them career teachers,” said Belmonte,
who co-founded the program. After graduation,
scholars are committed to working for five years in a poor Becky Carroll, spokeswoman
for the governor’s Office of Management and Budget, said the state’s
$1.7 billion budget deficit did not leave room for the program. “We did not have a
choice but to take a hard look at grants and, in essence, had to make
a number of tough but necessary choices,” Carroll said. If lawmakers approve
Blagojevich’s cuts, scholars can apply for slots in the Illinois Future
Teachers Corps or the Monetary Award Program instead, she said. Those
pay $5,000 and up to about $4,600 a year, respectively. But the scholars say
the program isn’t about the money. “The Golden Apple
prepares teachers,” Garcia, 17, said. “They pick the best of the best
and put them in the worst situations so they can face their fears.” 'Tax nerd' calls for better funding of schools Increased state income
tax suggested By Michael Hirtzer, The Star, Ralph M. Martire
is a "tax nerd." "I'm a geek and
I love this stuff," he said. As executive director
of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, Martire
wades through As is, the system
isn't working, Martire said Monday during
a speech in front of more than 50 people in the cafeteria at The speech was sponsored
by the Better Funding for Better Schools Coalition, which advocates
education funding reform. The CTBA is a bipartisan
Chicago-based think tank that advocates fair taxing. "We don't over
spend in "Not only does
the state do a horrible job funding schools, it cannot do a better
job and, in fact, over time will do a worse job that it does today,"
he said. The state, he said,
is too reliant on property taxes, and since schools receive a majority
of funding from the property taxes of area residents, schools in economically-depressed
areas will continue to suffer. Citing 2000 U.S. Census
data, Martire added that Americans in the
lower 60 percent income bracket, from 1979-1999, have worked longer
but have taken home less money. "We're taxing
folks that are losing money over time," he said. Martire suggested increasing state income taxes from 3 percent
to 5 percent to help fund schools and other civil services. He also
suggested giving some of that money to people in the low and middle
income brackets as refundable credit to offset property taxes. "That money has
to come from somewhere, and it has to come from state revenue, not
a local source, and it has to be divided more fairly," he said. Martire — who writes a column for the Chicago Sun-Times, which
is owned by Hollinger International, which also owns The Star — said
raising state income taxes would provide fair funding to all public
schools without increasing the tax burden on lower-income brackets. With the increase,
"We'll still
stay in the bottom 15 of all states," Martire
said. "This is not
about creating a left-wing, liberal utopia of taxation," Martire
said. "This is about taxing fairly, responsibly and efficiently
so that we can support essential public services like our schools
on a fair basis over time." The meeting was the
first of two meetings held this week. The second was held Tuesday
at Myrtis Bush, a "It made sense
to me," Bush said after the speech. "He presented it on
a layman's level. I can understand the concept behind it." Bush said she plans
to call and write letters to local legislators, and also to pass out
information at her church, St. Stephen's "I thought for
years that we needed an income tax increase," Baker, whose daughter
plays in Thornwood's marching band, said the current system isn't
working. She said marching band may be canceled next season as part
of Baker said her property
taxes have doubled since she moved to the area 15 years ago, while
the school district has fallen some $9 million in dept. "Are we paying
tax for them not to educate our kids?" she asked. Sharon G. Voliva,
president of the District 205 school board and the chairwoman of the
Better School Coalition, said interested parties, aside from contacting
legislators, can also attend a rally in She said coalition
members will lobby for the income tax increase in the rotunda of the
Capitol from More information is
available at www.betterfundingforbetterschools.com But politicians say
the fate of proposals to provide property tax relief and more money
for schools rests with Gov. Blagojevich, who has pledged not to raise
the income and sales taxes. Ed Finkel
and Daniel C. Vock, Catalyst Ralph Martire,
an enthusiastic numbers cruncher, had just finished explaining the
details of his school finance reform plan at a town meeting in Grayslake
when state Sen. Wendell Jones weighed in. Martire’s plan, which would lower property taxes and raise the
state sales and income taxes, may make economic sense, said Jones,
a Republican from northwest suburban Virtually everyone
raised a hand, Martire recalls. “And [Jones]
thought no hands would go up. Voters are more sophisticated than we
give them credit for.” Through gatherings
like these, Martire’s organization, the
Chicago-based Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, and dozens
more hope to succeed where like-minded advocates repeatedly have failed
in the past. They want the state to raise income and sales taxes both
to provide property tax relief and to raise the level of school funding
for hundreds of poor districts without siphoning money from rich districts.
“The state has needed
[this] for the past 30 years but has been unable to generate the political
willpower,” says Martire. Organizers of the
new campaign, called A+ Illinois, plan to barnstorm the state, build
a broad coalition of support and raise public awareness before approaching
the Legislature. A+ learns from past
mistakes MarySue Barrett, president of the Metropolitan Planning Council,
another coalition leader, says A+ learned a few lessons from “past
efforts that have not gotten to the finish line.” For one, A+ broadened
its base beyond “education-connected leaders” to include advocates
for such issues as housing, health care and social services. These related services
suffer from the same tax structure that afflicts education, Martire
notes, and their advocates have come to recognize the interdependence
of all their work. “That is new, and that’s very powerful,” he says.
A+ also is trying
to build support for the concept of finance reform before getting
too specific. “If you get into those details too soon, before the
public is really with you on understanding the nature of the problem,
then it can be labeled and tagged as unworkable before the debate
has begun,” Barrett says. “We’re saying, ‘Let’s set the table first.’
Our expectation is that this is more than a one-year effort to create
momentum for change.” The coalition is targeting
the Legislature rather than the state constitution or the courts because
all routes lead there eventually. Besides, any effort
to get Netsch, now a Blagojevich the big
obstacle One large—and perhaps
insurmountable—obstacle stands in the way of the A+ efforts: Gov.
Rod Blagojevich’s opposition to raising the sales or income taxes. “The reality is that
the legislative process in a lot of ways begins and ends with the
governor,” explains Steve Brown, spokesman for House Speaker Michael
J. Madigan, D-Chicago, who shepherded a measure to swap higher state
income taxes for lower property taxes through the House in 1997. Lawmakers usually
don’t pass highly controversial proposals if they know the governor
is opposed to them, because they likely would have a hard time gathering
enough votes to override a gubernatorial veto, Brown notes. The governor repeatedly
has called for an overhaul of the state’s education bureaucracy, so
it would report directly to him. In March, he told the Senate that
his proposed reforms, slated to take effect in 2006, must be instituted
before school finance reform could ensue. “Unless we change
the system, unless we instill a culture of accountability, until we
create a culture of innovation, the ongoing discussion on how we fund
schools will continue to ring hollow to the taxpayers,” he said. However, as longtime
The governor’s proposals
are a way “to blunt whatever criticism he might come under for not
addressing the underlying problem of school finance,” says Wheeler,
director of the Public Affairs Reporting program at the Regardless, the governor
has made no guarantees that he would take on the finance issue even
if he gets his reforms. Advocates for the
tax swap acknowledge the difficulty that Blagojevich’s position presents.
They hope to generate excitement at the grassroots level and then
show the governor that the idea has broad support. One measure of
public opinion is a February Chicago Tribune poll that found that
more than half of Illinois voters support trading higher state income
taxes for lower property taxes and adding money for schools. And history shows
that raising the income tax is not the “third rail” of Edgar says legislators
hard to convince But poll numbers and
history might not be enough to convince Blagojevich and other politicians.
Edgar said his staff showed legislators the results of polls conducted
in their districts that showed support for his 1997 finance reform
proposal, which added accountability measures to Netsch’s
finance scheme. “They’d say, ‘Yeah, that’s now, but once the tax passes
they’re going to be mad,’” Edgar recalls. Even so, Edgar insists
that his plan would have become law if Senate President James “Pate”
Philip, R-Wood Dale, had let it come up for a vote on the Senate floor.
But Philip decided the plan would be bad for suburban schools, so
he blocked it. After leaving Since then, Philip
has retired, and Democrats now control both the House and Senate.
“There’s no doubt that if I had the [current] legislative make-up,
I would’ve passed the [tax swap] bill,” Edgar says. The fault lines in
the school finance debate often fall along geographic, rather than
partisan, lines. Edgar maintains that
10 Republicans in the 59-member Senate were ready to vote in favor
of his 1997 proposal. On the other hand, Democrats who represent affluent
suburbs—some of the most politically vulnerable members of the Legislature—probably
wouldn’t support a higher income tax. Many suburbanites
moved to their communities in order to give their children a quality
education, and the high value of real estate in those areas provides
an ample tax base to pay for good schools. Relying more heavily on
statewide taxes would almost certainly decrease the money available
for affluent suburban districts. “Heck, there’s no
way the state could have the money to bring everybody up to New Trier
[standards]. And if you take New Trier down
to the average, there’s a lot of other suburbs that are going to come
down, and that sends people off” in the Legislature, Edgar says. New support in the
suburbs However, the A+ coalition
believes the issue is ripe politically because the Democrats control
Neil Codell,
superintendent of Niles Township High School District 219, says he
supports a tax swap “in theory” but adds: “We want to know what we’re
going to get back.” As a March 16 tax
referendum approached, Codell’s district,
which has a median home price of $224,000, was contemplating such
measures as limiting students to five courses plus physical education,
combining sports teams at Niles North and Niles West high schools,
and eliminating extracurricular arts. (The referendum passed.) The North Cook Superintendents
Association agrees with the governor that some kind of administrative
reform is needed first, says Max McGee, A more broadly based
suburban group echoes that sentiment, supporting a tax swap only if
it includes a guarantee that suburban schools would not lose money.
“Our school districts recognize the need for equity statewide. But
it has to be a bringing up of the bottom and not a leveling down,”
says Donna Baiocchi, executive director
of a consortium of 114 suburban districts, mainly in Cook, Lake and
DuPage counties, that is known as Ed-Red,
for Education Research and Development. Business community
hanging back Often, downstate Republicans
support higher dependence on the income tax. But in 1997, many were
hesitant to sign on because the top GOP leaders in both chambers,
who exert a lot of power, hailed from The business community,
traditionally supportive of Republicans, played a key role in promoting
Edgar’s plan, the former governor says. It signed on after Edgar pledged
support for other reforms they supported, including higher standards
for teacher recertification. Today, different sectors
of the business community have slightly different takes on a tax swap,
but all are concerned that property tax relief might save them less
than an income tax hike would cost. With dozens of business-related
fees hiked last year and a potential increase in the corporate income
tax this year, businesses are wary of any plan to make them pay more. “We believe in local
control and local taxation, and we don’t trust the state,” says Douglas
Whitley, president and CEO of the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce. Even with broad support,
many observers insist, the fate of any funding reform rests with Blagojevich.
“I’ve got to say, all of this is kind of minor, or just kind of insignificant,
as long as the governor’s sitting out there saying he’s against it,”
says Edgar. Is politics
driving state school reform? Early in his February
budget address, Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried a little humor to soften
up the dignitaries. "This one won't be nearly as bad as the last
one," the governor said to State School Superintendent Robert
Schiller, referring to the Believe it or not,
the light-hearted greeting was one of the few exchanges between the
governor and the superintendent since Blagojevich took office 15 months
ago. The two have had no meaningful conversations about education
reform or school finances or administration or the bureaucracy to
which the governor devoted an hour of his 90-minute speech, according
to a Schiller spokeswoman. Nor has the governor had a serious discussion
with his own appointee to chair the State Board. The proposal to create
a Department of Education under the governor's control was developed
by Blagojevich and his top lieutenants in a series of summer and fall
meetings, and without input from the state's education expert, according
to the Chicago Tribune. It was part of a pattern that should outrage
taxpayers. The feud between the
governor, Schiller and the Board of Education dates to before the
2002 election, when the board was looking for a new superintendent.
Blagojevich asked board members not to fill the position until after
the vote so the new governor could have some input. They hired Schiller
anyway. Three months into
his term, the governor fired the board president. The Tribune says
he swung the ax by fax and let the president's successor find out
about her promotion by reading the newspaper. The feud intensified
when the independent agency defied the governor on a couple of important
issues, then refused to hire any of two dozen
job applicants referred by his staff. (The list of recommended hires
arrived after the governor instituted a hiring freeze.) Schiller, who has
35 years of educational know-how, says he repeatedly tried to schedule
a meeting with Blagojevich but got nowhere. Blagojevich's education
aide, Brenda Holmes, says Schiller had cooperation problems of his
own, rarely calling or meeting with her. "If he had been willing
to discuss things with me, he might have had a better chance of getting
to the governor," the Tribune quoted Holmes as saying. There's
fault to pass around here. But all of this suggests
that Blagojevich's so-called reform is more about personalities and
politics than about educating kids, which should surprise no one in
To judge by the local
news, Retired
teachers pass along lessons In a new mentor program,
retirees provide support to and alleviate stress of rookies in Ana Beatriz Cholo, It was right after
lunch, and the students in Mr. Locke's world history class behaved
as if they were on a candy-induced high. They had been given
the task of looking up 10 words in a dictionary, defining them and
then writing a story using the words, but only one girl sat quietly
and worked. While one student
whined that her pencil had been stolen, several others pestered the
teacher for a pen, and one girl persisted in stabbing her neighbor
with a pencil. As Jason Locke trudged
on patiently with the class, retired teacher and principal
Alvin Lubov watched. Later he advised Locke
on maintaining order and offered to work with one disruptive student. Lubov was paired with Locke through a new mentor program that
teams retired teachers and rookies in Chicago public schools that
are notoriously hard to staff. The goal, officials say, is to improve
teacher retention by providing more support. As a first-year teacher
at But working in a difficult
and sometimes unfamiliar urban environment is tough on teachers, especially
those new to the job, and the mentors have been asked to alleviate
some of the stress, said Al Bertani, the
district's chief officer for professional development. "We have a lot
of very talented, sage and well-practiced retirees that can be great
support for our new teachers," Bertani
said. Most new hires, although
knowledgeable in their subject matter, come into the schools unprepared
to deal with non-academic issues, he said. "If you did your
student teaching in Franklin Grove, Wis., most likely that place does
not look like For the pilot program,
which began in January, 52 retired teachers were hired to work with
67 new teachers in three high schools-- Bertani said District officials
hope to continue the program next year and perhaps expand it to a
few more schools. Some individuals said
personality differences between the beginning teachers and their mentors
have hampered the effectiveness of the program. Some do not get along
well, and the mentors often are at a loss themselves on how to handle
a class of unruly students, some new teachers say. Already, all first-year
teachers in the city are assigned a mentor from their school, so those
involved with this initiative end up with two mentors. Eileen Wild retired
10 years ago after almost 44 years in the system. Now she's mentoring
teachers at "When you are
a beginner, you need some guidance, so they brought back the old-timers,"
Wild said. She says, however,
that in her day the students were easier to deal with. When she began
teaching in 1947, for example, students' chairs and desks were fastened
to the floor. "You can keep
order this way," she said. "Now it's more flexible. It's
much more difficult to maintain order." Locke, a An earnest, no-nonsense
kind of guy, Locke said he was skeptical about the mentor program
at first but has since changed his mind. Lubov,
a veteran of 35 years, has "been nothing but wonderful." For his part, Lubov says, Locke would have been fine without him, but it's
always "easier to have someone you can talk to." In Locke's class,
the clock on the wall is covered with a piece of paper that says,
"It's time to work." When students misbehaved, he would
take them in the hallway and talk to them. Returning from one
such encounter, he said to his class: "Why is it like pulling
teeth today? You guys write notes all day. Write a story." One student briefly
paused--then continued writing a chatty letter to a friend. "Nothing in =========================================================================== NATIONAL Study: Meditation lowers teen blood pressure AP, The stress raised
his blood pressure enough to put him at risk for developing hypertension,
even though he kept active with track, band and junior ROTC. When Medical College
of Georgia officials asked Fitts to join
a study of whether meditation could lower blood pressure, he thought
they were out of their minds. But getting into his mind was the key. He benefited, and
so did dozens of other "The meditation
calms me down and makes me think better about things," said Fitts,
now a nursing student at the Researchers screened
5,000 students and found 156 had blood pressure similar to Fitts.
Half of that group received the meditation sessions and the other
half, a control group, were placed in health education classes. All
students wore blood pressure monitors 24 hours a day. The control group
did not have any reduction in blood pressure, according to the study
in the American Journal of Hypertension. Additional benefits One in four adults
have hypertension, which is a risk factor for heart attack and stroke,
according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and health
officials say teens who have higher-than-normal blood pressure are
more likely to develop the chronic disease when they're older. "It's no longer
considered to be an adult disease," said Vernon Barnes, a physiologist
at the medical college and lead author of the study. Meditation is just
one of several things -- including healthy eating, exercise and even
medication -- that can help lower blood pressure, said Dr. Elizabeth
Ofili, chief of cardiology at Morehouse
School of Medicine in She added that people
regularly need to have their blood pressure checked: "It's never
too early to be aware of the risk of blood pressure." Besides reducing their
blood pressure, students who meditated also had lower rates of absenteeism,
school rule violations and suspensions than those in the control group,
Barnes said. "It's noteworthy
for educators -- meditation might be included in the school day as
a program for reducing stress in the schools," Barnes said. Fitts said he now meditates 45 minutes each morning. "I make peace
with me," he said. Deficit-cutting move
deals regional economy another blow By Christine MacDonald
and Doug Guthrie, The The cuts at a glance * District officials
will cut 3,200 jobs, including 900 teaching positions. * Some layoffs could
be effective as early as mid-April. * Officials say they
won't target teachers in shortage areas, including math, science,
English, special education and bilingual education. * The district's cuts
are aimed at trimming $78 million from this year's budget and at least
$30 million from next school year's budget, which is projected to
grow to $108 million next year if cuts aren't made. The The district is trying
to whittle a ballooning budget deficit that has gone from $78 million
this year to a projected $108 million by next year. Officials blame
declines in state money and student enrollment, along with increases
in retirement and health care costs. The reductions are
the latest blow to southeast The school job cuts
also have the potential to drive away even more parents and students
at a time when the mayor and others have tied “We were already struggling,”
said Detroiter Belinda Jones, who said the layoffs reaffirm her decision
to take her eighth-grade daughter out of the district. “This just
puts us at a further deficit. I can’t risk my kids.” Officials said the
district will work to hold class sizes steady, despite the teacher
layoffs, but wouldn’t guarantee they won’t rise.
Until officials see how many students enroll next year, they won’t
know if class sizes will rise. “A lot of care has
been taken to make sure it doesn’t impact the core academic achievement
goals we’ve set,” school board President Bill Brooks said. “There
is no crisis here in terms of kids learning in the DPS system.” Most of the 900 teaching
positions likely will be eliminated through retirements and resignations,
union officials said. The district has 9,000 teachers. District CEO Kenneth
Burnley said officials will try to stay away from teachers
in shortage areas, such as math and science. Those who will be laid
off will be notified at the end of the month. Some of the nonteacher layoffs could take effect as early as mid-April,
School officials couldn’t
say which 2,300 nonteaching positions will
be cut, but Burnely said no one is immune. Thursday’s cuts in the $1.5
billion budget follow an announcement last month that an additional
450 administrators could lose their jobs. The district has 23,800
employees. “We simply have got
to say ‘Here is the revenue we are going to get and here is where
we have to get our staffing level given our revenue,’ ” Burnley
said. Math teacher Linardo Hines, 48, said the staff at “We have enough problems
now, and they are talking about cutbacks,” Hines said. Diann Woodard, president of the Detroit Organization of School
Administrators and Supervisors, criticized “He has failed our
system,” Woodard said. Enrollment critical
Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who has put himself in the center of the
debate over improving the district, said the layoffs add urgency to
stop dwindling enrollment. The cuts will squeeze
the schools hard if the district loses younger teachers enthusiastic
about teaching inner-city students, he said. “We need those people
on the front lines,” Kilpatrick said. “It’s terrible. Cities
and school districts around the country are catching it. It’s a bad
economic time.” Whether it’s in public
schools or private companies, southeast State unemployment
numbers released Thursday show the labor market in Metro Detroit has
become relatively flat. “Everything was pretty
stable over the month,” said Jim Rhein,
a Michigan Office of Labor Market Information economic analyst. “Considering
the last four years or so, stable is good.” School funding Some said the cuts
Funding is directly
tied to the student. In next year’s proposed budget, the minimum per
student funding is $6,700. David Olmstead, a
school financing expert and former The Senate Wednesday
nixed an effort that would have given extra money to districts with
declining enrollments. And in the proposed state budget, “These are real hammer
blows (to Possible closings
In addition to the
layoffs, school officials say they are looking at closing three schools
to save cash: Chandler Elementary, Jones Elementary/Middle School
and George Ford Elementary. “This part of town
is so in need,” said McDowell, who does hearing evaluations of students
at the east side school. Sekona Dubose, 8, can see her grandmother’s house from “Both her mother and
dad work, so she’s with me before and after school,“
said the girl’s grandmother, Sarah Dubose, 61. “It is so close. “They were talking
about walking these kids to Detroit Federation
of Teachers President Janna Garrison said the district hadn’t told
her they planned to reopen the contract. “We haven’t gotten
to that point,” Garrison said. Other options Ruby Newbold,
chairwoman of the coalition of 12 Detroit Public Schools unions, said
she doesn’t think the district has exhausted all of its cost-cutting
options. “They need to look
at the number of consultants they have,” Newbold
said. “That would show good faith.” Jennifer Lofton is
a long-term substitute social studies teacher at “My big concern is
how it will affect the students,” Lofton said. “I’ll work somewhere.
I’d rather it was in Schools get leeway
to judge progress Tracy Dell'Angela,
LA VISTA, Neb. --
Instead of filling in bubbles on a multiple-choice exam, 10th grader
Monica Miller scribbles a quick paragraph to show her teacher she
understands the symbolism in a short story she just read. Macy Morrison, 8,
opens an online portfolio to review her scores on math problems that
test her reasoning skills. Kyle Dunbar reads to a 5th-grade classmate,
who will offer suggestions about how to improve his fluency. In schools on the
outskirts of Here, students aren't
pushed to do well on 50-minute tests that will determine whether their
teachers and their schools are considered successful--the kind of
pressure faced across With criticism mounting
over implementation of the federal accountability law and states scrambling
to overhaul their testing systems to comply, The state has persuaded
federal education officials to approve the nation's most unorthodox
assessment system, which allows school districts to use portfolios
to measure student progress. For this, "I don't give
a damn what No Child Left Behind says," Christensen said. "I
think education is far too complex to be reduced to a single score.
We decided we were going to take No Child Left Behind and integrate
it into our plan, not the other way around. If it's bad for kids,
we're not going to do it." But critics of No
Child Left Behind--and the high-stakes testing mania it has spawned--say
Districts have own
methods Nebraska's 517 school
districts design their own assessment systems: a portfolio of teachers'
classroom assessments, district tests that measure how well children
are meeting locally developed learning standards, a state writing
test and at least one nationally standardized test included as a reality
check. These are submitted
to state education officials and a team of outside testing experts
for review, and the districts are rated not just on the proficiency
of their students but on the quality and reliability of their testing
portfolio. Federal education
officials said That method "has
a certain efficiency that most states prefer," Hickok
said. "But the federal law doesn't say you can only have one
test. People shouldn't think No Child Left Behind is the only way
you hold students accountable or measure student achievement." Nationwide, teachers
in thousands of districts already use such comprehensive portfolios;
they just are not used by state and federal officials to determine
whether the schools are making academic progress. Illinois Supt. of
Education Robert Schiller, whose former district in "It's admirable,
but it's also very, very difficult," Schiller said. "Absolutely,
a portfolio system is much more representative than a one-time assessment.
But it's a very time-consuming process, and very difficult in districts
where you have lots of students transferring and high turnover of
teachers." At Portal Elementary
in La Vista, 2nd grader Macy Morrison can see for herself that she's
making progress. She has been taking tests since school started. By
the end of the year, her teacher will send the district 33 measures
of Macy's progress in reading, writing and math. During a recent visit,
Macy was reading an "Arthur" book into a microphone on a
computer. This test measures Macy's fluency--a rare example in which
speech is actually measured for state standards--and when she's finished
she knows exactly what she should do to improve. "My expression
was just right, but I'm still getting there on my smoothness because
I had a lot of stops," Macy said, clicking to a bar chart of
her progress during 2nd grade. Tests make Macy a little nervous, but
she knows they are important--and her reasons have nothing to do with
the reputation of her school. "We take these
tests so we can learn more and the teachers can see how we're doing,"
she said. Better than the alternative Sixth-grade teacher
Melissa McCain knows some of her "Everything was
about the test in Despite all the hand-wringing
over the federal law, No Child Left Behind isn't even a factor for
most of the schools in this largely rural state. Only 159 of One of the criticisms
of the These differences
in assessment systems are clearly visible in three neighboring districts
just outside State education leaders
have praised the fifth-largest district in the state, Papillion-La
Vista, for developing an exemplary system. The standards are high
and validated by national test scores. The district trains its teachers
constantly. The teachers control the assessments. The students view
tests as a natural part of their school day. "You will never
hear us talking about getting ready for a big test. We will never
compare the performance of schools in our district," said Jef
Johnston, the district's assistant superintendent. "The only
thing we will ever tell our principals is that, wherever you are now,
you have to do better next year. "What keeps teachers
from cheating? Nothing, except honesty and the desire
to do the right thing for kids." In the Millard school
district, an affluent suburban district with 19,000 students, proficiency
is measured solely by district-designed multiple-choice and short-answer
tests. Teachers here don't create portfolios, but do give a national
standardized test and state writing tests as required. District officials
said they never considered moving to classroom assessments because
they want to guarantee their students have a base level of skills
that can be measured by a single test. School officials in
Ralston, a 3,000-student district where a quarter of the students
are low-income, are under pressure to design a more rigorous testing
program after state officials rated the district's assessments unacceptable. The district reported
that 76 percent of its students passed reading standards and about
97 percent were proficient in math. But district officials acknowledge
their tests were too easy and didn't match up with much lower scores
seen on the national Stanford exams, where about 58 percent of Ralston
elementary pupils scored above average in reading and 60 percent in
math. Jerry Riibe,
Ralston's new assistant superintendent, said he remains committed
to the idea that children are best assessed in the classroom and is
confident the district can create a more reliable program. "The easy thing
to do would be to write a test and give it to everyone," Riibe
said. "But it doesn't give teachers the information they need
to improve learning. You can make classroom assessments work, as long
as you're willing to trust your teachers and invest the time and effort
it takes." Teachers know best Christensen said "Educators have
never been in control of their craft," said Christensen, a former
all-state quarterback who trained for the ministry before settling
on a teaching career. "What makes our system work is it speaks
to the heart of teachers." No Child
Left Behind? Children Will Be Left Behind By Dan Seligman, Forbes
Magazine George Bush's school
accountability law, enacted to much fanfare
two years ago, is something of a fraud. It cannot possibly perform
as advertised. The No Child Left
Behind law, which sailed through Congress with overwhelming majorities
two years ago, has a giant problem--one that will cause the act to
fail. But no one discusses this problem in public. Even the law's fiercest
critics--who now include just about all our country's prominent Democrats--seem
not to have noticed the real problem. And it certainly will not be
pointed up by such longtime enthusiasts as the Business Roundtable,
the National Association of Manufacturers, the US Chamber of Commerce
and numerous high-profile chief executives. They like the "accountability"
the law promises to deliver. They like its incentive system, which
steers funding to successful schools (as measured by test scores)
and penalizes the failures. They like the higher standards for teachers,
and the threat these pose to the teachers' unions. They are even learning
to love the US Department of Education, which now spends $55.6 billion
a year administering No Child and other federal programs, and they
are presumably pleased that Ronald Reagan welshed on his 1980 campaign promise to ax the agency. Last year was the
first in which the entire No Child machinery was up and running, and
we learned a few things about how it will work. The then-current crop
of news stories reflects the exasperation of local school officials,
who did not expect so much paperwork and gripe about "unfunded
mandates." Another familiar story line centers on the shock of
administrators at first-rate schools when told they are "failing"
(or at least that term keeps getting into the headlines). The alleged failure
often involves technicalities. No Child's authors were determined
to forestall cheating by principals, many of whom had long boosted
their schools' test scores by encouraging poor students to stay home
on days when big tests were given. So the new law provided that 95%
of all students--and in some cases 95% of each ethnic group within
the school--had to participate. Inevitably, some schools were flunked
because they only had, say, 94.6%. As this article goes to press,
several states-- And yet the law's
main problem continues to be unrepresented in the news stories. The
problem is that some students are not smart enough to do well on tests.
This might be considered too obvious to mention but for some astounding
details about No Child. For openers, it proposes to eliminate--not
reduce, eliminate--the "achievement gap" between prosperous
and impoverished students. The gap is tremendous and in large measure
reflects socioeconomic IQ differences. The states with the most students
eligible for the federal free/reduced lunch program (a fairly good
indicator of poverty status) reliably produce the lowest reading and
math scores. But No Child's IQ
problem is not just a matter of social class differences. The law
also states, insanely, that by 2014 all American students must be
"proficient" in reading and math. Any school at which this
doesn't happen will suffer severe penalties, up to and including a
takeover by the state. Yet the shape of the bell curve guarantees
that most schools will fail. No amount of accountability, incentives
and superduper teaching can possibly get
all the kids in any sizable school up to 100% proficiency by 2014.
The act supported by all those hardheaded businessmen is utterly utopian. To be sure, 2014 is
ten years off. But during those years each state must continually
demonstrate that it is making "adequate yearly progress"
at a rate that will take it from present levels of proficiency to
100% by 2014. And the yearly progress requirements have had perverse
effects in many school districts. In some states the effect has been
to lower academic standards. No Child is lowering
standards? How can that be? The answer resides in the fact that in
order to make the new law seem manageable its authors gave the states
some wiggle room in defining "proficient." No Child envisions
four levels of mastery for each subject: "Advanced" is highest,
followed by "proficient," "basic," and (the lower
depths) "below basic." This four-tiered schema was copied
from the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which has regularly
surveyed the academic achievements of American kids since 1969. But--critical
detail--the states were not required to embrace the NAEP definitions
of those terms. In the NAEP tests, proficiency is defined as "solid
academic performance É demonstrated competency over challenging subject
matter É and analytic skills appropriate to the subject matter." The definition is,
to be sure, fuzzy, but it comes accompanied by some test questions
that make it real and that guarantee most students will be nowhere
near proficient. In the 2003 NAEP sample only 27% of the country's
eighth graders were proficient or better in math; 33% were below basic.
So, looking at their new situation, the states decided overwhelmingly
not to go for the NAEP standards. But that was not all:
It also sank in that their yearly progress burdens would be lower
if their standards were lower. A lower standard means that a higher
proportion of students will already be close to proficient, which
means in turn that the required annual progress will be less demanding.
Only three states ( But holding down standards
does not entirely solve the states' problems with No Child. For one
thing, there are limits to how low you can go. If standards begin
to seem a travesty, you get howls from the parents. And with any kind
of meaningful standards at all, 100% proficiency is impossible. Robert
Linn, the new president of UCLA's respected Nobody can say for
sure how the drama will play out, but one way or another, No Child
will be changed. Its goals are wildly unrealistic, and a sizable fraction
of the educators now caught up in the process know it's unrealistic.
As the late economist Herbert Stein famously said, "If something
can't go on forever, it will stop." He was talking about financial
deficits, but he might as well have been talking about deficient thinking
in educational reform. School
choice plans deserve a closer look Newsday Opinion What's the usual political
answer to government failure? Spending more taxpayer
dollars, naturally. That is the overwhelming and largely bipartisan
political response to faltering public schools, as we saw with the
Zarb commission's unwise funding proposals
released last week. Democrats long have
been a tool of the teachers' unions. But The New York State
Court of Appeals also called for more public school
spending in a case last June. The court instructed state lawmakers
to "ascertain the actual cost of providing a sound basic education
in In response to the
court, Pataki asked a commission, led by Frank Zarb,
to figure out how much more money should be spent to develop reforms
and improve accountability. The commission called for additional costs
ranging between $2.5 billion and $5.6 billion. Some reform proposals
make sense, but others would accomplish little. What's truly outrageous
is any notion that public schools in Zarb and company, though, did acknowledge "the uncomfortable
fact that there is no compelling evidence that more money alone will
improve education in the poorly performing schools." Given One reform measure
that would provide opportunities for immediate and significant improvements
for many students is school choice that includes private and religious
schools. Predictably, the commission did not endorse such choice. That's unfortunate,
because school choice programs in various states are helping parents
and students. The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation publishes
an informative handbook called "The ABCs of School Choice."
It notes that In addition, in January,
President George W. Bush signed into law a five-year pilot voucher
program for low-income students in the The Friedman Foundation
notes a variety of studies showing that school choice often improves
student academic performance, provides high levels of parental satisfaction,
and through competition enhances public school performance. Politicians in Tuition paid for no-shows:
Efforts to impose academic standards have failed Juliet Williams, Associated
Press/Aurora Beacon News The recent scandals
have shocked politicians, angered parents and left even some voucher
supporters demanding reforms. The troubles have
helped lead to passage of a state law requiring voucher schools to
report more financial information to the state. Democratic Gov. Jim
Doyle signed it last month. But so far, efforts
to impose more rigorous academic standards on voucher schools have
failed. The schools are required
to report virtually nothing about their methods to the state, or to
track their students' performance. Proponents say that frees the schools
from onerous bureaucracy. But some say the lack of oversight makes
them a prime target for abuse. At the Meanwhile, Alex's
Academics of Excellence received $2.8 million in voucher money over
three years before the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the
school's founder, James A. Mitchell, served nearly a decade in prison
for a 1971 rape. Unlike their counterparts at public schools, principals
and teachers at private schools do not have to undergo criminal background
checks. The state has suspended
funding for Alex's because of financial problems, and a judge shut
down the Mandella academy earlier this year. The scandals have
upset many, including the parents of the 190 students displaced by
Mandella's closing. The principal, David
Seppeh, does not have a teacher's license
and was not required to submit any information about the school's
philosophy or curriculum before receiving upwards of $1 million in
voucher funding. The district attorney's
office seized a Mercedes from his home. A criminal investigation is
under way. The Mandella
school initially reported an enrollment of
476 students, but 235 of them did not show. Under the voucher program,
tuition checks in parents' names are sent straight from the state
to the school. Parents sign a waiver authorizing the school to cash
their checks, but if they later pull out, it is up to the school to
notify the state and return the money. In Mandella's
case, some parents who initially considered sending their children
to Mandella but changed their minds said they were not aware
that they were signing a waiver or that checks in their name were
sent to the school. The telephone number
Seppeh listed on his application to the state has been disconnected,
and The Associated Press could not locate another listing for him.
Seppeh has said that he does not believe
he was stealing because he and his wife invested thousands in the
school. (It is not clear how
the school came to be called Mandella, spelled
with two "l's," unlike the name of As for academics at
Mandella, Sinicki said no one has
any idea how the students were doing. Todd Ziebarth,
a policy analyst with the Education Commission of the States in "Now people are
saying, 'Geez, if the public schools have
to meet this level of accountability, why shouldn't the private schools
also?'" he said. Coalition Argues for Ambassador Hotel The group offers the
By Jean Merl,
Times Staff Writer, A coalition of preservationist,
civic, labor and entertainment industry groups on Thursday turned
up the heat on The newly formed A+
(Ambassador Plus) Coalition called on the Officials of the district,
which bought the Wilshire District site in December 2001, are considering
five alternatives for using its 24 acres for an elementary, middle
school and high school complex for about 4,400 students. The options
range from complete demolition to the preservation and renovation
for school use of all or parts of the hotel and the attached nightclub.
The hotel is where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated the night he
won the 1968 Preservationists announced
their coalition of more than 40 groups at a news conference as the
school district staff prepared to recommend a development plan to
the board of education in about three weeks. "History will
be tangible to these students because they will be able to reach out
and touch it," said Linda Dishman,
executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy, the architectural
preservationist group that has led the fight for the two options that
would preserve the most of the main hotel structure. Preservationists envision
converting the Embassy Ballroom into a library and the once-elegant
lobby into a student and community gathering area. The rooms above
— whose occupants included novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald and every
president from Costs and time, however,
are concerns for the district. Officials say maximum preservation
would cost $381 million, about $95 million more than it would to demolish
the hotel and build an entirely new campus. Maximum preservation would
also take a year longer, they say. Advocates of saving
most of the site acknowledge the costs of saving more of the 83-year-old
structure would be greater, but they say that the district's estimates
of the differences are inflated and that the work would take just
six months longer. It would yield 25% more classroom space than would
the demolish-and-rebuild plan, they said. They said at least
some of the extra costs could be offset with state parks bond funds
(the hotel's expansive lawns could be used for athletic fields and
picnic areas), historic preservation tax credits and fundraising drives. But there are other
pressures on the school district, which is trying to build about 120
schools to relieve overcrowding. In November, a community group calling
itself RFK-12 called for the hotel's demolition to build a school
for kindergarten through 12th grade as soon as possible. A former Kennedy aide
who was wounded in the assassination said building a new school would
be a more fitting tribute to the slain leader than erecting a memorial
or preserving the kitchen hallway where he was shot. About 6,900 school-age
children live within half a mile of the site; 3,800 of them are bused
to schools in other neighborhoods, according to the district. "Building the
Ambassador school quickly and at a reasonable price is absolutely
essential to begin to solve this puzzle," said Victor Viramontes
of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, part of
the RFK-12 group. "Spending school
construction money on preserving this hotel building is unacceptable,"
Viramontes said. "While we support preservation, we will
not do so at the expense of educating our children." School Board President
Jose Huizar, whose district includes the hotel site, said that,
although he appreciates the "historic, social and cultural value"
of the Ambassador site, "the educational
program is of paramount importance." "We will try
to balance all the interests," Huizar
said, but he added that he was reluctant to spend more than necessary
on the site. "Every dollar
we put into the Ambassador is money we take away from other parts
of the district," Huizar said, "so
we have to be very thoughtful about what we do." Supt. Roy Romer
said he hoped that the board could make its decision in about two
months. "It will be a balanced solution," Romer
said of the staff proposal. "That's the thing we're reaching
for — an appropriate memory but without an excessive expense. "We believe we
have a balanced solution and a creative one in the works, and we'll
be able to talk about it in about three weeks." Education Is By Chris L. Jenkins,
RICHMOND, April 2
-- The debate over spending that has divided the Virginia General
Assembly for the past three months has come down to one main issue:
How much should the state government pay for public education? While still divided
over taxes, the Republican-controlled Senate and House of Delegates
have found some common ground over how much The debate goes beyond
the question of dollars and cents: The two sides differ on how the
commonwealth should fulfill the educational guidelines codified in
the state constitution more than 30 years ago. "Education is
the difference in a nutshell between us and the House," said
Sen. John H. Chichester (R-Stafford), author of the chamber's $60 billion
budget plan. When the regular session
of the General Assembly ended March 16, the two chambers were deadlocked
on how much to tax and spend in the next two years, and they began
a special session the next day. Some House Republicans
are working on a compromise they plan to present this week, but the
budget negotiators for the House and Senate have remained in a stalemate
throughout the special session. The Senate budget
would increase education spending by $1.7 billion over two years.
Under that plan, the state would be able to pay its share of the basic
cost of educating students under The Standards of Quality
address a wide range of expenses, including teacher salaries and supplying
the state's 1.1 million students with supplies and books. The added
cost to the state for updating the amount of money paid to localities
totals about $1.1 billion, according to the Joint Legislative Audit
and Review Commission. The Senate's plan
also would pay for new requirements recommended by the State Board
of Education and included in legislation the General Assembly passed
last month, although many school divisions funded those measures in
their budgets. Among the requirements are staffing for art and music
classes and a planning period to allow teachers to prepare for classes.
Senators said that
by fully funding these initiatives, they are relieving the financial
pressure on local school systems. For years, localities have said
that they are unable to control the rise in property taxes because
the state is not funding its educational requirements adequately.
The senators say the
state must give the localities the money to meet the standards that
the state imposes. They also point out that their budget will give
school systems the funds to meet the new testing requirements designed
by the state, known as the Standards of Learning. "What's the point
of passing educational standards if you're not going to make the money
available to fund them?" asked Sen. Walter A. Stosch
(R-Henrico), the Senate majority leader who is serving on the chamber's
budget negotiating team. The House says its
$58.3 billion budget would increase education spending by about $811
million over two years. Delegates acknowledge that their plan does
not fund all of the mandates in the Standards of Quality, but several
said that they are responsible for helping the localities pay for
the standards only if the money is available. "We don't fully
return money to the localities, but being able to do so is not the
reality we're living in," said Del. Phillip A. Hamilton (R-Newport
News). "Would I like to be able to fund everything? Yes. But
we are bound only to what we believe is doable" with existing
revenue. "It's a good
faith effort to say we believe in this, and when we can fund this,
we will," he said. State legal analysts
said that lawmakers are responsible under the state constitution to
fund their educational guidelines. "There is an
implicit mandate to fund those standards, once they are set,"
said A.E. Dick Howard, a professor of law at the Many other states
struggle with the question of how to finance the educational standards
they have adopted. In But as in More school districts move toward mergers By STACI HUPP, Register
Staff Writer, The But as the number
of students dwindled, So instead of struggling
to make ends meet, "We have pride,
but we also know the time has come," said Superintendent Jerry
Knoll, who will be out of a job in July. "If you can't have the
high-quality academic programs, then kids are not going to get a good
start. "When it comes
down to finishing high school and getting scholarships and going on
to college, the great majority of kids who go to four-year schools
are in large districts." More Lawmakers and state
education officials who want to protect State officials will
dangle money and tax breaks in front of schools to sell them on the
idea. Meanwhile, money will run out for a program that offers incentives
for districts to share students and for budget guarantees. Smaller districts
can't keep up with their bigger counterparts in the running for good
teachers and academic programs. Some risk falling below state requirements
for classes as a result, education officials say. In Ted Roberts watched
his dad's service station fold. He's seen half the "It's pretty
sad, but I think it's just inevitable," said Roberts, a truck
driver who graduated from The hallways at Now an elementary
school, three children enrolled in this year's first-grade class. The arrangement gave
The elementary school,
however, still lacks a certified physical education teacher, gifted
and talented program director, guidance counselor, elementary school
principal and other basic employees. Knoll and his teachers juggle
all of the jobs. Some elementary school
classes are so small that students in different grades share teachers. The make-do approach
has pushed out some of the very students "He wasn't learning
how to read, and they weren't teaching him," said Heidi Shafranek,
who graduated from Mergers offer students
a well-rounded education, said Thomas Alsbury,
an Bigger schools add
more flexibility to schedules, which means more options for gifted
programs, basic classes and special education, Alsbury
said. Students also are
exposed to more specialized classes in larger schools, he said. In
tiny districts, one teacher might be in charge of middle and high
school science. "It's very typical
that a science teacher would be trained more in biological sciences
or in physical sciences, but it's uncommon to be trained in both,"
Alsbury said. Number of districts
in The number of school
districts in State officials see
even fewer districts in the coming years. Some districts already are
taking steps toward consolidation with shared school buildings and
superintendents. "I think some
of them are now kind of getting into that situation where they've
had declining enrollment and budget cuts, and they're starting to
explore it," said Eric Heitz, a school
improvement consultant for the Iowa Department of Education. Money and tax breaks
encourage those partnerships. Incentives to share
schools will cost taxpayers more than $7 million this year, state
records show. With merged districts entering the mix, the state's
expense will grow to $8.3 million next year. In two years, state
officials will pull the plug on rewards for student-sharing programs.
The entire pot will go to merged districts instead, in hopes that
more districts take that route. It worked for The two northwest
"Twelve years
sounds like a long time, but sometimes it takes that long to get everybody
on board," Smith said. "I think they probably would have
reorganized sooner had the incentive been there." The same goes for
the Aplington and State incentives will
restore the money when the two districts merge in the fall. The beauty of such
long courtships is that they make marriage easier, Superintendent
Pat Morgan said. Districts that share
schools also begin sharing budgets, teachers, students and athletics.
The touchy aspects of sharing - especially picking new school colors
and a mascot - are out of the way long before the merger. Some school districts
that aren't ready for the big commitment will share schools next year. "At least you
have a time frame to see whether or not it's a good fit for the two
communities," said Rick Pederson, superintendent of the Sumner
and Kunkle, 14, is one of three students in an introduction-to-business
class. "If you have
a problem, the teacher's right there," Kunkle
said. "If there's 50 people in the class,
it's hard to have the teacher come to you and help." Money is the main
reason school districts merge, but education officials say the savings
are slim. Most school districts already share a superintendent when
they merge, and they keep most or all employees on the payroll. State
incentives usually offset rising transportation, insurance and support
costs. Officials in the The district of 308
students has a reputation for strong reading programs, good teachers
and high expectations for students. Up to 70 students transferred
to "Just because
it looks good on paper doesn't mean it's good for kids," Superintendent
Judd Ashley said about mergers. The Van Buren and
State incentives aren't
a good reason to consolidate, he said. "There's a much bigger
reason, and that is what's best for kids." Bush
pushes overhaul of vocational education Scott Lindlaw,
EL DORADO, Ark. --
President Bush advocated sweeping changes Tuesday to a $1 billion
federal program that provides training in vocations like car repair
and health care, fast-growing fields that require workers to bring
increasing sophistication into the workplace. Bush also called for
creation of $5,000 grants for poor students who emphasize math and
science. He would pay for the $100 million annual program by imposing
new restrictions on Pell Grants and by tapping private foundations. The president proposed
requiring high-school seniors in every state to take national math
and English tests that are mandated only for fourth- and eighth-graders
today. ''We're creating new
jobs,'' he said. ''The question is, are people
going to be prepared to fill those jobs?'' The measures, which
would need congressional approval, would require no new spending by
the government. They represent election-year initiatives meant to
address the economy's slow advance in creating jobs. The proposals came
as Democrat John Kerry focused on job-creation during a visit to Kerry spokesman Phil
Singer called Bush's initiative ''a phony baloney plan that does nothing
more than shift money between programs and doesn't offer a dime to
unemployed workers.'' Kennedy
Demands Full Funding for School Bill Diana Jean Schemo, The New York Times The words seem to
haunt Senator Edward M. Kennedy these days: "a tin cup budget." That was how Mr. Kennedy's
firebrand colleague on the education committee, the late Senator Paul
Wellstone, dismissed the No Child Left Behind law, urging Democrats
not to support President Bush's showcase issue in the absence of guarantees
on future spending. At the time, Mr. Kennedy
was not to be deterred. He negotiated language with the Republicans,
corralled Democratic support, showed up at the signing ceremony and
spent that spring in a victory tour with President Bush promoting
the law. Now, though, as he
takes to the campaign trail for John Kerry, Senator Kennedy has adopted
his colleague's very words as he rails against the administration
for demanding massive changes from public schools on "a tin cup
budget." Mr. Kennedy, one of
the Senate's shrewdest operators, appears to feel personally swindled. "This is an entirely
new concept, a new initiative, a new endeavor," he said in an
interview in his office. He likened No Child Left Behind to the enactment
of Social Security, and to the race to the moon 40 years ago led by
his brother, President John F. Kennedy. "I believe the
exact same type of commitment was made to children," Mr. Kennedy
said. He said that Mr. Bush "misstated, misspoke, misrepresented
his position" on financing No Child Left Behind. "This is not
a commitment to me," he said. "It is a commitment to the
parents, the children, the schools that are trying to carry out this
law." Mr. Kennedy maintained
that he supported the law only because he believed President Bush
would demand substantial increases in federal spending on elementary
and secondary education to achieve the law's goals. Others scoff at the
notion of a consummate politician like Mr. Kennedy being hoodwinked.
"Not a credible
historical analysis," said Sandy Kress, the lawyer who represented
the White House in Congressional negotiations over No Child Left Behind.
"Nobody snookers Ted Kennedy." No Child Left Behind
gives the nation until 2014 to render all students proficient in reading
and math. It also requires annual testing of all students in grades
3 to 8, and once in high school, with steadily more severe penalties
for schools whose students fail to make sufficient annual progress
for two or more years. Republican leaders
contend that Democrats well understood that while the law authorized
as much as $80 billion in additional spending on Title I high-poverty
schools alone by 2007, that did not mean the full amount would be appropriated. "I can assure
you, cross my heart, that we had many discussions about funding, but
there was never a discussion, not one, about funding No Child Left
Behind at authorization levels," said John A. Boehner, the Ohio
Republican who is chairman of the House Committee on Education and
the Workforce. "It never happened." Republicans also maintain
that under President Bush, spending on the high-poverty schools that
are the main concern of No Child Left Behind rose some 42 percent,
from nearly $8.8 billion in 2001 to $12.3 billion in 2004. Democrats
counter that much of that increase came at their insistence, in defiance
of lower budget requests by President Bush. "The commitment
was made on both sides to have a significant increase in No Child
Left Behind funding," Mr. Boehner said, adding, "I would
argue that we've more than met our commitment." Disputes over spending
on No Child Left Behind began not long after President Bush signed
the law in January 2002, and are likely to grow louder as the presidential
election approaches. A recent poll by Education
Week and the Public Education Network ranked education second in the
list of voter concerns, behind only the economy, and ahead of terrorism,
security, health care, prescription drugs and the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq. And 60 percent of those polled said that the federal government
did not contribute enough money to public schools. Mr. Kennedy and his
aides said that it was not long after Mr. Bush signed the law that
they began suspecting that the money would not match their expectations.
Just four weeks after the signing, Mr. Bush released his budget for
the 2003 fiscal year, which, while increasing money for high poverty
schools, sought a net $90 million cut in spending in areas connected
to No Child Left Behind. The next year, the administration proposed
a net cut of $1.2 billion. "The administration
has misstated their position on issue after issue," Mr. Kennedy
said. "It's nothing terribly new now, but it was at the time." Opinion
- Shedding light on No Child law Tom Koenninger
editor emeritus of The Columbian School board members
and school administrators from across the country listened to her
views on education and No Child Left Behind
(NCLB) legislation. She was preceded by "Superman" Christopher
Reeve and followed by Secretary of Education Rod Paige and a host
of presenters dedicated to helping schools, teachers and students.
Laura Bush, a former
elementary teacher and librarian, said, "the
effects of failing to teach children are well documented. Too many
students read and write below their grade level. This is not right."
Through the NCLB, "schools are held accountable," she asserted.
"We must do more to attract the best and brightest and keep them
in the classroom." Bush and Paige supported
the two-year-old federal act as an extension of the 1954 Supreme Court
decision in Brown vs. Board of Education, which ended segregation
in public schools. While her audience
was attentive and amused when she described her rookie teaching experience
of having a day-long lesson plan covered in 15 minutes, critics of
the No Child Left Behind Act were numerous.
The law, introduced by President Bush, requires reading and math tests
for students and penalizes schools financially if they fail to improve.
It is designed to help children who experience difficulty, including
minorities, the poor and those with disabilities. Critics resent its
intrusion into what they view as state responsibilities, its complications
and the expense. Others term it an "unfunded mandate," lacking
sufficient federal dollars. In defense of No Child
Left Behind Paige pitched the
federal act more directly. He acknowledged NCLB critics, and said
their views had been heard. As a result, some of the required school
attendance standards have been lessened. But he did not back down.
He called on school boards to "create an education system worthy
of a great nation." Reminding his audience
that he, too, once served as a school district superintendent, Paige
said the president's budget for education, at $53.7 billion, "is
larger than ever before." He said he picked
up newspapers and was "stunned by the misunderstanding"
about a "nonexisting mandate." For one thing, he said, "standards
are determined by the states." School people seeking
pure inspiration received it the previous day from Reeve, who played
Superman in movies, and was paralyzed in 1995 in a fall from a horse.
Speaking from a wheelchair, Reeve said his "core belief"
is that nothing is impossible. Every kid can learn. "The shape
of this country is formed at the local level," he said. "
We reach out to serve kids who live right here." At another
point he said, "the future of the country lies in the hands of school boards."
He urged support of teachers, and suggested "parents can't micromanage
schools." Reeve spoke of his
two brothers and father, all of whom are teachers, and of his father's
admonition "get a book" when he said he was bored.
Illinois State Board of Education |
