News Clips – April 7 - 13, 2007

TOP OF PAGE

STATE  
Keeping his cool on state hot seat / Chicago Tribune
Clone this principal / Chicago Sun-Times
Behind closed doors: Many area school districts violate Open Meetings Act / Northwest Herald
Failed book ban fuels big-bucks board race / Chicago Sun-Times
Cops: School bus used for getaway / Chicago Sun-Times
Limit charter campuses / Chicago Sun-Times
Why limit the number of charter schools? / Chicago Tribune
Mandatory recess? Kids: Yea! Schools: Boo! / Daily Herald
Law doesn't always have to come into play / Chicago Sun-Times
Taxing topic / Daily Southtown
Union boss 'disgusted' by teacher-data breach / Chicago Sun-Times
Daley, mayors unveil education finance plan / Chicago Sun-Times
No playground politics for this teen / Chicago Tribune
Tie school funding to accountability / Chicago Sun-Times
Education chief hears concerns about NCLB / Quincy Herald-Whig
Scoring method on ISAT faulted / Chicago Tribune
School funding and accountability / Daily Herald
Have we not surpassed 'Dick and Jane'? / Daily Southtown

NATIONAL
Real schools, virtual classes / Chicago Tribune
States rejecting federal sex-ed grants / Los Angeles Times
No assignments. No tests. / Seattle Times
States to develop math test using shared standards / CNN.com
States rebel against sex-ed rules / Chicago Tribune

NATIONAL - NCLB
Editorial: Sensible fixes for 'No Child' law / Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Administrative Burden of No Child Left Behind / Fox News
Battle Grows Over Renewing Landmark Education Law / New York Times
Federal urge to meddle reaches college campus / St. Petersburg Times (FL)
Educators: Act hurts special needs students / Hilton Head Island Packet (SC)
Let's fix No Child Left Behind law / Arizona Daily Star
NCLB: What does it really stand for? / West Fargo Pioneer (ND)
No Law Left Behind? / Harvard Political Review
Change needed; NCLB in current form not working / Shreveport Times, (LA)
Schumer says feds need to fully fund education / The Tonawanda News (NY)
Since English learners’ scores will count, we must quit bickering and focus on finding
                the best ways to educate them / East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Bush: NCLB not meant to punish schools, but to help them / CNN.com
For law to work, it must broaden measure of learning / The Tennessean
 
TOP OF PAGE

STATE

Keeping his cool on state hot seat
School board chief pushing tax plan
Diane Rado, Chicago Tribune
 
When he got a call from the governor's office in 2004 about serving on the Illinois State Board of Education, Jesse Ruiz admits that he had to look up the board on the Internet.
 
"I didn't know the first thing about it," he said with his usual modesty and candor.
 
About 2 1/2 years later, the 42-year-old Chicago attorney has become the most passionate and visible face of the board that sets state education policy and distributes billions to public schools. He also is the first Latino chairman in the board's history and the first chairman since Gov. Rod Blagojevich took control of the board in 2004.
 
Once a fiercely independent body that butted heads with the administration, the state board is stacked with the governor's appointees and supports Blagojevich initiatives that are not always popular. Ruiz has been in the hot seat more than ever in the last month as he helps the governor push a plan to tax businesses to raise billions for schools and health care.
 
Business groups are railing against the plan; Latino Caucus members in the General Assembly -- Ruiz is their legal counsel -- have expressed concerns; and some members of the state board are opposed or have reservations. Even colleagues at Ruiz's law firm wonder why he would support such a tax.
 
"I've got some law partners here who said, 'Are you crazy?'" said Ruiz, a partner at Drinker Biddle Gardner Carton.
 
Ruiz said he believes the governor's plan is a better alternative than a state income tax increase that others have proposed.
 
But he added that if he disagreed with the governor, "I would probably remain silent on it."
 
Ruiz's loyalty doesn't surprise his biggest supporters.
 
"I think he's done an excellent job of being a team player with the governor, and that was why the new board was established," said Miguel del Valle, the city clerk of Chicago and a former state senator who pushed through legislation that gave the governor control of the state board.
 
Del Valle recommended that Ruiz serve on the board, in part because he felt strongly that Latinos should be represented.
 
Latino students make up nearly 20 percent of Illinois' public school population, or almost 400,000 children.
 
Son of immigrants
 
Jesus Humberto Ruiz -- he's always gone by Jesse -- is the son of Mexican immigrants.
 
When he was a boy, Ruiz said, his mother refused to speak English in the house because she didn't want her children to pick up "accented English." Instead, she spoke Spanish at home and allowed the children to learn English from their friends, students and teachers.
 
At the time, Roseland, the South Side neighborhood where he grew up, was mostly Italian. When he attended Marist High School, which was then all-boys, he was one of only four minority students.
 
Later, he earned a law degree from the University of Chicago.
 
Ruiz said he remembers reading about lawyers in 1st or 2nd grade in the World Book encyclopedias his mother had managed to buy. He thought about what it would be like to wear a suit and tie to work.
 
"Nobody in my neighborhood went to work in ties," he said.
 
Before he was appointed to the State Board of Education, Ruiz was on a desegregation commission for the Chicago Board of Education. But otherwise he lacked the education credentials of other state board members who had teaching and administrative experience and had served on an elected, local school board.
 
But the governor's staff wasn't looking for an education insider, said Elliot Regenstein, former director of education reform for Blagojevich.
 
"What he brought was consensus-building skills and a healthy respect for insiders even though he wasn't one himself," Regenstein said.
 
Ruiz's law firm had contributed thousands to Blagojevich's campaign fund, but Ruiz himself had donated $450 before his appointment to the state board.
 
When the two met shortly before the announcement of new state board members in September 2004, Ruiz recalls getting a brief and blunt directive from Blagojevich: "He turned to me and said, 'Don't screw up.'"
 
Ruiz hasn't, colleagues say.
 
Board members initially wary about Ruiz's lack of education experience say he's done his homework and defers to their expertise when necessary.
 
"He is very low-key, and that's his style," said board member Dean Clark. "It shouldn't be taken for weakness, because it is not. He is very adamant about things that he's passionate about."
 
Board members got a taste of that passion when Elmwood Park High School in Cook County refused to admit a teenager from Ecuador who could not show she was a legal resident. A livid Ruiz told the district it could not turn away students based on immigration status. In February 2006, he led the board to take the unprecedented action of cutting off state funds to the school district.
 
The district said it would no longer question students about their immigration status. By then, however, the girl had left the state.
 
Dad pushed education
 
His father, now 90, was an undocumented immigrant before becoming a citizen, Ruiz said. He didn't finish 3rd grade and did backbreaking labor as a machine operator. But he impressed upon his son the importance of getting an education -- a message Ruiz wants to carry to all the state's students.
 
Ruiz said his biggest disappointment was flunking out of the University of Illinois after his freshman year, when he was studying to become an engineer -- his first love.
 
He had always been an honors student, but he wasn't disciplined enough and didn't apply himself when he got to college, he said.
 
He returned home devastated, attending South Suburban College in South Holland and working two jobs before reapplying to the U. of I. When he didn't get a response from the university, he drove there with a friend and planted himself in the dean's office for two days, taking breaks to pray in a church.
 
Finally, he was readmitted. Ruiz graduated with honors in economics.
 
The experience changed him. His new attitude was: "I'm not going to let a single opportunity go by in life."
 
Ruiz serves on several boards, including the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He said he spends nearly 30 hours a week on State Board of Education business and events.
 
His top priorities this year are developing more programs to keep students from dropping out of school and doing a better job of closing the stubborn achievement gap between white and minority students.
 
Ruiz said his father always told him, "There are two ways to work in life: with your head or your back, like I did."
 
His father's words, which have inspired him personally, now guide him as the chairman of the state education board.
------------------------------------- 
Jesse H. Ruiz
Born: Jesus Humberto Ruiz, in Oak Lawn
Age: 42
Raised: Roseland in Chicago
Attended: St. Anthony's Catholic grade school, now a charter school in Chicago; Marist High School, then an all-boys Catholic school
Graduated: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1988; University of Chicago Law School, 1995
Residence: Wicker Park with his wife, who is an attorney, and two sons, ages 6 and 3
Appointed: Chairman of Illinois State Board of Education in September 2004

TOP OF PAGE

Clone this principal
Union wants system to focus on promoting local talent
Rosalind Rossi, Chicago Sun-Times
 
Chicago needs at least 126 new public school principals by fall -- so many that the district has hired a professional headhunter to reel in superstars from across the nation.
 
Money also is in the mix, with extra cash being dangled at candidates willing to take on the toughest Chicago public school assignments.
 
The retirement of dozens of baby boomers combined with the expiration of a pension sweetener has created more CPS principal openings than at any time in at least a decade, experts say.

The march to the exits means about half of the system's roughly 600 principals soon will be relatively new to their jobs, with no more than three years' experience.
 
"What's wrong with being young?'' said Mather Principal John Butterfield, 66, who will retire two years ahead of his original plan because of a pension enhancement that could add $100,000 to his retirement years.
 
"I personally think it's good to bring that vim and vigor to the table. ''
 
Principal departures because of retirement, resignation, termination or death so far this school year have ballooned to 115 -- up 50 percent from the year before. Even more may surface by Sunday, the pension sweetener deadline.
 
Other vacancies created by new schools or promotions should bring total openings to at least 126, with 33 of them filled so far.
 
Some may consider a search for 93 principals daunting. Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan views it as a chance to bring in fresh ideas.
 
For the first time, Duncan said, CPS has hired a headhunter to lead a national talent search.
 
"Just like a great sports team recruits nationally and internationally, we want to do that here,'' said Duncan. "We want to recruit superstar principals from around the country.''
 
'He had fresh ideas'
 
The Chicago Public Education Fund is picking up the $125,000 salary of new CPS recruitment manager Melissa DeBartolo, charged with landing 10 to 15 topnotch, experienced principals from outside CPS for each of the next two years.

DeBartolo also wants to establish a pipeline for national recruits, including from two prestigious programs -- the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
 
Other new approaches include a principal job fair at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Notebaert Nature Museum; a new Web site (www. cpsleaders.com) for "one-stop-shopping'' on principal jobs; and help with relocation fees.
 
Plus, Duncan said, performance bonuses of up to $12,000 a year -- on top of Chicago's highly competitive minimum salary of $101,630 -- will be offered to insiders or outsiders willing to take on about 25 of Chicago's worst-scoring schools.
 
"The bottom line is we want the best leaders in our schls and we're willing to pay for it. And we want to put them in the neighborhoods that need them the most,'' Duncan said.
 
Clarice Berry, president of the Chicago Principals and Administrators Association, said she's "troubled'' by Duncan's insistence on outsiders. CPS already has a pool of about 500 candidates.
 
''The system is continually slapping their employees in the face with this need to go outside the system for talent,'' said Berry.
 
She noted that the local school council at the state's highest-scoring public high school -- Chicago's Northside College Prep -- combed the nation for a successor to retiring Principal James Lalley and wound up choosing former Northside curriculum chair Barry Rodgers.
 
"I think it's an added challenge and burden for somebody to come in from the outside,'' Berry said.
 
Duncan said some outsiders have been roaring successes. He pointed to Lalley, the former principal of St. Ignatius College Prep, and Principal Donald Fraynd, lured from Wisconsin to Jones College Prep, where he led the school to a federal Blue Ribbon award.
 
"The handful [of outsiders] we have are phenomenal,'' Duncan said. "I want to clone them.''
 
At Jones, Fraynd threw out home room and replaced it with "home court'' mini-courses. He set the goal for students as not just college, but the country's top 50 colleges, said Valencia Rias, a senior associate with Designs for Change and member of the LSC that selected Fraynd.
 
"He had fresh ideas,'' said Rias. "That's what we wanted.''
 
HEADING FOR THE EXITS
Vacancies created by departing Chicago public school principals,* by school year:
 
2002-'03: 34
2003-'04: 74
2004-'05: 83
2005-'06: 77
2006-'07: 115

TOP OF PAGE

Behind closed doors: Many area school districts violate Open Meetings Act
Kevin P. Craver, Northwest Herald
 
Many McHenry County school districts since 2004 repeatedly have violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act regarding closed-session meetings, according to records obtained by the Northwest Herald.
 
Some apparently discussed public matters in private. District 300’s board has invoked closed session to discuss a lack of funds to honor two dead employees, Alden-Hebron District 19’s board discussed the Miss Hebron Pageant, and Prairie Grove District 46 discussed its bonding authority and school finances.
 
For other boards, to which homeowners pay thousands of dollars a year in property taxes, it’s not so much what they are doing in closed session, but what they are not.
 
Although Districts 300 and 46 regularly review and release their closed-session minutes, knowing what goes on behind closed doors in other districts is hard to tell. According to a Northwest Herald audit of minutes from 21 area school boards between 2004 through 2006:
 
 – Almost half of the school boards have violated the law by not reviewing closed-session minutes for possible release at least twice a year, and two school boards have never done so.
 
 – The Illinois State Board of Education stopped checking for open-meeting compliance four years ago, other enforcement is lacking, and penalties are minor.
 
 – The law does not set a minimum number, but more than 40 percent of the boards released few or no closed-session minutes in three years. About one district in four has not released any.
 
 – Closed-session minutes from several boards are so vague that ensuring compliance with the law requires taking school officials at their word.
 
In short, many districts have violated the law in one way or another, some for the most part have complied, and some are anybody’s guess because either they do not release closed-session minutes or the minutes don’t reveal anything.
 
“I am far from shocked,” Illinois Press Association general counsel Don Craven said. “My experience over the years is that for public bodies, even for those bodies that work hard during open session to comply with some of the other Open Meetings Act requirements, this is a section that is often overlooked.”
 
The act is intended to promote open and honest government by limiting what public bodies can discuss in closed session to specific subjects, and requiring them to review closed-session minutes semi-annually for possible release once the need for secrecy no longer exists.
 
Many county school districts have run afoul of one or both.
 
Blanket exemptions
 
Two exemptions cited in the law allow districts to discuss certain personnel issues or pending litigation in closed session. But because practically everything in education comes back to staff, and any action or inaction can result in a lawsuit, some districts interpret exemptions broadly.
 
District 300 Superintendent Ken Arndt cited personnel to justify discussions on funds to honor dead employees and on class-size concerns. District 46 Assistant Superintendent Michael Tanner similarly defended the dozen or so items questioned by the newspaper.
 
“[The board’s] opinion, and the opinion of our legal counsel, is that the matters we brought into closed session are appropriate, and that’s our position on it,” Tanner said.
 
Craven, who disagrees with many of their conclusions, said a school board therefore could take any matter into executive session.
 
“Then what doesn’t [qualify]? Everything deals with personnel,” Craven said. “Everything, every vote a public body takes could result in litigation, because you’re either doing something or not doing something.”
 
The act states that the 26 exemptions are to be strictly interpreted. For example, a school district’s budget cannot be discussed in closed session, even though it directly relates to personnel.
 
But District 46 discussed the “finances of the new school” in closed session in February 2006. A District 300 board discussion in 2004 on parochial transportation issues included the transportation budget and fleet-replacement costs.
 
Reviewing reviews
 
Ten county school districts did not meet at least twice a year to review closed-session minutes. Nine of those districts missed two or more.
 
Fox River Grove District 3 did not review closed-session minutes until 2006. McHenry District 15 reviewed them only once in three years.
 
District 158 did not review them in 2004 and reviewed them only once in 2005. The board technically reviewed them twice in 2006, but the board deferred the December 2006 review because of time, Superintendent John Burkey said. The Special Education District of McHenry County board reviewed them once a year for two years, and did not release any minutes.
 
Two school boards – Riley District 18 and the McHenry County Regional Board of Education – never reviewed or released their closed-session minutes. Riley’s school board did so on March 21, after Superintendent Ronald Rood listened to and transcribed three years of recordings in response to the newspaper’s investigation.
 
Rood said he was sorry for the lapse but added that he had bigger issues to tackle in his year and a half of running the 340-student rural district.
 
“I knew [minutes had to be reviewed], but this district was in dire financial straits and was in danger of being taken over by the state,” Rood said. “And man, that’s where I put my work.”
 
The regional board, which oversees 18 county school districts, canceled more meetings than it held, meeting only five times since 2004, according to their records. But the board went into closed session four times since 2003 and has never reviewed the minutes for release.
 
Sound of silence
 
For almost half of the districts, knowing what subjects they pondered in closed session is another matter because they have released few or no minutes.
 
It is a gray area, because the law requires only that such minutes be reviewed, and the districts could be well-justified in withholding them, said Scott Sievers, assistant public access counselor for Attorney General Lisa Madigan. But while some districts released between 30 and 70 closed-session minutes, nearly half of the districts released only a handful.
 
Johnsburg District 12 released seven, or about two a year, and Crystal Lake District 47 released only four. But both districts obeyed the law by reviewing them semi-annually.
 
Two high school boards – Crystal Lake District 155 and Richmond-Burton District 157 – have not released any, and Marengo High School District 154 released eight. Districts 157 and 154 violated the law by not reviewing closed-session minutes at least two times a year.
 
Craven said districts were allowed, and were obligated, to release parts of closed-session meetings while continuing to hold back others, or releasing redacted minutes with sensitive topics blacked out. Otherwise, closed-session minutes with numerous subjects but with one expulsion hearing or similar sensitive topic essentially could remain closed forever.
 
Also, once closed-session minutes are reviewed and kept private, it is very unlikely that boards will revisit them. Only a few districts’ records reflected that their boards revisited older minutes. The act requires that the semi-annual review include all closed-session minutes, not just new ones.
 
Vagaries
 
Some districts released a lot of minutes with very little content.
 
Marengo-Union District 165 released 52 closed-session minutes over three years. But most are practically worthless because they boil down their discussions, many of which lasted hours, into “personnel” or “litigation.”
 
Superintendent Richard Angel defended the summaries, stating that often the matter was described in open session when the vote took place.
 
Harrison District 36 released 71, many of which also distilled long conversations into “personnel considerations.” Alden-Hebron’s 31 released minutes, which are handwritten and difficult to read, include such vagaries as “janitorial staff” and “discussed person.”
 
Although Alden-Hebron Superintendent Kurt Suhr said the descriptions were adequate, and elaborated that the district discussed safety considerations with hosting the Miss Hebron Pageant, one would not know this without asking him.
 
Craven said such minutes violated the spirit of the act, which since 1995 has required governments to summarize closed-session discussions rather than give general descriptions.
 
“The purpose of the minimum requirement is so that someone 20 years from now can know what happened at a city council or school board meeting,” Craven said. “To say we talked about ‘personnel’ doesn’t help much from a historical perspective.”
 
Perspective is what several school officials said was needed before people concluded that items were illegally being discussed in closed session. District 3 Superintendent Jacqueline Krause said many districts kept their closed-session minutes secret because there were legitimate privacy concerns.
 
“When you look at the situation through a soda straw instead of the big picture, you lose focus,” said Tanner, of District 46.
 
But Craven responded that the point of keeping closed-session records was to include the big picture so there was no question.
 
“Don’t yell at us about the quality of your own minutes,” Craven said.
 
Our investigation
 
After learning in January that District 300 apparently violated the Illinois Open Meetings Act numerous times in the second half of 2006, the Northwest Herald audited that district and 20 others for compliance.
 
The newspaper spent six weeks collecting and examining school board meeting minutes from Jan. 1, 2004, to Dec. 31, 2006. The act limits what subjects governments can discuss behind closed doors, and requires them at least twice a year to review minutes of previous closed-sessions for public release.
 
Under the Freedom of Information Act, the newspaper asked for minutes from meetings in which school boards examined closed-session minutes for public release, and copies of all minutes made public as a result. The starting year of 2004 was picked because new state ethics rules took effect regarding closed sessions.
 
Minutes from 18 school districts with all or most of their assessed value in McHenry County, as well as District 300, the McHenry County Regional Board of Education, and the Special Education District of McHenry County, were audited.
 
Some questionable closed-session discussions
 
Alden-Hebron District 19 went into closed session in 2004 to discuss a community drug problem, and in 2005 to discuss the Miss Hebron Pageant.
 
Prairie Grove District 46 went into closed session in 2004 to review its bonding power, and in 2006 to word its failed referendum.
 
Carpentersville District 300 has gone into closed session to discuss starting a district newsletter, funds to honor dead employees, and allowing the District 300 Foundation to solicit funds during registration.

TOP OF PAGE

Failed book ban fuels big-bucks board race
Suburban challengers reject incumbents' claims of 'ultra-right' plot
Kate N. Grossman, Chicago Sun-Times
 
In many Illinois towns, school board candidates are lucky to raise $500 and get their candidacy noticed by neighbors.
 
But in one northwest suburban district, three incumbents reacting to a proposed book ban by a board member have raised $40,000.
 
The books
A proposal considered by the District 214 board members last year to remove nine books from classroom use included the following:
 
Beloved by Toni Morrison

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
 
Freakonomics by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt
 
The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
 
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
 
The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan
 
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
 
Fallen Angels by Walter Dean Myers
 
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

Meanwhile, two challengers have won support from conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly and dairy magnate Jim Oberweis, a former Republican gubernatorial and U.S. Senate candidate.

The result is the most expensive race ever for District 214, a high-achieving district of six high schools that covers Arlington Heights, Mount Prospect and Wheeling. The April 17 contest pits the incumbents -- who opposed the failed book ban -- against three newcomers.
 
The incumbents have cast the race as a fight against conservative forces they claim want to control the school board.
 
"People on the ultra-right -- the radical right -- have made this a cause celebre," said Arlen Gould, campaign chairman for incumbents Bill Dussling, Alva Kreutzer and Robert Zimmanck. "They want to impose their religious beliefs in the public school arena."
 
The incumbents point to out-of-district support for two challengers -- Dennis Konczyk and Ken Frizane -- as evidence of a master plan for conservative control. The challengers, who say they met for the first time after entering the race, call Gould's charges ridiculous.
 
'I have to believe there is a plan'
"They made those accusations before they even knew my name," said Konczyk, 57, a former director of information technology for Motorola.

Konczyk says he opposes banning books or "any religious imposition" in the schools.
 
He and Frizane, a retired engineer, have joined forces, but they're not a slate. The other challenger, Jim Harbaugh, is not affiliated. He ran a district program for dropouts and opposed the book ban.
 
Oberweis headlined a fund-raiser for Frizane and Konczyk. Both were endorsed by Schlafly, though they said they didn't seek it. Konczyk has raised about $5,000; Frizane about $3,000.
 
The stage for this election was set last year when board member Leslie Pinney proposed dropping nine books from a high school required-reading list for some classes. She was defeated 6-1 in a school board vote. Schlafly noted the incumbents' opposition in her endorsement letter.
 
That flap, along with Pinney's 2005 election to the board, prompted the incumbents to organize early and set major fund-raising goals. Pinney won her school board seat after raising a record-setting $20,000, mostly from the conservative Family Taxpayers Network.
 
Frizane, 64, sidestepped questions about the ban, saying, "Teachers should choose materials that fall within guidelines set by the board." He said he has no interest in "changing the composition of the curriculum."
 
Both challengers cited better fiscal responsibility as their top priority. Frizane calls himself the "champion of the taxpayer," and Konczyk argues that the board lacks long-term financial plans. He also says the board would benefit from a greater diversity of views.
 
Dussling, the board president, isn't buying it. "We haven't had a tax referendum in 41 years, and we have 14 years of balanced operating budgets," he said. "I have to believe there is a plan."

TOP OF PAGE

Cops: School bus used for getaway
Chicago Sun-Times
 
AURORA -- A Chicago woman was in jail Friday, charged with stealing groceries in Aurora before making her getaway aboard a school bus.
 
Donna M. Reed, 40, worked as an assistant for a private school bus company, First Student, contracted to transport special-education students for West Aurora School District 129, authorities said.
 
Aurora police said Reed entered an Aldi grocery on West Galena Boulevard on Thursday and tried to steal $17 worth of food. Store employees called police after Reed left the store and boarded the waiting school bus, police said.
 
Aurora police stopped the bus a few blocks away, recovered the food and arrested Reed on a charge of felony retail theft, authorities said. There were no students on the bus, police said.
 
Police said Reed worked as an assistant on the bus. The bus driver was not involved in the theft and has not been charged, police said.
 
First Student could not be reached for comment Friday.
 
Cook County court records show Reed has six convictions for retail theft since 1997. A 1999 retail theft conviction led to a 2-year prison sentence, court records show.
 
A spokesman said the West Aurora School District conducts criminal background checks on employees and expects contractors to do the same.

TOP OF PAGE

Limit charter campuses
Multiple sites are illegal for Illinois' charter schools, which must be experimental, innovative and small
Letter by State Rep. Monique Davis (D-Chicago), Chicago Sun-Times
 
Recently the Sun-Times printed an overly critical letter regarding legislation I introduced affecting charter schools. I would like to address some of the concerns.
 
As vice chairman of the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, I have dedicated much of my career to helping make schools better. I firmly believe that education is the key to economic and social justice. That is why I am committed to ensuring that all children have access to a quality education.
 
State law limits charter schools to one campus. This is to ensure charter schools maintain their mission and remain small, experimental and innovative. It is for these reasons that many parents enroll their children in charter schools. These institutions provide special learning opportunities for students who need to be challenged in a way that our public school system does not do.
 
The results are mixed, though, and 16 charter schools remain on the academic watch list. In addition, many charter schools are deviating from their missions by adding additional campuses through a misinterpretation of the law.
 
House Bill 466 limits the number of campuses a charter school can have to the number of campuses it has as of the effective date of this bill. This measure does not close any existing schools -- it just prevents additional campuses from opening, therefore meeting state law, helping charter schools keep with their missions and preventing charter school expansion at the expense of traditional public education.
 
I am a strong proponent of charter schools. I want to make sure that charter schools continue to provide the unique educational opportunities that parents expect. If we continue to enable charter schools to expand, they will lose sight of their original purpose, drain resources from Chicago Public Schools and, in the end, damage our children's education.

TOP OF PAGE

Why limit the number of charter schools?
Commentary by Elizabeth Evans, Executive director, Illinois Network of Charter Schools
Chicago Tribune, 4/11/07
 
Chicago -- Lawmakers clearly got the message last month when charter public schools were under attack by the backers of a measure that would have stopped high-quality charter public school campuses from opening in Chicago's struggling neighborhoods. Thanks to the tireless efforts of hundreds of parents, students, teachers, principals, community groups and civic leaders, two-thirds of the Illinois House -- Democrats and Republicans -- voted against House Bill 466. Now is the time to send a message to our elected leaders to expand the role of charter public schools, by restoring vital charter public school funding and lifting the arbitrary cap on the number of charter public schools in Illinois.
 
Current state law provides unequal funding for students attending charter public schools. The Illinois State Board of Education recommended to the governor that we address this inequality this year.
 
ISBE called for the restoration of funding for start-up grants for charter public schools and transitional assistance for school districts that host them, as well as funding professional training to encourage the spread of best practices.
 
In all, ISBE recommended investing $9 million in charter public schools. While this investment represents less than one-tenth of 1 percent of the entire education budget, it is a step in the right direction.
 
With more than 10,000 kids on waiting lists to attend a charter public school, we also need to lift the arbitrary cap on the number of charter public schools allowed in Illinois, currently set at 60. Today less than 1 percent of Illinois public school kids are allowed to attend charter public schools.
 
To spread innovation throughout the entire public school system, we need to gradually increase the number of charter public schools available to communities and families like those currently on waiting lists.
 
Charter public schools have established a strong track record over the last decade. Chicago's charter public schools have all outperformed neighboring traditional schools on graduation rates, attendance rates and standardized tests of reading, writing and math. In addition a recent independent study found that charter public schools boast higher college attendance rates on average than their traditional school neighbors.
 
Why not have more of these schools?

TOP OF PAGE

Mandatory recess? Kids: Yea! Schools: Boo!
Lawmakers considering requiring two 10-minute periods of recess
By Amber Ellis, Daily Herald Staff Writer, 4/10/07
 
SPRINGFIELD - Recess may become a mandatory part of every child's school day under a plan that has students cheering but some administrators wondering where they'd fit extra breaks into their already jam-packed curricula.

The proposed state law would require schools to set aside two 10-minute breaks daily for students until they reach eighth grade. Illinois lawmakers are expected to decide on the extra playtime in the coming weeks.

Opponents argue this same type of activity takes place in the physical education courses each Illinois school must have. Supporters say recess allows children to make their own rules and develop social and even cognitive skills they might not get in a classroom setting.

"There's a big difference between gym and recess," said state Rep. Mary Flowers, a Chicago Democrat who sponsored the measure. "Recess is where children interact with each other. Gym is a class. I don't want anybody to confuse the two."

A quick glance at suburban school districts shows most younger children take recess breaks, but they are phased out as they reach seventh and eighth grades.
 
Local school administrators say they don't know how teachers would find time for the two state-mandated recess breaks with mounting pressures to advance students and meet testing requirements.

"To take any time away, we can't afford that. We really can't - not with all the mandates the state's putting on us," said Sandra Thornhill, associate superintendent at Cary Elementary District 26, where seventh- and eighth-graders are excluded from recess, too. "Our instructional time is so short. To take away another 20 minutes would be difficult - almost impossible - with the time we have now."

Eleven-year-old Xavier Torres offers a contrasting view.

"I want to be a good student and I want to get good grades, but sometimes not having a break during school gets to me," said Torres, a sixth-grade student at Chicago's Von Humboldt School who recently testified before lawmakers. "Can you imagine being in the same classroom all day without taking a break or getting a chance to talk to your friends?"

Most Chicago schools haven't had recess in nearly three decades. The district shortened school days, and most schools moved away from the breaks after concerns about security, truancy and discipline problems arose. Estimates show not much has changed since: 1 in 5 city schools allow playtime for children, Flowers said.

As proposed, Flowers' legislation would impose the recess requirement statewide. But Flowers, who also wants mandatory hand-washing breaks during school, said political opposition might force her to narrow her plan only to Chicago schools.
 
TOP OF PAGE

Law doesn't always have to come into play
Chicago Sun-Times Editorial, 4/11/07
 
Is it a good idea to set aside time in each school day for recess? Maybe it is, but we'd rather that decision be made by local school officials and not mandated by lawmakers in Springfield.

Rep. Mary Flowers (D-Chicago) has introduced a measure to require all Illinois schools to have two 10-minute recess periods each day for children until they finish eighth grade. That extra playtime would be in addition to the physical education courses that schools already are required to offer. There's nothing wrong with recess, of course. It serves a purpose even if it simply helps kids blow off steam so they are less fidgety in the classroom. There's also some value to letting kids interact with each other in a unstructured environment.
 
But as another lawmaker said about Flowers' idea to mandate handwashing by Chicago school kids before meals, not every good idea needs to be a law. We trust school superintendents and principals can decide for themselves whether their students should have recess. For instance, it might be hard for some to jam an extra 20 minutes of playtime into a schedule that is already crowded with state mandates. Others might have legitimate insurance or safety reasons for forgoing recess. Let's leave the decision about extra playtime to the people who know best.

TOP OF PAGE

Taxing topic
Southland Chamber of Commerce meets about legislative proposal that would provide property tax relief, fund public education
Bob Rakow, Daily Southtown
 
Significant property tax relief and a more equitable way of funding public education are the major components of a legislative proposal outlined Monday for a group of business and civic leaders.
 
Ralph Martire, executive director of the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability, explained the details of the plan at the monthly meeting of the Southland Chamber of Commerce in Tinley Park.
 
"The proposal is alive and well in the Illinois House," Martire said of the proposed legislation, which recently was approved by the House Elementary and Secondary Education Committee.
 
"Every (school) district in the state, every region in the state wins," he said.
 
The proposal calls for an increase in the individual state income tax from 3 percent to 5 percent and a hike in the corporate income tax from 4.8 percent to 8 percent. Additionally, the sales tax would be expanded to include consumer services.
 
The business community should favor the proposal as it would decrease direct taxation of businesses by nearly $400 million a year, Martire said.
 
As a result, Illinois taxpayers would realize $2.7 billion in property tax relief, and the state would assume 51 percent of the cost of public education, Martire said.
 
"It takes a significant burden off local property taxes," he said. "It's a very progressive way of reducing property taxes."
 
The proposal calls for middle- and low-income families to receive a refundable family tax credit. The credit effectively ensures that the bottom 60 percent of income earners in the state would not pay any additional taxes.
 
Gov. Rod Blagojevich opposes any increase in the state income tax, but Martire said the state needs new revenue streams to improve public education.
 
"Education matters more than ever," he said, adding that a high school education is not sufficient to land a job with wages that keep pace with inflation. "You have to do something post-high school."
 
The problem is, too many high school graduates are not prepared for post-secondary education because the lack the skills needed in trade schools, community college or four-year institutions, Martire said.
 
"The state ought to bear the brunt of coming up with revenue" to fund education, he said.

TOP OF PAGE

Union boss 'disgusted' by teacher-data breach
She calls for Schools CEO's firing after laptops stolen
Rosalind Rossi, Chicago Sun-Times
 
A "disgusted'' Chicago Teachers Union president charged Monday that Schools CEO Arne Duncan should be fired if he can't "guarantee'' that teacher privacy will not be compromised again following a massive Social Security breach.
 
CTU President Marilyn Stewart said she called Mayor Daley to complain that the recent theft of two laptops from Chicago public school headquarters marked the third time in less than six months that teacher privacy was threatened.
 
"We're in a baseball town. Three strikes and you're out,'' Stewart said at a news conference Monday.
 
"If Arne Duncan cannot guarantee our protection and privacy, he should not have that job.''
 
Stewart said she was "furious . . . outraged . . . disgusted'' that a thief snuck into a 13th-floor CPS office Friday and walked out with a backpack holding two laptops.
 
The laptops belonged to auditors from McGladrey & Pullen and contained Social Security numbers of 40,000 CPS teachers, principals and assistant principals who paid into the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund between 2003 and 2006.
 
CPS has released a photo of a suspect and offered a $10,000 reward.
 
Last November, Stewart said, the Social Security numbers of 1,700 former CPS employees were accidentally shared in the mail. In January, W2 forms containing Social Security numbers were mailed to the wrong schools, although CPS officials said school clerks forwarded the W2s to headquarters so no privacy was compromised.
 
Friday's breach was the largest of the three, Stewart said, indicating "they are not learning from their mistakes.''
 
She insisted steps could be taken to "guarantee'' identity security, including hiring services that allow computer owners to pinpoint the location of stolen laptops and remotely remove data from them.
 
School Board President Rufus Williams said CPS will be re-evaluating its building security and hiring a firm to pinpoint weaknesses in the security of its current data systems.

TOP OF PAGE

Daley, mayors unveil education finance plan
Fran Spielman, Chicago Sun-Times
 
For 18 years under four governors, Mayor Daley has been lobbying to shift the burden of education funding away from local property owners and toward increased sales and income taxes.

The idea for revolutionary change has gone nowhere in Springfield and Daley thinks he knows why: There were no strings attached.
 
Today, a Daley-formed coalition of 272 mayors unveiled a 10-point plan designed by the Civic Federation to guarantee that any new money earmarked for education will be well-spent on programs that impact classroom learning.
 
Every school board member in Illinois would be required to undergo at least six hours of training on financial oversight. School districts would develop long-term financial plans that include multiyear forecasts of revenue, spending and debt. Long-term capital improvement plans would also be required.
 
User-friendly budgets would be posted on the internet. Performance measures would be developed and publicly reported for support services.
 
The State Board of Education would a separate office to police the reforms and impose sanctions against non-complying school administrators. Ultimately the state board could withhold funding from school districts that thumb their noses at the reforms and could remove recalcitrant administrators.
 
At a news conference at the Hampton Fine and Performing Arts School, 3434 W. 77th, Elgin Mayor Ed Schock called the accountability measures a vital first step toward elusive education funding reform.
 
"Forty years of history and experience tells us that, when it's money alone, it hasn't succeeded...So we said, 'Before we talk about money, let's talk about how we're going to be good stewards of the money we're asking people to give us," Schock said.
 
"We've learned. We've read the history...We had a Democratic candidate for governor propose a different mechanism for funding. We had a Republican sitting governor propose a different mechanism for funding. They all failed because there wasn't the level of support and belief that more money would find its way to the places it should."
 
Daley said the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus would meet next week to get behind a specific funding plan. Instead of choosing between the gross receipts tax proposed by Gov. Blagojevich, the state income tax increase championed by State Sen. James Meeks (D-Chicago) and competing proposals to expand casino gambling, "It's going to be a combination of things," Daley said.
 
"Everybody believes they're right. Everybody's very emotional, very passionate about this issue. There has to be a compromise. We know that," he said.
 
"Democrats have the House, the Senate and every elected office in state government. This is the opportunity. This is the year we can do it. We should be able to show the public that we can govern. We can disagree and, at the same time, we can compromise."

TOP OF PAGE

No playground politics for this teen
High school senior turns class project into candidacy for school board in Evanston
Deborah Horan, Chicago Tribune
 
His resume is thin, though maybe no thinner than those of other high school seniors: two years as a camp counselor; a few months behind the cash register at Hecky's World Famous Barbeque. But what Jacob Novar lacks in experience, he makes up for in understated enthusiasm.
 
Make no mistake. Novar is excited about his candidacy for Evanston's District 202 School Board, ripped jeans and deadpan delivery aside. He knows the facts and figures about Evanston Township High School, from which he will graduate this spring, as well as any of his six rivals for the three open seats on the board in Tuesday's election, he said. Even the part about the budget.
 
And he has one edge over his opponents: "I go to the school," Novar said. "I hear what the students say. I think I can be the bridge between the school board and the students."
 
An aspiring political science major, Novar joined the race in December to complete his thesis in his senior studies class. Every student in the class must pick a topic of real-world research and write a paper with a 20-source annotated bibliography about the experience. One student is directing a play. Another is volunteering with the Fire Department. Novar, who's interested in politics as a possible career, initially considered volunteering for a school board candidate, said his teacher, David Allen. His boss, Hecky Powell, suggested running for a seat on the board instead.
 
"He said if you're really interested in school policy, you should try out for the school board," Novar said. Novar researched the requirements and discovered that as an 18-year-old resident of Evanston for at least one year, he could indeed run for the board. He collected 55 signatures from students, teachers, and security guards -- 5 more than required -- and got his name on the ballot.
 
He began studying the issues: the glaring gap between test scores of white and minority students; the budget shortfalls; the gang problems in the school parking lot. Then he spent $15 for 150 fliers.
 
"I have zero budget," he said. "I did get a check for $100 from a supporter, but I haven't cashed it."
 
Instead of the usual yard signs and mass mailings, Novar has turned to the campaign tool of his generation: the Internet. He has a profile on Facebook, where he summarizes why he's running. And he maintains a blog on evanstonnow.com, where he tells voters that Evanston needs a school board that "understands tradition" but is willing to "look into the future."
 
"This is where I come in," he writes. "I represent the future of Evanston. I hope to give the young adults a voice, and knowledge of what the school board is all about."
 
Actually, a student representative already sits on the board, but that person does not have voting rights.
 
Hecky Powell, who served one term on Evanston's District 65 School Board, said he encouraged Novar to run after listening to the teen complain about the many problems facing his high school and the need to mobilize young adults to vote.
 
"He's an articulate young man," Powell said. "I really feel we're going to be seeing a lot of Jacob. He can become a state senator or representative in 10 years. He has a passion for politics. He's smart, extremely smart.
 
"I'll tell you one thing -- he's putting issues out there. All the problems -- why kids are not achieving, gang problems. He can bring a different perspective."
 
Allen, Novar's senior studies teacher, said he encouraged Novar to run once it became clear he had someone to show him the ropes. But the teacher also drove the point home that what started as a project could have long-term consequences.
 
"That was another concern: If he won the election he would have to serve," Allen said. "But he made that decision."
 
Novar said he has applied to three colleges in the Washington, D.C., area -- George Washington, George Mason and American University. But if he wins the election, he'll attend Northeastern Illinois in Chicago, where he said he already has been accepted.
 
Novar said he has received a mixed response from students. "A lot of them were like, 'What are you doing?'
" Novar said."

'Isn't that time-consuming? That stuff is so stupid. Why do you want to sit there with all those adults?'
 
"I want to give the students a voice on the school board," he answers. "The students think the school board is intimidating. With a student sitting on it, it won't be so bad."

TOP OF PAGE

Tie school funding to accountability
Chicago Sun-Times Commentary, 4/12/07
 
This could be, this should be, the year that Illinois' chronic problem with underfunding its schools is addressed. Gov. Blagojevich has put a flawed but bold proposal on the table to boost funding for schools using part of a new tax on business called the gross receipts tax. His plan also would provide some relief for property taxpayers, which is a major component of a competing proposal to boost school funding with an income tax increase. It's way too early to predict which method, if any, will prevail, but it seems clear the will of the Legislature is to give schools and property taxpayers some aid this year, with the details yet to be ironed out.
 
Against that backdrop, a coalition of area mayors unveiled a plan Tuesday that should create more momentum for increased state aid. The common-sense proposal from the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus -- which represents Mayor Daley and the heads of 271 other Chicago area communities -- would tie any boost in state funding to more accountability by local school districts. The idea is that Illinoisans would be more likely to support more money for schools if they knew the money wouldn't be wasted.
 
The caucus' accountability proposal, developed by the Civic Federation, a tax watchdog group, includes requiring each local school district to prepare budgets that are easy to read and easy to access; to adopt stronger internal controls and written financial policies; to develop long-term financial plans and to put school board members through at least six hours of training on financial oversight. A new office would be created at the State Board of Education to monitor progress and enforce compliance. "We're basically asking school districts to adopt good business practices," Daley said.
 
The caucus will meet next week to decide which of the various school funding plans it will support, although Daley said he believes it will back some combination of ideas. The accountability proposal will be offered as an amendment to whichever plan wins the group's backing to ensure that the reforms go hand-in-hand with extra money.
 
Getting more money for schools remains a monumentally difficult task because it will almost certainly require a tax increase. That's true even though state government is dominated by Democrats. But the mayors are right to think that adding some strings will make the job easier.
 
Lawmakers will probably jump at the chance to beef up the accountability of school districts -- in fact, they're likely to add a few ideas of their own. It's a concept that has merit even if the schools don't get a boost in state aid.

TOP OF PAGE

Education chief hears concerns about NCLB
Holly Wagner, Quincy Herald-Whig
 
Quincy and Pikeland school administrators got the chance Wednesday to discuss the challenges they face under the No Child Left Behind act with Interim State School Superintendent Christopher Koch.
 
Regional Superintendent of Schools Ray Scheiter, who invited Koch to Quincy, said the roundtable-style discussion went well.
 
"They got some good ideas ... and good responses to their questions," Scheiter said, adding that the goal of the meeting was to discuss what was working in the schools, what was not and to develop an action plan to address needs.
 
Both the Pikeland School District and Quincy High School have missed making adequate yearly progress under NCLB for four consecutive years for their special education students. The regional office is involved in helping both districts make improvements.
 
Pikeland Superintendent Paula Hawley said the meeting gave her district a chance to share their concerns.
 
"As a result, we have some other resources that we can tap into now," she said. Pikeland has shown progress in every other area but continues to struggle with what Hawley called "an inappropriate test" for its special ed students.
 
Koch admitted a testing disparity exists for some and said the Pikeland district is not alone.
 
"Making adequate yearly progress for subgroups, particularly kids with disabilities ... is a struggle (for districts across the state)," Koch said.
 
Koch, who has experience teaching in special education, said he would like to see adequate yearly progress measured by evidence of improvement rather than annual tests. The growth model is being piloted in several states but hasn't received full support by the federal government, he said.
 
NCLB is up for reauthorization this year, and Koch believes the growth model of assessment will be emphasized as the law is reconsidered. He said he also expects to see changes in how sanctions are applied to schools that don't meet the yearly progress goals.
 
Schools that miss AYP for four years now are considered in federal corrective action status. In addition to creating school improvement plans that are to be monitored at the state level, Title 1 schools are required to offer school choice and supplemental educational services.
 
"I think a lot of parents thought there'd be more opportunities for their kids to have choices of which schools they'd go to if their school wasn't making adequate yearly progress," Koch said.
 
"In the end, it's incumbent on district-to-district agreements and whether or not that can actually be an option."
 
Schools that continue to miss AYP face restructuring.
 
"Good teaching and learning comes down to having good leaders and good teachers in the schools," Koch said. "We have to be really thoughtful of all the things that go into those sanctions... We have to ... make sure the law is being implemented and we're not shooting ourselves in the foot in the process."
 
Sally Weber, director of the Regional Service Provider in Peoria, also attended the meeting. She said her office has more than $1 million available for professional development opportunities for staff at the region's struggling schools.
 
"We have had, over the past three years, schools get off the list," Weber said. "They have shown progress."
 
Koch said the law has made positive differences, citing the fact that Illinois would not otherwise have implemented a system that tracks individual data for students over time.
 
"For a number of subgroups, it's helped us really to reflect on teaching and learning," he said.
 
Koch, a Mount Sterling native, is among three finalists for the state superintendent's post.
 
A decision may come as soon as next week.

TOP OF PAGE

Scoring method on ISAT faulted
Big gains could have been inflated, state adviser says
Diane Rado, Chicago Tribune, 4/13/07
 
One of the state's own testing advisers is questioning dramatic gains on 2006 state achievement exams, saying a scoring technique could have inflated results.
 
John Wick, a professor emeritus at Northwestern University who serves on Illinois' State Testing Review Committee, stopped short of accusing the state of deliberately manipulating data.
 
But he said the grading method "opens the door for scores to be quietly manipulated" and should be stopped, according to an unsolicited review he conducted of the Illinois Standards Achievement Test given to 3rd through 8th graders last spring. His results were based on several hundred scores from a handful of districts.
 
Wick has performed an audit of prior test results commissioned by the Illinois State Board of Education.
 
Officials at the state board had not had time to review Wick's entire report Thursday, but they generally disputed his findings.
 
"We believe that Dr. Wick is not portraying this accurately," said Becky McCabe, who oversees testing at the state board. She noted that the scoring method has been used in the past.
 
Results of the 2006 test already have come under scrutiny. Overall, students passed 77 percent of the exams, compared with 69 percent the year before.
 
Critics questioned the validity of those gains, noting that the state revamped the ISAT tests and lowered the score needed to pass the 8th-grade math test.
 
Wick reviewed the method used to score the test, rather than the content of the exam.
 
At issue is the practice of "weighting" -- giving more or less points to certain items on a test. For example, if a test includes 10 questions, some of those would count more than others.
 
Wick said he wasn't aware until recently that the state was weighting test questions in which children had to explain their answers. Response questions often are considered tougher than multiple-choice questions. So response questions on the state's math test, for example, counted less toward the final score than multiple-choice items in 2006.
 
Wick said the process should be simple: Take the exact number of questions answered correctly, or the raw score, and convert that to a commonly used scale score. For example, on the ISAT, a 3rd grader would need a scale score of 184 to pass the math test.

Instead, the state combined raw scores on multiple-choice items with "weighted" scores on response items to determine a final test score. That is confusing to parents who don't know about the scoring method, Wick said.
 
He found five 8th-grade students who got the same raw scores on the math test. But because of the weighting method, two of those students got different final scores. Four of them got scores that "met standards" on the test, but the fifth "exceeded" standards, which is supposed to reflect a higher achievement level.
 
Wick said officials could manipulate overall test scores by decreasing or increasing the number of extended-response items, making the items more or less difficult, or more liberally scoring those items. With the weighting added to the picture, students could show no real change in performance, but scores could artificially increase, he said.
 
Wick said he isn't accusing the state board of acting unethically.
 
"I reject the idea that someone or some organization purposely and willfully set about to manipulate the extended-response data to cause the apparent higher performance" in 2006, Wick wrote in his review.
 
But artificially higher scores could have happened by accident. "The issue is not whether or not someone did something wrong; the issue is that this loophole opens the door to considerable mischief."
 
The state says it weights certain items to maintain a balance between multiple choice and long-answer questions that contribute toward a pupil's final test score.
 
State testing officials said weighting has been used for several years. "It's certainly not a hidden fact," McCabe said.
 
But score reports sent home to parents do not indicate that any weighting takes place.

TOP OF PAGE

School funding and accountability
Daily Herald Editorial, 4/13/07
 
In the state legislature, there’s much talk about putting more money — a lot more money — into Illinois’ public schools.
 
Gov. Rod Blagojevich has his own plan to increase school funding; others are backing House Bill 750, which takes a different approach.
 
Whether the schools need more money — and, if they do, how much they need — is a debate that will play out across the state during the next few weeks. Certainly, persistent funding inequities from district to district persist and need to be addressed; whether any large infusion of new money is needed throughout the state is another question.
 
If, however, legislators ultimately decide to pump millions more into public schools, then they should do so only with safeguards in place that the money will be well spent — in ways that genuinely make a difference in the quality of education.
 
Some advocates of increased funding seem to view as irrefutable the premise that more money necessarily translates into higher quality education and better academic results. Certainly, there are many ways in which additional money might make a difference, but the correlation between spending and student achievement is by no means automatic.
 
This week, the Metropolitan Mayors Caucus issued a report, generated on its behalf by the Civic Federation, that lays out 10 recommendations to ensure fiscal accountability on the part of school districts.
 
Among the recommended requirements:
 
•That districts prepare and post on their Web sites user-friendly budget summaries.
 
•That districts implement long-term financial plans that feature forecasts of revenues, expenditures and debts for several years.
 
•That school board members complete at least six hours of training on their financial responsibilities.
 
•That internal and external auditing functions and requirements be strengthened.
 
These 10 recommendations may not represent the precise approach to accountability that legislators should adopt if they vote more money for the schools. But the recommendations are fundamentally sound and a good starting point for legislative debate. Some package similar to this surely would help ensure that school finances are as transparent to the public as possible.
 
Elgin Mayor Ed Schock offered this explanation for why an accountability package matters: “People have been working on funding reform for 40 years unsuccessfully. Why? Because the public is not satisfied that additional money would be spent in ways that would improve the system.”
 
That’s not the only reason. Conflicting interests among city, suburban and downstate lawmakers have also played a role in blocking school finance reform. But the assessment from Schock, a retired teacher and administrator, rings largely true. If increased school funding is to be on this spring’s legislative agenda, accountability needs to have a spot on the same line.

TOP OF PAGE
 
Have we not surpassed 'Dick and Jane'?
Opinion by David McGrath, Daily Southtown
 
I have nothing against nostalgia. A baby boomer myself, I enjoy listening to oldies stations, and I’m a sucker for exhibits of 1960’s era muscle cars.
 
But when I read that Penguin Putnam Children's Books had reprinted and distributed the “Fun with Dick and Jane” series of primary grade readers, I became nervous; and when I learned that the reissue was a mega success, with over 8 million copies sold in the last four years, I thought, what’s next? Will we soon start re-manufacturing and distributing DDT?
 
DDT, of course, was the hugely effective pesticide, dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, used for killing mosquitoes and other insects, but later was determined to have been wiping out entire bird populations, a discovery which led to its ban in the U.S. in 1972. In other words, DDT did far more harm than good.
 
“Dick and Jane” was a series of readers used in primary grades over four decades, including the early 1960’s. By that time, experts like Rudolph Flesch, author of “Why Johnny Can’t Read?”, had determined that the “Dick and Jane” simpleton stories, and its “whole word” method of teaching reading, did more harm than good to students. Like DDT, it eventually disappeared from American schools.
 
At age 6, was I an exception, or did my classmates around the country experience the same boredom and rage which I did, as these words were drilled daily into our brains:
 
“Come, Dick. Come and see. Come, come. Come and see. Come and see Spot.”
 
The above verbatim excerpt from an early grade “Dick and Jane” reader exemplifies the theory of publisher Scott Foresman & Co. (the original textbook division owned by Putnam), that children learned best by seeing, saying and repeating the same word, beneath a colored illustration.
 
But reading diagnosticians like Flesch objected that Scott Foresman emphasized sight reading, while neglecting phonics and skills in analysis and thinking.
 
Educational psychologists warned that the “come, come” repetitiveness was not a learning style suited for all pupils, especially not for those children with learning disabilities. The symmetrical phrasing may have even caused dyslexia in some children.
 
Academics and psychologists bemoaned the unnatural, robotic dialogue and nonstory lines, which failed to inspire students to want to read more, and which retarded learning with its insipid context.
 
Social scientists condemned the classicist subtext of stories revolving around a white, affluent family in American suburbia, providing zero context or relevance for whole other segments of society.
 
While DDT weakened the shells of birds’ eggs, precluding propagation, “Dick and Jane” weakened the infrastructure of America’s education system, leading to low test scores, poor scholastic performance and all the familiar social problems associated with impaired literacy.
 
Robert Sweet, president of the Right to Read Foundation, wrote in 1996 that whole language reading instruction inspired by “Dick and Jane,” and still employed in some school districts, “causes frustration, poor spelling and a hostility toward reading. Very bright children who can't memorize long lists of words and retain their meaning are placed in special education, when all they need is (some phonics) to be taught the 26 letters of the alphabet, the 44 sounds they make, and the 70 common ways to spell those sounds. Some researchers believe dyslexia and the symptoms of Attention Deficit Disorder are actually caused by this reversal of the normal learning sequence.”
 
We cannot, of course, pin the blame solely on “Dick and Jane” for the fact that the U.S. shares a distinction with Haiti for being one of 7 nations of the western hemisphere’s 39 that has a literacy rate of less than 80 percent. But “Dick and Jane” did help entrench the “look and say” instructional approach, which some plodding American education districts have yet to entirely discard.
 
Eight million copies of “Dick and Jane”? My hope is that they’ve been purchased by baby boomers for old time’s sake, or, perhaps, as gag gifts for 60th birthday parties. But my fear is that their popular surge could influence unwitting school boards, eager to please their constituency with a “back to basics” decision that would be a grave mistake.
 
As more boomers retire, with the time and money to indulge their nostalgic yearnings, who knows what other artifacts might enjoy a renaissance: Three wheeler ATVs? Cans with removable pop tops? The combustible Chevy Corvair?
 
In the meantime, although I’ve always been firmly against any form of book burning, I might make an exception if “Dick and Jane” find their way back into our schools.
 
TOP OF PAGE

===========================================================================

NATIONAL

Real schools, virtual classes
Students in Wisconsin and nationwide are enrolling in cyber programs to bolster or replace a brick-and-mortar education. Many say they like the freedom, but some educators worry about quality and social development.
Robert Gutsche Jr, Special to the Chicago Tribune, 4/8/07
 
MILWAUKEE -- When Brandon Everts goes on the computer, he's often suited up -- virtually anyway -- as a sci-fi sharpshooter, ready to destroy aliens in the Halo video game.
 
But increasingly, 12-year-old Brandon and thousands of other children nationwide are going online as students, ready to tackle English assignments and math problems.
 
"It's a really good learning experience," Brandon, who lives in Milwaukee, said. "You get to set your own school times, and you don't have to stick to any strict schedule. You can do it at your own pace."
 
Nationally, virtual classrooms -- cyber schools based on the Internet and run by public and private schools -- are beginning to augment traditional middle and high schools.
 
National education groups estimate at least 25 states, including Illinois, have virtual schools and an additional 13 have other e-learning initiatives, including online testing.
 
Enrollment on the rise
 
Enrollment in online schools and courses has grown from roughly 50,000 students in 2000 to about 1 million students last year, according to the North American Council for Online Learning, a cyber school advocacy group based in Virginia.
 
And the numbers are expected to keep rising.
 
"It is all happening as a way to fill gaps for states or schools," said Susan Patrick, CEO and president of the online learning council.
 
Parents and students concerned about school violence, tired of crowded classrooms and frustrated with teachers they believe aren't qualified are among those turning to alternative education methods in record numbers.
 
"It is so easy," said Brandon's mother, Toni Everts-Lyon, who previously had been home-schooling her son. "You would never get this kind of response or attention from teachers in school. And a lot of the time, if you missed an answer, the teachers would just move on with the rest of the class and you would never know what the right answer was."
 
Not everyone, however, is excited about the future of educating students virtually.
 
Tony Evers, deputy state superintendent of Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction, said he sees value in the 13 virtual charter schools in Wisconsin, but warns against families using them as replacements for brick-and-mortar schools where students have daily contact with teachers and other students.
 
"It's good for school districts to provide alternative learning for students whether it is virtual or not," he said, "but we also from the state level have issues relevant to quality control."
 
In Brandon's case, he said he became tired of what he considered a limited curriculum and left a traditional school in the 4th grade. Though he had been home-schooled along with his siblings, at some point he wanted something different.
 
A television commercial for the Monroe Virtual High School based in Monroe, Wis., prompted his mother to call for information, and they signed up for the newly offered middle school classes last fall.
 
Brandon is learning Japanese, and his English class allows him to alter or even create his own curriculum. Math lessons come from books the school has sent him. After each lesson, his mother inputs the answers online and immediately gets his grade.
 
The Monroe virtual program, which is part of the Monroe Public Schools system, is housed in servers and a small office in a small town in south-central Wisconsin. Five teachers and a guidance counselor work with students.
 
"I like having this option for kids," said Dan Bauer, who is principal of Monroe's virtual high and middle schools.
 
"A lot of kids don't have many other options when they are busy or want a different experience in school," he said. "When I was a kid, if I didn't like high school where I was at, what was I going to do?"
 
Monroe became the first in Wisconsin to offer a high school diploma completely online in 2002.
 
Now, Monroe Virtual High School has 350 students and 33 graduates, including a 56-year-old grandmother who returned to school later in life.
 
By next year, Bauer hopes to have as many as 500 students enrolled online.
 
Bauer said the virtual school program has students from all over the country. Those in Wisconsin can enroll once a year. For them, other than a $25 fee during enrollment, it is free. Out-of-state students pay tuition that, depending on the classes, ranges from $50 to $300.
 
As technology improves, more schools could offer video-game-quality lessons, where students could climb a mountain as a digital character while learning about geography and plants or help build the Pyramids to learn history and social justice, Bauer predicts.
 
Evers, the state school official, notes, however, that interest in these schools might be restricted.
 
"The interest is there, but I think there is a limited number of parents who want their kinds in a virtual environment all day every day," Evers said, though data have shown that many home-schooled students have turned to virtual classrooms in Wisconsin.
 
Despite his concerns, Evers said, most districts in Wisconsin soon will have some classes offered online.
 
Less tension, more options
 
That's good news for Randy Huolihan, 17, of Milwaukee, who said he left a traditional high school for the Monroe virtual school because of violence, racial tensions and crowded classrooms.
 
Huolihan, who is to graduate in spring 2008, said he wanted to be able to choose from the hundreds of optional classes he could take from the online school, such as guitar and creative writing, when he learned he couldn't take those classes in high school.
 
"I am really enjoying it because it is at your own pace," he added. "If I am having a bad day, I don't have to do it."
 
Socialization issues, however, remain a worry for those in online schools.
 
"We do have concerns ... about the issue of younger children participating full time on virtual programs and what that means for their social development," Evers said.
 
Both Brandon and Huolihan said for now interaction with others in class wasn't as important as being able to work on their own schedule, and the online council's Patrick said cyber schools don't stop students from interacting with others.
 
She added that "while that kind of social interaction may be lacking online, a lot of the reasons they leave high school is because they lack those types of interactions in real schools too."
 
Brandon, meanwhile, said he is prepared to spend a few more years in a virtual program.
 
But will online schools make up the rest of his education? "I think it is fun, but no, I don't think so," he said. "I think I will go to high school. I do miss some of my friends."

TOP OF PAGE

States rejecting federal sex-ed grants
P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times
 
In an emerging revolt against abstinence-only sex education, states are turning down millions of dollars in federal grants, unwilling to accept White House dictates that the money be used for classes focused almost exclusively on teaching chastity.
 
In Ohio, Gov. Ted Strickland said that regardless of the state's sluggish economic picture, he simply did not see the point in continuing to take part in the controversial State Abstinence Education Grant program, which is managed by a unit of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
 
Five other states — Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Montana and New Jersey — either have dropped out of the program or plan to do so by the end of the year.
 
Strickland, like most of the other governors who are pulling the plug on the funding, said in pulling out of the program last month that it had too many restrictions and rules to be practical. Among other things, the money cannot be used to promote condom or contraceptive use, and requires teachers to emphasize ideas such as that bearing children outside of wedlock is harmful to society and "likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects."
 
And, according to the governor's spokesman, Keith Dailey, Strickland sees little evidence that the program has been effective.
 
"We've spent millions of dollars on such education since Ohio first started getting grant money in 1998," Dailey said. "If the state is going to spend money on teaching and protecting kids, the governor believes it's better to spend it in a smarter, more comprehensive approach."
 
That states are walking away from such funding alarms abstinence-only groups, who insist that cutting off this source of revenue will close dozens of nonprofit sex-education groups — and undermine the progress they have made to fight teen pregnancy and curtail the spread of sexually transmitted diseases.
 
States have used the money to help public and private schools start and run educational programs, to develop classroom instruction for nonprofit groups, and to pay for advertising and other media campaigns.
 
"There are kids who don't want to know how to put on a condom because they don't want to have sex," said Leslee Unruh, president and chief executive of the South Dakota-based National Abstinence Clearinghouse, the nation's largest network of abstinence educators. "So why can't kids who want to abstain have equal time, funding and education in the classroom as kids who are having sex?"
 
To critics, the policy shift addresses growing concerns that sexually active youth are not getting access to medically accurate information about use of contraceptives and disease prevention.
 
In an Oct. 3 report that surveyed abstinence programs in 10 states, the Government Accountability Office concluded that such programs have not worked, and at times offer medically inaccurate information about condoms and AIDS.
 
The report found that in one instance, materials used in the class "incorrectly suggested that HIV can pass through condoms because the latex used in condoms is porous." In another program, kids were wrongly taught that "when a person is infected with the human papilloma virus, the virus is 'present for life.' "
 
"Just saying no is not working," said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, which advocates comprehensive sex education, including contraceptive information. "These are efforts by the federal government to fund ideological programs, not health-care or medical programs."
 
White House support for the so-called Title V grant remains strong.
 
In a federal budget that is tight for nearly everything but entitlements, homeland security and funding for the military effort in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has asked Congress to carve out $191 million for the program in fiscal 2008, an increase of $28 million over current funding.
 
The push for the program comes amid a steady decline in teen pregnancies in the U.S.: Between 1995 and 2002, teen-pregnancy rates dropped by 24 percent, according to study conducted by Columbia University and the Guttmacher Institute. The report, published in the January issue of the American Journal of Public Health, found that 14 percent of the decline was a result of teens waiting longer to have sex, while 86 percent was due to use of contraception.

TOP OF PAGE

No assignments. No tests.
No grades. No problem.
School lets students decide when, what they want to learn
Linda Shaw, The Seattle Times
 
BOTHELL, Wash. -- The music room sits empty on a recent gray morning at Clearwater School in Bothell. Four girls play cards in the "play" room nearby, and a half-dozen teenagers hang out in the "quiet" room across the way.
 
The crowd is in the computer room, where 20 students — about a third of this small, private school — are engrossed in strategy and shoot-'em-up video games.
 
That makes some of their parents uncomfortable, but it shows Clearwater is serious about giving students freedom to choose how to spend their time.
 
Just as children learn to talk without formal instruction, Clearwater students learn to read and write and solve math problems the same way. There are no tests at Clearwater. No assignments. No classes unless students organize them.
 
The school's campus is just a short way off busy Bothell-Everett Highway with its mini marts and office parks, but educationally speaking, Clearwater is about as far from the mainstream as one can get.
 
At a time when the federal and state governments say the nation's future depends on improving schools with high standards and tests, Clearwater students don't have to study anything they don't want to, and if they choose to shoot cyberspace bad guys all day, that's just fine.
 
Clearwater is one of about 30 schools that follow the philosophy of the Sudbury Valley School in Massachusetts. Such schools are sometimes called "free" and "democratic" schools, where students are responsible for their own learning and have a significant role in governing the school.
 
They also have many parallels with "unschooling," a movement embraced by some homeschooling families who don't follow a set curriculum.
 
There used to be thousands of "free" schools back in the 1960s and 1970s, according to Jerry Mintz of the Alternative Education Resource Organization. The number has waned since, although Mintz says many of their ideas are used in public alternative schools and by some homeschooling families.
 
By Mintz's count, there are about 200 "democratic" schools around the world, including the Sudbury schools, with more in the works.
 
Clearwater opened about 11 years ago with about two dozen students in the Seattle home of one of its founders, Stephanie Sarantos. Enrollment jumped about five years ago to about 60. This year, there are 63 students who range in age from 4 to 19.
 
It moved last year from a building near Nathan Hale High School in Seattle to Bothell, where its campus is a collection of classrooms linked by wooden ramps on land with a big field and stream out back. Tuition is $5,550 a year and will rise closer to $6,000 next fall. Some students are on full or partial scholarship.
 
Parents include several with Ph.Ds. There's a high-school teacher, a chocolatier, a science professor, an architect, an artist, a house cleaner.
 
Critics question whether students at Sudbury schools truly learn what they need, and whether they are exposed to enough to figure out which subjects they might love. Even Alfie Kohn, a well-known author and harsh critic of public education, says Sudbury Valley is too radical for his taste. He prefers the Sudbury approach over what he considers public schools' "enormously counterproductive practices like grades and standardized tests." But he doesn't think students learn best left entirely on their own.
 
"There's a role for teachers to initiate possible avenues of inquiry, to spark interests that kids might not have had before. To coach and guide and observe," he said. "I don't take the view that the kids have to take the lead all the time. I think we miss a lot that way."
 
Many say the Sudbury model is not — and shouldn't be — for everyone. "It's a great model for some students — but I would say that for every kind of education," said Bob Howard, an associate professor of education at University of Washington, Tacoma.
 
The Sudbury approach appeals to those who reject what they see as "coerced" instruction that occurs when adults set the agenda. Supporters instead trust that children will choose to learn what they need to become successful adults.
 
"Parents are really brave to be interested in this school," Sarantos said. It's not easy, she said, to let go of all the usual measures like test scores and grades, and enroll children in a school that hardly acts like a school at all.
 
The day at Clearwater begins when the first child shows up, and continues, with ebbs and flows, until cleanup time at 5 p.m. In between, it's hard to see what academic learning takes place.
 
The computer room stays busy all day. Many younger students run around outside. The teenagers spend much of their day in the "quiet" room, which doubles as the school's office. They play a board game called Apples to Apples. They talk. They draw. In the afternoon, a few walk down to the nearby gas station to buy snacks.
 
They have some resources available when they want them. The music room has a drum set, a keyboard, electric guitars. The quiet room has shelves filled with books. The computers have access to the Internet. There are games and art supplies and adults available to help students find answers to their questions. But staff (mainly adults who have children at the school) don't offer help unless asked.
 
What students learn often isn't evident until after it's happened, staff members say. So it can appear to occur overnight, like a child who wasn't reading seen curled up with a book.
 
They don't dispute that reading and writing and math are important; they just think they're learned best — and fastest — when a child chooses to learn them.
 
When staff members do observe a learning moment, they don't try to direct it. One 4-year-old, for example, recently studied a sign on a table that says "No standing. No climbing." Shawna Lee, one of the school's founders and staff members, heard him say that the first two letters of each phrase were the same, but the third was different.
 
Lee realized the boy was starting to learn to read, but said she refrained from saying what a teacher might, such as "Do you know what that letter is called? It's an 'n.'"
 
"He's already started to figure it out," she said, "and I didn't want to interrupt that process."
 
When asked what they like best about their school, Clearwater students say the freedom to do what they want, when they want. Even if that means they might not learn everything students at other schools do.
 
"I won't say I'm amazingly good at advanced calculus," said Josh Pidcock, 19, who's been at Clearwater since he was 12. "I'm not the most studied reader either. I'm OK with that. I figure I can learn that in a college atmosphere much better."
 
Attending Clearwater isn't always as easy as it might look, they say.
 
"It's deceptively hard,'' says Ian Freeman-Lee, 15, a quiet, thoughtful student who has never attended another school. He says he's gone through times when he's bored all day. One such stretch — he thinks he was about 10 — lasted months, maybe close to a year.
 
But the school sees that as part of the growing process, too.
 
Students at Clearwater ``are a lot more mature because a lot more responsibility is placed on you,'' says Corey Campbell, 18, one of Sarantos' sons. Some students have left Clearwater, he said, because they couldn't handle setting their own learning path.

Most of the students at Clearwater started when they were young, so only a handful have reached graduation age. So far, five have graduated by writing a paper explaining why they're ready to become responsible adults. That's the school's one learning requirement, and it must be approved at a school meeting.
 
Two of the graduates are now attending community college, and one is enrolled at Earlham College in Indiana. Two others are working. One student left without graduating, Sarantos said, and is in a job-training program.
 
Three more are set to graduate this year. So far, Campbell has been accepted at The Evergreen State College in Olympia