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Newsclips - March 1-5, 2010
Illinois could get $500 million in federal education money
School funding a 'huge crisis,' state school superintendent warns
Will Washington help with Illinois' budget?
Ex-teacher: Focus on test makes teaching less ‘fun’
Legislators take aim at new FOIA
District 300 may release 140 to 160 teachers
Schools prepare to hand out water, treats and standardized tests
CPS halts spring sophomore sports
Morton East students stage walkout
Illinois schools chiefs’ supersized salaries
Delavan's top school officials give up pay raises
House backs ban on legislative scholarships
CPS offers elite spots to best students in worst elementary schools
Obama to announce get-tough strategy for struggling schools
Obama angers union officials with remarks in support of R.I. teacher firings
Few states to qualify for grants
15 states, DC named 'Race to the Top' finalists
No-Child law is a highlight of hearing on education
Rhode Island school nears compromise on mass teacher firings
Teachers counter education reform ideas on tests, pay
Schools stress over ISAT, hope students don’t
Top of page
Illinois could get $500 million in federal education money
Azam Ahmed and Stephanie Banchero, Chicago Tribune, 3/5
Illinois has been named a finalist for $500 million in federal funding meant to transform how teachers are evaluated, students are tested and failing schools are fixed, the U.S. Secretary of Education announced Thursday.
The money is part of a $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, designed to encourage states to overhaul their education systems. Illinois joins 15 other finalists in this first round of funding: Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Washington, D.C.
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who ran Chicago Public Schools until he was offered the federal appointment last year, said in a recorded statement that his office "couldn't be more proud of the hard work and commitment around the country to driving reform and taking student achievement to an entirely different level."
Finalists will make presentations in Washington, D.C., this month, and an undetermined number of winners are to be announced in April. The Education Department said "no more than half" of the $4.35 billion will be awarded in this first phase of competition.
Race to the Top has been a centerpiece of President Barack Obama's education policy. Those seeking funds must prove their willingness to adopt specific reforms. Higher points are awarded to those that commit to set higher learning goals for students, link teacher pay to student test scores, create more charter schools and overhaul failing schools.
Though it's a relatively paltry amount given the $500 billion the nation spends annually on education, the money comes at a time when a painful recession has most school districts staring down the barrel of a budget crisis. The promise of a large infusion of cash helped Illinois lawmakers and educators cut through the bickering over reforms, many of which were already on the state agenda but had been stalled by special interests.
Enticed by the federal grant, state lawmakers doubled the number of charter schools allowed and required that teacher and principal evaluations be tied to student test scores. That last-minute law helped push Illinois into a more competitive position, experts say.
John Luczak, education program manager at the Joyce Foundation, said the teamwork played a major role in Illinois being named a finalist.
"There was unprecedented collaboration, Luczak said. "People really rolled up their sleeves and worked together."
Timothy Daly, president of the New Teacher Project, said the last-minute move to sync student performance with teacher and principal evaluations spoke volumes for the state's seriousness about the competition.
Not everyone is enamored with the agenda. Only 42 percent of the state's 869 school districts and 15 percent of the local teachers unions signed letters in support of the application.
Among those union locals that did not support it was the Chicago Teachers Union, which represents some 37,000 members. Union President Marilyn Stewart said Thursday that it's not good policy to pass laws that have no promise of being funded.
"It's not good educational reform," she said.
The 368 districts who signed on — including Chicago — are eligible for more money as a reward. If the state wins, half the money goes directly to those districts to institute the reforms; the remainder goes to the Illinois State Board of Education.
Chris Koch, the superintendent of the board of education, promised that if the state were not a winner during this phase, it would reapply during phase two, which begins June 1.
Even without the money, Koch said the state would implement nearly all of the proposed overhauls. But, he said, "It won't happen as soon or as readily without the federal money."
The state's largest teachers union, the Illinois Education Association, which helped craft and support the application, warned that instituting such mandates without money could be problematic.
"There is a provision in the legislation that says absent adequate funding, some provisions can be (stalled)," said Ken Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association. "Nobody, and I mean nobody, wanted a new layer of unfunded mandates."
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School funding a 'huge crisis,' state school superintendent warns
The State Journal-Register, 3/5
Illinois School Superintendent Chris Koch sent a stark message Thursday about the fallout from his agency’s budget: schools throughout the state will have to cut at least 13,000 employees, and it could be much worse.
Koch made the prediction in a Senate committee considering 10 percent budget cuts throughout state government. The cuts have been proposed by Democrats but blamed on Republicans as a possible solution to major funding shortfalls.
Koch said the proposed reductions are no laughing matter, whatever the motive.
“I don’t think this is a game, having these conversations, and it worries us a great deal,” he said. “It’s going to have an impact on kids, and it’s going to have an impact on services.”
The 13,000 figure is based on the state funding education at the same rate it did last year. However, that also includes the loss of nearly $1 billion in federal stimulus money that is no longer available.
If any reductions – including the 10 percent cuts entertained by the Senate committee – were enacted, the layoffs would multiply significantly, Koch said.
“We’re in unprecedented territory here, Koch said. “This is a huge crisis.”
State Sen. Matt Murphy, R-Palatine, said lawmakers should rethink the state’s funding mechanism entirely.
He said cutting 10 percent of education’s total $26.1 billion budget, which includes federal and local funds, “shouldn’t be a catastrophic changing number.” The cut would amount to about 3 percent of education’s total budget, he said.
“It might be a good time with this budget crisis to take a look and say, ‘We’ve been doing it this way for a long time -- are we sure we are getting enough out of our investment?’”
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Will Washington help with Illinois' budget?
Mike Riopell, Bloomington Pantagraph, 3/1
SPRINGFIELD -- Gov. Pat Quinn's initial budget scenario revealed this week shows the potential for big cuts in school funding next year because federal stimulus money is drying up.
With that lifeline from the federal government being pulled back, Illinois is among the states that are already struggling with their budgets. And some state officials are already asking for help from Washington again.
Illinois is using $922 million in stimulus money to pay for schools this year, and unless Congress votes to send more, that amount could get cut next year.
Whether the federal government should come to states' rescue again depends on who you ask. And the question of whether Congress will send more money to states remains unclear.
Clearly, though, Quinn wants them to help chip in. On a recent trip to Washington, D.C., the governor asked officials from the Obama administration to send more cash Illinois' way.
"We really need help from the federal government to make this work," said Quinn budget spokeswoman Kelly Kraft. "Hopefully, the federal government is going to come through."
But, the federal government is having its own money issues, with President Barack Obama facing criticism over debt. He has even suggested freezing spending for some programs.
Republicans in Congress, including U.S. Rep. Aaron Schock, R-Peoria, seem wary of sending any more money to states.
"The Congressman is focused on getting our financial house in order in Washington right now, but I think it's fair to say he is opposed to anymore bailouts," said Schock spokesman Dave Natonski.
Some Democrats, though, disagree. U.S. Rep. Phil Hare, D-Rock Island, has proposed sending states $60 billion in help over several years.
"He's identified that as one of the real needs out there," said Hare spokesman Tim Schlittner.
U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson, D-Crete, said if any more aid was approved, it would have to be for certain purposes.
"As Congress considers additional funding to the states, Congresswoman Halvorson wants to make sure those funds are used to help save jobs and put people back to work, not just to cover state shortfalls and debt," Halvorson spokesman Ryan Vanderbilt said.
Illinois, along with many other states, applied to get federal money for schools through Obama's Race to the Top program.
But Illinois State Board of Education spokesman Matt Vanover said that if Illinois won some of that money, it could only be used to implement specific school reforms. It couldn't be used for general school expenses.
Vanover said more general federal money would help, but no one's necessarily counting on it.
"I don't think it's something everyone his hanging their hats on at this point in time," Vanover said.
Like their colleagues in Congress, lawmakers in the Illinois General Assembly also are split over whether the federal government should send more money.
State Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton, supports the idea.
"We need all the help we can get," Forby said. "And I think the rest of the states in the United States need the same thing."
But Republicans balked, saying the move would only add to the national debt.
"At some point there needs to be a reckoning where you say 'OK, this is a problem and we're going to deal with it here in the state and not beg for money from Washington,'" State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, said.
The federal stimulus money helped the state scrape by last year, but Righter said the process cannot be repeated because the government can't afford it.
Quinn's preliminary budget posted Wednesday shows a $1.3 billion cut to elementary and high schools and universities, as well as $400 million in cuts to human services.
But more details about Quinn's plans, including whether he'll push for tax increases again this year, won't be unveiled until March 10.
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Ex-teacher: Focus on test makes teaching less ‘fun’
Cathy Bayer, Rockford Register Star, 3/1
ROCKFORD — Veronica Johnson has seen firsthand how state standardized tests have changed the way teachers teach.
Jackson Elementary School students boosted their Illinois Standards Achievement Test scores in 2009 by 6.3 percent over 2008. Johnson, a retired Jackson teacher, is back in the school tutoring to help boost scores again.
With such a strong focus on ISAT, some things, like science experiments and other hands-on lessons, are excluded.
“Teaching isn’t as fun as it used to be,” she said.
She’s not the only one who feels that the achievement standards under the No Child Left Behind Act are growing increasingly unrealistic.
“The stakes are high this year because of the ever-rising bar to make (adequate yearly progress),” said Mary Fergus, spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education. “Even as more schools post gains and student show progress on these tests, we see the number of schools that make AYP decline.”
This year, No Child Left Behind requires 77.5 percent of Illinois students to meet or exceed standards. By 2014, that expectation will fall on every student.
Faced with that kind of pressure, more and more teachers feel pressured to teach to state testing standards.
But there’s a difference between teaching to the test and teaching the test itself, said Cheryl Gieseke, assistant superintendent for curriculum, assessment and grant management in the Belvidere School District.
Teaching the test tells students the answers, but teaching to the test gives students the tools and reasoning to find the answers themselves, she said.
ISAT focuses heavily on reading and math skills because if a student can master those, other subjects the ISAT does not test will come more easily.
“The biggest inhibitor to being successful is the child who cannot read or do the arithmetic,” she said.
Though 100 percent of students meeting or exceeding standards isn’t realistic, it’s still worth having as a goal, Gieseke said.
“We need a target to be working toward,” she said.
Johnson agrees.
“As long as you see improvements. That’s the goal,” Johnson said. “We want to see, every year, academic growth for our students. If we can show growth for our students, then we’ve done a good job.”
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Legislators take aim at new FOIA
Kevin P. Craver, Kane County Chronicle, 3/2
The much-improved Illinois Freedom of Information Act that took effect Jan. 1 lasted two weeks before the General Assembly successfully rolled it back.
Legislators last month passed a law barring the release of performance evaluations for teachers and school administrators so that Illinois could be eligible for education stimulus funds. They then passed another law exempting a new database of where bodies are buried, in response to the Burr Oak Cemetery scandal.
But lawmakers are not through yet with the new open records law. They have filed at least six bills over the past five weeks aimed at scaling it back and limiting public access to information.
One bill would allow public bodies to charge more for information by eliminating the cap of 15 cents per page and the requirement that the first 50 black-and-white pages be provided free. Another seeks to exempt performance evaluations of police officers, and another to exempt evaluations of all public employees.
Yet another bill would eliminate the requirement that courts award attorney fees to requesters who successfully sue public bodies over a denied FOIA request. It also significantly expands government’s right to withhold documents by citing ongoing investigations, even if they are not the investigating agency.
The slew of legislation, all of it sitting in committee, concerns Attorney General Lisa Madigan, state Public Access Counselor Cara Smith said. Madigan helped draft the new FOIA with assistance from good government groups and the Illinois Press Association, of which the Northwest Herald is a member.
“I think the alarm is that the new [FOIA] is less than three months old, and there are attempts to weaken it,” Smith said. “We have a very strong position that the law be left intact.”
The rewrite bolstered an open records law that critics long accused of being weak and easy to abuse. It shortened the time that governments have to respond to records requests to five days, empowered the attorney general to enforce it, and put significant restrictions on the most abused exemptions.
It sailed through the General Assembly in May 2009, after former Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s impeachment, with just one opposing vote. Quinn signed it into law in August despite pressure from the Illinois Municipal League and other groups to veto many of its reforms.
The state press association will fight any of the bills that come out of committee, general counsel Don Craven said. Although he was concerned with the number of bills curtailing FOIA so soon after its start, he said the association was no stranger to such fights.
“I’ve been counsel to the press association for over 20 years. There are bills every year to add additional exemptions and public records that can be kept secret,” Craven said.
House Bill 5154, which would exempt performance evaluations of all public employees, was scheduled for a Wednesday hearing in the State Government Administration Commit- tee. But committee Chairman Jack Franks, D-Marengo, postponed it. He said he told sponsor Linda Chapa LaVia, D-Aurora, that he wanted a lot more information as to the need for such a sweeping exemption.
“My bias is against limiting FOIA,” Franks said. “I’d like to keep it as it is, and [government] as transparent as possible. There has to be an overriding issue for us to change it.”
State Rep. Mike Tryon, R-Crystal Lake, agreed. Tryon, who was the sole McHenry County legislator to vote against exempting teacher evaluations, said he likewise would oppose further efforts to water down FOIA.
“Who are we afraid of? We’re the people. We have the right to know as much about government as we want to know,” Tryon said.
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District 300 may release 140 to 160 teachers
Jameel Naqvi, Daily Herald, 3/2
Facing a potentially devastating cut in state aid, officials in Community Unit District 300 are considering taking the unusual step of releasing 140 to 160 first- and second-year teachers, union and district leaders said Monday.
The downsizing would be in addition to roughly 28 staff reductions resulting from $4.6 million in budget cuts the school board approved last month, district officials said.
But unlike the 28 positions, the district may end up rehiring many of the nontenured teachers, depending on student enrollment numbers that won't be final until sometime in July, officials said.
"We probably will hire the bulk of them back," board President Joe Stevens said.
Under state law, the district must notify employees of layoffs at least two months before the end of the school year.
But officials will not know how much state funding the district will receive by that deadline. Releasing nontenured teachers en masse to meet the deadline and then rehiring them allows the district to avoid having more teachers than it needs.
Many school districts routinely release nontenured teachers at the end of the school year, then call them back based on staffing needs. But District 300 had been able to avoid that practice before the state's recent budget woes.
"It is a very upsetting time, and none of us wants to go through this, but we have to make sure we don't overstaff," teacher's union President Kolleen Hanetho said. "The money just isn't there."
The number of teachers the district releases and decides to call back will depend on the outcome of ongoing negotiations between the district and its unions - mainly the 1,358-member teacher's union, Stevens said.
"If all of our negotiations with our unions prove fruitful, we either will not (release nontenured teachers), or we will hire back most of them," Stevens said. But he added that the labor talks would probably not conclude by the state-mandated deadline, making the cuts necessary.
Officials said even if the board votes to release the nontenured teachers, 30 to 40 first- and second-year teachers in hard-to-fill positions will be retained.
On March 8, the board is scheduled to vote on cutting specific employees tied to last month's $4.6 million in budget reductions. If the district is unable to reach agreement with its unions by then, the board will also vote on releasing first- and second-year teachers.
Hanetho, the teacher's union president, encouraged parents to register their children for classes early so the district can get a better handle on staffing needs next year.
The board will consider $1.2 million in additional cuts to transportation later this year.
District 300 serves East and West Dundee, and Carpentersville, Algonquin, Cary, and other surrounding suburbs.
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Schools prepare to hand out water, treats and standardized tests
Dave Haney, Peoria Journal Star, 3/2
PEORIA — Anyone who had to stay after school or was sent to the principal's office for chewing gum in class, take note.
Bartonville Grade School is throwing out the rules, at least temporarily.
Teachers are handing out bottles of water, snacks, even spearmint and peppermint chewing gum during class - yes, gum.
What they're not handing out - homework.
"I don't know how solid the research is, but it's supposed to help with concentration," Superintendent Shannon Duling said of chewing gum, adding the smells of peppermint and spearmint are supposed to stimulate the brain. "It's not something we normally do."
Bartonville, like many other schools this week and next, is doing whatever it can to help students perform at their academic peak.
The grade school students there on Monday joined thousands of other elementary age schoolchildren throughout the Tri-County Area - more than 900,000 statewide - who are sharpening their No. 2 pencils for the Illinois State Achievement Test. These are the series of tests in reading, math - and for some, science and writing - that determine whether those schools are meeting academic standards or are deemed "failing" by the state and federal government.
Principals are urging - begging - parents to get kids to bed early, up and to school on time after a hearty breakfast. They've held pep rallies in preparation; teachers are lax on homework, big on cheerleading.
"This year we held a big assembly. We're making a big deal about (ISAT), trying to put emphasis on them. It's the first year we've done it, something different," Duling said of what's usually a more low-key approach. "Hopefully, it pays off.
"We've made AYP every year, but this year with the big jump, we're really concerned it's going to be close."
Illinois schools this year must have 77.5 percent of all students - including those in subgroups such as special education - meeting or exceeding academic standards in order to avoid "failing." That's up from 70 percent in 2009. Next year, the threshold for Adequate Yearly Progress moves up to 85 percent.
And as the standards climb, more schools are not keeping up or are falling off the "passing" list. Those that fail for two or more consecutive years can face sanctions.
"We see more schools post gains but fewer schools make AYP - another reason that NCLB, or the Elementary and Secondary Education Act - needs to be reviewed," said Mary Fergus, a spokeswoman for the Illinois State Board of Education.
Bill Link, the superintendent at Pekin District 108, where some 2,300 students are testing this week and next, said he and many other education officials want to see a longitudinal, or "growth model," component added, which would show students' progress over a year, versus a single "snapshot" done once a year.
"We look at that internally ourselves, but the state continues to just look at that one point in time," Link said of assessment data, noting the testing system in Illinois also is not consistent with the Prairie State Achievement Exam, the tests which assess high school juniors.
Bryan Chumbley, the Peoria School District 150 director of research and testing, agreed.
"At the district level, there are comprehensive tests taking place all the time that gauges students' progress as well as assessments that provide data on what students are lacking so that teachers can accommodate," Chumbley said. "The hole in ISAT (and PSAE) is that it is simply a snapshot of where students are at that moment."
It's also two weeks students aren't learning the curriculum.
More than 7,000 test booklets have been delivered to the primary schools in District 150.
Both Link and Chumbley say NCLB has instilled accountability in schools but that changes are needed for the law so that students and schools are assessed more accurately and fairly.
"Our philosophy is we do our best to prepare for the tests, focus on good teaching, and we let the chips fall where they will come test day," Link said.
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CPS halts spring sophomore sports
Azam Ahmed, Chicago Tribune, 3/3
Budgetary conditions have prompted the Chicago Public Schools to halt all spring sophomore sports, according to a memo obtained by the Tribune.
District sports director Calvin Davis sent a memo to school athletic directors Tuesday saying that only varsity and freshman teams will be allowed to practice for now. The memo, which some coaches called confusing, comes at the last possible moment for sophomore coaches. Tuesday was the first day of practice.
"Though spring sports teams can officially begin practice today, the varsity and freshman levels are the only levels of girls and boys coaches approved to begin practice at this time," the memo said. "The CPS system continues to carefully examine all programs before specific budgetary decisions are finalized."
Some considered it a backward way of saying the sophomore sports programs, which bridge freshman and varsity sports for many teens, will be cut.
"It says to me that they're cutting sophomore levels unless somebody bails them out," said Josh Locks, English teacher and sophomore baseball coach at Whitney Young Magnet High School. "It just seems kind of like a very purposely vague statement."
The news comes amid a tough year for the school district, which has faced declining revenue and increasing costs. The school year began with a half-billion-dollar deficit, one that may double for the next school year.
Schools chief Ron Huberman has stated publicly that many programs will be cut and teachers will have to come to the table to negotiate their annual raises.
But until Tuesday, the district had been very quiet about specific cuts to the beloved sports programs, even as rumors swirled at the school level.
Spring sports include boys tennis, softball, baseball and girls soccer.
The timing is difficult. Lock said that at Whitney Young, 18 players were picked for their sophomore team at Monday tryouts. In light of Tuesday's decision, Lock said the school will have to decide what to do with those players. Lock said there are 55 sophomore baseball teams in the district, each with about 15 players.
Sports directors said sophomore sports are more expensive and widespread than freshman sports, so the district would save more money by cutting the sophomore program instead of the freshman one.
District spokeswoman Monique Bond said the district hopes to merge sophomore sports into varsity and freshman teams. But she declined to offer specific details on how that might work.
"We just don't know yet," she said. "The message that we have to get out is that there's going to be some shared responsibility here."
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Morton East students stage walkout
Margaret Ramirez and Joseph Ruzich, Chicago Tribune, 3/3
Angered over a budget reduction plan to eliminate classes and lay off teachers, more than 100 students from Morton East High School in Cicero walked out of school Tuesday morning and staged a brief protest in the streets.
Sophomore Alejandra Flores, 15, said she decided to participate in the walkout to send a message about how seriously the cuts would hurt students. Flores said her main concerns are losing teachers and cuts to her favorite extracurricular activities such as the cheerleading squad.
"We don't want them to fire our teachers and we don't want them to take away our sports," Flores said. "So, we had to do something."
Flores said a text message was sent to several students over the weekend calling for a walkout. Shortly after 8:55 a.m., dozens of students stormed out of the school and filled the streets, raising their fists and shouting, students and parents said. When police arrived at the school, students scattered off school grounds. Some later returned to class.
A district spokesman said just more than 100 students participated in the walkout. Flores said the crowd was closer to 200.
Tensions in west suburban Morton High School District 201 have been rising since officials proposed laying off more than 60 teachers and taking other measures to cut costs.
Officials said the district, which serves more than 8,300 students at Morton East in Cicero and Morton West in neighboring Berwyn, is faced with $94.8 million in debt and projects a spending deficit of $30 million by 2015.
Last Thursday, more than a thousand parents, students and teachers upset about the budget reduction plan came out to a standing-room-only public hearing at Morton West High School.
The plan is expected to save more than $5 million per year by eliminating seven full-time administrators, 65 full-time teaching positions and 11 and a half noncertified staff positions.
It also calls for reducing the number of credits needed to graduate, eliminating classes, and reducing and combining student clubs and extracurricular activities.
"This is a problem that many school districts are dealing with because of funding problems with the state of Illinois," said Eric Kohn, district spokesperson.
School officials are expected to vote on the budget plan at their next school board meeting March 10.
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Illinois schools chiefs’ supersized salaries
Stephanie Banchero and Duaa Eldeib, Chicago Tribune, 3/3
The state's school superintendents are cutting costs in a gruesome budget cycle, but they can take some consolation: Their own paychecks are growing comfortably.
The average salary and benefits of Illinois' top school executives grew 4.1 percent last year, about 10 times faster than raises enjoyed by other wage earners in the Chicago metro area, according to state data. A record number of superintendents — 150 — earned $200,000 or more.
The earnings report comes as school districts from Amboy to Zion have threatened to trim teaching positions, close swimming pools or cancel lacrosse and band programs — all in an effort to balance budgets.
The new salary information, provided by the Illinois State Board of Education, shows that the average compensation of full-time superintendents grew from $145,000 during the 2007-08 school year to $151,000 in 2008-09.
As a comparison, all wage earners in the Chicago region saw compensation increase by about 0.4 percent during the same period, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The state data reflect self-reported salary information from 855 of the 869 school districts.
The figures may include retirement contributions, bonuses, retirement incentives and unused vacation days. As in years past, the highest paid administrators were at — or near — retirement and saw their compensation packages swollen by bonuses, annuities and end-of-career salary bumps.
Big raises boost pensions because a superintendent's highest salary years are a key ingredient in calculating payments.
The state implemented a cap on raises in 2005 in hopes of getting school districts to think twice about hefty salary bumps, said Sally Sherman, director of member services with the state's Teachers' Retirement System.
Districts are still free to give any annual raise they want, but they must help cover the added pension costs for amounts greater than 6 percent.
Ron Gidwitz, a former chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education, said it's not right for school districts to use the state's pension system to pat superintendents on the back for a job well done.
"It isn't treating the taxpayers fairly," he said. "It's not what the pension system was intended to be."
The top wage earner, Henry Gmitro of Community Consolidated School District 93, collected about $369,000. Gmitro, who retired from the Carol Stream district in June, had a base salary of $243,390, but also collected a $40,000 annuity, $20,000 bonus and $35,000 in an extra retirement contribution, among other things.
Gmitro oversaw a $59 million budget and eight schools. Rick DeVries, District 93 school board president, said Gmitro's salary was market-driven.
"In my opinion, Dr. Gmitro was a fantastic superintendent, and our test scores and the quality of education we deliver to our students support this," DeVries said.
Gmitro's base salary grew from $179,687 in 2005-06 to $243,390 in 2007-08 — a 35 percent increase over two years, on the eve of his retirement.
The region's second-highest paid superintendent, Dennis Kelly of Lyons Township High School District 204, also retired after the 2008-09 school year. His last three raises on base salary were 10.2 percent, 5 percent and 5 percent.
"He was among the top 10 tenured superintendents in Illinois," said district community relations director Jennifer Bialobok. "He had 17 years' experience as superintendent in the same district and nearly 40 years of education under his belt."
Representatives of both districts said they weren't trying to maximize the former superintendents' pensions when they awarded raises.
Of the 10 highest-paid superintendents in the Chicago region, all but one oversaw a small or medium-size district.
Few school chiefs who head the largest districts sit atop the wage-earner list. Ron Huberman, Chicago Public Schools chief, earned about $237,000, ranking him 59th. He oversees a $6.8 billion budget, 600 schools and about 400,000 students.
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Delavan's top school officials give up pay raises
Phyllis Coulter, Bloomington Pantagraph, 3/4
DELAVAN -- As Delavan school officials worked to cut next year’s budget in advance of a vote set for Monday, Superintendent Mary Parker volunteered to give up what would have been a 4 percent raise in pay.
The rest of the administrative staff in the 500-student district, two principals and the full-time special education director, followed her lead.
“That doesn’t happen very often in this day and age,” said school board President Jeff Johnson. “It was a very loyal thing to do.”
The $13,500 saved on the four salary increases will help a bit, but the board still is expected to vote Monday night on about $450,000 in cuts to its $4 million budget proposal for 2010-2011. The cuts are expected to include five teaching positions, two teacher’s aides, computers at the elementary level and the district’s art program.
The $13,500 is comparable to the cost of one teacher aide’s position. The savings could also be spent on supplies, materials or professional development, Parker said.
“It’s time to step up and lead by example,” said Parker, whose current salary is $131,000.
Johnson calls the administrative staff’s actions “commendable.”
Parker, who is in her 10th year as superintendent, said the district has had balanced budgets for the last seven years and received financial recognition, the highest of four levels of financial health, from the state for the same time period.
Like other districts, Delavan is struggling to come up with ways to cover for shortfalls in state funding. The state already owes Delavan school $212,802 in scheduled payments for the current fiscal year, Parker said.
“For next year the picture looks even bleaker with state cuts to the district running around $450,000,” she said.
In addition to state funding cuts, the district has been struggling with limits on property taxes imposed by tax caps, farmland reassessments and homestead exemptions, she said.
Declining enrollment compounds the problem because much of the state’s funding is based on headcount, she said. Districts receive general state aid payments of $6,119 per student, but state officials may cut that by an amount ranging from $450 per student to $750 per student.
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House backs ban on legislative scholarships
Michelle Manchir, Chicago Tribune, 3/4
SPRINGFIELD — Illinois lawmakers would be banned from handing out scholarships for public universities under a measure the House approved Wednesday to address concerns about the program that has been plagued by questions about who gets the freebies.
But an end to the century-old controversial practice is far from guaranteed — a Senate version aims to reform how the scholarships are handed out but stops short of banning them.
Sponsoring Rep. Mark Walker, D-Arlington Heights, said legislators' privileges should not include handing out tuition waivers at a time when schools are struggling financially.
"My goal here is to set up a system whereby needy students in the state get access to education by applying to universities and applying to financial aid and other grants. I believe this is the best way to do it," Walker said.
The legislation drew Democratic and Republican opposition. Rep. Edward Acevedo, D-Chicago, said the scholarships provide the only path for the poorest students to get a college degree.
"We have parents probably working two or three jobs just to put food on the table for their families, and we're not going to give them that opportunity to continue their education?" said Acevedo, who represents a Southwest Side district.
Other foes accused Walker of merely appeasing critics of the scholarship program. A Tribune analysis last fall found that some legislators gave free rides to the children of campaign donors, party loyalists and state employees.
Rep. Rosemary Mulligan, R-Des Plaines, voted against the ban, saying the tuition waivers evenly distribute scholarship money for students across the state.
"You could address the abuses by legislation as opposed to letting the newspaper take cheap shots at us over things that perhaps do really help a great number of people," Mulligan said.
In the end, the House voted 80-36 to ban the scholarships.
Last week, the Senate approved separate legislation to prohibit a legislator from giving a scholarship to someone whose family could be linked to a campaign contribution within the previous five years. The House has not yet voted on that proposal.
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CPS offers elite spots to best students in worst elementary schools
Azam Ahmed, Chicago Tribine, 3/4
After pushing for legislation to bar students at failing schools from transferring into the city's elite high schools, the Chicago Public Schools is now reversing course by allowing 100 such students admission into the city's four most prized high schools.
The district said that parents of 336 high-scoring eighth-grade students at failing elementary schools have been invited to apply for 25 openings each at Jones College Prep, Walter Payton College Prep, Whitney Young Magnet and Northside College Prep.
The new strategy will use an 8-year-old provision of the federal No Child Left Behind Act that allows students at failing schools to transfer to better-performing ones. It will be the first time the district has embraced the policy at these highly competitive high schools.
In 2002, shortly after the passage of the No Child law, the district lobbied Springfield to prevent such transfers from happening into the selective enrollment high schools, arguing that it would water down the schools' academic success. The legislation passed, and the elite schools were sealed off from the transfers.
Now the district is using the law to create an alternate admissions process to these schools, which typically require testing and exceptionally competitive grades and test scores. Under the new policy, eligible students at the 87 lowest-performing elementary schools will not directly compete with regular applicants and will not have to take the schools' entrance exams.
The district said the new policy will help the best students at the worst schools by giving them access to schools that are consistently among the top in the state. It says not enough students from low-performing schools are applying to the selective ones, and that this initiative would encourage more students to take part in the process.
But of the 336 students who have high enough standardized test scores to be considered under the new plan, 270 had already applied to selective high schools. And more than a few of the 87 sending schools said that they already encourage their students to apply to the selective schools. At Mollison Elementary, half of the eighth-grade class applied to such schools, though only four students scored high enough to be eligible for the program.
One reason for starting the program now appears to be the fear that a new admissions system started this year will re-segregate the elite schools. A federal court order that forced racial balancing in the schools was scrapped last year, forcing the district to devise a way to maintain diversity without using race as a primary factor. Under the new admissions criteria, 60 percent of the openings were divided according to four socioeconomic tiers. The rest of the openings were given to the highest-scoring students.
Many suspected that would result in less racial balance. And the district acknowledged that the new students, who will come from poverty-stricken schools that are almost entirely African-American and Latino, will help maintain diversity at the schools.
"The program also will help ensure continued racially diverse student bodies at the district's selective enrollment high schools," according to a Chicago Public Schools press release.
Yet despite promises of transparency, district officials refused to release the racial breakdown of students given offers through the new high school admissions process. Specifically, schools chief Ron Huberman skirted the issue of whether the new policy resulted in fewer offers to African-American and Latino students.
Of the new program, he said: "This is an additional factor that helps ensure the inclusiveness of all of our schools."
The district will not require the prospective students to take the admissions test for entry into the selective schools, though about 81 percent of the applicants already have. Instead, the office that oversees the selective schools will create profiles of each student that include grades and standardized test scores.
Those students may be interviewed by the principals of the selective schools, who will work in conjunction with central office staff to determine who gets accepted. The policy will go into effect immediately, and it will only extend to eighth-graders applying to high school for now.
Mollison Principal Wilhelmina Kenan said the new policy will be a great way to give disadvantaged children a shot at a top-flight education and will be popular with parents.
"They have the same desires that middle-class parents have," she said. "They want their children in the best schools."
Tribune reporter Stephanie Banchero contributed.
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Obama to announce get-tough strategy for struggling schools
Nick Anderson, The Washington Post, 3/1
President Obama plans Monday to outline a get-tough strategy for turning around persistently struggling schools, offering increased federal funding to local school systems that shake up their lowest-achieving campuses.
Obama was expected to promote his initiative in a 10 a.m. appearance Monday before an organization called America's Promise Alliance, founded by former Secretary of State Colin Powell and his wife, Alma. The president and the Powells were to be joined by Education Secretary Arne Duncan to announce a campaign called "Grad Nation." One of the campaign's goals is for 90 percent of today's fourth-graders to graduate high school on time.
The president's budget for the fiscal year that begins in October proposes $900 million for school turnaround grants, up from $546 million in fiscal 2010. The economic stimulus law enacted last year provided an additional $3 billion for the turnaround initiative. The budget, released last month, awaits action in Congress.
Several Democratic and Republican lawmakers have signaled that they may seek to revise Obama's funding plan, which would provide $50.7 billion in discretionary funding for the Education Department -- an increase of more than 9 percent -- but would freeze or consolidate some major programs favored by Congress.
With the proposed $900 million in school turnaround funding, Obama is placing a bet on four strategies to fix thousands of schools in which reform ideas have come and gone without success. Targeted schools include those with low graduation rates and the lowest-achieving schools in impoverished neighborhoods.
Each of the strategies, at minimum, appears to require replacing the school's principal. The "turnaround" model would also require replacing at least half the school staff. "Restart" schools would be transferred to the control of independent charter networks or other school management organizations. "Transformation" schools would be required to take steps to raise teacher effectiveness and increase learning time, among other measures. The fourth strategy would be closing a school and dispersing its students.
Obama's initiative seeks to tighten school accountability policies. Under the No Child Left Behind law, enacted in 2002 under President George W. Bush, the possible sanctions for low-performing schools range from school closure to a more open-ended requirement for schools to adopt an "alternative" governance strategy to raise performance.
Critics of school accountability programs say that the remedies are unproven and that the circumstances of struggling schools vary significantly. The mass teacher firings last week at a school in Rhode Island showed that drastic interventions can touch off political controversy.
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Obama angers union officials with remarks in support of R.I. teacher firings
Michael A. Fletcher and Nick Anderson, The Washington Post, 3/2
President Obama voiced support Monday for the mass firings of educators at a failing Rhode Island school, drawing an immediate rebuke from teachers union officials whose members have chafed at some of his education policies.
Speaking at an event intended to highlight his strategy for turning around struggling schools by offering an increase in federal funding for local districts that shake up their lowest-achieving campuses, Obama called the controversial firings justified.
"If a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show signs of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability," he said. "And that's what happened in Rhode Island last week at a chronically troubled school, when just 7 percent of 11th-graders passed state math tests -- 7 percent."
The board that oversees Central Falls High School took the startling step last week of firing 93 teachers and other staff members after the teachers union refused to agree to a plan for them to work a longer school day and provide after-school tutoring without much extra pay.
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, whose union represents the faculty in Central Falls, one of the poorest districts in Rhode Island, responded forcefully to Obama's remarks.
"We know it is tempting for people in Washington to score political points by scapegoating teachers, but it does nothing to give our students and teachers the tools they need to succeed," she said in a joint statement with other union officials.
In an interview, Weingarten said Obama's comments about the school "don't reflect the reality on the ground and completely ignore the commitment teachers have made to turn things around." Weingarten said the union was "profoundly disappointed by the comments" and said the president "seems to be focused on . . . incomplete information."
Obama has often challenged union orthodoxy in his education agenda, promoting the expansion of public charter schools -- which frequently are not unionized -- and teacher performance pay. The two major national educators unions are not formally opposed to those ideas, but many of their members are skeptical.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has said repeatedly that he wants to work with unions rather than impose reforms on them, and the National Education Association, with 3.2 million members, and the AFT, with 1.4 million members, have generally sought to play down policy differences with the administration.
Obama's comments came as he spoke at a meeting of America's Promise Alliance, a group founded by former secretary of state Colin L. Powell and his wife, Alma. The group has launched an initiative aimed at curbing the nation's school dropout rate.
"This is a problem we cannot afford to accept and we cannot afford to ignore," Obama said during the event, at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce headquarters.
The White House said 1.2 million students drop out of school each year. The problem is concentrated in the nation's poorest schools and among minority students.
Obama has sought to combat the problem with an infusion of federal aid for school districts that develop innovative plans to help students graduate. With the proposed funding, Obama is placing a bet on four strategies to fix thousands of failing schools.
Each of the strategies, at minimum, appears to require replacing the school's principal. The "turnaround" model would also require replacing at least half the school staff.
"Restart" schools would be transferred to the control of independent charter networks or other school management organizations. "Transformation" schools would be required to take steps to raise teacher effectiveness and increase learning time, among other measures. The fourth strategy would be closing a school and dispersing its students.
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Few states to qualify for grants
Neil King Jr., Wall Street Journal, 3/3
The Obama administration will inform most states on Thursday that they didn't make the grade to receive billions of dollars in education funding.
Forty states, plus the District of Columbia, submitted applications in January to compete in the $4.35 billion Race to the Top program, which President Barack Obama describes as central to his push to improve local education standards.
The idea is to reward states that show the greatest willingness to push innovation through tough testing standards, data collection, teacher training and plans to overhaul failing schools.
The Department of Education turned to a panel of outside judges to help pick finalists and winners according to an elaborate scoring system, and on Thursday, Education Secretary Arne Duncan will announce finalists for the first of two rounds of funding. Administration officials declined to comment, but people familiar with the deliberations said as few as five states could actually qualify when the first round of winners is announced in April.
The competition has unleashed widespread speculation over which states are most likely to emerge as favorites. Education lobbyists and academics have spent weeks scouring the applications, which weighed in at more than 24,000 pages. Experts said Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana, Delaware, Colorado and Rhode Island put forward particularly strong applications, with Georgia, Illinois and Indiana also mentioned.
Mr. Duncan has won bipartisan support for Race to the Top, but that could change as lawmakers and governors realize only a small minority of states may emerge as winners.
"There are sure to be equity questions as governors and others start asking, 'Are these really the neediest states? How many students are being served?' " said Joel Packer, who directs the Committee for Education Funding, a organization in Washington that represents an array of education groups.
A sizable group of senators last week sent a letter to Mr. Duncan, raising concerns that rural states might be left out of the program.
States that don't make the cut this week will have a chance to strengthen their applications for a second round during the summer.
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15 states, DC named 'Race to the Top' finalists
Christine Armario, The Associated Press, 3/4
MIAMI (AP) -- The U.S. Department of Education named 16 finalists Thursday in the first round of its "Race to the Top" competition, which will deliver $4.35 billion in school reform grants.
Selected from a pool of 41 applicants are: Colorado, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Tennessee. The winners will be chosen in April, and a second round of applications accepted in June.
"These states are an example for the country of what is possible when adults come together to do the right thing for children," U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said.
The grants are designed to reward states that have adopted and will continue implementing innovative reforms to improve student performance.
The money is part of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus law, which provided an unprecedented $100 billion for schools. Much of that has gone toward preventing teacher layoffs and addressing other budget concerns. The $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" fund is targeted specifically for education reform.
Applications were read and scored by panels of five peer reviewers. Those with the highest average score were selected to visit Washington later this month to present their proposals. The Education Department said it expects no more than half of the money to be awarded in the first phase of the competition.
Duncan said they are setting a high bar in the first phase and anticipate few winners.
"But this isn't just about the money," Duncan said. "It's about collaboration among all stakeholders, building a shared agenda, and challenging ourselves to improve the way our students learn."
Duncan has said the money could go to a total of 10 to 20 states.
The Education Department asked states to concentrate their proposals on four areas prioritized in the Recovery Act: adopting standards and assessments to better prepare students for careers and college; getting high-quality teachers into classroom; turning around low-performing schools; and creating data systems to track performance.
States also were required to be legally permitted to link student performance data to teacher evaluations.
Critics have questioned the timing, saying the administration is out of touch with state budget needs in putting forward billions in reform at a time when many districts can barely afford basic necessities.
Florida's K-12 education budget is facing a roughly $1 billion shortfall, including a $778 million reduction in local property taxes because of falling real estate values. The rest is due mainly to increased enrollment from an influx of Haitian children displaced by the earthquake there and former private school students whose parents no longer can afford tuition.
"You can always say now is not the right time for change," said Amy Wilkins, vice president for government affairs and communications at The Education Trust. "But the fact is that improving education is sort of a linchpin in improving the economic health of the country. So we have to do this now."
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No-Child law is a highlight of hearing on education
Sam Dillon, The New York Times, 3/4
WASHINGTON — Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is presiding over the rollout of the largest competitive grant program in his department’s history, a vast expansion of the government’s direct loan program for college students and sweeping new expenditures on failing schools, teacher quality and other big initiatives.
So it was not surprising that the first question Mr. Duncan faced from lawmakers on Wednesday in an appearance before Congress was whether the Obama administration would also would try this year to rewrite, or reauthorize, the main law on federal policy on public schools, No Child Left Behind.
“Every Monday or Tuesday when we come back to Congress, my colleagues come up and ask when we’re going to reauthorize, and between us, I don’t know if we have a complete answer yet,” said Representative George Miller, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee. “Our position is we would really like to get this done this session of Congress.”
Is that your position? Mr. Miller then asked Mr. Duncan.
The secretary replied: “That is absolutely the goal. There is so much we can do to fix the current law.”
But questions remain. Neither the administration nor anyone in Congress has made public any new draft bill, and the ranking Republican member on the committee, Representative John Kline of Minnesota, congratulated Mr. Duncan for working with Republicans and listening to their ideas before writing one.
“Starting with a blank piece of paper is absolutely the right process,” Mr. Kline said.
Still, any effort at reauthorization beginning with a blank slate would take many months, and experts say any successful overhaul this year must culminate in August, before midterm elections gobble up the Congressional schedule. Administration officials say, however, there is much behind-the-scenes progress.
So far, the administration has outlined only its general intentions for changing the law. Those include replacing the current school rating system, built around the requirement that schools make “adequate yearly progress” toward a 2014 deadline for having all students proficient in reading and math. A new goal, the administration has said, would be for all students to leave school “college and career ready.”
In written testimony on Wednesday, Mr. Duncan offered more details.
“States would measure school performance on the basis of progress in getting all students, including groups of students who are members of minority groups, low-income, English learners, and students with disabilities, on track to college- and career-readiness, as well as closing achievement gaps and improving graduation rates for high schools,” the secretary said.
The administration also wants changes in the law’s provisions on teacher quality, he said.
The current law requires states to certify that all teachers are highly qualified, based on their college coursework and state-issued credentials.
The administration hopes to refocus that section away from paper credentials to teacher effectiveness, in part by asking states to devise better systems for teacher evaluation. Race to the Top, the grant program in which 41 states are competing for a share of $4 billion in federal money, requires participating states to develop the capability to evaluate teachers based on student test data, at least in part.
Representative Mark Souder, Republican of Indiana, said he admired several of the administration’s initiatives, but he warned Mr. Duncan against being blinded to the grim economic conditions across the country by the billions he was disbursing.
“In Indiana, the budget is tight, the governor has cut back, we see schools laying off teachers, we see them closing down schools,” Mr. Souder said. “And we come out here and we hear how we’re going to spend money this, spend money that. There’s an increasing disconnect between Washington and the grass roots.”
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Rhode Island school nears compromise on mass teacher firings
Nick Anderson, The Washington Post, 3/4
A Rhode Island school superintendent and union leaders, who have been at odds over a decision to fire every teacher at a struggling high school, signaled Wednesday that a compromise that would preserve jobs and overhaul the school may be possible.
"I am pleased to reassure the union their place in the planning process," Central Falls Superintendent Frances Gallo said in a statement. She said she welcomes union input in developing "a dynamic plan to dramatically improve student achievement" at Central Falls High School.
Gallo's statement followed an overture Tuesday from the Central Falls Teachers' Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers. The instructors have offered support for a longer school day, as well as more rigorous evaluations and training, among other steps.
That appeared to pave the way for reopening negotiations on the proposed dismissals.
The decision last month to replace the teaching staff at the end of the school year cast the spotlight on a new Obama administration policy: To qualify for a share of $3.5 billion in federal turnaround aid, local officials must close the struggling school or replace the principal and start over with a new academic game plan and perhaps a new staff. That significantly tightens accountability measures under the 2002 No Child Left Behind law.
Experts say there is little evidence to determine whether firing teachers en masse will improve a troubled school, despite President Obama's support for Rhode Island officials who appeared on the verge of taking that drastic step earlier.
On Monday, referring to the Rhode Island case, Obama said accountability was necessary for a school with perennially low test scores.
Outraged union leaders complained that the White House had taken management's side in a protracted labor dispute. Administration officials, sensitive to that charge, insisted that they simply favor bold reform, leaving details to local officials.
Despite Wednesday's developments, experts say the effectiveness of Obama's school turnaround strategy remains an open question.
"There just is very little evidence in terms of what works in quickly turning around a persistently low-performing school," said Grover "Russ" Whitehurst, a Brookings Institution scholar who oversaw education research under President George W. Bush.
Whitehurst said the federal Institute of Education Sciences pursued that question under his tenure but failed to find enough examples for solid answers. "There are certainly occasions when shutting down a school or firing everybody may be a precondition for reform," he added. "But the problem is, it's unclear what to do, after these schools are shut down, that will work."
Jack Jennings, a former Democratic congressional aide who is president of the Center on Education Policy, has tracked restructuring efforts since the No Child law forced schools to raise test scores or face a series of escalating sanctions.
In that time, educators have tried consultants and charter school conversions; replaced staff and management; and experimented with state takeovers and other ideas -- all to help schools that fall short at least five years in a row.
"We could find no evidence that any one particular approach worked better than any other," Jennings said. Obama's statement on the Rhode Island school, he said, shows that the president wants to crack down on academic failure, "but there's no assurance that kids are going to be any better off."
Removing all or most of a school's faculty, experts say, raises the obvious issue of finding effective replacements. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Wednesday that schools elsewhere have been rejuvenated after changing staff. His aides cited cases in Chicago, Colorado and Los Angeles.
"I will tell you what doesn't work," Duncan told reporters Wednesday. "Doing nothing."
In the District, Schools Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee has replaced most of the staff in several schools since taking office in 2007. There are promising signs in some of those, experts say, but no huge breakthroughs.
Gerald N. Tirozzi, executive director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, criticized the requirement that a principal be replaced in order for a school to qualify for federal funds; he said anecdotal evidence of success is not enough to justify it.
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Teachers counter education reform ideas on tests, pay
USA Today, 3/4
Education reformers have long dreamed of a day when schools could rate every K-12 teacher in the USA based on how his or her students perform on a standardized test. It's a simple, bipartisan dream that has captivated both President Bush (it's a cornerstone of his 2002 No Child Left Behind education law) and President Obama, who's putting test scores squarely at the center of his emerging education agenda.
But a new, large-scale survey finds that only one in 14 teachers thinks it's a "very accurate measure" of teacher performance. They give more credence to kids' evaluations, actually.
"For me, student achievement means performing at levels which will prepare (students) for college and for the real world — it doesn't necessarily mean which band on the standardized test they're performing at," says Cate Dossetti, an English teacher at Fresno, Calif., High School.
But ratings on such tests, she says are "a lot easier to measure."
Three times as many teachers — 22% — say principal evaluations are a very accurate measure, but 78% of teachers agree that principals are at best only "somewhat" trustworthy when it comes to rating job performance.
"I feel like teachers really have an opinion how to make students better," says Dossetti. "They want to make students better. They want to be judged based on their interaction with students, not on something that's so far outside of their control."
The findings are part of a wide-ranging survey, out today, of more than 40,000 USA teachers. Perhaps the largest ever, it's issued jointly by Scholastic, the children's publisher, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
Among other findings:
• Only 10% say tenure — a kind of job-for-life security based on a few years of satisfactory job evaluations — is a "very accurate" indicator of teacher quality;
• 71% say paying teachers more for improved student performance would have only a "moderate" impact or no impact at all.
• 97% say supportive leadership is an "absolutely essential" or "somewhat important" factor in teacher retention, while only 25% say the same about pay tied to performance.
And while most teachers say that traditional textbooks help student achievement, fewer than half say textbooks "engage my students in learning."
While reformers may be dismayed about teachers' grim views of test scores, there's one area where they may be pleasantly surprised: Teachers overwhelmingly support clearer academic standards.
And while support for common standards across the USA is high among elementary school teachers — 66% support the idea — by high school, it drops to 49%.
Dossetti counts herself among the common standards believers: "Too often we get into the problem that the business world says college graduates aren't prepared for the real world," she says. "And college says, well they're not prepared for the real world because they weren't prepared for college — and high school says they weren't prepared for college because they weren't prepared for high school. It's really easy just to keep pointing downward, and I think that's detrimental overall to our success as a nation. We have to have a common, national idea of what it means to be an educated 12th-grader, and work from that point."
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Schools stress over ISAT, hope students don’t
Chicago Tribune, 3/5
That feeling that third- through eighth-grade students and parents are experiencing is ISAT-itis — a tension that develops as the Illinois Standards Achievement Test disrupts their daily routines.
School schedules are thrown out the window. Parents are asked not to schedule doctor appointments during the school day, to cancel vacations, to make sure their kids are fed a healthy breakfast and arrive at school on time.
But if families feel a little stress during the annual testing window, consider the plight of the school administrator or teacher who must pull off a minor miracle of organization to adhere to the rigid set of rules that govern the process.
Each bar-coded booklet must be guarded before the tests and accounted for afterward so the questions aren't compromised. Schools have to provide a written statement to explain why even a single booklet is missing.
Each student must be given the right materials for the right subject. Something as seemingly simple as scratch paper has to follow specifications (blank and unlined, collected and destroyed after each test session) to make sure the test is truly standardized.
Illinois third- through eighth-graders are in the middle of a testing window that began this week and will run through mid-March.
Sharon Aspinall, the principal at Highland Middle School in Libertyville District 70, personally labels and counts 1,500 test booklets.
"A lot of people pawn that task off on social workers," said Aspinall, who even signed for the 33 boxes when they arrived and locked them in the conference room next to her office. Not her.
"No one touches them," she said. "I don't want anyone in the room unless I am. If I'm the one that's responsible, I have to make sure they are safe."
The test provides a snapshot of how kids are performing relative to statewide standards. It's not tied to individual success, because children have already advanced to the next grade by the time scores are returned. But schools are graded, and can be sanctioned, based on ISAT results.
The stakes are high in West Chicago Elementary School District 33, where five of seven schools have not met the federal standard of "adequate yearly progress." If schools fail to reach it again the district will have to provide services such as privately run after-school tutoring.
Educators say they walk a careful line, asking students to take the tests seriously without making them anxious about grown-up problems, such as the threat of closing schools that repeatedly fail to meet expectations.
"You don't want to scare the kid to death," said Vicky Zanillo, District 33's assistant superintendent for learning.
It's her job to make sure the testing is done correctly and takes place in a non-stressful environment. Things that don't slide during the school year are given a pass during ISAT week, such as gum chewing, which is supposed to serve as a stress reliever. Announcements are banned during testing, school bells don't ring between periods and little homework is assigned.
Then there are the precautions taken to secure the integrity of the tests and detailed in a 68-page manual on the state board of education's Web site.
Teachers are instructed not to add classroom displays leading up to the test and to remove anything attached to the top of a student's desk other than name tags. Test instructions must be read from a script, not ad-libbed. And most importantly, district officials must guard test materials or keep them in a secure, locked area.
Evanston/Skokie School District 65, which will begin testing next week, has established a "chain of custody" for test materials. Building coordinators have conducted a classroom walk-through to ensure each is test-ready.
"I get a detailed schedule planned down to the room and who will be in it," said Katherine Greenleaf, the district's assessment and accountability specialist. "I have a list of readers for reader scripts. And I know what test is going on at what school at any given time."
While ISAT preparation is not for the organizationally challenged, the test period itself is a "breeze," Aspinall said. Then, once it's complete, coordinators inventory answer sheets and booklets and pack them for shipping.
Even the order the materials are to be placed in the boxes is covered by the testing rules.
"I like the day they do pick-up," Aspinall said. "That's my favorite."
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