The Accountability Illusion

AYP Rules Skew Schools' Results,

Study Concludes

Geography may have as much to do with a school making AYP under the federal No Child Left Behind Act’s accountability system as does student achievement.

Because states set their own standards, define proficiency differently, and employ a variety of statistical methods in interpreting test scores, a school’s accountability status could differ from one state to another, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute found in research for the “The Accountability Illusion.”

“Unfortunately, the way NCLB rates schools appears to be idiosyncratic—even random—and opaque,” says the report...

This study examines the No Child Left Behind Act system and Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) rules for 28 states. We selected 36 real schools (half elementary, half middle) that vary by size, achievement, diversity, etc. and determined which of them would or would not make AYP when evaluated under each state's accountability rules. If a school that made AYP in Washington were relocated to Wisconsin or Ohio, would that same school make AYP there? Based on this analysis, we can see how AYP varies across the country and evaluate the effectiveness of NCLB.

Click Here for an interactive map of state AYP targets.

Fix that failing school! Click here for the full-size video game.

The Accountability Illusion: An interview with Checker from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.

The Obama Agenda

When funding is inadequate, excellence and equity are forced to compete. But when funds abound, a president can say "yes" to lots of stuff.

This from Diane Ravitch at Bridging Differences:

The president said that his administration would support whatever works, without regard to whether the ideas are liberal or conservative. He then laid out a vision that heaped goodies on both the liberal Broader, Bolder Agenda (early-childhood education) and the conservative Education Equality Project (more testing, tough accountability, charter schools, merit pay).

This is a politically astute trick. President Obama avoids choosing sides by giving both camps what they want. The left wants more funding: Done! The right wants choice, testing, and merit pay based on test scores: Done!

But let’s look at the vision of where American education is heading. The key here, I think, is the $250 million that the Obama administration will give to states to build longitudinal data systems. These data “warehouses” will collect and track every student’s data from pre-kindergarten through the end of college. Students’ test scores will be linked to individual teachers. Teachers who fail to get test score gains consistently will lose their jobs, while those who do get gains will be rewarded with bonuses or higher salaries. That is one obvious use of the data warehouses.

The assumption here is that the tests we have are excellent; that they are vertically aligned from grade to grade; and that they can safely and reliably be used as the basis for making high-stakes decisions for teachers and students. Many testing experts would challenge each of these assumptions....

FactCheck Sees Politics in Presidential Punditry

This from FactCheck.org:

Last year, the president [Bush] touted U.S. gains in education, saying that our "fourth- and eighth-graders achieved the highest math scores on record." He bragged that "African-American and Hispanic students posted all-time highs."

Last week, the president [Obama] said those eighth-graders weren't so great at math after all. He claimed they had "fallen to ninth place" in the world, and he bemoaned a high school dropout rate that had "tripled" over three decades.What a difference a year makes...

Whether the education system in the U.S. has improved greatly or needs great improvement may depend on whether a president is nearing the end or just beginning his time in office. In his final State of the Union address, President George W. Bush claimed student test scores had gone up after enactment of his education legislation. As we said at the time, he was mostly correct.

Bush said for example that in 2007, fourth- and eighth-graders "achieved the highest math scores on record." We noted that the "record" of scores dates back only to 1990, and also that Bush failed to note a decline in reading scores for eighth-graders, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress. But, in general, test scores have risen since enactment of the No Child Left Behind law. Touting those cheery stats, however, wasn’t exactly on President Barack Obama’s agenda last week when he spoke about education to the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C.

Just as Bush left out any mention of less-than-rosy assessments of the nation's education system, Obama didn't say too much about how smart our kids are. And some of his gloomy claims were just plain wrong, or misleading...

For Example:

• The claim that "our high school dropout rate has tripled in the past thirty years"? That's not even in the ballpark. [There was] actually a 34 percent decrease in the high school dropout rate.
• U.S. eighth-graders were in 28th place [in math] and in 2003, they had jumped to 15th place. Now, they're even smarter, comparatively speaking.
• The U.S. already has the second highest percentage of college graduates with a four-year degree in the world (30 percent), trailing Norway by a single percentage point.
• Between 1995 and 2007, average math scores of U.S. eighth-graders have gone up 16 points, while those of Singapore's eighth-graders have gone down by that same amount. In science, U.S. eighth-graders have gained 7 points during that period, while Singapore's have lost 13 points.

Texas Cage Matches for Troubled Kids

This from the MSNBC:

Texas high school held cage fights, records say

Staff allegedly staged 'gladiator-style'

brawls for troubled students

DALLAS - The Dallas school system was rocked by allegations Thursday that staff members at an inner-city high school made students settle their differences by fighting bare-knuckle brawls inside a steel cage.

The principal and other employees at South Oak Cliff High knew about the cage fights and allowed the practice to continue, according to a 2008 report by school system investigators.

"More than anything, I'm in shock and disbelief — shocked that this could ever occur and shocked that it would be condoned by a professional administrator," said Jerome Garza, a member of the Dallas school board...

Legs

Charter School: No Skimming, No Rising Tide, No Better or Worse

"...charter-school competition is

unlikely to create arising tide of school performance,

in the absence of dramatic changes in the structures,

incentives, culture, and operation of conventional school districts."

A timely new study from RAND on charter schools provides analysis of several key questions in eight states.

Charter Schools in Eight States:

Effects on Achievement, Attainment,

Integration, and Competition

Charter schools are publicly funded schools that operate outside the direct control of local school districts, under a publicly issued charter that gives them greater autonomy than other public schools have over curriculum, instruction, and operations. Their students (or the students’ parents) choose to attend the charter schools rather than being assigned to a school based on residential location. The first U.S. charter school opened in 1992, and the scale of the charter movement has since grown to 4,000 schools and more than a million students in 40 states and the District of Columbia. With this growth has also come a contentious debate. Supporters argue that charter schools can improve student achievement and attainment, serve as laboratories for innovation, provide choice to families that have few options, and promote healthy competition with traditional public schools (TPSs).

Critics worry that charter schools perform no better (and, too often, worse) than TPSs, that they may exacerbate stratification by race and ability, and that they harm the students left in TPSs by skimming away financial resources and motivated families.

In recent years, research has begun to inform this debate, but many of the key outcomes have not been adequately examined or have been examined in only a few states. Moreover, questions about the validity of the findings of even the best-designed charter-school impact studies have remained, producing deep uncertainty about the interpretation of results.

What Are the Characteristics of Students Transferring to Charter Schools?

• We find no systematic evidence to support the fear that charter schools are skimming off the highest-achieving students.
• Transfers to charter schools did not create dramatic shifts in the sorting of students by race or ethnicity in any of the sites included in the study.
• We find suggestive evidence that African American students are more likely to self-segregate: African American students transferring to charter schools moved to schools with higher concentrations of African American students in five of seven locales.

What Effect Do Charter Schools Have on Test-Score Gains for Students Who Transfer Between Traditional Public Schools and Charter Schools?

• The average effect that charter schools are having on their students across grades K–12 is difficult to estimate.
• In five out of seven locales, these nonprimary charter schools are producing achievement gains that are, on average, neither substantially better nor substantially worse than those of local TPSs.
• In Chicago (in reading) and in Texas (in both reading and math), charter middle schools appear to be falling short of traditional public middle schools.
• In most locations, charter schools have difficulty raising student achievement in their first year of operation, typically producing achievement results that fall short of those of local TPSs. This is consistent with prior research and common sense and may not be a charter specific phenomenon: Opening a new school is challenging, regardless of whether the school is a charter school. Across locations, we see a general pattern of improved performance as schools age.
• Charter schools in most locales have marginally greater variation in performance than TPSs, as measured by the achievementimpact estimate for each school, and, in some locations, this may simply reflect greater measurement error associated with the smaller
  average size of charter schools. Ohio is a notable exception: Its charter schools have a much wider range of variation in performance than its TPSs have.

What Is the Effect of Attending a Charter High School on the Probability of Graduating and of Entering College?

• In the two locations with attainment data (Florida and Chicago), attending a charter high school is associated with statistically significant and substantial increases in the probability of graduating and of enrolling in college.

What Effect Does the Introduction of Charter Schools Have on Test Scores of Students in Nearby Traditional Public Schools?

• There is no evidence in any of the locations that charter schools are negatively affecting the achievement of students in nearby TPSs. But there is also little evidence of a positive competitive impact on nearby TPSs.

What Are the Policy Implications?

• We emphasize the modifier “possible” in discussing policy influences: ...conclusions must remain tentative.
• Findings on the students transferring to charter schools and on the integration effects are largely consistent across sites, suggesting that policymakers need have little fear of cream-skimming or of substantial increases in racial isolation.
• The overall estimates of the average achievement impacts of charter schools can provide little guidance for policy, given that the validity of the estimates for elementary schools is in doubt.
• the challenge is to minimize the
  number of charter failures without sacrificing successful charter
  schools.
• The absence of evidence of substantial effects of charter schools on the achievement of students in nearby TPSs might be encouraging to policymakers who were concerned about negative effects and disappointing to policymakers who hoped that competition would induce TPSs to improve.
• Our findings support the hypothesis (see, e.g., F. Hess, 1999) that charter-school competition is unlikely to create a rising tide of school performance, in the absence of dramatic changes in the structures, incentives, culture, and operation of conventional
  school districts.

Gearing Up in Colorado

This from DFER:

What if [President Obama] decided to host a party, but Colorado was the only state that showed up...

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter this week appointed Lt. Gov. Barbara O'Brien to serve as his hand-picked "Race To The Top" czar, to make sure the state is demonstrating its commitment to meaningful refom so it can qualify for boatloads of innovation funding for schools contained in the recently adopted stimulus festivus...

The Crisis of Credit

This actually caught my eye as a teaching tool.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized distills the economic crisis into a short and simple story by giving it form.

Teaching complex relationships is always difficult for students. Adding graphic form to the credit crisis makes it more comprehensible.

Relationships emerge.



The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

Thanks to the Slate Gabfest.

Kentucky School Board to Meet

KENTUCKY BOARD OF EDUCATION
APRIL 1-2, 2009

STATE BOARD ROOM
FIRST FLOOR, CAPITAL PLAZA TOWER
FRANKFORT, KENTUCKY

Wednesday, April 1, 2009

BUSINESS SESSION - FULL BOARD
STATE BOARD ROOM - 8:30 a.m. (EST)

I. Call to Order
II. Roll Call
III. Discussion and overview with search firm on the commissioner’s search process (Open Session)
IV. Discussion with search firm to create preferred individual candidate characteristics (Closed Session, KRS 61.810 (1)(f) and KRS Chapter 45A)
V. Full Board Items
A. Approval of resolution to honor Stu Silberman, Fayette County Superintendent, as Kentucky Superintendent of the Year

LUNCH TO HONOR STU SILBERMAN
(Lunch provided for KBE members, Invited Guests and Commissioner’s Planning Committee members only)

VI. Approval of minutes from the February 10-11, 2009, regular meeting and the March 4-5, 2009, special meeting

VII. Introduction of new KDE employees and KDE Team Members of the Month
VIII. Report of the Secretary of the Education Cabinet
IX. Report of the President of the Council on Postsecondary Education
X. Report of the Executive Director of the Education Professional Standards Board
XI. Report from the Pre-K to 16 Council
XII. Report of the Commissioner of Education
XIII. Good News Items
XIV. Public Comment Segment (To speak, complete sign-up sheet prior to start of meeting; limit is 3 minutes per speaker with maximum of 30 minutes total for this segment.)
XV. Full Board Items
A. Kentucky Student Information System: Infinite Campus (Review Item) -- Deputy Commissioner Larry Stinson and Division Director Kay Kennedy; 45-minute presentation/15-minute discussion (Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School)
B. Assist and Support School Improvement Success Team (ASSIST) Update (Review
Item) -- Associate Commissioners Johnnie Grissom and Sally Sugg; 20-minute presentation/10-minute discussion (Goal 1: High Student Performance, Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration, Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)

COMMITTEE MEETINGS
STATE BOARD ROOM

XVI. Management Committee Meeting
A. Action/Consent Items
1. District Facility Plan: Bell County School District (Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child)
2. District Facility Plan Amendment: Ballard County School District (Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child)

B. Review Items
1. 702 KAR 7:125, Pupil attendance (Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child)
2. 702 KAR 7:140, School Calendar (Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child)

XVII. Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment Committee Meeting
A. Action/Consent Item
1. Appointment to the State Textbook Commission

(Goal 1: High Student Performance,

Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration,

Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and

Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)

B. Review Item
1. Alteration of the textbook adoption cycle

(Goal 1: High Student Performance,

Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration,

Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and

Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)
2. Collaborative Center for Literacy Development and Kentucky Center for Mathematics: Update on statewide coaching initiatives (Goal 1: High Student Performance, Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration, Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)

RECESS


Thursday, April 2, 2008

COMMITTEE MEETING
STATE BOARD ROOM
8:00 a.m. (EDT)

XVIII. Audit Committee Meeting
A. Call to Order
B. Roll Call
C. Audit Update and Review of the Commissioner’s and Board’s Expenses

D. Adjournment

BUSINESS SESSION - FULL BOARD
STATE BOARD ROOM

XIX. Full Board Items
A. Safety training for high school athletics (Review Item) -- KHSAA Commissioner Brigid DeVries; 30-minute presentation/discussion (Goal 3: Strong and Supportive
Environment for Each School and Every Child

B. Update from AdvanceKentucky (Review Item) -- Joanne Lang, Executive Director of AdvanceKentucky for the Kentucky Science and Technology Council and Dale Fleury, Regional Director of the National Math and Science Initiative; 40-minute presentation/10-minute discussion (Goal 1: High Student Performance, Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration, Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)
C. 2009 Elementary and secondary legislation (Review Item) (Attachment under separate cover) -- Deputy Commissioner Ruth Webb and Legislative Liaison Frank Rasche; 30-minute presentation/10-minute discussion (Goal 1: High Student Performance, Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration, Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)
D. Budget Reduction Update and 2010-2012 Biennial Budget Process (Review Item) -- Deputy Commissioner Ruth Webb and Associate Commissioner Joe Lancaster; 20-minute presentation/10-minute discussion (Goal 1: High Student Performance, Goal 2: High Quality Teaching and Administration, Goal 3: Strong and Supportive Environment for Each School and Every Child and Goal 4: High Performing Schools and Districts)
E. Hearing Officer's Report -- General Counsel Kevin Brown; 10-minute presentation/discussion F. 701 KAR 5:031, Repeal of 701 KAR 5:035, Procedures for Record Requests (Review) -- General Counsel Kevin Brown; 10-minute presentation/discussion

XX. Approval of Action/Consent Agenda Items (approved as a block of items)
A. District facility plans
B. District facility plan amendments

XXI. Report of the Audit Committee
XXII. Board Member Sharing
XXIII. Information Items
A. KDE Employment Report (Goal 1: High Student Performance)
XXIV. Internal Board Business
XXV. Litigation Report
XXVI. Adjournment

Clay County Superintendent Arrested

This from the Herald-Leader:

Picked candidates for election
Changed votes at the voting machine

Top public officials in Clay County schemed to buy votes in several elections so they could hold on to power and enrich themselves and others, a federal grand jury has charged.

Those indicted include R. Cletus Maricle, 65, who was a circuit judge from 1991 through July 2007 and is now a senior judge; schools Superintendent Douglas C. Adams, 57, who has held the office since 1999; County Clerk Freddy W. Thompson, 45, who won election in 2002; Charles Wayne Jones, 69, the county's Democratic election commissioner; and election officer William E. Stivers, 56.



The five allegedly used the county election board as a tool to corrupt elections between March 2002 and July 2007, according to an indictment released Thursday after FBI agents, state police and other officers swept through the county to arrest them...

...All eight are charged with racketeering, a law prosecutors use to combat organized crime...

...The corruption investigation continues, raising the potential for more charges.

The new indictment says Maricle and Adams were considered "political bosses" in the county and used their influence to appoint corrupt members to the county election board.Schools superintendents often head the largest employer in rural counties, giving them considerable influence...

Little Marty Cothran's Magic Dragon

Over at the Prichard Blog, Susan Weston goes all literary on Martin Cothran, spinning a tale of magic elixirs and a dragon that ate teachers, set fire to an entire Kentucky village and lived forever.

By living in the real world, Weston just doesn't see imaginary dragons; but not so little boys. To Cothran, the dragon is real.

In simply doing her best to "build up the public schools of our beloved commonwealth," Weston is totally lacking in an evil enemy to slay.

In Martin’s looking-glass commonwealth, the KERA-dragon cast educational spells far beyond the skills of the left-wing sorcerers of Berkeley, California, and Cambridge, Massachusetts.

In our real state, our elected leaders (from places like Richmond, Prestonsburg, Liberty, Burkesville, and Danville) voted in the Kentucky Education Reform Act. KERA delivered stronger and fairer school funding, reduced political corruption, and vastly improved facilities and technology. It nurtured more focused teachers, better instructional leaders, and a big step up in justified pride in public education.

CATS Reaction Across the State

Senate Bill 1 could be signed into law today as across the state folks are coming to grips with what all this means.

"I believe there are several positive elements that could represent an important step forward in our ongoing efforts to reform primary and secondary education. Most significantly, this legislation will create a new system for statewide accountability and assessment that will, for the first time, measure individual student progress over an extended period of time. That is critically important,” Beshear said in a statement.

Politically, some wonder anew if House Speaker Greg Stumbo's rookies should be faulted for the surprise abandonment of accountability over the next three years. Was this a phantom provision, dropped into the free conference report at the last minute? If so, how, and by whom? Or was it a provision that all conferees agreed to with eyes wide open?

"It's an outstanding bill that will make great improvements and will honor the input that we've received from our educators," Rep. Harry Moberly, D-Richmond [told the Herald-Leader].

Republican Sen. Dan Kelly of Springfield, a longtime proponent of changing Kentucky's assessment tools, said the bill would strengthen Kentucky's education system, not weaken it. "This is not the death of reform," Kelly said.

By all accounts, there was a great deal of input from teachers who had had enough....of something. Some clearly reacted to the amount of time they were being "asked" to commit to assessment at the expense of instruction. After all, you don't fatten a calf by weighing it. Some claimed that district personnel and principals had pushed teachers to the edge of some ethical cliff, and they pushed back.

Kelly's assurance that this does not mark the death of education reform in Kentucky is a welcome acknowledgement for those of us who believe a strong system of public schools is essential to our ability to compete as a state. But not all conservatives are buying it. Over at vere loqui, Martin Cothran declared that with the removal of the testing system KERA is officially dead and asked,

Will the last person out of Kentucky's Education Reform Headquarters please turn off the lights?

At KentuckyProgress, David Adams noted "the end of a disastrous episode in education 'reform'" and "got a kick out of "the Courier Journal referring to Bluegrass Institute as merely a "right-wing think-tank" (when everybody knows they are so much more). He thanked the Herald Leader for the "big laugh and free mention" when they referred to "conservative enemies" which Adams correctly assumed meant BIPPS, even though H-L didn't say.

None of the conservative groups came right out and said that Kelly was wrong. But they apparently believe he was.

The Herald-Leader lamented that as "lawmakers were dismantling Kentucky's school-accountability system last week, researchers were holding it up as a national model" citing Kentucky as one of five states that stand out for increasing high-school graduation rates while reducing schools that are "dropout factories." "It's impossible to not credit the Kentucky Education Reform Act for improvements in graduation rates," the H-L wrote.

Secretary of State Trey Grayson issued a statement voicing his dismay over the reduction of emphasis on social studies.

“By suspending the state accountability index and following the federal accountability requirements, we run the risk of marginalizing civics education,” he said in the statement. “With no accountability system in place for social studies, schools will naturally place a greater focus on those subjects that are part of accountability standards of No Child Left Behind.”

It now falls to the Kentucky Board of Education to guide KDE's response to Senate Bill 1. They start chatting on April 1st.

In the interim, some school districts, like Fayette County, are going to "make public its own 'academic index' based on this spring's testing, whether the state publishes a performance index or not." State education department spokeswoman Lisa Gross told the Herald-Leader the interim provisions in SB 1 might lead to widespread confusion until the new assessment system starts. Wayne Young, executive director of the Kentucky Association of School Administrators told H-L, "Some districts are going to go ahead and finish their portfolios. But you could get a bit of everything. There's no pattern that I would describe."

This morning outgoing President of the Council for Better Education Roger Marcum told state education leaders in an email message that Kentucky "chose the path of least resistance and the high risk of lower expectations for the immediate future."

His opinion echoed that of Prichard Committee head Bob Sexton who wrote an open letter posted on the Prichard blog,

It was decided that, for the next three years starting this spring, Kentucky schools should have no accountability except for student test scores on math and reading as required by No Child Left Behind. This means that the results of testing for writing (portfolios included) science, history, geography, economics, civics (i.e., social studies) and the arts won't be counted. The Kentucky Department of Education is also prohibited from publishing an overall school improvement score (accountability index) so schools won't know whether they are better or worse than the previous year - and neither will parents or other taxpayers.

Sexton quoted KEA President Sharron Oxendine as saying, "we should 'just give everybody a breather' from most accountability until we have a new system in three years."

The problems with that, according to Sexton include:

1. For the next three years schools won't have a way of telling parents and other taxpayers how they're progressing with student learning except in math and reading required by NCLB.
2. A likely result will be to de-emphasize writing, science, social studies (history, economics, geography, civics) and the arts.
3. Strong accountability ... and making the case for adequate or superior school funding are joined at the hip.

This last point has some serious legal implications for schools. Kentucky's constitution requires the General Assembly to provide an efficient system of common schools throughout the commonwealth. The Supreme Court has ruled that that means schools must be adequately funded to reach their goals. The absence of state accountability makes it very difficult, if not impossible, for a court to determine whether the General Assembly has fulfilled its obligation. How is a court to determine whether the system is sufficiently funded to reach its goals if the state has no justiciable standards by which the court might measure the efficiency of the system?

Warning: Bluegrass Institute Proclamations may be Total Horse Hockey

Lousy scholarship has apparently become business as usual at the Bluegrass Institute. ...and don't expect them to retract a thing. That's just not how they roll.

At BIPPS it's all about the message. Facts are mixed with errors and wild speculation to slant any story toward their predetermined goals. Modestly paid functionaries toil over reports and studies looking for anything that can be twisted into a on-going narrative about the big bad government. Public bad. Private good. After all, if rich folks are going to spend their money to hire underlings to express a point of view - they expect to get what they paid for.

And how much are these donors willing to spend? About $320,000 in a given year. Later in this post I'll attempt a BIPPS-style expose...of BIPPS. But first, Mr Waters.

The latest misinformation is from JWaters@freedomKentucky.org and hit my email inbox Monday as an audio file titled "KIRA-Testing."

That was my first clue, it was going to be about KERA. Close enough for BIPPS.

The audio didn't come with a warning label. But it should have.

The speaker opened with,

"Hello Kentuckians. I'm Jim Waters for the Bluegrass Institute."

I'm pretty sure he got that part right.

Waters begins with the premise that,

"Kentucky's school testing system just doesn't work."

This, three days after the legislature acted to dismantle the system. In support of his premise Waters offers the following:

"In 1988, Kentucky implemented the Commonwealth Accountability Testing system."

Uh oh. Factually inaccurate. First KIRA, now 1988. Just 14 seconds into the piece and the only thing Waters has convinced me of is that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

But he persists,

"In 1990, the legislature passed KERA, the Kentucky Education Reform Act, which gives money to schools based on their test scores. The higher its students score on CATS the more money the school gets. Therefore, schools have focused class content solely on CATS material."

That's three. He is using present tense, so one must assume that Waters is either years behind the times - just where I suspect he'd like us all to be - or he is intentionally misinforming his listeners. As informed people know, Kentucky's rewards program was removed by the Republican-controlled legislature a number of years ago. Schools that have received assistance in recent years are those who did not fare so well on the CATS assessment.

And of course Waters ends with the obligatory punch line about how school choice will solve everyone's problems.

One way to overcome this is to offer parents choice on where to send their children to school.

He closes,

I'm Jim Waters for the Bluegrass Institute, advancing freedom, defending liberty, and building a more prosperous Kentucky online at BIPPS, B-I-P-P-S.org.

At this point I had to laugh aloud. All he needed was a sound track of the Superman theme playing in the background.

I'm Jim Waters for Bluegrass institute; trafficking in hyperbole; spewing propaganda based on misinformation; and promoting the free-market principles that have made the nation's economy what it is today at BIPPS, B-I-P-P-S.org.

The piece is in error and ought to be retracted.

I wonder how the world would look to the folks at BIPPS if their microscopes were turned on themselves. What would they find if they looked inward? Would there be a big expose' in it?

I imagine a story something like this:

Inefficient Operation Wastes Donor's Money at BIPPS

In a shocking development that is sure to rattle the foundations of freedom-minded Kentuckians everywhere, a lone investigator has uncovered substantial evidence of financial inefficiency and waste at the Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions based in Bowling Green.

According to the Institute's IRS Form 990, total revenue in 2007 was $332,534. But since the group's inception, circa 2005, BIPPS fundraising has accounted for as much as 24% of its total funding.

Outrageous! That means the group spends about a quarter of its money soliciting people for more money! This is a really big deal, one that has implications for future BIPPS donors and even the group's survival, given the current economy.

To make matters worse, it was revealed that only 32.1% of BIPPS funding ended up going toward the "program services" BIPPS tells its donors it will deliver, while another $106,277 or 31.9% of BIPPS funds were spent on "management and general expenses."

Whadyaknow. A libertarian jobs program!

In reaction to press reports of outlandish non-purposeful spending by some non-profits, researchers at the Urban Institute's National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS)/ Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University explored issues of nonprofit fundraising and administrative cost
reporting. They found that,

"The percentage of total expenses going to program costs is the most common measure of nonprofit organizational efficiency. Focus group research has found that donors expect worthy organizations to have low fundraising and administrative costs. Consequently, nonprofits frequently tout their low overhead ratios in their mailings to the donors. Most striking, the federal government's Combined Federal Campaign, which raised nearly $250 million for nonprofits in 2003, requires that participating organizations certify that their combined fundraising and administrative costs constitute no more than 25 percent of the organizations' total revenues."

Combined fundraising and administrative costs at the Bluegrass Institute, however, exceed 50%, a level of inefficiency not seen in the public school system since the removal of the highly localized Trustee System, where an almost complete lack of government regulation led to the misuse of untold thousands of Kentucky taxpayer dollars in the early 20th century.

If the astounding inefficiencies discovered at BIPPS is any indication of the level of operational efficiency we can expect from other privately-operated groups, then the public should move cautiously before offering privately-operated school choice options - and then, only if ethical and financial safeguards are in place to prevent profit from becoming the reason to open a school in Kentucky.

So, how'd I do?

All the facts will check out. It's all truth and opinion. I even believe almost all of it myself. But when do facts, misinformation and spin simply become a lie? Ask our friends at the Bluegrass Institute.

Quick Hits

PETA protests at LI school: Last week, protesters from PETA showed up at a Hempstead elementary school, unannounced and uninvited, to try to convince youngsters leaving at day's end that circuses mistreat their animals. The protesters handed out coloring books with stickers that read, "Circuses are no fun for animals." (Newsday)

California Warns of Layoffs at Schools: The State Department of Education estimates that preliminary notices will be given to 26,500 teachers and an additional 15,000 bus drivers, janitors, secretaries and administrators. (NY Times)

Court Affirms Texas Schools' Moment of Silence Law: A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a Texas law that requires public school students to observe a daily minute of silence in order to pray, reflect or otherwise remain quiet. A three-judge panel from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans affirmed a district court ruling, saying the law is constitutional because it expressly allows any silent use of that minute, whether religious or not. (Ed Week)

Georgia Voucher Bill Dies: A bill that would have made Georgia the first state in the nation with a universal school voucher program has died after education lobbyists mounted a campaign against the measure. (Ed Week)

Gay-Straight Student Club Must Be Allowed, Fla. Judge Says: A federal judge in Jacksonville, Fla., has ruled that a student club promoting tolerance for gays must be allowed to meet at Yulee High School in north Florida. (Ed Week)

Interest in becoming a teacher surges: Career switchers make up about one-third of the ranks of new teachers, and that number has jumped in the past decade. Now, as the recession deepens, even more people are deciding to become teachers. (MSNBC)

Boy banned from wearing Obama mask in skit: A mask similar to one President Barack Obama himself wore in a "Saturday Night Live" skit prompted a Portland school principal to ban a boy from performing while wearing it at his elementary school talent show after deciding the rubber likeness of the 44th president was "inappropriate and potentially offensive." (The Oregonian)

Condoms in goodie bags - kids in a tizzy: Clinton middle school parents were in for awkward conversations Thursday night after some students got condoms as part of a school health fair giveaway... (New York Daily News)

Code of ethics for charters in works: The Pennsylvania Coalition of Charter Schools is preparing a code of ethics for charter operators to address allegations of financial impropriety and mismanagement that have surfaced at charters in the Philadelphia area, roiling the charter community. (Philadelphia Inquirer)

iPod Touch Lights Child's Pants on Fire: A Kentucky child received an unwelcome surprise recently when his iPod touch exploded in his pants pocket. The incident prompted his mother to file suit against Apple and the retail workers who sold her the device. The child was in school on December 4 with the iPod touch in his pocket; the on/off control was in the "off" position. He "heard a loud pop and immediately felt a burning sensation on his leg." (PC Magazine)

Who Killed the CATS?

It's a shame the CATS assessment went out as it did. Better would have been a planned move to segue CATS toward a kind of value-added system that collected lots of data, but which restrained any inappropriate, scientifically unsupportable uses of the data. C'est dommage.

The state's major newspapers provided their own post mortems on school reform in Kentucky since Friday's collapse of the CATS assessment. They found the same perpetrators.

Their analysis is correct, to a point, but incomplete.

In "Death of reform" the Courier-Journal offered,

The irony is, it's the Republican leadership in Frankfort that has linked arms with the statewide teacher union, the Kentucky Education Association, to trample the remaining vestiges of what was once a comprehensive state reform, with a demanding accountability system.

It's understandable why the conservative, educationally revanchist Republicans and their right-wing think-tank friends want to discredit Kentucky's public education reform, as part of a long-term strategy to abase the public sector, mollycoddle middle-class striver-parents with outmoded, ineffective nationally normed testing and pave the way toward private school vouchers.

C-J might also have mentioned that some opponents didn't seem to believe that equality of educational opportunity was a particularly useful goal from the start. As early as 1994, the Bluegrass Institute's Richard Innes was identified by the Kentucky Post as a KERA foe. BIPPS has since shown a willingness to twist or exaggerate the truth out of any data point to tell a story they wish to be true. The Family Foundation proudly counts itself among those who opposed KERA from the start.

The Herald-Leader has learned that good teachers are sad, but bad teachers are happy. They didn't specifically indicate which were which.

With no whisper of objection from Gov. Steve Beshear, lawmakers last week kicked the ladder out from under the many educators who have been working hard to pull their students and schools up. (On the lower rungs, less accomplished teachers were gleeful.) ...

As it stands, cynics can justifiably conclude that Beshear and House Democrats, under new Speaker Greg Stumbo, caved to the worst impulses of both the teachers union and conservative enemies of public schools.

Similarly, C-J declared it "a mystery why KEA would want to help them do their dirty work," but then decided it must be teacher laziness, and resistance to new ideas - not from the good teachers, you know, but the bad teachers.

You can tell who's who by their support for CATS - or lack thereof.

Simple.

And too simple is what makes both papers wrong.

The papers' desire to turn a deaf ear to the increasingly shrill complaints from a majority of Kentucky teachers - good and bad - over the most recent escalation of test preparation tactics has served to support overzealous superintendents and principals as they ignored veteran teachers' opinions while applying the thumb screws to any teacher who dared not comply.

In that process, we have seen school districts introduce new program after new program, rarely allowing faculty time necessary to allow the innovation to become intergrated into the system. They didn't have time to wait. The superintendent wanted another 10-point jump this year. Somebody on the editorial boards should have written about that.

The holy grail of school reform became that too-good-to-be-true savior principal whose leadership alone would lift children out of ignorance and set the world on the right course.

It a great dream. But it's a dream.

In that sense, do the papers share some complicity for the demise of the CATS assessment?

Just as the papers' unbending support for the Primary Program drove away far too many of our school's most energetic supporters - the parents of primary children - the gamesmanship of the CATS assessment soured a majority of Kentucky teachers. One wonders where we would be today if a more balanced approach was employed by our school reformers, our administrators and the editorial boards. Might it be that the conservative forces could not have mustered the necessary support for a unamious vote in both houses without the number of disillusioned teachers the system has created?

Did you hear that big sigh of relief sweep across the state? I did.

Is it party time in Kentucky schools? I hope not, but I wouldn't give a plug nickle for program evaluations as a substitute for real accountability.

Inside the First Amendment: Loss for coach is win for students' religious liberty

This OPED by Gene Policinski, vice president and executive director of the First Amendment Center in C-J:

In turning away an appeal from a New Jersey football coach who prayed with his students, the U.S. Supreme Court has reaffirmed a long-held protection of the religious-liberty rights of individual players and other students.

The Court decided March 2 not to hear a challenge to an East Brunswick, N.J., school district's policy that forbids staff members from joining in student-led prayer. In doing so, the Court stood by a series of decisions stretching back to 1962, when it found in Engel vs. Vitale that schools can't direct that a prayer be said at the beginning of each school day.

The unsuccessful appeal was pursued by long-time coach Marcus Borden, who wanted to bow his head silently and "take a knee" with his football players in a pre-game moment -- far less than his active leadership in the past, according to Court documents...

...The justices declined to review the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Borden v. School District of the Township of East Brunswick, which rejected the notion that the coach could be perceived as just a bystander -- given that for more than two decades Borden organized or led mandatory prayer meetings. The 3rd Circuit also rejected claims that the coach's actions could be viewed as just "secular" and that constitutional issues were washed away by having students "vote" on whether or not to hold prayer sessions....

...The 3rd Circuit decision upheld the principle that religion does indeed have a place in public schools, but that the school and the people who work there have no group or individual right to favor one religion over others, or to force their beliefs onto students by any means -- and by extension, intrude on parents' rights....

...In the New Jersey case, some students who questioned the coach's practices were subjected to threats, harassment, and religious, racial and ethnic slurs -- in person, on Web sites and at football games.

Those misguided and potentially criminal responses ignore two fundamental facts about religious liberty in this nation: Students in a public school may pray individually or gather on their own in a group before or after the game to pray. But neither the school nor its representatives can become entangled in the process, either by encouraging or inhibiting religious practice -- and certainly not by forcing others to "take a knee" in deference or obedience to state-sponsored beliefs.

Ending the ‘Race to the Bottom’

This from the New York Times:

There was an impressive breadth of knowledge and a welcome dose of candor in President Obama’s first big speech on education, in which he served up an informed analysis of the educational system from top to bottom. What really mattered was that Mr. Obama did not wring his hands or speak in abstract about states that have failed to raise their educational standards. Instead, he made it clear that he was not afraid to embarrass the laggards — by naming them — and that he would use a $100 billion education stimulus fund to create the changes the country so desperately needs.

Mr. Obama signaled that he would take the case for reform directly to the voters, instead of limiting the discussion to mandarins, lobbyists and specialists huddled in Washington. Unlike his predecessor, who promised to leave no child behind but did not deliver, this president is clearly ready to use his political clout on education.

Mr. Obama spoke in terms that everyone could understand when he noted that only a third of 13- and 14-year-olds read as well as they should and that this country’s curriculum for eighth graders is two full years behind other top-performing nations. Part of the problem, he said, is that this nation’s schools have recently been engaged in “a race to the bottom” — most states have adopted abysmally low standards and weak tests so that students who are performing poorly in objective terms can look like high achievers come test time.

The nation has a patchwork of standards that vary widely from state to state and a system under which he said “fourth-grade readers in Mississippi are scoring nearly 70 points lower than students in Wyoming — and they’re getting the same grade.” In addition, Mr. Obama said, several states have standards so low that students could end up on par with the bottom 40 percent of students around the globe.

This is a recipe for economic disaster. Mr. Obama and Arne Duncan, the education secretary, have rightly made clear that states that draw money from the stimulus fund will have to create sorely needed data collection systems that show how students are performing over time. They will also need to raise standards and replace weak, fill-in-the-bubble tests with sophisticated examinations that better measure problem-solving and critical thinking.

Mr. Obama understands that standards and tests alone won’t solve this problem. He also called for incentive pay for teachers who work in shortage areas like math and science and merit pay for teachers who are shown to produce the largest achievement gains over time. At the same time, the president called for removing underperforming teachers from the classroom.

In an effort to broaden innovation, the president called for lifting state and city caps on charter schools. This could be a good thing, but only if the new charter schools are run by groups with a proven record of excellence. Once charter schools have opened, it becomes politically difficult to close them, even in cases where they are bad or worse than their traditional counterparts.

The stimulus package can jump-start the reforms that Mr. Obama laid out in his speech. But Congress will need to broaden and sustain those reforms in the upcoming reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act. Only Congress can fully replace the race to the bottom with a race to the top.

How the Test Was Won

Earlier this month, The Simpson's weighed in on the issue of high-stakes assessment with their episode, "How The Test Was Won."

This episode opens with Homer and Marge celebrating with champagne and New Years party hats. 3...2...1...Happy New Year of school !

Bart and Lisa wander into the kitchen wondering what's going on.

Marge: "It's the first day of school!"

Homer: "You're the government's problem now!"



The plot involves Springfield Elementary school's nefarious plans to game the high-stakes "Vice President's Assessment Test" by manipulating which students -- the Barts or Lisas -- take the test.

Bart is informed that he and a select group of students have received perfect scores on a practice test for the upcoming Vice President’s Assessment Test and are sent off to receive a prize.

Meanwhile, Lisa gets brain lock over a poorly written test question.

Hat tip to Russo.

Nursing Student Sues After UofL Expels Her for Online Posts About Patients

“I like to piss people off, that is, up to the point till it backfires.”

---Nina Yoder

This from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

A former nursing student at the University of Louisville sued the institution in federal court [last week], alleging that it had violated her free-speech and due-process rights by expelling her for her posts on MySpace, where she wrote about her patients, gun rights, and abortion, among other issues.

The former student, Nina Yoder, says that an instructor summoned her to a meeting on February 27 where an associate dean suggested that she might have a gun, and security officers frisked her. The dean, citing concerns with Ms. Yoder’s MySpace blog, then told her she had been withdrawn from all courses and barred from the campus.

In a letter to Ms. Yoder, the nursing school said that she had violated its honor code by identifying herself as a student in “internet postings regarding patient activities.” The nursing school’s honor code holds students to “the highest standards of honesty, integrity, accountability, confidentiality, and professionalism” in “written work, spoken words, actions, and interactions with patients, families, peers, and faculty.” ...

...Before filing the lawsuit, Ms. Yoder had appealed her expulsion. The university denied the appeal....

...Ms. Yoder’s blog posts, which Internet searches don’t turn up but which she attached to her lawsuit, discuss anonymous patients’ cases. In one post, she mentions a 31-year-old woman who attempted suicide with an overdose of Tylenol, saying that she was “sucking up some valuable Nurse’s Aide time around the clock, so they can sit there and listen to some more of her ‘boo hoo poor me.’”

Another post describes Ms. Yoder’s anti-abortion views and patients’ surprise when they discover that they’re pregnant. “We get Virgin Marys by the bundle at the clinic each day,” the post says. “Then they go and surgically expel the unwanted fetus out of their body, unaware that it may be the next Jesus they’re dumping into the biohazard bin.” ...

Silberman Calls NCLB an Overexertion of Power

In an interview with NewsHour, Fayette County Superintendent Stu Silberman discussed No Child Left Behind and new Education Secretary Arne Duncan with reporter John Merrow.

Merrow asked Silberman if NCLB represented federal interference into a local issue. Silberman said,

I think there was an overexertion of power with the No Child Left Behind, because there were things in there that I know that superintendents across this country and teachers believed that were the wrong things to do. We had to deal with those issues or lose our funding...

Asked about Duncan, Silberman said,

He's just been in the trenches with us, and he knows exactly what it is that we've been dealing with.

Duncan, interviewed along with Silberman and three other Superintendent of the Year finalists underscored his intention to move ahead on national standards.

JOHN MERROW: Do we need national standards?

ARNE DUNCAN: I think we need to look at it. I think the idea of 50 states doing things, you know, their own way doesn't quite make sense.

JOHN MERROW: Do you anticipate using some of this stimulus money, this incentive money to help these national standards emerge?

ARNE DUNCAN: Absolutely.

JOHN MERROW: So states will get money if they do this thing that Duncan wants?

ARNE DUNCAN: If you play by these rules, absolutely right.

JOHN MERROW: You're OK with having a secretary of education say, "You can get some money, Stu, if you do what I want"?

STU SILBERMAN: You know what? I think that it's a whole lot better than not getting any money.

This from NewsHour:

Duncan Poised to Assert New Power as Education Chief

President Barack Obama called for big changes in education earlier this week. John Merrow profiles Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, who will be heading up the president's calls for reform and who may bring new strategies to the education policy arena.

Video here.

...Generally, the secretary of education has almost no discretionary money. If the secretary would have $100 million or $200 million -- not billion, but million -- that's a lot of money. All of a sudden now, he's got in excess of $5 billion, and that's more discretionary money. That's bigger than the budget for the old U.S. Office of Education was in the early 1970s...