Posted 10:18 AM by Susan Darst Williams

HOW ARLINGTON NURTURES YOUNG WRITERS

The eastern Nebraska town of Arlington is celebrating this week. Their students posted top scores on the statewide writing assessment of the Nebraska Department of Education. It was Page One news of the Arlington Citizen, and superintendent Steve Schneider said school staff members are “ecstatic.”

Overall, 96 percent of Arlington’s students met or exceeded the standards for writing devised by the state to measure individual student writing effectiveness.

In Arlington, 93.75 percent of the fourth-graders matched or beat state standards. Among eighth-graders, 95.92 percent did it, and 98.48 percent of the 11th graders met the mark.

The scores were dramatically better than in 2001, when they ranged in the 70th percentiles in Arlington, according to the newspaper.

How did this turnaround occur? Did they spend an enormous amount of money? Hire a busload of new teachers? Get everybody and their dog a laptop?

No! Arlington simply emphasized good writing across the curriculum, not just in English class; instituted the DEAR program (Drop Everything and Read), and placed written schoolwork in the hallways for all students to read. The last idea, incidentally, was the students’ idea, school staffers said.

The success just proves once again that more money doesn’t produce better academics. In fact, the old-fashioned, inexpensive, common-sense methods give kids what they need, and produce the kinds of results that are making Arlington hold its head high.

Posted 10:48 AM by Susan Darst Williams

LITERACY HEROINE RIDES AGAIN

Ann Mactier may be the best hope Nebraska’s disadvantaged kids have for a ticket out of hopeless poverty. This past summer, the longtime phonics advocate made another outstanding move in the effort to teach teachers how to teach needy children to read.

Mrs. Mactier, a member of the Nebraska State Board of Education and former member of the board of the Omaha Public Schools, joined with Omaha doctor John Latenser to pay for free phonics training for teachers and parents in two 3-day sessions this past summer. The trainings were held at Fontenelle School, 3905 N. 52nd St.

Throughout her tenure as an elected education official, Mrs. Mactier has advocated a return to traditional phonics instruction in the early grades of school. A generation ago, schools discarded traditional methods in favor of whole language reading instruction, which is far less structured. Today’s teachers colleges don’t teach phonics any more, and the number of teachers who know the method is dwindling as they retire. Those few who do know how to teach it are stuck with whole-language curriculum and materials, which don’t fit. So it’s a huge problem.

Although phonics advocates say children in all income groups are hurt by the instructional deficiencies of whole language, it is thought that kids in poverty with less enrichment and supplementation at home, and less-educated parents, are hurt more. Test scores bear that out; when everybody was taught to read with phonics, there wasn’t such a huge gap between rich kids and poor kids in standardized tests.

But how to convince schools of this? You’ve got to show them what they’ve been missing, Mrs. Mactier concluded.

Previously, she paid for all of the teachers at Belvedere and Fontenelle Schools in Omaha’s inner city to receive the training; test scores and reading achievement have improved and teachers and parents are enthusiastic.

For this summer’s training, Mrs. Mactier brought in former Omahan Sharon Goetz, now of St. Louis, to teach the phonics code and the method of explicit, systematic, intensive phonics that has been proven time and time again to be the best way to teach children to read.

Ms. Goetz’s workbook, “Forward Phonics – Forward Readers” was given free to each participant. It is based on the work of well-known phonics gurus Oma Riggs and Romalda Spalding. Omaha Public Schools employees received staff development credit for attending the sessions. There were teachers in public and private schools citywide in attendance, as well as parents, Mrs. Mactier said.

According to a brochure advertising the training;

n 50 percent of Omaha’s disadvantaged population cannot read adequately.
n Nationwide, 75 percent of penitentiary inmates are functionally illiterate – unable to read a job want ad or bus schedule – despite many years of taxpayer-provided schooling.
n Recidivism rates for prisoners who have been taught to read average 35 percent, compared to the 65 percent of illiterate prisoners who return to crime upon release.

“A child’s frustration at being unable to understand reading and writing is devastating,” according to the brochure. “It can shatter confidence. It can permanently handicap. It is an avoidable tragedy. Phonics helps break the code to reading and writing.”



Want to help Ann Mactier fight for literacy for all kids, not just in the inner city? Then help get proper phonics instruction in our schools. If you’re a Nebraska taxpayer, call your school district and ask that the person in charge of reading instruction contact her: mactier@starband.net

Posted 10:11 AM by Susan Darst Williams

EBONY, IVORY, EQUITY, ADEQUACY

There’s a big financial equity lawsuit filed by the Omaha Public Schools and crony districts against Nebraska taxpayers pending in the courts. Once more, though, the facts show that their argument -- more spending on disadvantaged kids will make it allllll better for them academically -- is all wet.

First, we had the specter this past summer of the California Achievement Test scores in OPS, covering reading, language and math for grades 2, 5 and 8. Even though OPS spending has increased dramatically in recent years, including the $254 million bond issue to upgrade buildings significantly, test scores went down in nearly as many grade schools as they went up: 27 and 30, respectively.

Worse, for all that increased spending, the average test score in OPS was in the 68th percentile compared to pupils around the country, the same average posted last year. You could call that a ‘’D.’’

Worst of all, 15 grade schools posted scores that were at or beneath the 50th percentile, a sorry result indeed that indicates widespread illiteracy and academic incompetence despite all that spending. The worst scores were all in inner-city, lower-income parts of town with high percentages of racial minorities and lower levels of parental educational attainment.

At Miller Park Elementary School, the average score was at the 25th percentile, meaning that 75 percent of the kids who took the CAT test nationwide did better. Meanwhile, in west Omaha’s Columbian Elementary, with much higher income levels and more moms and dads who are college graduates, the average score was in the 98th percentile.

The figures make it look as though there is incredible prejudice against or, at best, academic mismanagement or neglect of low-income and minority kids in the state’s largest school district. That can’t be true; it’s much more likely that they’re not using the right curriculum and instruction that will give disadvantaged kids a more level playing field academically with more advantaged kids.

How do we know? Because inner-city private schools, that do use the right methods, have much better academic results.

OPS doesn’t have to sue its own tax patrons for more revenue. All it has to do to help those kids is lose the ‘’progressive education’’ fads like whole language and whole math, and return to legitimate phonics, traditional math, and direct instruction by teachers instead of the ‘’touchy feely’’ chaotic child-centered classrooms in which our neediest kids are obviously starving to death academically.

Despite the obvious answer, though, OPS (www.ops.org) and the Nebraska State Education Association (www.nsea.org) are putting on a full-court press to try to get more money out of taxpayers, claiming inadequate, unfair funding inequities between rich and poor in this state. They want to throw more money at the problem, in other words, and use our guilt to do it.

But according to a nationwide study released by the Nelson A. Rockfeller Institute of Government, reported in the Wall Street Journal on July 30, there is ‘’virtually no link between spending and performance.’’

The study showed, state by state, how much K-12 education spending had gone up in each state and the District of Columbia. National average: 39 percent between 1997 and 2002. Nebraska’s was tagged at 15.6 percent.

But look at this: D.C. had the biggest jump in spending, 46.2 percent, and Florida had the least, 3.5 percent. Ironically, though, in both states, the 4th grade reading scores had improved in both D.C. and Florida in that five-year period, and the 8th grade reading scores were flat in both.

Meaning: more money does NOT improve performance. Less money does NOT hurt kids.

You can see that truth over and over and over again. It’s not the money. It’s the method.

Meanwhile, there are many excellent private schools operating in and around the inner city that are doing a far better job with the same demographic groups of students, for far less money. How? Because they’re using the right methods.

Now, look at this: in the most-recent per-pupil spending data posted on the Nebraska Department of Education website (http://ess.nde.state.ne.us/SchoolFinance/AFR/searcdh/afr.htm), OPS reported spending $7,300 per child per year. That’s just operating funds, not counting construction, debt service and other types of noninstructional spending that goes on. That’s “average daily membership,” too, based on overall enrollment, not based on average daily attendance (ADA). This year’s actual per-pupil cost is likely to top $8,000 on an ADA basis. And again, that’s only for operations, not all the off-budget spending. If you included it, the figure would increase significantly.

But there’s a much cheaper alternative which, sources say, does a far better job than OPS with the same kinds of kids in the inner city. It’s Sacred Heart Academy, 2207 Wirt St., an inner-city private school with tuition of $2,700 per pupil per year. Now, actual cost per child is about $5,000, but they get donors to plug that gap. And 100 percent of their kids are so poor, their families get financial aid and pay less than full tuition. The minimum is just $550 per child per year. The point is, it works. According to their website, www.sacredheart-cues.org, they have 142 pupils K-8, of whom 97 percent are African-American, and 96 percent are not even Catholic.

So . . . want equity? Want adequacy? Send needy kids to private school! Our toughest-to-educate kids can be educated better than they are now, for significantly less money to boot.

What’s not to like about that?

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Sacred Heart School is having its annual Founders Day Dinner on Sept. 3 at Erin Court, 4714 N. 120th St. It’d be a good opportunity to learn what the school is all about, and begin supporting its fine work. Call (402) 451-5755 for details.

Posted 10:36 AM by Susan Darst Williams

BLAIR: TISSUES FOR ISSUES

The three public elementary schools in Blair hosted “Boo Hoo Breakfasts” this week for parents of new kindergarteners. Tissues were provided along with a warm welcome to the parents’ organization and an invitation to attend upcoming meetings and open houses. What a fun way to recruit new members for Blair Parents for Education. Good job.

Tissues might need to be provided to Blair taxpayers, though, to catch their tears of pain as the bills come in this school year. Sources say there’s conflict about a recent spending decision to put telephones in every room in the Blair district, which could have been handled by voice mail for much less money. The sources said the district recently re-carpeted the high school at a cost of $92,000, including a Blair Bear logo to the tune of $5,600.00. There’s pressure to give each teacher a laptop and a PDA, as well.

A glance through the school-board minutes for this month, published in The Pilot-Tribune, shows an array of non-teaching school-district expenditures such as:

$49,887.22, Huntel Communications, phones
$70,228.00, Floors Inc., carpet
$84,4121.25, McKinnis Roofing, roofs
$94,990.81 for the monthly payment to the Nebraska Retirement System
$89,742.00 to Blue Cross Blue Shield

And on it went: $1,607.12 for trash pickup . . . $258.75 for a compressor belt . . . $7,369.75 for contracted counseling services . . . $2,000 for tree service . . . $1,784.47 for tile . . . $923.41 for soap for a bus barn washer . . . $6,033.08 for school agendas . . . $324.90 for mulch . . . $2,199.00 for bleacher repairs and maintenance . . . $540.55 for custodial uniforms . . . .
Taxpayers might want to hand tissues back to staff and union folks next time they cry that there’s not enough money to pay teachers. Well, there WAS. . . .

Blair parents might need those tissues, too: Blair was recently rocked by news that its teens drank alcohol and used drugs such as marijuana at a rate much higher than other communities, and beginning at the sixth-grade level. Use of inhalants and methamphetamines was reported on the increase among sophomores and seniors, according to survey results. An unusual amount of substance abuse signifies that something’s out of whack, whether in a family or a school system. At least part of the blame goes to counter-productive drug education programs like D.A.R.E. that are provided in schools at taxpayer expense, which have been shown to increase substance abuse, not deter it, and everybody seems to know that except the schools.

But there’s good news, too. Blair students recently posted above-average scores on the ACT exam, with an average score of 22.6 out of 36, compared to the Nebraska average of 21.7. Neither of those averages are anything to write home about, but at least Blair wasn’t below the statewide score.

The best news of all is that Blair resident Brook Matthews will represent the state as Miss Nebraska at the Miss America pageant early next month. Hey! She’s very pretty! And those tissues will be needed to wipe tears of joy if she wins the crown.

Posted 11:17 AM by Susan Darst Williams

SKIRTING THE LID WITH INTERLOCALS

Everywhere you look, school boards are passing interlocal agreements for big, big bucks. It sounds to the uninitiated taxpayer as if schools are throwing aside turf battles in the name of financial unity and togetherness, joining hands and singing Kum-Ba-Yah.

Wrong-o. The only reason so many more interlocal agreements are passing is that interlocal agreements can get around the school spending lid set by the Nebraska Legislature. It was supposed to restrain school districts from overspending,

And so we have the specter of interlocal agreements through Educational Service Units paying for substitute teachers, administrators, staff developers and who knows what all else. Meanwhile, few people realize that spending is going over the agreed-upon cap because the revenue sources are off-budget.

For example, Waterloo and Valley just agreed on two new interlocals to share an administrator with a $74,500 salary, and to pay for a special education teacher to the tune of $50,347, according to Tuesday’s Douglas County Post-Gazette. Both school boards also are in an interlocal agreement for nursing services through the Visiting Nurses Association for up to $14,000.

But those are small potatoes, dollar-wise, compared to what’s going on across the rest of the state. Sources say that while interlocals are becoming rampant across the state and basically under the radar as far as taxpayers go, the most noticeable one involves the Nebraska Association of School Boards insurance pool. Reportedly, schools are taking higher bids from this pool than they could pay otherwise, just so that they can budget for their insurance costs above and beyond the supposed spending lid.

Other spending categories that allow schools to sidestep the spending lid include special education, grants, lease-purchase agreements, costs of repairing natural disasters, building operations and maintenance, and retirement incentives.

Posted 11:11 AM by Susan Darst Williams

DISTRICT 66 IN RANCHO MIRAGE . . . IT FIGURES

What did you do on YOUR summer vacation? One of Nebraska’s most prominent school superintendents went to Palm Springs for free.

According to a July 23 report in the Dallas Morning News, Ken Bird, superintendent of Omaha’s District 66 public schools, received an all-expenses paid trip to a resort hotel in Rancho Mirage, Calif., and a $2,000 consulting fee to spend three days talking to companies eager to do business with school districts.

Bird was among superintendents around the country, especially from wealthier areas, who were brought to the Palm Springs area. They were brought there by a Grand Island-based company for the event, according to the article, “Superintendents Get $2,000 Consulting Fees to Hobknob With Vendors.”

The company is Education Research and Development Institute. ERDI was founded by Mike Kneale, a Bird associate from Nebraska special education circles. Kneale is a former superintendent in Holdrege and Grand Island who now works as a motivational speaker. Kneale, former president of the Nebraska Association of School Administrators, also has been active on the Nebraska Educational Telecommunications Commission, the TeamMates mentoring program and other statewide groups.

The vendors he brings regularly to places like Rancho Mirage sell textbooks, computers, continuing education programs, food and other goods and services to school districts. They pay Kneale’s company for the uninterrupted business and social time with superintendents who control hundreds of millions of dollars of school contracts every year.

According to the Dallas article, business ethicists say the conference creates the appearance that companies and superintendents have formed an exclusive club with the potential to affect the contracts awarded by districts.

"I find it troubling that money from the private sector is finding its way into superintendents' pockets," Diane Swanson, a business professor and founding chair of the Ethics Initiative at Kansas State University, told the Dallas paper. "There is something wrong with blurring that boundary with a cozy group of people who may not be operating at arm's length."

According to the article, some states require school superintendents to disclose all sources of income regularly on a publicly-available document. However, according to Frank Daley of the Nebraska Accountability and Disclosure Commission, Nebraska does not have such a requirement. On the other hand, outside income, consulting fees, junkets and other extras are required to be reported by Nebraska state senators and various county and state officials who are involved in contracting and procurement, Daley said.

Posted 10:51 AM by Susan Darst Williams

GO BIG ED RESUMES WEEKDAY PUBLICATION TODAY!

Please help me "grow" my readership by telling your friends and colleagues about this public service.

To subscribe, or to send story ideas and comments: swilliams1@cox.net

Thank you! Have a great school year . . . and Go Big Ed!

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A CALL FROM THE PRINCIPAL

The first day of school! The smell of freshly-sharpened No. 2 pencils! The sound of three-ring binders stiffly snapping shut! The sight of burned-out parents clicking their heels! It’s a wonderful time of the year!

Yes, I was a class clown and yes, my parents thought about sending a case of Jim Beam on Teacher Appreciation Day instead of an apple. I was “challenging.”

One morning, I kept “talking out’’ and was really bugging our teacher. She had been reading Johnny Tremain to us. At one point, she groped around for the name of the King of England during the pre-Revolutionary War days in which the book is set.

“This happened in the time of King . . . uhhh . . . King . . . let’s see, King. . . .”

I interjected: “King KONG?!?!?”

The class erupted in laughter. It was the last straw. She whisked me to the principal’s office.

“Tell him what you said!” she commanded. Then she whirled on her heel and went back to class, stopping, no doubt, in the teacher’s lounge for a belt of that Jim Beam.

I was scared. The principal had spectacular hair. They said he had a Spanking Machine with thousands of turbo-powered paddles. Maybe nuclear. His eyes pierced my skull. I spilled my guts.

His eyes pierced my skull for one more second . . . and then he slapped the desk, fell back in his chair, and howled with laughter.

Then he said kindly, “Now you go back in there and behave. I don’t want to see you in here again.”

No Spanking Machine?

No flaming phone call to the FBI, CIA . . . or worst of all, D.A.D.?

I was so grateful, I was good for the rest of the year.

Thank God for smart and kindly educators. Where would we be without them?

I’m thinking of one of them who retired this past May, the longtime principal at our nearby grade school. He’s a happy, hard-working guy who’s so much fun, even his name rhymes: Larry DeBaere. No child ever feared that he had a Spanking Machine. He was authoritative, but friendly.

When we moved here, he made sure our daughter Eden felt welcome. He called the friendliest girl in her class to invite Eden over to play, a few days before school started, and get her plugged in.

He was always standing in front of school at dropoff and pickup times. He knew everybody’s names. He high-fived the boys and shoulder-hugged the girls. He joined in games at recess, and attended all the after-school events.

After he retired, I heard a sweet story. When he started as principal, he found out about another little girl who was transferring in and feeling anxious. On the first day of school, brrrring! The phone rang at her house. It was her new principal, Mr. DeBaere. Usually, you hate it when the principal calls. But not this time.

“Kelsey,” he said, “happy first day of school. You’re new here, just like me. I hope you have a wonderful year.”

The two of them bonded. From then on, every morning on the first day of school, he called her. She’s a college junior now, on course to become a doctor. Who knows how much of her school success is due to Mr. DeBaere’s faith in her, and friendship?

We can’t ask for anything more than what the Mr. DeBaeres of the world give our kids: solid academics delivered with a gentle smile . . . always another chance . . . a little signal that you’re special.

If I know Kelsey, the phone is going to ring this Thursday morning in the home of a certain retiree, who won’t be in school on the first day for the first time in a very long time.

But a familiar young voice will say, “Mr. DeBaere? This is Kelsey. It’s the first day of school . . . and I hope you have a wonderful year.”