Posted 11:04 AM by Susan Darst Williams

NEBRASKA: BEIGE, BLAND AND BEHIND
WHEN IT COMES TO SCHOOL CHOICE INNOVATION

Here's some good info on school choice. Scroll down to the U.S. map and see how backward Nebraska looks compared to other states. WAH! We're blah:

http://www.heritage.org/research/education/schoolchoice/schoolchoice.cfm

Posted 1:18 PM by Susan Darst Williams

BLACK FAMILIES GETTING IN TO HOMESCHOOLING;
AN ANSWER FOR THOSE WHO FEEL TRAPPED IN OPS?

Here's a surprising story that could contain pearls of wisdom for black Omahans who aren't happy leaving their children in the Omaha Public Schools, and can't wait the years it may take to sort out all the issues in court and the Legislature and turn them around, if ever:

According to U.S. Department of Education figures, more than 100,000 black American children are now being homeschooled, and their numbers are growing faster than whites.

An estimated 9% of the homeschoolers in this country are African-Americans, the 2003 figures show. That shows a lot more diversity in homeschooling than most people think. Black kids make up 16% of the student body in public schools.

The reason for increasing black representation in homeschooling may have as much to do with quality as with social issues often cited, such as safety. The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University reported recently that a black public-school student has three times as much chance as a white student to be labeled "special education." Parents of smart black kids don't want their kids misunderstood, mislabeled, and miseducated, and so the "do-it-yourself" option comes to the fore.

Maybe it should be happening more.

Read more on:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/09/25/MNGLCLC58S1.DTL

Another resource is the National African-American Homeschoolers Alliance.

Posted 4:18 PM by Susan Darst Williams

SOS SIGNALS GOOD SENSE

Did you catch that good reporting by the local daily? Nebraska’s state and local tax load ranks us 15th in the nation among states, and getting worse. When you factor in our relatively low personal income levels, we ratchet up to the eighth-biggest tax bite in the land.

What’s driving most of that? Unrestrained school spending. What might hold the line on it? Nothing that we have going now. The two biggest ed bills of recent times, LB 126 (forced consolidation of Nebraska’s remaining small schools) and LB 1024 (the legally-suspect but still very much viable consolidation of Omaha metro area school districts under one funding umbrella as a “Learning Community”), are both proving to be enormously expensive. Not only that, but neither offers a whiff of a chance of a good return on investment for the state’s learning curve.

That’s why leaders such as gubernatorial ex-candidate David Nabity of Omaha say it’s economic suicide to continue on without some method of collaring the school spending spiral. They’re pitching Initiative 423 on the Nov. 7 ballot. It would amend the state constitution to allow only modest increases in state spending. That would hold the line on state aid to education. They point out that the initiative wouldn’t prohibit spending increases, but just make sure that they aren’t so big.

Opponents point out that even if Initiative 423 holds down state taxes, it would probably spur an increase in the other form of tax revenues that schools use, property taxes. That’s because educrats have never before demonstrated an ability to significantly cut their spending patterns, and when faced with a block to one form of taxation, they are likely to merely redouble efforts to draw down on another.

Opponents would rather push through new kinds of tax cuts than force educrats to cut spending with the constitutional lid. But the pro-423 forces point out that that’s not on the table. And if something isn’t done, and fast, to hold the line on school spending and find more cost-effective ways to deliver a quality education, they say, there may be an even more onerous hemorrhaging of people and income out of this state. That would cause extreme pain to an increasingly shrinking base of taxpayers attempting to keep any semblance of school quality going for our increasingly low-income, high-need public school population.

To learn more about the initiative, see http://www.sosnebraska.com/learn_more1.html

Note that Nabity and initiative leader Mike Groene have been honored by Americans for Tax Reform, an impressive credential: www.atr.org/content/pdf/2006/august/082306pr_ne_hero.pdf


THE COST OF SCHOOL ABSENTEEISM

We’re like prizefighters, taking a much-needed breather in our corners after District Judge Mike Coffey ix-nayed the socialistic LB 1024, the metro-wide Learning Collective . . . uh, that is, Learning Community . . . with his injunction last week. At least, we can rest for the moment, as lawyers wrangle over pesky details like its surefire unconstitutionality because of its goofy, socialistic voting structure, and what on earth to do next. Meanwhile:

According to the Nebraska Department of Education, the Omaha Public Schools’ atrocious attendance record cost us more than $800 per pupil in the 2005-06 school year. That comes to $32 million we forked over to OPS that wound up in thin air. The state’s largest school district may have the worst attendance record in the whole state. But what is anybody doing about it? Very little. And that’s wee todd it.

The state’s School Finance and Organization Services issued a report that showed the cost per pupil based on Average Daily Attendance and Average Daily Membership; the latter figure showed pure enrollment regardless of whether the student was at school. Districts equip themselves based on enrollment, not actual attendance.

State aid to education is distributed based on the enrollment number, not based on how many kids are actually there.

Average daily membership spending totaled $7,617.34 per pupil in OPS. But average daily attendance spending was $8,420.69. That’s a difference of $803.35 for each of the more than 40,000 pupils in OPS. Because so many kids don’t show up, it’s costing all of us, bigtime. And it more than likely is costing those kids a crack at a good education, since you can’t learn if you aren’t there.

Wouldn’t it make a heck of a lot of sense to force OPS to clean up its attendance act? Wouldn’t that be smarter than ruining our existing schools, splitting this state apart and establishing an international reputation for Nebraska as a backwards, racist place, with all the fandango over LB 1024 and the Learning Commissariat . . . uh, that is . . . Learning Community?

That’s one ed bill I wish would go truant . . . and stay that way.


NEBRASKA SMALL SCHOOLS MAKE NATIONAL NEWS

This is a neat series with a sad, but neat story about a tiny Nebraska school that was forced to close down even though it appeared to be doing a great job:

www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5524946

Posted 9:51 AM by Susan Darst Williams

LINCOLN HISTORY TEACHER'S ASSIGNMENT:
IS THE CONSTITUTION CONSTITUTIONAL?

A Lincoln high school teacher's assignment on U.S. Constitution Day, for students to evaluate whether the restrictions and empowerments of the nation's legal template are, well, constitutional, has made national news.

EdNews.org used it as an example of ways that we could and should review just how far afield of the Constitution our education policies and funding mechanisms have come. Believe it or not, federal regulation of and funding for education at any level is unconstitutional. If it ain't in there, we ain't supposed to be doin' it:

http://www.ednews.org/articles/1600/1/Education-Notebook-Is-Constitution-Day-Unconstitutional/Page1.html

Posted 10:34 AM by Susan Darst Williams

'NATIONAL LEARNING STANDARDS' SOUND GOOD
'TIL YOU HEAR HOW THEY RUINED ED FOR THE BRITS

One of my favorite correspondents on the www.education-consumers.com listserv is from Great Britain. Here's Tom Burkhard's open letter to the Fordham Foundation, whose influential ed newsletter, the Gadfly, recently called for the United States to develop national K-12 learning standards. I have been ranting against statewide standards for more than a decade, and the recent trial balloons about morphing statewide standards into nationwide standards just makes me feel itchier and itchier. He explains why very well:

-----------

I am greatly saddened by the Gadfly's commitment to national standards.

Twenty years ago, Britain's National Curriculum was initiated with wide support across the political spectrum, and the intention of the Conservative Government was virtually identical to the concerns of the Fordham Foundation.

The result has been complete disaster. Politicians have proved no match for professional educators.

The process by which the NC was originally perverted was chronicled by journalist Melanie Phillips in "All Must Have Prizes" (1996). Since she wrote it, things have gone from bad to worse. Employers and professors agree that there has been a precipitous drop in standards.

At the University of East Anglia History Department, where I completed my first degree in 1993, Prof John Charmley is on record as saying that the first year of the degree course is now spent covering material which was taught at A-level during my time. That's how fast standards have fallen.

The fraudulent nature of our ever-increasing exam results was exposed by Prof Peter Tymm of Durham University -- and even the Government's own Office of National Statistics.

The Conservative Government's approach to reform was very much like that of the Fordham Foundation: a mix of school choice measures and imposition of standards. Choice can't work when freedom is constrained by a set curriculum--not even if producer interests fail to pervert standards. And it is sheer moonshine to pretent that you can prevent that perversion when you are dealing with a profession in which there is an unusual degree of consensus behind NEA orthodoxy.

What you end up with is a situation where every school has to reproduce a state-approved design -- say rather like all car makers were free to compete, only they all had to produce a car designed like a Trabant.

You will never attract talented teachers to the profession under such conditions--and that is why so many of Britain's schools are collapsing in utter anarchy. Teachers pretend to teach, and students pretend to study: the inevitable result of the Soviet thinking behind a National Curriculum.

As a case in point: the consensus behind "evidence-based" reading pedagogy in the U.S. is totally misguided. The American obsession with phonemic awareness is based upon a complete misreading of the evidence: in fact, teaching phonemic awareness is so simple that it barely deserves mention.

In the U.K., one of our saving graces is that Scotland is free from Whitehall control, and the new synthetic phonics methodology which has evolved there has proved vastly superior to the so-called "evidence-based" methods advocated by the National Reading Panel (and indeed our own "experts" in London).

Indeed, their recommendations are all based upon a whole-language concept of what reading is; in "The Knowledge Deficit", Don Hirsch shows how the obsession with teaching formal 'reading comprehension' skills (there is almost no sound evidence for this practice) is actually leading to a decline in reading scores.

Whereas in Scotland, local initiative has produced the West Dunbartonshire Literacy Initiative, where (in Scotland's second-poorest local authority) reading failure has been all but wiped out. The Centre for Policy Studies in London will be publishing my booklet on this remarkable intervention in mid-October.

In education, Federal involvement has been a disaster. Title 1??? -- an international joke, albeit one copied in Britain with our 'Surestart' program. If state standards haven't worked, why will national standards be any different?

It is depressing to see such an ill-considered position taken by the Fordham Foundation.

Posted 9:56 AM by Susan Darst Williams

SCHOOL-BASED HEALTH CLINICS
ARE SPREADING THIS WAY FROM THE LEFT COAST

The website on the conservative view of California politics, www.capitolresource.org, reported that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California has signed a bill that will establish and maintain "health centers" in public schools. Services will include immunizations as well as counseling and "medical services" pertaining to teenage sex, substance abuse, smoking, violence and behavioral problems.

The bill is AB 2560, seen as a serious infringement on parental authority, and no doubt coming this way, and soon.

Basically, "health" clinics in schools are put there so that health-care companies can make money bypassing parental authority, and handing out birth control and antidepressants to kids. Oh, it'll look philanthropic on the surface -- the mantra will be "meeting every young person's health needs regardless of the ability to pay" -- but that just conceals the way parental say-so will be sidestepped, and kids indoctrinated into the idea that the government is the one that can not only meet their needs, but define what those "needs" are -- not their parents and not themselves.

Look for a similar bill to be promulgated in the Unicam next session, and be sure to join the groundswell that pleads for "education, not medication."

For more, see http://www.capitolresource.org/media/pressreleases.php

Posted 4:37 PM by Susan Darst Williams

A WHISTLE-STOP STATE, EDUCATIONALLY,
IN THE SPACE AGE

Nebraska is one of only 10 states that doesn't offer citizens the educational alternative of charter schools, according to statistics released this week by the Center for Education Reform.

The group reported that an estimated 1.15 million children now attend 3,977 charter schools nationwide. Charters have posted an 11% increase this school year over the year before.

Link here for a chart listing the number of charter schools and estimated enrollment state-by-state.

Teachers, administrators and parents all like charter schools, which are funded with tax dollars just like regular public schools but are free of many nonsensical regulations. Since the only opponents to charter schools appears to be the teachers' unions, the fact that Nebraska doesn't have enabling legislation allowing them -- yet -- illustrates the stranglehold on progress that the Nebraska State Teachers' Association holds on the Unicam.

Two crises in K-12 education in the Cornhusker State present the perfect opportunity for charter schools to come in as an alternative, and save money while improving academic achievement: urban kids stuck in failing schools in inner-city Omaha, and rural kids whose country grade schools were closed, forcing them to enroll in often-distant, usually-inferior K-12 schools in nearby towns.

In both situations, charter schools would be an effective solution because they would allow local parents, teachers and administrators to make changes necessary to meet their student populations' unique learning needs and ignore overstaffing, nonclassroom expenses, paperwork and regulations that aren't important but constitute "union make-work."

Posted 2:52 PM by Susan Darst Williams

A TWO-WAY, TRIPLE-D STRATEGY
TO MAKE NEBRASKA EDUCATION NO. 1


In the wake of a judge’s ruling Monday that the Omaha metro-area mega-district “Learning Community” set up by last legislative session’s LB 1024 is unconstitutional, unwieldy and unfair, it’s time to unveil a better, smarter, simpler way to fix Nebraska’s twin education crises.

This plan works in two ways with a single theme: school choice.

It gives options and opportunities to low-income, inner-city children who are receiving a substandard education by creating for them a system of opportunity scholarships and tax credits so that they can attend the school of their choice, similar to what’s available in states such as Arizona, Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin.

And it gives alternatives to rural Nebraska families who want to keep their small, highly effective country grade schools going, whether or not voters revive the Class I schools on the Nov. 7 ballot. Nebraska will follow the lead of Vermont and Maine, which have been sending thousands of rural schoolchildren to private schools at government expense for more than 125 years in a system called “town tuitioning.”

At the heart of the plan:

Deregulation

Decentralization

Depoliticization

Call it the “Go Big Ed Two-Way, Triple-D Strategy.” The elements:

Repeal LB 1024.

The plan calls for next session’s Legislature to cancel LB 1024 for the reasons cited in the judge’s well-written order, mainly that it was highly politicized, confusing, complicated and concentrating on the regulations and systems rather than what the public really wants: a way to make education more effective for our neediest young citizens and, if anything, save money rather than spend more.

Repeal LB 126.

The polls show that Nebraskans will rebuke the Legislature on Nov. 7 and repeal LB 126, the attempted assassination of Nebraska’s remaining one-room country schools. These schools are generally operating for the same cost, or cheaper, than their urban counterparts, and the kids are doing better in them than in the town schools. If the will of the people is to revive the country schools, the matter will go to the Unicam, then, and that bad bill should be round-filed once and for all.

Make State Aid the Same For All Nebraska Schoolchildren.

Every year, there’s a huge hubbub in the Legislature over state aid, and which districts are going to get more and which are going to get less. The politicization has become frightful, and the focus of the attention has shifted off of how to deliver the most effective education, and onto how to bring in more money. The current system pits urban against rural, rich against poor, and people in districts with more influential state senators against people in districts with ho-hum representatives. There’s no hope of cost-effectiveness or accountability in the present structure. The only way to get true educational equity is to give parents school choice, and give each set of parents the same amount of money to spend as they see fit. State aid should be uniform – the same amount for every child – within certain boundaries, such as different amounts for elementary and secondary students since it really does cost more to educate the latter.

School Choice Vouchers For Lowest-Income K-12 Pupils.

Next, the Legislature will set a per-pupil amount of money in state aid that will be the same for every public-school child in Nebraska and will become “portable” in a new school-choice system. Children whose family incomes are so low they receive free lunch through government subsidies would be able to “spend” that state aid in a private school, or in a different public school than the one in which they reside, if they choose. If state aid is higher than the private school’s tuition, fees, and uniform requirements, the excess state aid must be turned back to the state. Note that state aid is almost always higher than private-school tuition. It also usually makes up less than half of the per-pupil expense in any given school or district. That means that, even if the child leaves his or her residential school district, that district would still receive property tax funding even though it doesn’t have to serve that child, an important cushion that will protect the public schools.

“Opportunity Scholarships” to Help the Lower Middle Class Have School Choice, Too.

For those children whose family incomes are low enough for them to receive a reduced-price lunch, but not so low that they receive a free lunch, the Legislature will create a new form of tax credits to inspire tuition assistance programs to help them enroll in private schools if they choose, while actually saving money for Nebraska taxpayers. Lower middle class children can obtain “opportunity scholarships” in the form of more modest tuition assistance stipends from a nonprofit scholarship organization such as the Children’s Scholarship Fund. Nebraskans who donate to such funds will receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits of up to $1,000 per couple.

Allow OPS and Other Districts to Form Charter Schools.

To help the Omaha Public Schools cope with this new competition and the loss of enrollment from many of its inner-city schools, the Legislature should empower the OPS school board to free those schools of nonsense regulations, get more parent and community involvement, and adopt new policies and even new management geared toward meeting the special educational needs of low-income and non-English speaking students. Charter schools could be managed and staffed from within OPS' existing workforce, or a private contractor such as the successful KIPP schools (Knowledge is Power Program) could be hired on long-time contracts aimed at turning around the horrendously low test scores in inner-city Omaha. This freedom to be free of onerous regulations and form charter schools should be extended to all Nebraska school districts with a meaningful charter-school law, recognizing that Nebraska is one of only a handful of states in the country that offers families no charter schools and no school choice.

“Town Tuitioning” For Rural Nebraska.

In most Nebraska cities and towns, there is just one public-school district. There may or may not be any private-school options to choose from. But if Nebraska law were changed to make it legal for state-aid to flow with the child to the school of the parents’ choice, then there could be new life for the more than 200 small, elementary-only Class I schools in villages and hamlets across the state. If voters repeal LB 126, as expected, then the uniform state-aid funding called for in the Go Big Ed plan – likely to be about $3,000 per pupil – would be higher than what those small schools are now receiving, in almost all cases, and would provide adequate financing for the rural schools to keep operating and perhaps even offer much-needed property tax relief to the surrounding farmers. But if voters decide that LB 126 is OK and the country schools can go, then those Class I families could still opt to start private schools or multifamily attendance center homeschools in their hamlets and villages, use the uniform state-aid voucher to offset tuition costs and keep their schools going.

OK – let’s hear from you. What do you think? Swilliams1@cox.net

Posted 1:13 PM by Susan Darst Williams

HOO HAH! JUDGE COFFEY BLOCKS 'LEARNING COMMUNITY';
TUESDAY ON GO BIG ED: WHERE TO GO FROM HERE

I know this judge and have been in his home. Thank God he got this case. He has ruled wisely. It just shows to go you how foolish it is to have educrats such as State Sen. Ron Raikes and the metro Omaha area's superintendents trying to "fix" education -- since they and their anti-competition mindsets and worldviews are the ones that got us stuck in this mudhole in the first place.

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_pg=1640&u_sid=2244909

Posted 1:05 PM by Susan Darst Williams

DIGITAL DIVIDE ILLUSTRATES RACIAL DIVIDE,
BUT DOES IT REALLY MATTER?

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 67% of white students use the Internet, but 44% of African-American and 47% of Hispanic students do.

That's called the "digital divide," and it's seen as evidence of a damaging gulf between the resources and goal-making opportunities of whites vs. minority schoolchildren.

The gap is less extreme in schools, since so many public schools in all income areas have Internet access. But at home, the divide is a reality: 54 percent of white students use the Internet at home, compared with 26 percent of Hispanic and 27 percent of black children, the center reported based on a 2003 survey.

Of course, as GoBigEd reported the other day, there's no real evidence that computer access and Internet usage actually makes a person smarter, or better at school. But to the extent that the digital divide exists along racial lines, it gives the educrats one more veil to put in front of the public's understanding of what children need, which is the simple, inexpensive, non-technical 3 R's.

Posted 4:30 PM by Susan Darst Williams

TEXAS STUDY FINDS ZERO BENEFIT
IN ISSUING FREE LAPTOPS TO STUDENTS

Is your district whining for free laptops for students? Never mind the time-wasting, porno, crime and waste issues that brings up, especially in low-income neighborhoods. Do the dang things even do any GOOD? Apparently, not. A longtime teacher friend send me a good Wall Street Journal article that I missed. On Aug. 31, p. D1, it was reported that:

"A preliminary study on the impact of laptops in Texas middle schools released by the Texas Center for Educational Research this spring reported that technology immersion improved student attitudes and behaviors but had a neutral impact on student achievement."

This friend, a Texas education activist, says that the study of the $14 million Texas Technology Immersion Pilot found that, one year after the laptops were divvied out, there was zero improvement on reading and math scores on the Texas statewide standardized tests. In fact, students in "immersed" schools had SLIGHTLY LOWER scores than comparison students, she said. The study came out in April 2006 and was funded by the U. S. Department of Education.

In the words of the ancient scholars: DUH. :>)

Also note that, according to the article, a plan to give 63,000 computers to students in Cobb County, Ga., was recently scrapped after a lawsuit was filed over a proposal to divert special sales-tax funds to the program.

The Journal also said The Fullerton, Calif., school district was forced to make its plans for laptops for all students contingent upon a parental vote, after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to sue the district late last year for passing the $1,485 cost per student onto parents.

A state-sponsored initiative in New Mexico, whose laptop distribution program has already been cut back once, is now under fire from state legislators for its high price tag, lack of evaluation procedures and mixed results.

Meanwhile, parents of students in a Henrico County, Va., flagship program for more than 26,000 students are calling for a delay in issuing laptops to middle-school students until the computers have stronger inappropriate-content filters, the Journal reported.

Posted 5:46 PM by Susan Darst Williams

IS CREIGHTON PREP
THE BEST HIGH SCHOOL IN NEBRASKA?

Take a look at the accomplishments of the Class of '06 at Omaha's Creighton Prepatory Academy, www.creightonprep.creighton.edu. Is there a high school in Nebraska that did better than this? Earth to taxpayers: it's a PRIVATE school. It's a two-fer: Nebraska students get the benefit of a fantastic education, and it doesn't cost taxpayers more than a few dimes for enforcing health and safety regulations:

State champion in the Academic Decathlon

No. 2 in Division II, National Academic Decathlon

State champion in the TEAMS engineering competition

No. 2 in their division of the national TEAMS competition

State champion in the Science Bowl

State champion tennis team

State champion golf team

State champion lacrosse team

Raised $20,000 for charity

Posted 11:31 AM by Susan Darst Williams

HOW WE COULD END-RUN
TWO BAD ED BILLS

It’s football season! Time for my favorite play: an end run.

Nebraska could get around all kinds of political and legal battles going on right now over Class I country schools and the mess in OPS with a simple step: a class-action lawsuit. It would be aimed at winning school choice, at least for the state’s low-income, minority students stuck in schools that aren’t giving them a good-enough education, and our isolated rural kids who are often forced to travel ‘way too many miles to attend consolidated schools against their will.

Crawford v. Davy, a bold and exciting class-action suit, has been filed in New Jersey with help from the Alliance for School Choice. It points the smartest way out of Nebraska’s current doldrums dealing with two decidedly bad education laws passed by the Unicameral:

-- LB 126, the forced consolidation of Nebraska’s remaining small country grade schools into bigger districts,

-- And LB 1024, the formation of a consolidated metro-wide mega-district as a “Learning Community.” It would seek to gloss over decades of race- and income-based achievement disparities in Omaha with a new kind of race: the race for which district can demand the most money from taxpayers.

Both of these ill-advised bills have been in and out of court, prompted a plethora of lawsuits, and promise more of the same fuss and wrangling, with many hard feelings on all sides.

Crawford v. Davy would do away with that legal rigamarole. The lawsuit simply points to the fact that a decent education is a civil right, and many disadvantaged kids in New Jersey haven’t had an opportunity for a decent education, based on decades of low test scores, high dropout rates and so forth. That violates equal protection laws.

Read about it on:

http://www.allianceforschoolchoice.org/media_center.aspx?IITypeID=3&IIID=2768

So the Alliance for School Choice, in concert with local leaders, is suing the state on constitutional grounds on behalf of 60,000 New Jersey students in 25 districts.

Here’s what they want – and it’s what we want in Nebraska, too: an end to residence-based school assignments, and a pro-rated stipend in public funds for the parents of each disadvantaged urban child, or isolated rural child, to decide what public OR private school in which to enroll their child.

It would keep the Class I schools open . . . reduce class sizes in OPS schools as some kids opt out . . . provide higher levels of parental satisfaction and trust in our government’s good will, rather than the ill feelings which now prevail . . . curtail the overarching power of the non-teaching bureaucracy . . . and at long last provide some meaningful competition for the often-apathetic public-school monopoly.

Why can’t Nebraska piggyback on this common-sense lawsuit?

Then, if one of those 20 or 25 failing schools in OPS or the closest K-12 district to a Class I school is currently spending $8,000 per pupil per year in federal, state and local tax dollars, those dollars would flow to the parents, not the schools, next school year. They could either direct those tax dollars to the public school of their choice, or use them for tuition at the private school of their choice.

It’s the only solution that comes from OUTSIDE the educrats . . . so it’s the only solution that can provide a fresh, new start for these kids, and a breakthrough that we all sorely need.

Hut! Hut! HIKE! Let’s get started on this end run . . . with a jumping high-five statewide when we score!


BIGGIE BOND ISSUES
ON THE NOV. 7 BALLOT:
THIS WEEK, A LOOK AT ELKHORN

Here are some facts and comments about the proposed bond issue on the Nov. 7 ballot for Elkhorn, Neb., voters. In the coming weeks, we’ll look at other major bond issues coming up:

Elkhorn Public Schools
$96 million (which will lead to enormous increases in ongoing operating expenses on down the road, to fill those new buildings with staff and equipment)
That comes to $22,727 for each of the 4,224 students currently enrolled
Second high school ($57.5 million, classrooms for 1,000 students, would share existing high school’s football stadium but would have competition softball, soccer and baseball fields, to be completed in 2010)
Third middle school
New grade school (would be the seventh, $11 million plus site acquisition, would include three rooms for early childhood education since the State Education Department is now pressuring schools to start offering all-day preschool, English Language Learners and elementary overflow)
Expansions and renovations at two existing middle schools (6-8 classrooms at one and a second gym at the other)
Astro turf for football stadium, adding 1,000 seats to total 3,000 seats, a second concession and restroom area, and parking improvements ($1.9 million)
Expansions of district office and bus barn ($1.9 million for new board room, executive meeting room and another meeting area, with restroom upgrade)
Money for land for future schools


STATEWIDE CONFERENCE
ON LEARNING DISABILITIES
SET FOR OCT. 28 IN OMAHA

The Nebraska Learning Disabilities Association plans its 31st annual statewide conference on Oct. 28 at the Marriott Hotel in Omaha. Featured speaker is Nancy Mather, Ph.D., of the University of Arizona at Tucson, a specialist in assessment, reading, writing and learning disabilities. See www.ldanebraska.org for agenda and registration details.


CREIGHTON PREP GRAD
WINS NATIONAL LATIN HONOR

Omaha Creighton Preparatory Academy graduate Adam Karnik has won a $1,000 scholarship for earning a gold medal on the 2006 National Latin Exam. He’s a freshman at Creighton University.

He won another $1,000 scholarship from the University of Nebraska at Omaha’s Phi Delta Kappa chapter – the education honorary – but look at the embarrassing misspelling on their website, announcing the award:

http://www.unocoe.unomaha.edu/pdk/

They called Adam a “perspective” educator, not a “prospective” one.

It’s not Latin, but it’s appropriate: oy.


OREGON SITUATION FORECASTS
A SAD BUT LIKELY OUTCOME
FOR THE STATE’S COUNTRY SCHOOLHOUSES

Nebraskans will be voting in November on whether to put back to full status our 200-plus small Class I elementary-only school districts. They are in limbo pending a statewide thumbs-up, thumbs-down decision on LB 126, the forced consolidation law.

That law is bad on its face, since the Class I schools generally operated for less dollars per pupil, with higher test scores, attendance and parental involvement, than the state’s K-12 districts. The Legislature should have offered the Class I parents the freedom to form charter schools, vouchers to privatize their schools on a co-op basis, some combination of online learning with on-site teachers so that the kids could stay in their own schools, or other form of school choice.

Instead, lawmakers led by State Sen. Ron Raikes and fueled by the egos of the educrats just attempted to wipe them out. Destroying local control this way is the exact opposite of what most people agree we need: more local control over school spending decisions, and more parental involvement and say-so.

Class I proponents are waging a courageous battle with volunteers taking time off work to attend various events across the state and trying to educate voters, but it’s a horrific uphill battle.

Even if that happy outcome could be had, though, look what else could happen:

The Oregonian had a story the other day about a crazy turnaround in Oregon. First, the state decided to offer online charter schools, paid for partially with tax dollars, in search of a more direct parental role in K-12 education.

It’s a rousing success, with as many as 1,500 children are enrolled . . . drawing $5,000 a year in tax funds, only half as much as the public schools are “paid” per enrollee . . . able to offer a full education at a staff-to-child ratio of 50:1, vs. the typical 7:1 in a public schools . . . so for half the cost to taxpayers, kids are doing well and parents are pleased . . . when all of a sudden, the Oregon State Education Department is trying to de-fund it.

They’re saying that, since this highly successful online charter school requires that parents act as “learning coaches” and spend a decent amount of time with their child in supervising their studies, that requirement violates Oregon law.

See: http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news/115777236015230.xml?oregonian?lcedfp&coll=7

I predict that even if the Class I proponents successfully knock LB 126 out of the water with the November vote, and of course I hope they do, the State Ed Department will still find ways to literally keep ‘em down on the farm, and make their lives confusing and miserable with onerous mandates and regulations.

It’s not fair. But it’s reality: the Class I’s only have one smart option, and that’s to go completely private.


WISE WORDS
ON MAKING ED LAWS

Considering the messes that we’re in because of two bad legislative bills – the aforementioned LB 126 and LB 1024 – here’s a point to ponder from an American president who, if nothing else, was a master at legislating:

“You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.”

-- Lyndon B. Johnson, 36th U.S. president (1908-1973)

Posted 7:18 PM by Susan Darst Williams

ENGLAND IS FINALLY READY TO
'BIG BEN' WHOLE LANGUAGE:
GIVE IT THE GONG, IN OTHER WORDS

Here's a story from www.telegraph.co.uk, a British publication. We could change the numbers and geographical place names, and have an accurate story here in Nebraska. But we would be dreaming, at least for now, if we would expect the government to admit that it has been wrong-orrhea all these years about Whole Language, and has been the primary enabler of the censorship of phonics-only and traditional math instruction in our schools.

Remember the goofy '60s song? "Eng-a-land swings like a pendulum do. . ."? Maybe that pendulum is about to swing back to common sense around here. We can hope!

------------------

5m pupils failed by flawed teaching
By Liz Lightfoot, Education Editor
(Filed: 08/09/2006)

More than five million children have been taught reading and mathematics by flawed methods imposed on primary teachers by the Government, it was admitted yesterday.

A fundamental overhaul of the literacy and numeracy strategies introduced by Labour after the 1997 election was finally announced by Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, yesterday.

The move follows years of campaigning by academics and teachers for a return to the traditional phonic method of teaching children to read and increasing concern that the new ways of teaching maths left many children unable to do simple pen and paper sums.

Multiplication tables will now be taught earlier and there will be a return to the "standard written" method of calculation rather than a series of complicated steps leading to rows of figures.
Four- and five-year-olds will be taught to read quickly using the tried and tested "phonics" method that will replace the "searchlights" of the present curriculum under which pupils learn by a mixture of strategies.

There will be no more lists of "whole words" that children must learn at the age of four or five and no more books to teach them to recognise "by sight" a single word such as "big."

Instead they will learn to decode simple words by sounding out and recognising the 44 main letter-sound relationships, leaving them more time to learn to identify trickier, non-standard spellings.
Some schools have already embraced the "synthetic phonic" method now being recommended by the Government using commercial schemes, but no attempt has been made to measure their effectiveness by the Department for Education which announced yesterday that a study will begin next year.

Since 1998 when the literacy strategy was introduced about 600,000 children starting school each year have been taught by the flawed methods despite evidence from a series of studies demonstrating beyond all doubt that children taught phonics "first and fast" learnt to read faster and with more accuracy than those in schools following the Government's lesson plans.

Other studies have shown that boys no longer lag behind girls in reading when taught in a systematic way rather than being forced to recognise and remember whole words.

Last December an inquiry into the national literacy strategy by Jim Rose, a former chief inspector of primary schools, said the mixture of methods in the strategy amounted to "a daunting and confusing experience" and recommended that it be replaced by phonics.

Official figures published last month showed that the Government missed its targets of 85 per cent of 11-year-olds reaching the expected standard for their age in reading for the ninth year in succession.

Twenty-one per cent failed to reach the level for English and 24 per cent did not reach basic competency in maths.

Posted 10:08 PM by Susan Darst Williams

HOLY SCHMOLY!
SOMEONE AT UNL TEACHERS' COLLEGE
GETS IT!!!

I was very pleased to see this Wall Street Journal letter to the editor quoted on one of my education listservs the other day:

"No Child Left Behind is a valiant effort to rationalize the fundamentally irrational, centrally-planned system that is our public school monolith. Like the Soviets, we can . . . tweak and adjust 'proficiency standards' and 'adequate yearly progress' forever to get the NCLB's heart ticking smoothly. None of it will matter. The system is flawed and . . . will wind up on the ash heap of history. . . . (O)nly fundamental reform that establishes a market-based system using educational vouchers to allocate resources through consumer choice will work." (Karl Borden, Professor of Finance, University of Nebraska, April 22, 2005)

Posted 5:28 PM by Susan Darst Williams

NOT TO PICK ON BLAIR,
BUT FIRST GRADE PAPERS
SCREAM READING MISTEACHING

I'm sure these same kinds of mistakes are made in first-grade classrooms statewide, but I happen to have seen this in the Washington County Enterprise, and while I don't mean to pick on the Blair Public Schools, I have to point it out:

The newspaper featured four simple little "All About Me" projects by first-graders at South Elementary School in Blair. The artwork is darling and the handwriting is actually pretty good, but here are misspellings on three of the four little projects:

"play my Lito Pome" (play My Little Pony)

"play wif daisy" (play with Daisy)

"red bux" (read books)

If these children were being taught to read using only the phonograms -- the sounds the letters make, and how they are written -- with the rules of spelling for easy, commonly-found first-grade words like these, they wouldn't be making those unphonetic, wildly inaccurate misspellings.

They are being mistaught by misguided, ineffective Whole Language reading methods. Anything other than phonics-only reading instruction will do this to kids. There's no way around it. They're being locked in to lifelong near-illiteracy without the skills to pull themselves up and away from that pit. It's like giving them a 10,000-calorie-a-day diet throughout grade school, and then wondering why they're obese by the time they hit junior high.

You may think it's adorable at this stage of the game . . . but believe me, it is anything BUT cute when these same reading and writing errors persist into late grade school and beyond. And they will, for far too many of these kids.

I'm putting on my bellbottoms, love beads, granny glasses and protest signs, and shouting:

PHONICS NOW!
PHONICS NOW!

Hey, Hey!
Ho, Ho!
How come kiddies read so slow?

Hey, Hey!
Hell! Hell!
How come none of them can spell?

Posted 12:10 PM by Susan Darst Williams

IOWA BLOWS MILLIONS
ON PERFORMANCE PAY PILOT PROJECTS;
IGNORES NEED TO FOCUS
ON INPUTS, NOT OUTPUTS

According to Monday's Des Moines Register, state ed officials in Iowa are planning to spend millions of dollars on a "performance pay" system even though there is lots of controversy over how it's being done, and lots of doubt about whether it will do any good.

The state will spend $1 million this year, $2.5 million next year, and $5 million the next, to stop paying teachers strictly by seniority, and work some performance pay into the mix with bonuses tied to student progress on standardized tests.

Criticism has included:

-- Spotty or even negative results from Iowa's last foray into merit pay and teacher retention several years ago.
-- Too much bureaucracy.
-- Too many committees.
-- A plan that basically pits teachers against their colleagues.
-- No way for specialty teachers, such as fine arts and special ed teachers, to participate because the value they add to a child's education isn't so easily measured on standardized tests.
-- A lawsuit over payments to the Institute for Tomorrow's Workforce, the consulting firm set up to carry out the pilot projects and funded with $1 million in state tax dollars, and a controversy over whether those firms should be allowed to hold "closed-door meetings" that bar the media.
-- Questions over whether a bonus of less than, say, $10,000, would be a significant incentive to a teacher, with flip-side worries over how on earth the state could afford to pay significant bonuses.

You know, they can hubbub all they want about this. But here's the thing:

IF THEY WOULD JUST REALIZE THAT IT IS THE METHODS TEACHERS ARE USING, ESPECIALLY IN THE EARLY GRADES, THAT ARE SCREWED UP, AND FIXED THEM -- PHONICS-ONLY READING INSTRUCTION AND TRADITIONAL MATH INSTRUCTION WOULD BE NOS. 1 AND 2 -- THEY WOULDN'T NEED TO BE DOING ANY OF THIS.

Geez Louise. Wake up and smell the boondoggle!

Posted 12:34 PM by Susan Darst Williams

GRAMMAR GRANNY:
GO BIG ED FEATURE ON WRITING

Have you been visiting www.GoBigEd.com daily for the parent-friendly education features? Gradually, I’m getting them in shape to the point where I hope they might be of service to parents of children in public schools, private schools and homeschools, as well as taxpayers, public policymakers, and everyone who cares about education. Let me know what you think, and which is your favorite feature! Here’s the Tuesday offering, which is always on writing:


Syllables: Bring ‘The Clapper’ Out of the Closet

OK, I know, it’s one of the nerdiest products on the market. You know “The Clapper,” the device you can plug into a lamp or TV, and when you clap your hands, it turns it on or off? “The Clapper” has been advertised for years as a help for couch potatoes, the disabled, and the elderly. Most everyone has one in their closet somewhere. But did you know “The Clapper” can be a great aid to help your young child with prewriting skills?

Writing is like music: it’s rhythmic and dynamic. It ebbs and flows. It has a “beat.” You can help make that clear to your child by the way you read aloud, with inflections and varying how loud and soft your voice gets. But you can also play around with the music of speech by using “The Clapper.”

Plug it in to a light, and then get out your child’s favorite book of kiddie poetry, perhaps some good old Dr. Seuss. Read a line aloud. Both you and your child should clap on the last word. You can laugh at the effect your clapping has on the light. Then read aloud the next sentence, and clap on the last word. Again, pause and enjoy the effect.

Gradually, your child will pick up the rhythm of the rhyme. Eventually, you can clap at each accented word, and if you really get in to it, you can clap for each individual syllable.

Yes, to the outside world, you might look idiotic doing this. But it’s great for your child to get a feel for the rhythm of our language. It will pay off in more flowing writing on down the road. There’s nothing embarrassing about that. In fact, you deserve applause for being a good parent setting your child up to be a good writer! Imagine a theater full of “The Clappers” . . . and take a bow.

Posted 11:45 AM by Susan Darst Williams

FROM INSIDE THE BELLY OF THE BEAST:
WHAT UNION WONKS REALLY THINK

Whoa! This reads like a promo from the Faster, Better, Prettier, More Professional, More Honest alternative to the national teachers' unions, the American Association of Educators (www.aaeteachers.org and remember, there's a brand-spankin' new Nebraska chapter being formed). But the people saying these not-nice things about the national teachers' unions actually work for . . . the national teachers' unions!

http://www.eiaonline.com/archives/20060807.htm

Posted 10:56 AM by Susan Darst Williams

NEAT STORY FROM GOTHENBURG
ON THE CLASS 1 STRUGGLES

http://nebraska.statepaper.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2006/09/05/44fd63096579d

Posted 10:05 AM by Susan Darst Williams

QUOTE OF THE MONTH:
JEFFERSON KNEW THE WISDOM
OF SEPARATION OF SCHOOL AND STATE

Here's a word from one of America's smartest citizens ever, that should be taken to heart by all those who want a happy ending for Nebraska's Class I and OPS controversies that are splitting our state apart right now.

The answer: take schools private.

The reason:

"If it is believed that these elementary schools will be better managed by the governor and council, the commissioners of the literary fund, or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience."

-- Thomas Jefferson, letter to Joseph C. Cabell, 1816