Posted 9:17 PM by Susan Darst Williams

INTERNATIONAL BACCALAUREATE CURRICULUM
AT MILLARD NORTH, ELSEWHERE,
IS ANTI-YANKEE, PRO-U.N.

Here's a well-documented article on it. IB is spreading like wildfire all over the country because of peer pressure: "elite" students are admitted to it, which makes anxious parents believe it is the "best." Soon, the leaders of tomorrow will all be globalized instead of Americanized. Bad, bad, bad.

Hope this article makes it around to the members of the Millard Community Schools board, who put the IB program in at Millard North High School and recently expanded it down to a middle school as well. It's time to reverse course and go back to a traditional, pro-American curriculum:

http://www.edwatch.org/updates07/031707-IB.htm

Posted 10:24 PM by Susan Darst Williams

A MUST FOR NEBRASKA:
ROLLBACK ON STUDENT DATA COLLECTION SYSTEM
WITH IMMEDIATE OPT-OUT PROVISION

Ooh. Ooh. Ooooooh. We need to slam the brakes on the State Education Department's massive electronic recordkeeping project, or we are going to be in a world of hurt.

Let's call for an immediate end to the project, and in the meantime, at a bare minimum, allow parents to opt their children's data OUT of this system if they choose, to protect themselves from the illegitimate hacking that's so rampant. Look at this horrible case out of California with mentions of past abuses in Ohio and Nebraska among other places. It's not even so much the hacking as it is the government-sponsored, disturbing, disgraceful invasions of privacy that will be going on constantly, at taxpayer expense, unless we put a stop to it.

According to the Associated Press:

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

LOS ANGELES. — The University of California, Los Angeles alerted about 800,000 current and former students, faculty and staff on Tuesday that their names and certain personal information were exposed after a hacker broke into a campus computer system.

Only a small percentage — "far less than 5 percent" — of the records in the database were actually accessed, UCLA spokesman Jim Davis told The Associated Press.

Still, it was one of the largest such breaches involving a U.S. higher education institution.
The attacks in October 2005 and ended Nov. 21 of this year, when computer security technicians noticed suspicious database queries, according to a statement posted on a school Web site set up to answer questions about the theft.

Davis said the hacker used a program designed to exploit an undetected software flaw to bypass security and get into the restricted database, which has information on current and former students, faculty and staff, and some student applicants and parents of students or applicants who applied for financial aid.

Many of the records in the database do not link names and Social Security numbers, however, the two pieces of information the hacker was after, Davis said.

The university's investigation so far shows only that the hacker sought and obtained some of the Social Security numbers. Out of caution, the school said, it was contacting everyone listed in the database.

About 3,200 of those being notified are current or former staff and faculty of UC Merced and current or former employees of the University of California Office of the President, for which UCLA does administrative processing.

Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams said in a letter posted on the site that while the database includes Social Security numbers, home addresses and birth dates, there was no evidence any data have been misused.

The letter suggests, however, that recipients contact credit reporting agencies and take steps to minimize the risk of potential identity theft. The database does not include driver's license numbers or credit card or banking information.

"We have a responsibility to safeguard personal information, an obligation that we take very seriously," Abrams wrote. "I deeply regret any concern or inconvenience this incident may cause you."

The breach is among the latest involving universities, financial institutions, private companies and government agencies. A stolen Veterans Affairs laptop contained information on 26.5 million veterans, and a hacker into the Nebraska child-support computer system may have gotten data on 300,000 people and 9,000 employers.

Security experts said the UCLA breach, in the sheer number of people affected, appeared to be among the largest at an American college or university.

"To my knowledge, it's absolutely one of the largest," Rodney Petersen, security task force coordinator for Educause, a nonprofit higher education association, told the Los Angeles Times.
Petersen said that in a Educause survey released in October, about a quarter of 400 colleges said that they had experienced a security incident in which confidential information was compromised during the previous 12 months, the newspaper reported.

In 2005, a database at the University of Southern California was hacked, exposing the records of 270,000 individuals.

This spring, Ohio University announced the first of what would be identified as five cases of data theft, affecting thousands of students, alumni and employees — including the president. About 173,000 Social Security numbers may have been stolen since March 2005, along with names, birth dates, medical records and home addresses.

Posted 11:46 PM by Susan Darst Williams

NOTE TO SCHOOLS:
MEDICAL POSTSCRIPT
EXPOSES FOLLY OF HPV SHOTS

Just in case the issue of requiring girls to get immunized against the sexually-transmitted disease, Human Papilloma Virus, or not be able to attend public school ever heats up in Nebraska the way it has in Texas and other places, here's fodder aplenty to battle and defeat the forces which would like to see that happen:

http://www.vaproject.org/ayoub/what-is-wrong-with-hpv-20070305.htm

Posted 8:02 PM by Susan Darst Williams

NEBRASKA'S TEST-SCORE CREDIBILITY GAP
IS PAR FOR THE COURSE NATIONWIDE

Nebraska's statewide assessment program has drawn some fire for posting such all-around high scores that our kids look like thousands of geniuses -- but on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, they look like rumdums.

Comes now a flurry of national stories bemoaning the declining literacy and numeracy evidenced by the NAEP numbers. And more and more people are noticing the questionable integrity of a state education department that would tout such high numbers on an inhouse test in which Nebraska kids are compared to other Nebraska kids . . . while conveniently ignoring the fact that the vast majority of those same high-scoring Nebraska kids have been exposed as reading BELOW grade level on the national one. Not only that, but it's beyond crisis mode for children of color.

Nebraska's gap is fairly wide, compared to those in other states. The main thing is, it's going on everywhere. It's what we get for caving in to all those nasty learning "standards" several years ago, when the educrats pushed "outcome-based education" on us, from coast to coast. Remember, the standards were deceitfully boilerplated from state to state. Nebraska's are virtually identical to almost every other state's. Our people were duped into thinking they thought they up on their own. Yeah. Right.

Here's the latest dish:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/DebraJSaunders/2007/03/08/higher_grades,_lower_scores

What to do?

Parents like us are already moving their kids to private schools and homeschools. We hate to do it, because we believe in the principle of public education. It's just that . . . we also believe in the principle that we are responsible to make our children's educations the best they can be. So it's a no-brainer, for those who are awake to what's going on.

It's evident that it will take around 10 or 12 years to turn things around in the public schools so that embarrassing credibility gaps like this don't exist. But it'll take a lot of work from inside and outside the system. So if your kids are still enrolled in public schools, either roll up your sleeves . . . or assume the position.

Posted 6:33 PM by Susan Darst Williams

REP. TERRY DOES MORE FOR EARLY CHILDHOOD ED
THAN ALL THE FEMINISTAS, NDE AND FOUNDATIONS COMBINED

Nebraska's Rep. Lee Terry has done a very good thing. He's cosponsor with Rep. Sam Brownback of Kansas on a bill in Congress to give families who choose at-home parenting the same tax benefits as parents who choose out-of-home day care.

The Parents' Tax Relief Act of 2007 would also get rid of the marriage tax penalty, make the $1,000-per child tax credit permanent, and increase the tax exemptions for families who care for elderly relatives.

The best thing about it is that children do best when they have an opportunity to grow up in the peace, freedom and security of their own homes, for the most part, with at least Mom or Dad there with them most of every day. Across the board, mothers in general have far better verbal skills -- and far more love -- for their own children, than day-care employees. And it shows. The more we drop-kick our itty bitties into Soviet-style day-care centers, the angrier they're getting, the worse they're doing in school, the less they care about learning, and the rockier our country's future is getting.

Terry's bill is wisdom. The way the Nebraska Department of Education is getting our public schools into the day-care business, bigtime, with partial funding by well-meaning but ill-advised tax-free foundations, is foolish and wrong, and it's sad to see.

Rather than moving into universal "free" preschool for all, here's hoping the Terry bill will make it through. Even if it doesn't, here's hoping parents and taxpayers will thumb their noses at the Government Nannies who seem so intent on screwing up our youngest, most vulnerable little ones.

Brownback, Terry Hold Parents' Tax Relief Press Conference

Posted 8:48 AM by Susan Darst Williams

UTAH'S VOUCHERS DRIVE EXPOSES
THE TRUTH: DANG! IT'S A TRAP!

At first blush, school-choice vouchers seem like SUCH a great idea. Give low-income parents tuition assistance so that their kiddies can attend the private school of their choice, if the public school isn't cutting the mustard. Start the bus! The public schools will lose enrollment, which will feel very, very bad. But in the long run, that'll be good. It'll force the public schools to wake up and smell the Java(script), clean up their acts, get better in order to compete, and then we'll all be happy and kum-ba-ya'ing into the sunset.

But check out the revelations in the middle of this story about the Utah vouchers. Now the wolf in sheep's clothing is revealed. Note the reference to "assessments" which would be following the kiddies into the private schools in Utah, as the "strings attached" to the vouchers:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660201436,00.html

Ah. Therein lies the rub. That's what would happen here. All the schools would eventually be alike, because all the schools would have to conform to what the "assessments" are after. And it ain't school the way you and I know school. (See my latest Public Policy brief on student data mining on www.GoBigEd.com, down below on the left-hand column.)

The "strings attached" to vouchers are why we have to stick to private-sector initiatives ONLY, to provide true school choice. We really do have to forego public funds for private education. It's the only way to keep our existing good alternatives -- private schools and homeschools -- as safe as we can from manipulation and government "specs."

Voucher plans ALWAYS have an "accountability" clause. They ALWAYS want the kiddies to take "assessments" so that they can see how they're doing in school. Now, that's sensible: if you're using taxpayer dollars, then taxpayers have a right to see what kind of a bang they're getting for their bucks.

But the "assessments" are always strapped to the curriculum, and reflect it as sure as shootin'. So to score well on the "assessments," the school has to align its curriculum that way. Now, the public schools are moving away from objective, "content-based" curriculum -- knowledge and facts -- to the much more subjective, "process-based" curriculum -- attitudes, values and beliefs. You know: all that Whole Language, Whole Math, Multiple Isms type curriculum I always gripe about.

So if a private school wants to keep up, it'll have to switch from the curriculum and instructional methods it uses now, to mimic what the public schools are using.

Even if that private school has built a high-quality, traditional, unique, content-based curriculum, its scores won't look too hot compared to the private schools that have caved in, and to the public schools that are already completely in.

So people won't send their kids to the better private schools, because they won't LOOK better on paper. Parents will only look at the score, and they don't know that kids aren't being tested on the kind of academics that we WANT them tested on.

It's a pickle. Unfortunately, for the same reason, charter schools are a trap, too. Again, it's that public funding conundrum.

Answer: find creative ways to foster more educational entrepreneurship. Let's look for private-sector initiatives that are both nonprofit and for-profit, and that really work, and expose what the Government Nannies are doing as ineffective. Then we'll have a real educational marketplace . . . and then we really CAN kum-ba-ya off into the sunset.

Posted 4:08 PM by Susan Darst Williams

NEW PUBLIC POLICY BRIEF
ON STUDENT DATA COLLECTION
POSTED ON WWW.GOBIGED.COM

Check out the new report chock full of evidence why we need to sidetrack the rumbling locomotive called "electronic portfolios." It'll steal our privacy and give us a Big Brother noogie like nothin' we've ever seen. Read it, and share with parents, taxpayers and decision-makers you know:

www.gobiged.com/Public_Policy_Briefs/

Posted 7:38 PM by Susan Darst Williams

Case # Gazillion of Ignorance by School Administrators
Of Religious Liberty in Schools:
Washington State Kids Suspended For Praying Before School

http://www.lc.org/libertyalert/2007/la030207.htm

Posted 3:51 PM by Susan Darst Williams

SAME SONG,
SECOND VERSE

Another lament about the dumbing-down of America that can only be fixed by privatization:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-op-skube4mar04,0,3085966.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

Posted 3:25 PM by Susan Darst Williams

WASHINGTON TIMES JOINS CHOIR
PROCLAIMING THAT GOVERNMENT-FUNDED SCHOOL REFORM
HAS MADE THINGS WORSE, NOT BETTER

The question is, does anybody have the belly to do what should be done about it -- privatize public schools?

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20070302-090329-1295r.htm

Posted 7:45 PM by Susan Darst Williams

CAN'T SAY THAT ALL
'PRESERVE ACADEMIC FREEDOM AT ALL COSTS' GUYS
ARE KIDDIE DIDDLERS, BUT . . .

The subject is a tough one: protecting Internet freedoms while protecting our children from the horrible exploitation of Internet kiddie porn. Of course I'm NOT for kiddie porn, and of course, I'm conflicted because I'm also very troubled by calls on government to censor anything, anywhere, including in schools. I revere the First Amendment and hate the idea of government "thought police" deciding what people should be able to see and learn.

But more than that, I'm troubled because I can't BELIEVE there isn't better judgment among our school officials and political leaders about keeping horrible junk away from kids in the first place. You know: the kind of junk that's so bad, good-hearted people are being forced to demand censorship in school curricula, school libraries and on the Internet. We shouldn't need to even be having these conversations, much less these lawsuits and criminal cases.

But even more than weak-kneed school gatekeepers, I'm troubled by people who would seek to wrap themselves in the American flag and argue for "freedom of speech" in contending that everyone should be allowed to view pornography -- even child porno -- the very concept of which, as the mother of four beautiful daughters, just crushes me.

That's why it's discouraging and distressing to learn that a big shot with the ACLU -- who has argued vehemently in the past that kiddie porn ought not to be censored -- who's supposed to be fighting to protect our rights and freedoms as a knight in shining armor in our best-in-the-world legal system -- is now in court himself on -- guess what? -- a kiddie porn charge.

See:

www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54471

Here's hoping that school boards and school officials will err on the side of caution more, and maybe listen to conservatives more and maybe even women more, on these issues. I don't know if liberals are kinkier when it comes to sex and morality, but judging from observing the culture for the last 25 years, I think maybe they are. It's a factor we'd better keep in mind when setting school policies.

As for the higher trust in women than men on morality issues, I just have noticed that the vast majority of people who have trouble with porno in general and kiddie porn in particular are men. For what it's worth . . . more women should be more vocal on this facet of child protection, and could really make a difference.

Posted 12:10 PM by Susan Darst Williams

'MORE, MORE, MORE'
IS NOT THE ANSWER;
SECEDING FROM FEDERAL FUNDING IS

Nebraskans, take note: most of the proposals now circulating in the Legislature and elsewhere around the state for reforming K-12 education are demonstrably counter-productive. “Free” school-based preschool? “Free” all-day kindergarten? “Free” social services in schools? More governance, in the form of a soon-to-be-statewide Learning Community and centralized Educational Service Units? These, and more, are all doomed to fail – because “more, more, more” isn’t the answer. And the facts prove it.

Here’s just one: did you know the average Nebraska school was spending $2,471.62 per pupil in the 1981-82 school year, but that rose to $8,012.96 per pupil in 2004-05? That’s according to the Nebraska Department of Education, http://ess.nde.state.ne.us. That’s a spending increase of 325% in 23 years. Has quality increased by anywhere near that level? Or has it declined? Based on the reading, writing and arithmetic skills of people in their teens, 20s and 30s, observers would have to say the latter.

But the more we slip into the nationalization of our schools through accepting federal funding and being forced to do school the feds’ way, the more expensive schooling is becoming, and the less effective it is.

Federal funding is what brought us Goals 2000, School to Work, No Child Left Behind and now our significantly dumbed-down learning standards that are boilerplated with almost every other state in the Union.

Federal funding is why most of our public schools use boneheaded reading and math curriculum instead of what works – because federal funding backs the stuff that DOESN’T.

Federal funding is what is tying our school administrators’ hands on so many counter-productive policies, maintaining the outrageous racial achievement gap despite our best intentions to close it, and invading everybody’s privacy on a regular basis with federally-mandated data collection on students – including those in private schools and homeschools -- down to the microrecord level.

Ironically, although it is federally-funded testing that is demonstrating the shortcomings in our educational system – NAEP, the National Assessment of Education Progress -- it is federal funding that Nebraska schools need to escape if we have any hope of doing a better job for our kids.

Spending more money, starting more kids in organized schooling at earlier ages, hiring more people to work in schools, crafting more standards, employing more people to regulate and enforce those standards, training more educators how to carry out more programs, spending more time and money on technology and record-keeping to keep track of it all, and making kids devote longer hours in school each day and give up more and more weeks of vacation each year, all wind up costing taxpayers MORE money, and equipping students LESS well to join the ranks of the grown-up world.

AA-OO-GAH! Listen up!

A New York Times article last week exposed the truth about the push by teachers’ unions and educrats to get more funding for schools, more years of schooling for each child, and more hours in school, using National Assessment of Educational Progress test scores for 12th graders in 2005. Those scores are going downhill despite spending increases in real dollars of over 20% in the last decade alone. The average high-school senior in 2005 had 360 more hours of instruction than the average senior in 1990. Yet the percentage of seniors whose reading was deemed “proficient” has dropped to 35%, from 40%, since 1992. And of the 2005 seniors tested, 39% lacked even basic high school math skills.

See:
www.nytimes.com/2007/02/23/education/23tests.html?_r=4&ref=us&oref=login&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

You can read more about the national results, although they don’t break out Nebraska’s at the 12th grade level here, on:

http://nationsreportcard.gov/reading_math_grade12_2005/s0046.asp

What are we to do?

Well, here’s just one suggestion:

We ought to withdraw NOW from federal funding. According to the audited financial reports of Nebraska school districts on the state’s website, http://ess.nde.state.ne.us, federal dollars supplied 8.9% of what it took to run Nebraska’s schools last year -- $224 million of the total of $2.5 billion.

Yes, it would hurt to do without that $224 million.

But oh, what our kids would gain. Let’s do it for them. For our businesses and farms. For our future.

We could dooooooo this, Nebraskans.

Let’s!

Posted 8:43 PM by Susan Darst Williams

STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT FOCUS GROUP
COULD BE A PRODUCTIVE ADDITION
TO THE OMAHA METRO ED WAR EFFORT

A new committee, the Metro Student Achievement Steering Committee, is forming with a goal of helping parents, students, educators and others understand and take part in efforts to improve achievement in Omaha area public schools.

Leaders include Bob Bell, former president of the Omaha Chamber of Commerce; Omaha World-Herald publisher John Gottschalk; Douglas County Commissioner Chris Rodgers; Omaha By Design executive director Connie Spellman and Millard Public Schools Board President Brad Burwell.

Posted 8:28 PM by Susan Darst Williams

STATE SEN. GWEN HOWARD'S IDEA:
LOOK OUT, OR WE'LL GET RUN OVER
BY THE SOCIALISM BUS

Flashing yellow light, bigtime, about Omaha Sen. Gwen Howard's compromise bill in the Nebraska Legislature. It would result in the hiring of countless more nonteaching staff members, primarily to conduct social work services within the public schools.

The intent is laudable -- to try to "level the playing field" so that kids of all demographic groups and family backgrounds have equal educational opportunity. Often, their approaches to school are inequitable because of social problems -- poverty, parental drug addiction, lack of transportation resulting in absenteeism, and so forth.

But the pricetag on school social work is enormous, and not just in dollars and cents. It also continues the destructive trend toward socialistic schools that focus on just about everything BUT academics. Study after study shows that the more nonteaching personnel you put into a public school, the lower the quality of the academic performance. That's because therapeutic tangents and social engineering are emphasized above content. It's counter-productive, and clearly so.

The Howard compromise is also problematic because it incorporates the bad ideas of an overarching "learning community" that would destroy local control by locally-elected officials, and collectivizing the tax base, which would further remove accountability and cost controls from school spending decisionmaking.

Posted 8:19 PM by Susan Darst Williams

AUTHOR DOOLING MAKES A POINT:
NEBRASKA DISSES BRAINIAC STUDENTS

A tip o' the hat to Omaha-based novelist and screenwriter Richard Dooling, whose op-ed in The World-Herald last week revealed that Nebraska habitually derogates its most accomplished high-school scholars by ignoring their competition in the pinnacle of academics, the 10-event Academic Decathlon.

Dooling said Nebraska is the only state that does NOT provide any funding for student contestants among the 40 states that regularly send contestants to the national Academic Decathlon. Dooling said that's according to volunteer coordinator John Anstey of the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Meanwhile, Nebraska teams has finished in the top five for three years in a row.

Dooling knows first-hand what a great program this is, that Nebraska educrats and politicians either hate or take for granted: his son was formerly an Aca-Deca contestant from Omaha Creighton Prep.

Posted 8:17 PM by Susan Darst Williams

NEBRASKA ROBOTICS CHAMPS
TO COMPETE IN ATLANTA

Kudos to all participants in a recent robotics competition in west Omaha that drew teams from five states. Note this new item in the Go Big Ed Hall of Fame on www.GoBigEd.com:

Junior robotics engineers from Omaha Mercy and Crete, Neb., high schools will compete in a national robotics competition in Atlanta in April after winning a competition at Elkhorn Mount Michael that drew 15 teams from five states. The students built robots that carried out preprogrammed tasks and then displayed teamwork skills after being paired randomly with another team to have their robots perform remote-controlled tasks. (2/24/07)

Posted 11:09 AM by Susan Darst Williams

THEY AREN'T KEEPING SPIRITS VERY BRIGHT:
SUPREME COURT WON'T REVIEW
ANTI-CHRISTIAN SCHOOL HOLIDAY POLICY

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a school lawsuit out of New York City that challenges the constitutionality of an anti-Christian school policy.

The decision Tuesday ends the appeal of the policy, which permits the display of the Jewish menorah and Islamic star and crescent in NYC public schools during the holidays of those two religions, but bans the display of Nativity scenes in the days approaching Christmas.

The NYC schools have more than 1 million students in 1,200 schools.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit had upheld the constitutionality of the ban against the Christian symbols. Those judges said the ban on Christian symbols while allowing the minority religious symbols would teach "pluralism" and "tolerance." But it was a sharply-divided court. Usually, the U.S. Supreme Court will take appeals in which the lower court vote was close, and a clear constitutional issue has been raised. That didn't happen this time.

No candy canes in THEIR stockings next year!

Read more on www.thomasmore.org

Posted 11:05 AM by Susan Darst Williams

GREAT NEWS:
BIG PHARMA BACKING OFF
MANDATORY SEX DISEASE SHOTS

It was outrageous: the governor of Texas signed an executive order requiring all sixth-grade girls to get vaccinated against the sexually-transmitted disease, Human Papilloma Virus, or they can't be in public school. Yes, HPV is thought to be a big cause of cervical cancer. But here's the deal: you can't get HPV by sneezing and sniffling, but by having SEX. Sure, sixth-grade girls go to bed with someone every night -- THEIR TEDDY BEARS!!!

Not only that, but where does the GOVERNMENT come off outvoting PARENTS on their own children's health prevention, especially when you can only catch this disease by having SEX, which the vast majority of parents are doing a far better job than the schools in telling kids not to HAVE?!?!?

Well, the normal people caused a hooboo, and now the silly governor is backing down, and according to the Wall Street Journal, the pharmaceutical company that pushed all of this through, Merck & Co., is backing down, too.

The Journal report revealed that the vaccination, Gardasil, costs $360 for three doses. Ouch!

Besides the stupidity and the cost, parents and physicians were concerned about exposing children to unforeseen side effects of the vaccine, which was recently OK'ed by the Food and Drug Administration. Apparently, HPV is on the wane. And it doesn't affect kids or young women, anyway.

Good thing this one was headed off before it spread to Nebraska. At least, one would hope.

Posted 10:27 AM by Susan Darst Williams

NINE OUT OF 10 TOP MIDDLE SCHOOLS
IN NORTH PHOENIX ARE NOT REGULAR PUBLIC SCHOOLS!

Here's a nugget from Matthew Ladner of the Goldwater Institute:

Just for fun, go to www.greatschools.net and call up a list of every middle school within 30 miles of the 85028 zip code. This zip code is in North Central Phoenix. You’ll get a list of 200 middle schools. Next rank the schools according to their performance on the Terra Nova reading exams. The top 4 middle schools in Phoenix region are charter schools, and six of the top 10. Rounding out the top ten are three magnet schools. In other words, nine of the top ten middle schools are all schools of choice. Only a single traditional public school makes the list -- at number 9.

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

Now, how many charter schools are there in Nebraska?

None.

How many magnet middle schools?

Maybe one or two in the Omaha Public Schools, but they don't draw significantly from outside their own locales.

Just another indication of what we're missing in Nebraska, by not having a "market economy" for education.

Posted 10:23 AM by Susan Darst Williams

OOH! THIS WAS HOT:
APPLE'S STEVE JOBS
TAKES ON THE ED UNIONS

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/tech/news/4560691.html

Posted 10:15 AM by Susan Darst Williams

ESSAYIST MAKES A GREAT CASE
FOR A REAL 'MARKET ECONOMY' FOR SCHOOLS

Here's a well-worded essay on why we need to go 'way beyond the bureaucratic public school systems we have now. I didn't realize this: close to 25% of American children are now being educated OUTSIDE the public schools. Interesting, and important:

http://www.edspresso.com/2006/11/the_future_of_american_schools.htm

Posted 12:00 PM by Susan Darst Williams

News Briefs
Operation Pied Piper: Solving the OPS Hooboo,
Plus . . . Reviving the Class I Schoo’s,
Killing the ESU’s,
And Ending Vaccination Blues

Doesn’t the mess in the Legislature over what to do about the longstanding racial achievement gap within the Omaha Public Schools remind you more and more of The Cat in the Hat Comes Back? The more they try to fix it, the squirrely-er things get.

Good thing there’s a great solution just waiting to be discovered:

Announcing Operation Pied Piper: getting Nebraska’s low-income kids into better schools where their specific academic needs can be better met, and saving untold millions of tax dollars to boot.

How it would work: tax credits for private scholarships.

The Unicameral would pass a new state law authorizing dollar-for-dollar tax credits on state income tax in exchange for donations that individuals and corporations would give to private scholarship funds or to the private schools themselves, designated as being for tuition assistance for poor kids.

Instead of paying taxes to the state, you’d donate money to a private scholarship fund. The money would provide tuition assistance to low-income kids to attend the private schools of their choice. The scholarships could be managed by the school boards already existing for private schools, or by 501(c)(3) private scholarship funds, new or existing, such as the Children’s Scholarship Fund of Omaha.

Yes, there would be a “loss” of tax revenue because of these tax credits – but private-school tuition is less than half the average cost per pupil in the public schools. The west Omaha private school our daughter attends, which is great, costs $3,400 a year, vs. over $8,000 spent per year in the neighboring west Omaha public districts.

So for every kid that we help get into a private school, we’d be saving over $4,000, equal to the tax dollars that WOULDN’T have to be spent for kids who would be educated in the private schools. It would far more than offset the “loss” of tax money because of the tax credits. Plus, we wouldn’t have all the problems and entanglements of voucher systems, which threaten the autonomy of the private schools, since with tax funding come government strings attached.

Plus, and this is important: no doubt we would be getting many of the “worst” students out of the public schools. OPS has had a striking racial achievement gap for decades; many minority and low-income kids are “stuck” in failing schools but have no way of affording a better chance in private schools. Let’s say 1,000 more kids leave OPS because of this opportunity. They’d have to be from families with low incomes so that the kids qualify for lunch subsidies. A lot of them would have some of the lowest test scores in OPS.

Think about it: that’d be removing many of the lowest test scores from the OPS average. Those 1,000 kids would be getting a better education in private schools, so they’d be happy.

And the average test scores of our state’s flagship public school district, OPS, would go much higher!!!! That’d make the REST of us happy, too. We would look good on paper, nationally! That’s the name of the game in economic development. And we taxpayers want to fund success, not failure, with our tax dollars. Right?

THINK ABOUT IT, PEOPLE!!!!

Plus, we wouldn’t NEED no stinkin’ mega-bureaucratic new Learning Community, expensive new interdistrict magnet schools, socialistic revenue sharing schemes, or any of the other foolish “solutions” being presented in the Legislature.

So far, seven states are offering tax credits for private scholarships, representing thousands of kids helped and millions of tax dollars saved.

Those states are: Arizona, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island.

There’s already an active and successful private scholarship fund operating in Nebraska – the Children’s Scholarship Fund, based in Omaha. It’s providing tuition assistance this year for 1,860 kids to go to private schools around the state, including many who live within the Omaha Public Schools boundaries. Reportedly, twice as many kids applied for tuition assistance as there was money to share. The fund is scrupulous about offering only half as much as tuition really costs, so that the family has “buy-in.”

It’s a great and wonderful program. I have a low-income friend whose daughters were able to go to a private K-8 school because of this, and she is eternally grateful. It would be greatly expanded with the dollar-for-dollar tax credit feature, private schools would have an incentive to expand or start up, and other funds could get started up fairly quickly.

Surely there are some state senators who can see how much better this would be than the red-faced, turf-protecting, nationally-embarrassing WWF mess we’re in now.

Let’s dooooooooo it.


Let Your Senator Know
You Want Your Class I Vote to Count

The Class I country schools controversy comes before the Legislature’s Education Committee today. The hearing will be held at 1:30 p.m. in Hearing Room 1525 in the State Capitol. Contact Ed Committee members and your individual senator through www.GoBigEd.com/In_the_Unicameral/

Hope LB 234 gets through; see below for it and the other upcoming hearings:

Tuesday, February 20

LB 30 (Hudkins) Provide for reorganization of certain Class I and Class VI school districts
LB 234 (Dierks) Provide for reorganization of certain school districts as prescribed
LB 357 (Flood) Provide for community schools, operating councils, elementary grants, and attendance centers
LB 658 (Raikes) Change provisions relating to Class I and Class VI school districts

Monday, February 26

LB 521 (Howard) Add classifications of students to be reported in the fall school district membership reports
LB 643 (Raikes) Change the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act to eliminate certain income tax provisions
LB 644 (Raikes) Provide for summer school student units in the state aid formula
LB 649 (Raikes) Modify the state aid formula under the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act
LB 691 (Synowiecki) Change Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act provisions with respect to full-day kindergarten

Tuesday, February 27

LB 455 (White) Allow school districts to exceed applicable allowable growth rate for increased energy or insurance costs
LB 492 (Harms) Adopt the Education Facilities State Aid Act and create the Education Facilities Review Board
LB 498 (White) Adopt the Business Partnership in Rural Education Program Act
LB 595 (Kopplin) Create the Task Force on School Funding for Economic Growth
LB 614 (Raikes) Change adjusted valuation provisions under the Tax Equity and Educational Opportunities Support Act
LB 655 (Raikes) Change state aid to school provisions relating to adjustments on budget statements


It’s Long, Long Past Time
To Get Rid of Nebraska’s
Educational Service Units

It is cuckoo-crazy to keep operating nineteen separate Educational Service Units within Nebraska. Sure, it made sense 30 years ago, when ed tech and special ed were new challenges, for districts to pool resources and share ESU services.

But they’re irrelevant, outdated, bloated and expensive now. They’re also under the accountability radar, accused of abusing or overstretching the state’s Open Meetings laws, and violating the spirit of the Legislature’s school spending lid outrageously with over-use of Interlocal Agreements.

The functions of the ESU’s could easily be absorbed by existing districts, and we could use three of the ESU buildings as shared warehouses across the state. Millions would be saved.

Voila! Presto! Who’s a state senator with a pulse and a brain wave? Get on it, and thanks!


Mega-Costly Autism Holocaust
Makes It Imperative
To Nix Mercury in All Vaccinations

Former Nebraskan Linda Weinmaster of Lawrence, Kan., is leading the charge in Nebraska to get dangerous mercury out of vaccinations. Her son Adam has autism, and she is convinced it is because of the mercury used as a preservative (in Thimerosol) in the shots that she got during pregnancy, and he had in early childhood.

Caring for kids with autism and related disorders is going to cost Americans untold billions of dollars, not to mention the heartaches and headaches for families dealing with these difficult disorders.

Mrs. Weinmaster is asking that citizens contact your senator and ask him or her to support LB 49, the Mercury Vaccine Drug Act, sponsored by Sen. Carol Hudkins of Malcolm, Neb.

You can find your senator on www.GoBigEd.com/In_the_Unicameral

For more about the mercury / vaccinations controversy, see www.nomercury.org and www.achamp.org


New Kudos Added
To Go Big Ed Hall of Fame

See http://www.gobiged.com/Go_Big_Edbr_Hall_of_Fame/ for some inspiring new entries.

Posted 8:14 PM by Susan Darst Williams

JUNIOR ENGINEERS FROM OMAHA:
ANOTHER SET OF LOCAL KIDS
DOING NEAT THINGS THIS WEEK

Addendum to the new "Go Big Ed Hall of Fame" entries posted earlier today:

Students from Norris Middle School in south-central Omaha, part of the Omaha Public Schools, are at the Hyatt Regency Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., through Wednesday at the National Engineers Week Future City Competition. The middle-schoolers invented a city called New Modaville, with outstanding health-care services, among other features, and won one of 35 regional competitions in order to compete nationally. See www.futurecity.org (2/18/07)

Posted 7:23 PM by Susan Darst Williams

PARENT OF INDETERMINATE GENDER!
PARENT OF INDETERMINATE GENDER!
WHAT'S FOR DINNER?!?

Over in Scotland, they're now censoring the words "Mom" and "Dad." Why? Because they "discriminate" against homosexuals and transgendered people who, unfortunately for the children involved, have children in their households.

If those "homophobic" words are spoken -- "Mom" and "Dad" -- then those children will feel confused and sad in front of nurses, teachers and others. It doesn't matter what the OTHER 99.9% of the children in this world might feel. Instead, people, textbooks and so forth are supposed to refer to you as "parent" or "guardian" or some other genderless, loveless, senseless, toothless, upless and downless term.

O . . . . K. Now, how long do you guess before this becomes public policy in the US of A? We've lost the American flag to the fruitcakes in Congress who think it should be burned . . . we've lost apple pie to the cholesterol police . . . and now we're going to lose MOM!?!?!?!?!?!

Over my dead you-know-what.

Here's the scoop on it:

http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/feb/07021603.html

Posted 6:11 PM by Susan Darst Williams

CONGRATULATIONS TO THESE NEW MEMBERS
OF THE GO BIG ED HALL OF FAME

Come to www.GoBigEd.com and click on the "Go Big Ed Hall of Fame" at lower left to see some new additions to a list of distinguished Nebraskans in education:

-- Three South High School students will travel to Las Vegas for the national African-American History Challenge, having won the Omaha contest sponsored by 100 Black Men of Omaha Inc., and the Omaha Public Schools. They are Michaela Jungbluth, Jennifer Monjarez and Mayra Jacobo, coached by Maria Walinski, a South social studies teacher. Bryan Middle School won the junior-high competition. (2/18/07)


-- Andrew Leibel of Superior High School and Spencer Farley of Lincoln Lutheran Middle School have been honored as the state’s top volunteers and awarded the Prudential Spirit of Community by Prudential Financial and the National Association of Secondary School Principals. Andrew started and operates a community theater, and Spencer turned an unsightly weedy area near a historic house into a public flower garden. (2/18/07)


-- Lincoln High School and Millard North High School led all others in the number of juniors awarded Nebraska Young Artist awards by the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts. Sixty-five students from more than 30 high schools gained honors in visual art, dance, music and theater. (2/18/07)


-- Omaha Burke High School won the Nebraska Academic Decathlon for large schools and Omaha Brownell-Talbot won the small schools division. Runners-up included Creighton Preparatory Academy of Omaha, Omaha Central High School, Nebraska City Lourdes Central, and Omaha Duchesne Academy. That’s two public high schools (Burke and Central) and four private high schools honored as the cream of the academic crop. (2/18/07)

Posted 5:01 PM by Susan Darst Williams

ISN'T THIS JUST THE WAY?
SUPERINTENDENT TURNS CRUMMY PHOENIX DISTRICT AROUND,
THEN FACES NASTY UNION IRE

http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/aboutus/ArticleView.aspx?id=1411

Posted 7:12 PM by Susan Darst Williams

MONEY SPENT ON EXTRA EARLY CHILDHOOD SERVICES IS A BUST;
SCHOOL CHOICE, HOWEVER, DEMONSTRABLY IMPROVES ACADEMICS

http://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/Common/Files/Multimedia/EarlyEdvSchoolChoice.pdf

Posted 1:35 PM by Susan Darst Williams

'SCAM' SCHOOL FINED $18,000,
AND TOLD NOT TO DARKEN NEBRASKA'S DOOR AGAIN

Good:

http://www.ago.state.ne.us/content/media/020107%20CAHS%20Order.htm

Posted 11:43 AM by Susan Darst Williams

SCHOOL HEALTH HUBBUB IN INDIANA
OUGHT TO BE HUBBING HERE

State senators in Indiana are beginning to realize that they were tricked in to establishing a massive, new, socialistic health system enveloping schoolchildren last legislative session. The educrats slipped it in, under the radar. They sold it as a way to curtail Medicaid costs, which are indeed suffocating.

But there's going to be hell to pay in terms of forced mental health screening, forced medication, forced sexual "health" services available to minor children behind their parents' backs, and Soviet gulag-style repercussions for those who oppose this system, from recordkeeping to withholding of academic rewards such as graduation.

Here's one of the Indiana senators crying out about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RRQBhVRVb0

Guess what? Same darn thing happened in the Unicameral. Nebraska lawmakers ought to be hoppin' mad . . . and ought to get busy undoing, before our kids and families are undone.

Posted 8:53 AM by Susan Darst Williams

STD SHOTS FOR LITTLE GIRLS?
DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT

Can you believe the Texas governor signed that executive order requiring girls going in to sixth grade to get a vaccination against Human Papilloma Virus?

Yes, HPV is a rampant sexually-transmitted disease that can cause cancer of the cervix, but the average age of a woman with cervical cancer is 48 -- and the drug company that made the vaccine admits that it's not proven that it even prevents transmission. Plus, there are all kinds of risks with the vaccine. Here's a story:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54219

More than anything, it's the outrageous "we know better than you do" attitude that puts the schools in authority over the parents in terms of protecting their children's health. At our house with our four girls, there was no question that they would choose to be sexually chaste until marriage. That's the way it was for El Magnifico and me; that's the way our girls are.

I would hope that most parents are teaching their children not to be promiscuous so that they wouldn't need to be protected against the things that go wrong if you are. I mean, do you know anybody -- ANYBODY? -- who is teaching their child to yeah, go ahead, get out there and go crazy and debauch yourself?!?!?

Here's hoping the Texas citizens conk their governor over the head with a wet petunia and get him to rescind that ridiculous E.O., post haste.

Posted 10:52 PM by Susan Darst Williams

DECLINING ENROLLMENT:
CAN IT HAPPEN HERE? OR SHOULD IT?

Santa Ana, Calif., schools have cut 480 jobs since 2004 and $58 million from the budget because of declining enrollment in the (formerly) 53,000-student district. That's despite relatively low housing costs, a relatively high birth rate, and fast population growth in the county. The statistics are according to the February newsletter of the National Association of Christian Educators / Citizens for Excellence in Education, which is headquartered in nearby Costa Mesa.

So where are the kids going? Private schools and homeschools, the association says.

Could it happen in Nebraska? Or should it? Well, they say everything starts on the Left Coast, both good and bad. The shock of dwindling enrollment and accompanying resource fizzles would certainly get the attention of the public school bureaucracy -- that is, if it's not too late by then to fix the problems that are driving the kiddies away.

Posted 3:11 PM by Susan Darst Williams

YOU'VE GOT TO APPLAUD
UTAH!

School choice comes to Utah, with meaningful change even for middle-class families. Take note, Nebraska:

http://www.boston.com/news/education/k_12/articles/2007/02/09/utah_oks_sweeping_voucher_program/

Posted 3:05 PM by Susan Darst Williams

SARCASTIC, BUT IT STINGS:
WHY YOU SHOULD LEAVE YOUR CHILD
IN PUBLIC SCHOOL

http://www.newswithviews.com/Turtel/joel35.htm

Posted 9:44 AM by Susan Darst Williams

SCHOOL CHOICE WARS:
NEBRASKA IS READY FOR A 'G.I. BILL'

Here's the model for a statewide school choice system that will work beautifully, as described by a distinguished, longtime education advocate who, ironically, benefitted from the national G.I. bill several decades ago:

http://www.ednews.org/articles/7816/1/The-WWII-GI-Bill-Exhibit-A-for-School-Choice/Page1.html

Posted 2:15 PM by Susan Darst Williams

WILMOT TALK IN NORTH PLATTE
SPOTLIGHTS GLOBALIZATION OF SCHOOLS

Here's an account of a speech made by longtime State Board of Education member Kathy Wilmot of Beaver City, Neb., tracking the unfurling tentacles of the globalized education monster. (Note: the story refers to a document that former President Clinton signed in 2000; it was the Dakar Framework for Action, a U.N.-related set of international accords dealing with educational standards, with a date of compliance of the year 2015)


http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17818290&BRD=377&PAG=461&dept_id=601696&rfi=8

Posted 1:00 PM by Susan Darst Williams

STILL MORE DATA SHOWS
ALL-DAY KINDERGARTEN IS A BUST,
YET NEBRASKA PLUNGES IN, ANYWAY . . .
AND SCHOOL CHOICE IMPROVES PUBLIC SCHOOLS, TOO,
BUT NEBRASKA SHUNS IT, ANYWAY

Here's a news release from that African-American educational freedom fighter Starlee Rhoades, based on a report published by the Arizona-based Goldwater Institute. It's another example of how the data contradict Nebraska's recent public policy moves. Translation: we're moving the wrong way in many areas. Nebraska's switch to all-day kindergarten, and utter lack of meaningful school choice, are just two examples among many:

All-Day Kindergarten Failing as Education Reform

All-day kindergarten fails to improve Stanford 9 reading, math, language arts scores

Contact: Starlee Rhoades
(602) 462-5000 x 226

PHOENIX—A report published today by the Goldwater Institute examines Stanford 9 test scores and finds Arizona kindergarten programs initially improve learning but have no measurable impact on reading, math, or language arts test scores by fifth grade.

The study, Putting Arizona Education Reform to the Test: School Choice and Early
Education Expansion, by Matthew Ladner, Ph.D., vice-president for research at the Goldwater Institute, is the first of its kind to empirically test the relationship between Arizona kindergarten programs and later school achievement.

Governor Napolitano has made expanded kindergarten a key piece of her education reform strategy, saying:

The data is simply overwhelming that the combination of quality childcare and full-day
kindergarten will reap rewards many times the financial investment we make now. Our
children…will have higher academic achievement if we start them off on a stronger
footing.

Darcy Olsen, president of the Goldwater Institute, says, "This report demonstrates that all-day kindergarten is not an education reform strategy that policymakers can hang their hats on. All-day k delivers short-term benefits at best."

The study analyzes test score data from schools throughout Arizona that offered all-day kindergarten or preschool programs during the 1999-2000 school year. In those schools, reading and math test scores for third graders are higher than those without all-day or pre-k. By the fifth grade, however, there is no difference in test scores between schools with and without these programs.

Dr. Ladner controls for the percentage of students in English Language Learner programs, students eligible for free and reduced lunch, student ethnicity, teacher experience levels, among other variables. The Goldwater Institute also examined the impact of all-day kindergarten on AIMS passing rates and found passing rates did not improve.

The study also measured the impact of competition from charter and private schools on public school test scores. Building on a 2001 study by Harvard University economist Dr. Caroline Hoxby, which found schools in Maricopa County facing competition for students from charter schools had faster student achievement gains, Dr. Ladner applied a similar methodology to schools in Pima County.

Stanford 9 test scores show that during the 2001-2004 school years, students at Pima County public schools facing competition moved up in their Stanford 9 rankings faster than schools not facing competition. Schools facing competition made gains twice as large on the Stanford 9 math test than those not facing competition. In Stanford 9 reading scores, competition group schools gained an average of four national percentile points, while the non-competition group averaged less than one.

"This report is not an indictment of kindergarten as an institution. It just makes clear that if policymakers are looking for an education reform strategy that has been proven to work, the search is over. Early education programs like all-day kindergarten and preschool do not deliver long-term academic improvement. Competition for students, however, increases achievement in the short-term through higher test scores and in the long-term through greater year-over-year achievement gains," explains Dr. Ladner.

Posted 12:56 PM by Susan Darst Williams

FOOTNOTE TO REPORT ON NEBRASKA'S ABOMINABLE AP RESULTS:
RESULTS FOR BLACK NEBRASKA KIDS IS EVEN 'ABOMINABLER'

Another distressing stat from the Advanced Placement report issued Tuesday by the College Board (www.collegeboard.com) is that in Nebraska, African-American students made up 4.6% of the student population among high-school seniors last school year, but were only 1.7% of all AP test takers in the Cornhusker State.

The national average among states is to have blacks be 13.7% of the student body and 6.9% of AP test takers.

This is extra distressing because research clearly shows that if you took AP courses in high school, your chances of succeeding in college are much better.

Posted 9:12 AM by Susan Darst Williams

WE CAN ONLY BEAT A FEW BUBBAS?
LET'S BE CLEAR:
NEBRASKA SUCKS ON ADVANCED PLACEMENT

Dang. Too bad. But Nebraska's national rankings on Advanced Placement course measurements released Tuesday by the College Board (www.collegeboard.com) are downright awful:

-- Nebraska kids ranked second to last in the percentage of high-school students who took an AP exam last year, ahead of only the Bubbas in Louisiana, and for the second year in a row.

--Only 9.3% of Nebraska's 2006 graduates took an AP exam, compared to the national average of 24.2%.

-- Only 5.8% of Nebraska's graduates scored a "3" or better on the exams. That's 62% of those few Nebraska kids who did take an AP test. That means four out of 10 of those who tried, failed. And it's probable that lots more kids took the AP classes but elected not to take the year-end exam for fear of failing it. You can get college credit with a "3" at so-so colleges. But most of the better colleges give credit only for a score of "4" or "5." So the stats are even worse than they appear.

-- About that 5.8% success rate: only the Bubbas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama did worse in the scoring and attainment of college credit than Nebraska's kids did.

Just another indication that the opportunities for strong students in Nebraska are pretty paltry in our public schools. Earth to policymakers: how does that look to CEO's who might think about locating their businesses and moving their families to Nebraska?

If I were in charge, heads would roll. But you KNEW that.

Posted 9:09 AM by Susan Darst Williams

LOCAL YOKELS PROBABLY HAVE NO IDEA
THEY'RE LETTING US GET GLOBALIZED

Here's yet another good story linking the "reforms" of the last few years in K-12 education to an international plan that is slowly globalizing our schools and, through them, us:

http://www.newswithviews.com/Chapman/michael.htm

One wonders if the powers that be in Nebraska even realize what's going on. If they do, shame on them. If they don't . . . shame on them.

This is why I vote to immediately withdraw from federal funding, toss out our awful "standards," do away with teacher certification requirements, strip accreditation rules of everything that isn't basic health and safety regulations, and get back to good teacher-student relationships and the Old 3 R's instead of all this government mumbo-jumbo.

Posted 9:57 PM by Susan Darst Williams

OMAHA LEARNING DISABILITIES GROUP
TO DISCUSS READING PROBLEMS, SOLUTIONS
AT FEB. 20 MEETING

"Reading and the Student With Learning Disabilities" is the theme of a discussion planned in midtown Omaha from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 20, sponsored by the Omaha Learning Disabilities Association.

The public is invited to attend the session, which will focus on reading problems and the programs available to address them. It is planned at Omaha Christian Church, 6630 Dodge St., east entrance.

Speaker will be Erin Perry, a special education reading and writing liaison for the Omaha Public Schools.

No children or teens, please, as no child care will be available.

For more information, please call the LDA office, 348-1567, or email them at ldaomaha@yahoo.com The group's website is www.geocities.com/ldaomaha/countryside.html

Posted 10:03 AM by Susan Darst Williams

GO BIG ED ANNOUNCES THREE GOALS,
CALLS FOR GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION
OF RACIAL ACHIEVEMENT GAP IN NEBRASKA

Come to www.GoBigEd.com and click on the "Goals" icon at the upper right:


GoBigEd focuses on three goals:
better reading,
school choice,
and cutting school spending.
Here’s how:

1. Go Big Read.

The focus needs to be on effective reading instruction. That’s how to increase standardized test scores, reduce the outrageous percentage of minority and low-income students who drop out of school, reverse the explosion in unnecessary special education costs, cut property taxes and sales/income taxes, and improve overall learning performance in all subjects statewide.

We need to reform school funding and accreditation rules so that phonics-only reading instruction is the primary method of choice in K-3 classrooms. All it takes is 20 minutes a day, but almost no Nebraska grade schools are teaching this time-tested, classic methodology at present. That’s because very few educators have been taught it themselves.

Once a child can decode fluently, he or she is ready for all the other language activities, and shouldn’t be held back and grouped with struggling or beginning decoders. That can be achieved in class with “testing out” opportunities, followed by ability grouping and differentiated instruction very similar to what’s now going on in early primary classrooms.

It would take about one week and $200 apiece for every K-3 teacher in the state to learn systematic, intensive, explicit phonics. It would be the best investment in staff development any district has ever made, because it would produce an immediate, striking improvement in reading and writing ability in our students.

An important component of this plan is a public education campaign to equip parents and child-care providers to carry out successful pre-reading activities with preschoolers at home and in child-care settings, and then effectively support teachers once the children get into formal reading instruction at school.

Another key to reading achievement is to reduce class sizes. We can obtain the money for this from judicious non-classroom cuts, such as in #3, below.

Also needed are incentives for good teachers: through the grades, give financial rewards to teachers whose students perform better on reading tests than the year before – “value-added assessment.”

Set a goal for Nebraska students to test 1st in the nation on the reading portion of the ACT among states with at least 50% participation by 2012. This year, Nebraska ranks behind Iowa, Minnesota, Wyoming, Montana, Kansas and Utah in that measurement. With phonics, we could be No. 1.



2. Go Big Choice.

Where it is available, private education is better and cheaper than public education in Nebraska. Dropout rates are much lower in private schools, attendance is much higher, and the rate of college admissions is nearly 100% from the state’s private high schools. Private schools would provide much-needed competition for the public schools if they could gain a level playing field, financially. The public schools would have to improve to compete for students. And that would help everybody.

Almost all private schools in the state charge tuition of less than $3,500, while the average public school district has costs in excess of $8,000 per pupil, and that’s just for operating expenses – not counting debt service and so on, which can drive the actual tax dollars spent per pupil sky-high.

But even though private schools are so much cheaper, and demonstrably better, low-income students, and those in our most rural areas, have no access to private school. Either their families can’t afford the tuition, or the economics are too tough for private schools to form.

School choice is long overdue in Nebraska, and it can be offered to Nebraskans without hurting public schools. In fact, it can help them. Citizens are already hard at work on a school choice plan that would go a long way toward equalizing educational opportunity in this state, putting the K-12 purchasing power in the hands of parents, protecting our multi-billion dollar investment in our public schools, and providing tax cuts as well.

In addition, we should be offering corporations and wealthy individuals dollar-for-dollar tax credits for donations to tuition assistance funds such as the Children’s Scholarship Fund. Keep those dollars circulating in Nebraska’s economy and give our state’s extraordinarily generous philanthropists and retirees a chance to help our most vulnerable citizens grow up to have “The Good Life” because of their great educations.

Another innovation is “school choice for school boards.” They should be allowed to hire whoever they want in top administrative jobs such as superintendents and principals. Our elected officials need more freedom to open up school management responsibility to the many outstanding candidates who just don’t happen to have teaching certificates, in order to bring innovation and cost-efficiency to schools.



3. Go Big Tax Cuts.

School choice in Nebraska would go a long way toward reducing school spending and cutting taxes, since the average cost per pupil in a public school in Nebraska is $8,000 for operating expenses alone. Most of that wouldn’t be necessary if the child is being educated in a private school under the school choice system, since the voucher would be for only a fraction of the $8,000.

However, we need to dig much deeper. School spending has been increasing at such an alarming rate, and test scores of inner-city and minority children have been so much worse than suburban white children for so many years, that a grand-jury investigation is in order. The racial achievement gap makes it appear that we have systemic civil-rights violations in this state that have persisted for decades. We need data to understand how Nebraska’s school systems could have been delivering such an apparently unequal education for so long. The only way to get to the bottom of this, and ensure improvement, appears to be through the court system, perhaps the federal courts. Yes, it’s time to “make a federal case out of it.” Our kids and our future are that important.

Such an investigation would naturally look carefully at sources and uses of funds and would no doubt expose a myriad of cost-cutting opportunities that would in turn provide room for significant tax cuts.

Nebraska also should create the position of Inspector General for Education in the State Auditor’s Office to direct performance and forensic audits over the more than $2 billion in state aid that is distributed annually and, as of now, is audited only on a pro forma basis. These more in-depth audits are an important tool for uncovering waste, fraud, mismanagement, embezzlement, nepotism, no-bid contracts, and many other ways that tax dollars are abused in school systems.

We really need to dissolve the Educational Service Units; reform educator retirement and other benefit plans and compensation programs; encourage school boards to appoint citizen audit committees to help them set policies with tighter fiscal controls; require districts to publish their check registers online; shrink bureaucracy with privatization incentives in non-classroom school budget areas such as transportation; and withdraw from federal funding altogether, so that Nebraska has the most high-achieving, cost-effective, accountable, locally-controlled, performance-driven, and taxpayer-friendly educational system in the country.

Posted 9:30 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Utah Legislature OK's Vouchers:
This Could Be the Start of Something Big

C'mon, Nebraska policymakers! Monkey see, monkey do:

http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,660192369,00.html

Posted 10:04 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Texas Starts Publishing State Ed Checkbook Online
In Accounting Transparency Improvement;
GoBigEd Quoted in EdNews.org

Three cheers for the Texas education advocate (www.peytonwolcott.com) whose diligent, professional and positive-spirited campaign to get the state education department in Texas to post its check register online has paid off, bigtime. See:

www.ednews.org/articles/7461/1/Texas-leads-the-way-in-public-education-financial-transparency/Page1.html

Peyton Wolcott is a great lady, with great taste: she chose GoBigEd's lowly editor to give a quote, midway down this story. Hope this snowballs into Nebraska's state ed department and school districts.

Posted 11:20 AM by Susan Darst Williams

PROPOSED FEDERAL LAW
COULD PUT NEBRASKA IN DRIVER'S SEAT

Heads up for the A PLUS Act, a proposal by two Republican senators to let states become "charter states" in terms of how they decide to use federal education aid. Hooray for that: unneeded, unfunded federal mandates and the nationalization of schooling are two scary and expensive problems right now, and this bill would go a long way toward solving them.

Nebraska schools wouldn't HAVE to use Title I money to pay for ridiculously ineffective Reading Recovery remediation, and could direct federal tax dollars where they would do the most for the kids the local yokels know a lot better than the feducrats. Local control would regain a foothold.

Looks like a honey of a deal, if it can sneak through the battery of opposition from the usual suspects: unions, pork-devouring educrats, etc. Hats off to Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jim DeMint of South Carolina, and let's hope this one becomes law.

Posted 11:34 AM by Susan Darst Williams

Feb. 17 Meeting in Grand Island
To Address the Boilerplating of ‘Global Governance’
In Nebraska Schools

It’s pretty telling, when you compare current and recent education bills before the Nebraska Legislature, and the United Nations plan for standardizing education worldwide. They’re very similar. Do Nebraska lawmakers even realize this? It’s hard to say.

The striking similarities between what’s going on with the globalization of education systems and a proposed federal law that would basically nationalize public schools, the Dodd-Ehlers bill, and how both of those are reflected in proposed legislation in the Nebraska Unicameral, will be examined at a Feb. 17 private meeting scheduled by longtime Nebraska education leader Kathy Wilmot.

The meeting, set for 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. in Grand Island, is open to all those who want to learn more about the globalization process and how it can be stopped. For information and to register, contact Mrs. Wilmot, kwilmot@atcjet.net

Consider the standardization effect of Outcome-Based Education, put in place in the 1990s in Nebraska and controlled by the State Department of Education with highly subjective and highly suspect “assessments” that have little to do with evaluating excellence in the delivery of the 3 R’s, and lots to do with obvious politicized attitude control. Net effect: to “dumb down” the strongest learners so that they are standardized with the weakest learners, including those in Third World countries.

Consider the focus on job-related skills, rather than liberal arts academics, brought in with the School to Work changes of that same decade. School to Work is also a “fit” with global education reforms which are attempting to change the purpose of school from the traditional one – creating good, well-rounded citizens – to the post-modern one: creating compliant, options-impoverished, entry-level workers for multinational corporations.

Consider other school changes in Nebraska in recent years: establishing an early childhood education system and school-based preschool on the route toward universal, compulsory preschool . . . all-day kindergarten even though it’s a waste of time and money, and creates unhappy, unruly kids (see the RAND study, below) . . . forced consolidations of smaller schools into bigger ones over the objections of a majority of voters despite the incontrovertible evidence that the smaller schools were doing a better job for very close to the same amount of money . . . invasive databases and micromanaging student “tracking” systems . . . .

As for this year’s crop of education bills, there’s the whole spate of “learning community” bills that would basically create one statewide school “system,” rendering local schools as cookie-cutter franchises of the state model. Both the State Board of Education and elected school boards would be even more out of the loop than they are now, and, soon revealing themselves to be irrelevant, will no doubt be phased out.

Consider LB 241, transferring teacher pay from the responsibility of locally-elected school boards to the State of Nebraska. That’s a “fit” with the global governance model, to consolidate the power of the teachers’ unions and unelected educrats, and remove hurdles to higher pay and more staff in schools, with no linkage to the quality of the educational product being delivered.

Similarly, LB 601 would consolidate the more than 20 Educational Service Units across the state into one, run by a council of ESU administrators, and apparently doing away with the many elected ESU boards across the state. That’s another “fit,” to eliminate the last vestiges of local control by systematically eliminating the public’s representation in the form of locally-elected school boards.

Man! This is as scary and dangerous as the hit TV show, “24.” Here’s hoping that a whole bunch of Jack Bauers will gather in Grand Island, and sort it all out.


It’s About Time: RAND Analysis
Shows All-Day Kindergarten Is a Bust

Dang it. Wish we’d had this information BEFORE most of Nebraska caved in to the unions and educrats, and switched to all-day kindergarten. It was “sold” in Nebraska using a few cherry-picked and hothoused anecdotes of places where all-day kindergarten was working wonderfully, in the views of a few self-serving parents and teachers. Obviously, they were drawing their conclusions prematurely and based on ‘way too small of a sample size. But that’s opinion. Now we have fact:

The prestigious RAND Corporation has conducted a major study on the effectiveness of switching from half-day to full-day kindergarten, and found that it really does NOT help academic achievement on down the road. So it’s a big, fat waste of time and money. TOLD you so. It’s past time for Nebraska policymakers to right this wrong, and here’s the ammo to do it:

http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/MG558/



Iowa Tax Watchdogs Accuse Educators
Of ‘Getting Theirs While the Getting’s Good’

Whoa! Does this ever have application to efforts in Nebraska to make our public school districts even LESS accountable with statewide “equalization” of school funding.

Tax activists in Iowa are going to town fighting school spending increases in general and a Feb. 13 vote in Cedar Rapids on $344 million in additional sales taxes, largely for schools, in particular. The one-third-of-a-billion-dollar measure comes despite a 30% enrollment decline in that city, and what the tax activists say is excess capacity equal to 3,500 students. Read more about their efforts on:

www.iowalive.net

www.stoplocaloptiontax.com

www.crlive.com

Note this quote from www.stoplocaloptiontax.com:

"But again, remember this vote is not about paying for real needs of schools. This issue was put on the ballot because an opportunistic group of school board officials is attempting to grab our money now before the state forces them to share it with other districts. There are no real needs here that are driving this new tax, hence questions about particular projects and viable alternatives are moot."

Also note the interesting charts on www.iowalive.net, which Nebraska’s Class I schools advocates ought to translate to Nebraska stats, and see if we follow suit. The Iowa group reports that the number of school districts in Iowa has plunged from 4,500 in the 1940s, to less than 500 today. Yet in that timeframe, the cost per pupil in constant 2000 dollars has risen from about $2,000 to over $10,000. Also in that timeframe, student achievement as measured by standardized tests also has plunged.


‘Everyday Math’ Curriculum Gets the Gong
In the Show-Me State; How About It, Nebraska Teachers?

I was really heavy-hearted when many Nebraska school districts switched to Everyday Mathematics in recent years, ignoring clear and convincing evidence that that particular style of “fuzzy math” was going to wreak havoc on everything from standardized test scores to kids’ ability to handle upper-level math and science in high school and college. When it comes to building math skills, that curriculum is the kiss of death.

So I was not surprised to receive a copy of this math teacher’s lament, as read aloud to a school board in Seneca, Mo. Would that some Nebraska teachers had these guts. See: http://senecanewsdispatch.com/articles/2007/01/24/news/news1101-07.txt

“My name is John Wydick. I am a fourth grade teacher and I have been designated to speak on behalf of the teaching staff at Seneca Elementary School.

“We as the elementary staff, with the knowledge of Mrs. Barnes (the principal), feel that now is the time to state our position on our current math curriculum, Everyday Math.

“Soon after fully implementing the program, we discovered that it does not meet the needs of the majority of our students. It is our professional judgment that the topics and skills that are left out prohibits students from building the foundation that they need in middle school, high school, college and the real world. We also determined Everyday Math’s ‘spiral process’ of teaching one method one day, another method the next and then an entirely unrelated topic leaves students confused and frustrated.

“Mrs. Barnes has allowed us to supplement the program to help meet the needs of our students; however, the philosophy of the program that if students don’t get it now, they’ll get it later, doesn’t work. For students to engage in ‘higher-order thinking’ in math, they need to master basic operations first.

“We are professionals and our job is to teach the students. If we are collectively seeing that what we’re doing isn’t reaching the majority of students, then we need to research and evaluate curriculum and find what will work. The elementary staff would like to form a committee and do just that. We need a curriculum that not only addresses our GLES, but introduces, reinforces and expects mastery of critical thinking and computation skills meeting the needs of a wider range of students.”

According to the article, “(a)t the conclusion of the reading applause broke out in the room. A copy of the letter was presented to board members.”

Say it, brother! Amen.


Kudos to Secretary of State Gale
For Posting This Video on State Website

Nebraska Secretary of State John Gale might wind up influencing unknown numbers of young people to become lifelong voters, if they watch this patriotic video that connects the importance of voting with the sacrifices made by our nation’s military veterans. He posted it on the office state website, and that’s a good thing:

http://www.sos.state.ne.us/elec/voter_outreach/veteran_menu.html