Reporting on key Nebraska K-12 education issues on a daily basis from Susan Darst Williams, a writer who lives at the base of Mount Laundry, Nebraska. To subscribe to this blog's mailing list, and see a variety of other education features and information, visit the main education website, www.GoBigEd.com
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Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Posted
11:20 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
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.
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Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Posted
11:34 AM
by Susan Darst Williams
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
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Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Posted
5:31 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
HERE'S WHERE TO TRACK TEACHERS IN TROUBLE
Thanks to an alert reader, who offered this link to the official website of the Nebraska Professional Practices Commission. Here's where the consequences to teachers who've gotten in trouble are published. Quite a few of these teachers were getting involved sexually with their students. The commission could do a lot better job of indicating what schools, what towns, what age of students, and so forth. The public really needs that information. But otherwise, this is a good public service, and a link that I'll add soon to the main www.GoBigEd.com website:
http://nppc.nol.org/rev.htm
Posted
4:40 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
ALSO RESPECTS DIVORCED PARENTS
Ooh. Another reason to like Sen. Phil Erdman's LB 101, proposed this session in the Nebraska Unicameral: it would give divorced parents much-needed rights in directing their children's educations, just as it would aid single parents who want to homeschool. Single parents just have 'way more on their plate than to have to battle educrats over pointless regulations. This bill should have been law years ago. Let's hope it flies through.
WESTERN DOUGLAS COUNTY BOOSTERS
GIVE 750 DICTIONARIES TO KIDS
Kudos to 28 businesses, civic organizations and individuals who combined to pay for 750 dictionaries for each third-grader in the public and private schools in Bennington, Elkhorn, Waterloo and Valley in western Douglas County. Love the project name: "Words For Thirds." The sponsoring V.E. Grange organization has been doing this for four years. That's the kind of thoughtful, practical help kids really need. Kudos!
Posted
1:22 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
To a North Platte Violinist,
Nebraska Kids Make Good
Kudos to:
-- A team of nine homeschooled students from the metro Omaha area who took second place out of 66 teams in a competition involving robotics and engineering sponsored by LEGO at Iowa State University on Sunday. The students, all boys, are ages 9-14. They produced a skit that zeroed in on why nanobatteries and paper batteries are better than lithium-ion batteries, they designed and built a robot out of LEGO’s that performed nine tasks on a 4’ by 8’ mat, they demonstrated teamwork by building a bridge out of LEGO’s in five minutes, and they produced a winning portfolio. Learn more about the competition on http://www.isek.iastate.edu/fll and read more about the Omaha homeschooling scene on www.omahaHEN.org
-- Riley Barger, 12, of the North Platte area won a big violin competition in Denver on Jan. 6-7. Riley won the Jeff Hertz Memorial Youth Novice Division at the Colorado Rocky Mountain Fiddle Championship in Denver. Here’s the cool part: he’s one of only four students in his school. That’s right, his school is Rosedale School in Hershey, Neb., one of those Class I country schools that a majority of Nebraskans voted to preserve last November. Take note, Legislature: we like seeing kids like this stay in their schools of choice and get a chance to excel like this! Here’s what else is cool: Riley takes violin lessons via a Web camera set up between his home and his teacher near Denver. That’s the type of distance learning model we like to see. Way to go, Riley:
http://coloradofiddlers.org/2007Results.html
-- This past year, Nebraska had not one, but two national winners among in the National Handwriting Contest sponsored by Zaner-Bloser, the educational publisher and handwriting experts. A handful of top handwriters in public and private schools nationwide made the list. Among private school entrants nationwide, Haley Classe of St. Margaret Mary’s School in midtown Omaha won the fifth-grade division, and for public-school competitors, Erin Elise Plambeck of Silver Lake School in Rosedale, Neb., won the seventh-grade crown. See:
http://www.zaner-bloser.com/html/hwcontest.html#winners
ESU Chiefs Again Knocked
For Violating State’s Open Meetings Laws
What is it about “no” that these guys don’t get?
http://www.zwire.com/site/index.cfm?newsid=17707580&BRD=377&PAG=461&dept_id=531813&rfi=8
Erdman Bill Encourages
Single-Parent Homeschooling
Here’s a really good pro-homeschooling bill in the Unicam, LB 101, proposed by Sen. Phil Erdman of Bayard, and described by Nebraska blogger Rolly Church:
http://thechurchreport.livejournal.com/239026.html
You can track bills this session with the “Bill Finder,” upper-right corner on:
www.NebraskaLegislature.gov
Mother-Daughter Book Club
Forming in North Omaha Library
Want to be a model of parental involvement in education? Start something like this: a mother-daughter book club is being formed at the Milton R. Abrahams Branch of the Omaha Public Library, 5111 N. 90th St. It’s geared for girls in third through fifth grades, and their moms. It will meet at 6:30 p.m. the fourth Monday of every month. Call 444-6284 for information, and visit omahapubliclibrary.org for more reading news.
California School in Rough Neighborhood
Blasts Past the ‘Burbs With No Extra Funding
I love this kind of story. Whaddya know: more money is NOT the answer for inner-city schools. This story exposes as wrong the stereotypical educrat defense for crummy test scores and high dropout rates in the inner city. They claim low-income kids can “never” catch up with middle- and high-income kids without excessive amounts of additional government cash, bureaucracy, programs and “standards.” Humpf! ‘Taint so, McGee:
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-bunche14jan14,1,6787143.story?coll=la-news-learning
Five Million Kids Abused By Teachers?
Hard to Believe; But Glad No Nebraskans On This List
When I rode my dinosaur to school, there was at least one teacher that we all thought was a real “perve.” He turned out to have been an accused pedophile, although I don’t think he ever came to trial. He disappeared many years ago, and that was the end of it.
But I can testify that, in the 1970s, he was a lifelong bachelor, he favored boys in class, he invited certain kinds of boys home with him all the time (skinny, quiet, not involved in school activities), he was slovenly in appearance, he kind of gave you the creeps . . . but we were all so innocent, we just thought he was a weirdo. Actually, he was a pretty good teacher, which just made the situation all the more sad.
He skipped town one day after a police sting uncovered thousands of pictures of boys in compromising positions at the home of an associate of his. Apparently, there was a child molestation ring going on, and they had pictures of him that were pretty horrifying, displaying a sexual perversion not suitable for this G-rated blog. I can’t remember exactly how this teacher was said to have been involved in the criminal activity, but I do remember feeling really sorry for him, ashamed of myself for not realizing what was happening to some of my more vulnerable classmates, and really mad at the other school staff at the time, who didn’t put a stop to whatever was going on, when it was so obvious that he had psychological problems and was passing them on to kids.
Well, that guy was far from alone. “Wingnut Daily” claims there have been FIVE MILLION kids abused by teachers! Hard to believe. But glad to learn of an organization set up to try to fight this: Stop Educator Sexual Abuse, Misconduct and Exploitation, www.sesamenet.org
Also glad to see there aren’t any Nebraska teachers on their long list of lady perps:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53824
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Sunday, January 21, 2007
Posted
1:36 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
THAT PURPORT TO SHOW U.S. KIDS
FALLING WAAAAAY BEHIND
Well, whatddya know? Here's a really good story about education from the Washington Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/19/AR2007011901360.html
It reminds me of the good work in the 1990s by education research Gerald Bracey, who debunked most of the sky-is-falling pontifications about our kids "falling behind" the Yellow Hordes and the Russkies and so forth. Bracey's work should have been more widely recirculated to rebut the stupid Japan-Germany redo of our schools through federal programming, Goals 2000, and its evil spawn, what we now call "No Child Left Behind."
If more people knew stuff like the fact that kids in Finland scored higher on vocabulary tests because their vocabulary system is so much simpler than English -- like, they have only one word for "red," while we have 20, or whatever -- they would have understood that it's easier to look better on paper there than here. Similarly, in Singapore and Japan, there is soooo much more pressure put on kids to excel in math and score well on those tests they take at the middle-school level, that determine your lifelong fate and so forth, there'd be a better perspective on why they might outscore us on tests, but not in real life, in terms of measuring productivity, GNP, inventions and so forth.
People would have relaxed a lot more about those international comparisons that made America's kids look bad and scared so many policymakers into nationalizing our schools.
Maybe if more reporters like this guy in the Post catch on, we can get out from under NCLB. Wouldn't that make the educrats' faces look scarlet . . . or crimson . . . or is it sanguine. . . .
(1) comments
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
Posted
11:23 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
A PORNO OBSESSION?
What is wrong with the public school board in Carroll, Iowa? They just voted 4-1 to overturn the superintendent’s decision to remove an obscene book from the high school’s literature-to-film class curriculum and school library.
“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” contains an oral sex scene between a teenage boy and an adult woman, a scene with a 16-year-old girl having sex with a man in his 20s in the back of a hearse, and content about masturbation. Oh, yeah, ain’t it dandy? Our tax dollars at work. Yet educators are quoted in news accounts as saying that it is a “great” book, and the fact that its author, Peter Hedges, is from West Des Moines is reason enough to include it in the high school English curriculum.
Here’s an article about it:
http://www.carrollspaper.com/main.asp?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=1&ArticleID=2950
I guess they didn’t get the memo that smut is not good for kids . . . that portrayals of pedophilia and statutory rape are not exactly what parents and taxpayers have in mind for classroom lessons . . . and that oral sex, made “popular” for teenagers after Bill Clinton escaped punishment for his escapades in the Oval Office, is fueling the frightening increase in sexually-transmitted diseases such as gonorrhea, herpes, genital warts, chlamydia and HIV among teenagers.
The thing that really makes me boil is that defenders of this trashy schlock say that, for some of the kids in Carroll, a town equidistant between Omaha and Des Moines north of I-80, it may be the only book they ever read by an Iowa author.
Oh, please. Here’s a list from the Des Moines Public Library:
http://www.pldminfo.org/Search/iowaauthors.htm
You mean . . . these teachers in Carroll have never heard of any of those other authors? Or something called the Iowa Writers Workshop at the University of Iowa in Iowa City? Can’t come up with ANYTHING better than this? It’s beyond ridiculous. In fact . . . it’s eating me.
Hint, hint: here’s the website of the local private high school. The only thing these people understand is loss of enrollment, folks. The only way to get them to improve the curriculum is to hurt them in the pocketbook by switching your precious children to private schools and homeschools. Honest. No kidding. If you know anyone in Carroll, pass this along:
http://www.kuemper.pvt.k12.ia.us/
Maybe a little enrollment loss will start eating THEM.
OMAHA KID DOES PERFECTLY WELL
ON ACT COLLEGE ADMISSIONS TEST
Kudos to Papillion-LaVista senior Zach Norwood, who scored a perfect 36 on the ACT college admissions exam this past fall. He was the only Nebraskan to do so; no Iowan made that grade (guess there weren’t enough questions about oral sex; see item above). Norwood was one of only 75 students in the nation to log a 36, out of 475,000 test-takers. He plans to attend the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and major in math, music and English.
START THE BUS! START THE BUS!
BRRRRRR! WE MEAN IT!
Temperatures hit 12 below zero on Tuesday morning, and as many as one-third of the buses serving most Omaha area school districts wouldn’t start. So thousands of Omaha area schoolchildren were stranded at bus stops for 20 minutes or longer as school transportation officials scrambled. It was the coldest day in four years.
You know, stuff happens, and nobody’s perfect (except Mr. Norwood; see above). But parents and taxpayers are paying a pretty penny for school transportation, and the thought of those cold kiddies out there this morning comes as a slap in the face with a below-zero washcloth.
According to annual financial reports on file with the State Education Department from public school districts, Nebraska schools have increased spending on transportation by 27% in the last 10 years, to $51.4 million a year. That’s just for regular pupil transportation; special education buses and vans have increased costs by 86% in the decade, to $22.5 million, according to the statewide annual financial report data on file at http://nde.state.ne.us. Increasing nonclassroom costs are a big reason per-pupil spending has increased so much in recent years.
Again, not to be churlish . . . but . . . are we getting a rebate or a fine or something out of this debacle? Some extra scarves and mittens, at least? This just brings up an innovation we wish more parents and taxpayers would demand: how about a direct payment of half the cost of a year’s schoolbus service to families that have the right to ride the bus, if they transport their children themselves?
Wouldn’t that be . . . cool?
SPECIAL ED TEACHER
HOPING FOR AN ‘ANGEL’
A special education teacher at Nebraska City High School, lauded by an Omaha relative as a “wonderful” person, has put out a request for two bicycles for her life-skills students.
Heather McKinney has requested the donation of a two-wheel wheel bike for a 6-foot tall young man, and a 3-wheel adult bike for a shorter young man.
She wrote, “These students have shown a great interest in biking and generally they don't communicate that much so I am trying to honor their request. Thank you for your time and consideration in reading my email.”
If you can help her, please email her at hmckin@esu6.org or call her at the high school, (402) 873-3360.
CLASS I’S SHOW FRIENDSHIP IN CRISIS
IN STATE SEN. CORNETT’S HOUSE FIRE
The fire that destroyed the house and possessions of the family of State Sen. Abbie Cornett in Bellevue is particularly devastating since the family has twin 5-year-old girls and an infant.
Class I country school people in Nebraska know about devastation – their schools were destroyed by a bad bill, LB 126, and they’re having a heck of a time getting them put back to rights despite a strong victory in a successful petition drive and on last November’s ballot. They have bills of their own to pay, after the battle.
BUT . . . they are urging Nebraskans to join them in reaching out to Sen. Cornett and family with emergency aid. Sen. Cornett is reportedly one of the best Nebraska legislators when it comes to being in touch with education issues. Nebraska lobbying laws permit a donation to a state senator of $50 or less without running into trouble, so gift cards to stores such as WalMart and Target are suggested for that amount or less.
Please send as soon as possible to Mike Nolles, HC 78, Box 118, Bassett, NE 68714, and please email him at mtnolles@huntel.net to let him know it’s coming.
(6) comments
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
Posted
2:25 PM
by Susan Darst Williams
An Innovative Solution
To Put Nebraska On the Ed Map, Bigtime
Have you ever been to a pet store with a really big display of mice? They scurry around, busy, busy, busy. Some run on wheels that go nowhere. Some hide seeds. Some scamper through tubes. Some nibble. Some sleep. But basically, nothing happens, and the next day, they just do it all over again.
The more you watch the drama unfold over last legislative session’s evil twins, LB 126 and 1024, and frantic efforts by the educrats, superintendents and politicians to justify their own existence and think up even more ways to take control from families and spend our money, the more it reminds you of that.
All I can say is . . . rats!
And here we are, with Martin Luther King Day coming up. So THIS is what he lived and died for – to see poor kids and children of color denied the simple, inexpensive phonics and math instruction they need in the early grades so that they are literally doomed to fail? And all the powers that be are talking about is doing more of the same, only louder, slower, and at a higher cost? (LB 1024)
Meanwhile, a relatively small number of rural Nebraska kids are outdoing their city and town counterparts on the learning curve, and costing us maybe the price of one large pizza more than the big-district economies of scale can provide, and yet the powers that be insist on assassinating their schools and breaking their parents’ hearts just to amass power? (LB 126)
There’s one solution to both of these problems. It’s called “tuitioning.”
Taxpayers pay the private- or public-school tuition of students who, for whatever the reason, can’t get an effective education where they now live.
Tuitioning has been in Vermont state law for decades. More than 90 of Vermont's nearly 250 towns have no full K-12 system of their own. Instead they are "tuitioning' towns whose taxpayers pay to send some or all of their students to public or private schools, even beyond Vermont's borders. In many places, there are good public schools available, so the kids don’t need to use the tuitioning feature. But in rural areas where they have no choice, tuitioning is a godsend. It’s also a simple, effective way to bring competition to bear against mediocre or lousy schools, forcing them to shape up in order to compete for enrollment.
In Vermont, the tuition reimbursement amount can be up to the amount of the state average cost per pupil. In Nebraska, that’s about $8,000. Our daughter’s tuition at her excellent west Omaha Christian grade school is less than half that, $3,400. See? We’re giving up $8,000 worth of “free” educational services – saving Nebraska taxpayers that much – because we know that schooling is better in her private school. But we have enough dough; we have that choice. Many, if not most, Nebraska families do not.
Why shouldn’t Maddy’s tuition bill be paid by the state, though?
Why shouldn’t our daughter’s education be “worth” just as much as YOUR daughter’s?
Why shouldn’t an inner-city Omaha boy be able to go to any school he wants, public or private?
Why shouldn’t a homeschooled child receive tax support for education, if the parents need it and want it?
Why shouldn’t a ranch kid from the Sandhills get the same support from taxpayers to go to the school of his choice, especially if it’s three miles away instead of 30?
No brainer here, folks. If we offered “tuitioning” to every child in Nebraska right here, right now, including the homeschoolers, we would not only have the best, most exciting, most inclusive education system in the country – strike that, the world! – but we’d solve all of our problems in education, because the natural power of competition would finally be unleashed. The focus would finally be on the kids, and doing what it takes to get enrollment, and keep it, would give kids what they need – not what the educrats, superintendents and politicians need.
It’d be practically instantaneous, too – not a 30-year wait, like the Goals 2000 / No Child Left Behind mess.
Let’s do it! Come on! Let’s get enough state senators on board, and get this done this session. Otherwise, we’re just like those trapped mice, fighting over a few seeds and some stale cheese while the you-know-what piles up around our kids.
What are we? Men . . . or mice?
LB 234 IS A NO-BRAINER;
CONTACT YOUR STATE SENATOR NOW
TO DIRECT FULL REINSTATEMENT OF CLASS I SCHOOLS
It’s puzzling that the Nebraska Department of Education didn’t immediately take action to reinstate the Class I country schools in the wake of the solid voter approval granted them in the November election. Voters overturned the Legislature’s no-good, very-bad LB 126, the forced consolidation bill. But apparently, it wasn’t enough to put things right.
Guess the educrats need a “goose” from their bosses, the lawmakers of the brand-new Unicameral. You and everyone you know should contact your state senator immediately in support of LB 234, which would put the Class I schools back in business. It was introduced today by State Sens. M.L. “Cap” Dierks of Ewing and Russ Karpisek of Wilber.
Read the straightforward, simple terms:
http://uniweb.legislature.ne.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Intro/LB234.pdf
Voters need to contact their senators now, by email, letter and phone, to urge them to crack the whip on the educrats and any recalcitrant senators who still want Nebraska K-12 education forced into a Union of Socialized Soviet Schools. It’s long past time for them to wake up and smell the electoral java, and put those cute country grade schools, personnel, governance and all the rest right back where they belong.
Here’s a helpful list with online information and contacts:
The main page for researching what the Unicam is doing: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov:8080/web/public/research
Keep on top of committee hearing schedule: http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov:8080/web/public/hearings
Find and read copies of the bills: http://uniweb.legislature.ne.gov/Apps/BillFinder/finder.php
Read the daily legislative journal:
http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov:8080/web/public/lj
See the daily agenda: http://uniweb.legislature.ne.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Agenda/tagenda.pdf
Email your senator:
http://www.nebraskalegislature.gov:8080/c/portal/layout?p_l_id=PUB.1.323
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BOY, ARE OUR FACES RED:
NEBRASKA UNION OFFICIAL
NAILED FOR DUMBEST QUOTE OF THE YEAR
It’s always nice when a Nebraskan brings honor and glory to our state by accomplishing something on the national scene. It’s just the opposite when a prominent Nebraskan has a prominent national foot-in-mouth accident like the Nebraska State Education Association chieftain quoted below.
His remark was judged to be No. 1 in the “2006 Public Education Quotes of the Year” from the California-based Education Intelligence Agency, www.eiaonline.com
GoBigEd covered the quote when it came out right before last November’s elections. A textbook case of propagandistic exaggeration, it was part of a campaign to dupe Nebraska voters into voting against a modest cap on increases in governmental spending.
Here are the quotes in countdown order, with the embarrassing Nebraska one last:
10) “We’re kind of building the airplane as it’s going down the track.” – NEA Secretary-Treasurer Lily Eskelsen, on NEA’s new performance-based budget. (July 1, NEA Representative Assembly)
9) “Most Americans have no idea how bad things really are. We are in a state of emergency. I’m blown away that this isn’t what is on every parent’s mind when it comes to elections – that people are not in the streets fighting for their kids.” – Oprah Winfrey, promoting her two-part special report, American Schools in Crisis, which aired in April.
8) “I’m not positive [competitive bidding] would be the best way.” – New York State United Teachers President Richard Iannuzzi, on why NYSUT had a $3 million endorsement deal with ING without offering other investment groups an opportunity to bid. (May 9 Buffalo News)
7) “I don’t know a business that would stay in business for very long if it lost a huge chunk of its customers but increased its salaries.” – Columbus (Ohio) Board of Education member Stephanie Groce, suggesting district salaries should be frozen until enrollment decline is stemmed. (May 17 Columbus Dispatch)
6) “You shouldn’t be angry about how much teachers get paid, but how little money most everyone else makes.” – Portland Oregonian columnist S. Renee Mitchell. (February 27 Portland Oregonian)
5) “All teachers are good.” – Debbie Te Whaiti, president of the Post-Primary Teachers Association in New Zealand, explaining her opposition to performance pay. (September 4 The Press of Christchurch)
4) “From my perspective, we should be about propaganda, we shouldn’t be about journalism.” – a staffer at AFT national headquarters, describing his notion of what the union’s publications should be. (August 7 EIA Communiqué)
3) “A man without vision might as well be blind.” – a delegate to the NEA Representative Assembly, debating NBI 14, which dealt with the state of art and music education in America’s public schools. (July 3, NEA Representative Assembly)
2) “It’s b---s---, It’s like me saying, ‘Duffy’s a pig f---er.’ Have I seen him f--- a pig? Do I have photos? No. So I can’t say it. He should check these things out before he says them.” – Steve Barr, CEO and founder of Green Dot charter schools, referring to United Teachers Los Angeles President A. J. Duffy. (December 6 LA Weekly)
1) “The struggle in which we are engaged is as vital to our future today as was the outcome of the Civil War to our nation in 1860 (sic). The goal of these locusts is to impose their will on state after state until they have completely demolished government as we know it. There is a time for every generation to rise to the call – when the very existence of our nation, our state, our values, our culture and our public schools are threatened with extinction.” – Nebraska State Education Association Executive Director Jim Griess on Initiative 423, a ballot measure that would have limited state government spending to previous years’ amounts, with allowed increases for inflation and population growth. (October 2006 The NSEA Voice)
FED ED -- GOALS 2000 AND NCLB – ALWAYS BOMB,
BUT AT LEAST SOME EDUCRATS FINALLY ‘GET IT’
Here’s an article about a longtime federal educrat who finally understands that multi-billion dollar federal education programs are doomed to fail. Why? Because the feds shouldn’t be involved in education, as our Constitution already sets out. It just ain’t American. Duhhhh:
http://www.sltrib.com/education/ci_4976188
The Heritage Foundation (www.heritage.org/research/education) is calling for a return to the original intent of No Child Left Behind, in which President Bush said that instead of letting federal educrats call the shots in our nation’s schools, it would be smarter to block-grant federal aid to states and let the local yokels decide how to spend it.
As long as there was solid accountability to the public for how well the schools were doing in a given state, that kind of approach seemed to be smarter and more flexible in meeting unique local needs of each state.
The Heritage Foundation reports that federal education spending still covers only 8.5% of the total tab. According to the Office of Management and Budget, the foundation reported, “NCLB costs state and local communities an additional 6,688,814 hours, or $140 million, to fill out paperwork and ensure compliance. Thousands of state and local workers across the country spend their days on this task, instead of teaching students or otherwise contributing to their education.”
Wouldn’t it be loverly if our federal representatives “got it,” too, and started fighting for the charter state option – or, better yet, to abolish the U.S. Department of Education altogether?
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