What Planet are They On?

Here's a story and some facts about America's Competitiveness Initiative as Democrats and Republicans fall all over themselves to convince constituents they care about educating the next generation of scientists and engineers. It's enough to make an astronaut throw up:

NASA to Cut Science Education Program
Between 2004 and 2005, the amount of grant money Langley gave local colleges dropped nearly $5 million. NASA's spending on education remained flat in 2005 and 2006 at $167 million. Bush's proposed spending for the 2007 budget year, which begins in October, calls for a 5.6 percent, or $14 million, drop in funding. NASA's overall budget is expected to increase by about 3 percent.
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Meanwhile, the American public appears to be buying it hook, line and sinker:

A year ago, the debate on competitiveness could have been held in a phone booth. Now there are three sets of bills offered in both houses, and they are quite bipartisan. The Senate PACE (Protecting America's Competitive Edge) bills have nearly 60 co-sponsors, half Republican, half Democrat. The thrust of all of this legislation is to improve the American educational system, particularly K-12; increase federally funded basic research in the physical sciences (money that goes predominantly to our universities); encourage our children to enroll in more math and science classes; and improve math and science teaching throughout the country.

Many congressional members, Republican and Democrat, are astonished at how enthusiastically this competitiveness agenda is being received in their districts. The positive message of investing in the next generation resonates with people who understand that American pre-eminence in the global economy cannot be taken for granted. Unfortunately, this only ratchets up the pressure to try to hoard all the credit.
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However, physics professor, Randall Caton doesn't understand all of this -- he must be from another planet:

Randall Caton doesn't really understand it.

For six years, the Christopher Newport University physics professor has participated in a learning initiative at NASA Langley Research Center that provides engaging science lessons to children and adults nationwide. Free videos, Web exercises and teleconferencing through the NASA Center for Distance Learning help students see how science and math are used in the real world. Teachers love them. Adults appreciate them. Businesses use them for training.

The educational videos, which a local company produces, have won several Emmy awards and are shown on public broadcasting stations.But despite the center's acclaim, it will shoot its last video in June. The end of production means the elimination of five full-time positions, Caton said.NASA headquarters in Washington told the staff in January that money wasn't available to continue the center, Caton said."We've had a lot of people disappointed that these are coming to an end because they have been very valuable for teachers," Caton said.

"We feel it's a big loss, but it's a decision way above us. "Educators and administrators at local colleges say they've seen NASA headquarters and Langley Research Center funding shrink in the past few years for programs designed to prepare more scientists and engineers, something critics say the United States is failing to do adequately."We're not preparing our kids for the jobs of the future," said Bill Thomas, director of governmental relations for Hampton University.
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Third Grade Gestapo

There's a serious investigation over a breach of security going on at Hamagrael Elementary School. There is a distinct possibility that 91 third graders may have had access to five questions that appareared on THE TEST. Never mind, the gaping hole in the ozone, the bumbling department of homeland security, and the carnage and devastation each day from the war in Iraq - the nation's competitiveness and future are at stake! The silver lining for Hamagrael Elementary, they don't have to worry about their Title 1 funds being taken away - that's for the poor schools to worry about.

How much do you think this investigation will cost? Perhaps Pearson could send in a SWAT team of investigators to help out.
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The scores of all the tests in all the grades will be recorded and the results will be published after the end of the year, said Education Department spokesman Tom Dunn. Those scores make up the Adequate Yearly Progress mark, which, school and state officials admit, probably will put Hamagrael on the list of schools to watch.

However, it takes two years on that list before the state designates a school as one in need.
A low score won't affect state aid, said Dunn.

"About the only funds would be (federal) Title 1 and that program is for schools in poverty areas," he said.
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If I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it.

NCLB Adding to Re-Segregation Impetus

The re-segregation of American schools did not begin with NCLB, but the re-segregation has certainly been aided by NCLB policy that discourages schools from accepting poor and brown children who might drag down the scores of a school now making its test targets each year. Now it seems that court orders are appearing that challenge decades-old desegregation orders that allowed majority to minority transfers in school systems across the South.

With schools that are making AYP reaching capacity as more kids transfer from schools that aren't, we can see the pressure growing in places like Bibb County, Georgia for communities to relinquish their commitment to de-segregation as a way to keep their schools off the watch list:

Poor students would be stuck in inner-city Bibb County public schools, critics say, if a federal judge gives his final stamp of approval to changes in the county's desegregation order.

The proposal, which awaits a final decision in U.S. District Court, would modify a 1978 court order. Under the proposal, schools that are at capacity would no longer have to accept "majority-to-minority" transfers or students who would like to leave their "failing" school for a higher performing one. That's a provision of federal No Child Left Behind mandates.

It's possible that the changes could lead to more black-student dropouts as well as more schools that are considered underachieving, said a professor who studies school integration nationwide.

Why the changes? More than a year ago, a group of white parents filed suit, asking the court to change Bibb's desegregation order. Among other features, that order allows students who attend a Bibb County school in which they're in the majority race to transfer to one in which they would be in the minority. These majority-to-minority transfers were intended to help integrate public schools.

This school year, more than 750 black students used the "M-to-M" provision to leave their largely black neighborhood schools and transfer to mostly white schools.
Last week, Senior Judge Wilbur D. Owens Jr. proposed that if those schools are now full, they no longer have to take M-to-M transfers, nor No Child Left Behind transfers, hardship or out-of-county, tuition-paying transfers. Owens is giving the public until Wednesday to submit objections to the proposal. So far, one letter has been received, a court clerk said. . . .

A Few Bleeps for the MEAP?

Can the insanity become any more complete? Do we have a standardized test for witches? Try this from the Detroit Free Press:

When the state releases MEAP scores this morning, much will be riding on the numbers.

Parents will try to compare districts' performances to see how their kids' schools measure up. Real estate agents will look for which areas to tout to potential buyers. Educators across Michigan will anxiously compile figures, knowing the federal No Child Left Behind legislation ties high marks to funding.

But the Michigan Educational Assessment Program test wasn't designed for any of those things. And for all the suggestions that teaching for the MEAP has helped schools, there's some evidence that students aren't doing as well as they might on college entrance exams or national assessment tests.

"We're seeing more money and resources on test preparation," said Gary Miron, chief of staff for the Evaluation Center at Western Michigan University. "Does that make our kids smarter? No, it doesn't. It makes them better able to take standardized tests."

BUBBLE THIS!

Today's New York Times front and center where it belongs. The question isn't about the reliability of the tests, the question is why does testing dominate education? The reporters are getting warmer but they still haven't figured out the real story. Now that poor Johnny might not get into the college of his choice because of the incompetency and greed of testing companies and their cronies in government and business, perhaps this story will finally break wide open. Things are definitely looking up.

I wonder if Arenson and Henriques would be interested in writing another front page story about why Kaplan Inc. is sitting on Spellings' higher ed panel, objectively trying to figure out what's in the best interests of high school students and America's global competitiveness. They're sure to scoop the Post on this one since the Washington Post owns Kaplan. Don't look for any solid journalism there on education matters.

Company's Errors on SAT Scores Raise New Qualms About Testing

By KAREN W. ARENSONand DIANA B. HENRIQUES
Published: March 10, 2006
The scoring errors disclosed this week on thousands of the College Board's SAT tests were made by a company that is one of the largest players in the exploding standardized testing business, handling millions of tests each year.

The mistakes, which the company, Pearson Educational Measurement, acknowledged yesterday, raised fresh questions about the reliability of the kinds of high-stakes tests that increasingly dominate education at all levels. Neither Pearson, which handles state testing across the country, nor the College Board detected the scoring problems until two students came forward with complaints.

Whooooops!

Could this be the tip of the Iceberg? NCLB Warming.

New York Times and CNN:

A day after the College Board notified colleges that it had misreported the scores of 4,000 students who took the SAT exam in October, an official of the testing organization disclosed that some of the errors were far larger than initially suggested.

Technical Problems Cause Errors in SAT Test Scores (March 8, 2006)
With college counselors and admissions officials scrambling to take a second look at student scores in the final weeks before they mail out acceptances and rejections, Chiara Coletti, the College Board's vice president for public affairs, said that 16 students out of the 495,000 who took the October exam had scores that should have been more than 200 points higher.

Hmm.....

Rumpelstiltskin

New Jersey is conducting its statewide standaridized testing this week. Some of my students say the tests are "an insult to our intelligence" others, like Michael, are shaking and trembling from the stress and fear of failing, being left back or not being able to graduate -- even worse, facing his parents when the scores arrive. There are probably millions of Michaels out there. He's a good, hard working, sweet kid but Michael has a learning disability. He is in tenth grade, but he reads on a fifth grade level.

What is there left to say about a system that wants teachers to turn straw into gold? What can we say about a system that doesn't value straw but only values gold? As a student teacher, I am beginning to feel more and more like the girl in Grimm's fairy tale, threatened with execution for not turning the straw into gold. I can only begin to imagine what teachers and administrators feel like when they are threatened with punitive sanctions and failing labels because they can and never will achieve the impossible, nor should they strive to.

Tragically, the money and resources devoted to testing could be spent providing meaningful programs and teachers to work with Michael and other students who need real time, real resources and real teachers who can spend the extra time working with them and helping them pursue their dreams and interests -- people who value who they are and what they have to offer. Instead, budget cuts have reduced the number of resource rooms, resource teachers, vocational programs, etc. That's because we live in a society that values gold more than it does children, more than it does people. While the Rumplestiltskins are busy dancing around the fire of accountability and the all-important king boasts about higher test scores, administrators, teachers and parents are selling their souls and sacrificing their children for the promise of what?

Rumpelstiltskin

In order to make himself appear more important, a miller lied to the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. The king called for the girl, shut her in a tower room with straw and a spinning wheel, and demanded that she spin the straw into gold by morning or be executed. She had given up all hope, when a dwarf (or mannikin) appeared in the room and spun straw into gold for her in return for her necklace; then again the following night for her ring. But on the third night, with nothing left, the strange creature spun straw into gold for a promise that the girl's first-born child would become his.

The greedy king was so impressed that he married the miller's beautiful daughter, but when their first child was born, the dwarf returned to claim his payment: "Now give me what you promised". The queen was frightened and offered him all the wealth she had if she could keep the child. The dwarf refused but finally agreed to give up his claim to the child if the queen could guess his name in three days. At first she failed, but before the second night, her messenger overheard the dwarf hopping about his fire and singing:

"Today I bake, tomorrow brew,
The next I'll have the young Queen's child.
Ha! glad am I that no one knew
That Rumpelstiltskin I am styled."
Another version of the song goes like this:
"Tomorrow I brew, today I bake,
And then the child away I'll take;
For little deems my royal dame
That Rumpelstiltskin is my name!"

When the dwarf came to the queen on the third day and she revealed his name, Rumpelstiltskin lost his bargain. In the Brothers Grimm version, he then tore himself apart in his rage. In the traditional, pre-Grimm ending, he flew out of the window on a cooking ladle.
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How much longer will people accept the miller's lies and keep teachers chained to the spinning wheel before they send Rumplestiltskin flying out the window?

The End.

NCLB's Supplemental Corruption in NYC

Last year the sharks in the tutoring industry, who are accountable to no one except their K Street lobbyists for their work students, drained almost $75 million from school coffers in NYC. As we move toward the sunset phase of the most corrupt Administration in American history, we can expect to see, I think, much more of what Condon's investigation turned up in the City. In his words, "I'm hard pressed to think of something they didn't try that didn't skirt the boundaries of ethical behavior."

Any reporters out there looking for a story in any urban center of America?

Dumping FCAT?

Will spineless Democrats make the return to sanity a campaign issue this year? Get the Florida story here.

The two Democrats running for governor -- Rod Smith and Jim Davis -- want to curtail, or eliminate, the use of Florida's high-stakes test in
schools.

Merit Pay Lacks Merit

From Spanish teacher, Diane Hardy in Milwaukee:

Giving additional pay to the best teachers sounds like a great motivator.As a teacher who receives high marks on evaluations, I potentially could receive more pay under such a system. However, to most teachers, the idea of merit pay is discomforting and complicated.

The Houston Public Schools recently became the largest school district in the United States to approve merit pay for teachers. Merit pay is tied to standardized test scores. If a teacher's class shows significant improvement or maintains high scores, the teacher is rewarded accordingly.

I teach Spanish, a subject not covered on standardized tests. It would be difficult to determine the pay of teachers whose subjects are not covered, such as music, art and physical and special education.

Some merit pay advocates suggest more testing. I shudder to consider my students enduring more tests and stripping more time away from
instruction.Content areas such as science, social studies, mathematics and English also are affected. Underclassmen usually are required to take certain courses, such as freshman English. Imagine 40 in a class with students of all abilities, including students with learning disabilities or non-native speakers of English.

Each special-needs student has his or her own Individual Education
Plan. Each IEP must be followed, which includes considerable extra planning. I've seen students enter sixth grade with a first-grade reading level. By the time they move to high school, perhaps they are reading at a fifth-grade level. By the definitions set out by our president and standardized tests, these children would be considered failures, even though they had jumped four reading levels in three years.

Under the merit pay system, the teachers who toiled to improve those
children's reading ability would be considered less than competent. Therefore, the best, most experienced teachers often gravitate to teaching the higher-level courses. The least experienced teachers often end up in schools with the most struggling students.

In my school, two years of foreign language is required for students. I
teach mostly third-year Spanish and have few students with disabilities. Colleagues who teach first- and second-year Spanish face classes of 40 students, often with 10 to 15 of those having special needs. In my previous school, when we crunched the special education numbers, more than 25% of the high school student body had some form of learning or cognitive disability.

How do we compare the effectiveness of teachers in these differing situations?This raises another major concern: the further politicization of education. The merit pay system could pit one teacher against another. Some teachers might stack classes with "good" kids and put lesser achievers into the classrooms of new, unsuspecting teachers.

Also, if testing doesn't determine the merit pay in a district, classroom evaluations most likely will. So far, I have been fortunate to have impartial administrators judge my classroom. Administrators, however, are not all fair. There are horror stories of administrators who play favorites and drive out teachers they don't like. Some refuse to support teachers with struggling students.

Even if a committee filled with parents, teachers and administrators is set up, impartiality is not guaranteed. It would create another level of bureaucracy and politics and cause less time with students. Urban teachers would be unfairly hurt by a merit pay system. Our schools have a higher turnover in teachers, and many schools have a tremendous turnover in students.

The politics that merit pay would cause would send some teachers bolting from struggling districts. Many new teachers already leave the profession within five years. If there is money for merit pay, it should go directly to classrooms. If school boards and government officials want to see schools improve, class sizes need to be cut and struggling students need support from aides and tutoring programs.

Instead of merit pay, there should be equitable funding of districts so
that all children have quality teachers. Merit pay dollars should also go to professional development of teachers. Many advocates of merit pay are often the same people who work hard to cut public education and promote vouchers. What seems like an incentive to teachers is really a backhanded way to hurt them and their students.

Diane M. Hardy of Milwaukee is an educator in Milwaukee Public Schools. Her e-mail address is talktodianehardy@yahoo.com