< Charter School Teacher Homeschooling Articles >
News Articles
Posted 3/6/08 ( by Travis)
At
Charter School, Higher Teacher Pay
The
New York Times ^ | March 7, 2008 | Elissa Gootman
The school, which will run from fifth to eighth grades, is promising to pay teachers $125,000, plus a potential bonus based on schoolwide performance. That is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, roughly two and a half times the national average teacher salary and higher than the base salary of all but the most senior teachers in the most generous districts nationwide.
The school’s creator and first principal, Zeke M. Vanderhoek, contends that high salaries will lure the best teachers. He says he wants to put into practice the conclusion reached by a growing body of research: that teacher quality — not star principals, laptop computers or abundant electives — is the crucial ingredient for success.
“I would much rather put a phenomenal, great teacher in a field with 30 kids and nothing else than take the mediocre teacher and give them half the number of students and give them all the technology in the world,” said Mr. Vanderhoek, 31, a Yale graduate and former middle school teacher who built a test preparation company that pays its tutors far more than the competition.
In exchange for their high salaries, teachers at the new school, the Equity Project, will work a longer day and year and assume responsibilities that usually fall to other staff members, like attendance coordinators and discipline deans. To make ends meet, the school, which will use only public money and charter school grants for all but its building, will scrimp elsewhere. <.>
Ernest A. Logan, president of the city principals’ union, called the notion of paying the principal less than the teachers “the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the United Federation of Teachers, called the hefty salaries “a good experiment.” But she said that when teachers were not unionized, and most charter school teachers are not, their performance can be hampered by a lack of power in dealing with the principal. “What happens the first time a teacher says something like, ‘I don’t agree with you?’ ”
Only when teachers and the educational system is outside the control of the teachers unions can these sorts of experiments happen. This decentralized control, bottom up approach to education with the money going strait to the classroom might just work.
Posted 5/28/07 (By Travis)
Faculty at Two More Campuses discuss Breakway Idea (Required Reading)
5/25/07 LA Times
Signaling deep discontent and a possible spreading revolt among the city's public school teachers, faculty at two more Los Angeles high schools met this week with a leading charter school operator to discuss alliances aimed at breaking away from the school district.
This is truly an amazing phenomena, especially as it attacks a central plank of the teacher's Unions arguments against charter schools: that private companies provide sub par working conditions and benefits. Even some proponents of charter schools mistakenly acquiesce the benefit of unions to teachers, and instead trumpet the gains made by students, which if one considers, is really the whole point of education anyway... However, as stated in 'A Charter School Tale', the basic human instincts of justice, fairness, and happiness stemming from quality, competence, and hard work, are both emotionally and financially beneficial.
The educators also responded positively to Barr's claims that the group's small central staff allows more than 90% of state funds to go directly to instruction and higher teacher salaries. Significantly less money reaches district classrooms, largely because of the L.A. school district's sizable bureaucracy. <.>
District officials have been reluctant to grant teachers and principals the freedom to run the schools and unable to provide the support needed to carry out the transformation smoothly. <.>
For Barr, the interest comes from two very different schools. Taft is a racially diverse school with middle-of-the-road test scores and a largely veteran, stable faculty. Santee, by contrast, serves poor minority students in one of the city's most gang-infested neighborhoods. Student performance is some of the lowest in the district, and at the end of the campus' first year, roughly 40% of its teachers left — several of them taking jobs at Green Dot schools.
In Kentucky, Toyota Faces Union Rumblings / Downtrodden UAW Makes New Push
5/26/07 Washington Post
The United Auto Workers has launched a big new push to organize the plant, trying to capitalize on fears of lower pay, outsourcing of jobs and on Toyota's treatment of injured workers. <.>
At a new factory being built in Mississippi, Toyota plans to pay workers about $20 an hour in a region where many people earn $12 to $13 an hour.
If teachers are better off without public school unions, maybe autoworkers are too, and it just might save their jobs in the long run...
Posted 5/19/07 (By Travis)
Enviro Nonsense: So how did it become required classroom viewing?
5/19/07 National Post (Canada)
First it was his world history class. Then he saw it in his economics class. And his world issues class. And his environment class. In total, 18-year-old McKenzie, a Northern Ontario high schooler, says he has had the film An Inconvenient Truth shown to him by four different teachers this year. <.>
In England, the government has made the movie part of the public curriculum. In Spain, the government is buying copies of the movie for all of its schools. In Australia, private donors are buying copies for schools.
The point is not whether this movie or this opinion is accurate or not, although from what I've read there is much in it which is very inaccurate, but whether entire populations should be 'educated' en mass shrouded in such conformity. Especially over the opposition of parents.
Another example:
Students at Roger Williams University in Briston, Rhode
Island, were forced to watch Al Gore’s global warming schlockumentary if they wished to graduate.
Posted 4/22/07 (By Travis)
4/17/07 Telegraph
Parents who claim that an award-winning film on climate change is inaccurate and politically motivated are threatening a legal challenge over the Government's decision to send it to every secondary school.
The film by Al Gore, the former US vice-president, won an Oscar for the best documentary this
year and Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, says he wants teachers to use it to stimulate
children into discussing climate change and global warming.
But a group of parents in the New Forest say the circulation of the film by the Government amounts to political indoctrination and is in breach of the Education Act 2002. Derek Tipp, their spokesman, has urged Mr Johnson to stop the film being sent out.
In my opinion, Liberalism is the ideology of default, what most school children emerge with from public school system. This story provides some reason why this occurs.
Posted 2/19/07 (By Travis)
Apple CEO Jobs Attacks Teacher's Unions
2/16/06 Associated Press
Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs lambasted teacher unions today, claiming no amount of technology in the classroom would improve public schools until principals could fire bad teachers. <.>
"I believe that what is wrong with our schools in this nation is that they have become unionized in the worst possible way," Jobs said. "This unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers is off-the-charts crazy."
Heh heh.. great comments from Steve Jobs, who, by the way, is a Democrat.
"Apple just lost some business in this state, I'm sure," Jobs said.
Posted 12/16/05
HARD LINE, TOP SCHOOL [Required Reading]
2/16/05 San Francisco Chronicle An awesome story!
In five years, the charter school, run in a converted church building in Oakland's Laurel neighborhood, has been transformed from one of the city's worst performers into the highest-scoring middle school in Oakland.
"I don't care what the critics say, because the critics aren't turning schools around," Chavis said in his characteristically caustic tone.
The 'solutions' of the Teachers Unions, the media, and the Democratic party, 'smaller classes', 'higher teacher pay', 'more money for education', and 'higher teacher qualification', have been tried for the past 50 years with horrid results.
Critics call it scandalous.
Sometimes it seems these 'critics' are scandalized by success in and of itself.
Those with good grades and perfect attendance all year are rewarded with spending money from Chavis' own pocket -- up to $100 depending on the student's age. Breaking a school rule, such as not completing homework, being tardy or breaking the dress code, means an automatic detention.
Repeat offenders are subject to public embarrassment. Those students must stand in front of other classes as Chavis or a teacher exposes their misconduct.
"An eighth-grader hates to be sent back to a sixth-grade class," Chavis said. "I want them to be embarrassed. I'm preparing them for the real world."
But it's the most extreme forms of discipline that have thrown the school into the critics' line of fire.
With parental permission, Chavis cut the hair of a student accused of stealing. A boy who admitted to calling his classmate a derogatory name was pinned with a note that read "I'm an (expletive)" in front of other students.
Chavis said incidents of such discipline are isolated. Still, one led Monica Peoples-Brown to withdraw her sixth-grade son, who was pinned with the note after a heated conversation with Chavis that included name-calling and a threat to call the police.
"My child was traumatized," Peoples-Brown said. "It hurt me to sign him out. My child was really learning. But I can't deal with an administration that is a dictatorship."
Well, Boo Hoo! Then take him out of the school! If this happened in a public school you could not take your kid out of the school. If a public school fails you cannot take you kid out of the school. Parents cannot complain about how Charter Schools are run because they have the choice of being there. (Keep in mind this school was tailored by Chavis for what he termed 'ghetto kids'.)
Some take issue with what they call Chavis' inappropriate use of racial stereotypes, cursing and name-calling to embarrass students at the school. Floundering students become the public targets of labels like "stupid" and "lazy Mexican."
"I tell the students, if you don't do your work, people are going to call you a lazy Mexican. You're black, they expect you to be an idiot," said Chavis, who is Native American. "I use it to motivate the kids."
Well! This is a new approach. A lot different from affirmative action type talk isn't it? A lot different from the rhetoric of the race hustlers and their willing accomplices in the mainstream press. Instead of throwing blame around elsewhere Chavis is saying. "To heck with the critics, the doubters, and the cynics. Don't get mad, get even. Don't get caught up in being 'offended' by racists and bigots, just beat them. Be better than them. Prove them wrong by virtue of your own actions." And they have:
About three-quarters of American Indian Charter's students qualify for free or reduced-price meals because of low family incomes, according to school records. The vast majority of the students are minorities, though only 20 percent are American Indian, a decline from 65 percent since Chavis became the director.
Yet state test scores rank the school on a level with middle schools in far more affluent Bay Area communities. Last year, more than 70 percent of the charter school's students scored "proficient" or higher on tests of language arts and math, compared to fewer than 30 percent of all students tested in the Oakland Unified School District. If the school continues to improve at its current rate, it will surpass top-tier schools in Lafayette and Piedmont by next year. Not surprisingly, there is a waiting list to get in.
"They've taken kids who are not the brightest and propelled them to the top of state standards," said Patricia Gimbel, dean of admissions for the Deerfield Academy, a top college-preparatory school in Massachusetts.
Gimbel visited an eighth-grade class at American Indian Charter last month and called the experience "inspirational."
Why are they surprised? Why do they think these kids are not bright? Why is it surprising that poor kids and kids of color can do just as well as rich white kids? It is not surprising at all! This is the beauty of the libertarian worldview. It recognizes that, by and large, it is our own government that is to blame for differences seen in class and race. The people are equal, it is the government which is different! As we have seen (1), (2), (3), the effects of welfare are race neutral and the same principle applies to education. It is liberalism, which cannot explain why different groups perform differently and believes it is they who must further 'tweak' and 'adjust' and 'expand' the 'proper' programs so that they, the all knowing elites, can fix societal ills.
Their theories and policies are rotten to the core.
Chavis credits his rigorous academic model and the school's teachers for the success. He said his teachers are the best in Oakland. It's one area where he and his critics agree.
Most of the seven teachers are in their 20s and are recent graduates from big-name colleges. Several don't have teaching credentials, but Chavis said they are in credentialing programs.
Heh heh, if you have read 'A Charter School Tale' you are by now realizing that this news story is almost a perfect mirror image. What good have 'credentials' ever been? Why is Chavis even bothering with them now? What can they teach his teachers that they don't already know?
Oakland school board member Alice Spearman described Chavis as "brilliant" but added that his discipline and motivation methods wouldn't fly in the district's regular schools.
California law explicitly forbids corporal punishment as a form of discipline in schools. Embarrassment and humiliation are not prohibited but are considered ineffective and inappropriate by professional standards, according to education experts.
LOL! Boo Hoo! Let me repost the words of Mr. Chavis: "I don't care what the critics say, because the critics aren't turning schools around."
This is a good place to post two quotes from the neglected 'quote page':
"I owe my success to having listened respectfully to
the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite."
G.K. Chesterton
"Always
listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.
Robert Heinlein
However, there is one difference between this story and 'A Charter School Tale':
First-year teachers are paid $42,000 a year, with a $1,500 year-end bonus. By comparison, entry-level teachers in Oakland Unified's public schools receive $37,000.
In 'A Charter School Tale', I assumed that because Teachers Unions work to artificially inflate the salaries of teachers, newer teachers may be hired for less than they are currently, but in the end, through hard work, diligence, and productivity, might have a higher salary than they do even under the Teachers Unions. I'll have to consider whether this would, in fact, actually be true. It may be the case that teachers would make even more to start because the bloated administrator positions will have been streamlined. For example, I previously posted:
[And click here (link died) for the 100 highest paid Illinois public school administrators who make from $302,746 (high end) to $194,822 (low end). Pretty amazing huh? This is just for Illinois, I'm sure other states have similar problems. I'll post any other sites I run across here.]
Continuing from the SF Chronicle:
Charter schools are largely exempt from the professional standards of discipline and conduct observed in other public schools.
"They are charter schools. They operate separate from us," said Oakland school district general counsel Roy Combs. "We don't monitor, review or supervise discipline. The district has no obligation."
Indeed, this is why they are succeeding.
Chavis wants to open a high school in the fall, and the Oakland school district will consider awarding a charter in January.
Chavis has a waiting list to get into his current school. Why does Chavis need the permission of the Oakland school district to open a new school or expand his old one? Because government, not the people, controls their own tax money. Will the Teachers Unions let him? Or will they shut him down and/or restrict his expansion as they have done all throughout the country? Big Government and its special interests will squash him like a bug. Especially if he continues to speak the truth:
Society "has created a system to make minorities stupid. It's not called prison; it's called middle school," Chavis said. "If you follow our model, you'll be a winner. By the time these kids are in ninth grade, I don't have to call them idiots anymore."
Posted 2/17/06
Teacher Unions Are Killing the Public Schools
2/15/06 John Stossel, RCP
This article details how the New York public school system pays 400 teachers over $20 million a year to sit in 'rubber rooms' and do nothing. They do this because these teachers the city calls incompetent, racist, or dangerous cannot be fired. Or, better said, they cannot be fired until after years and years of costly litigation and arbitration. $300,000 over 6 years was paid to a teacher who had written sexually explicit emails to a student. A 6 year holiday for a sexual harasser, courtesy of New York City taxpayers!
Another article states:
In the past two years, school officials got the okay to fire only four of 80,000 teachers for poor performance.
This all reminds me of this previously posted article:
Jobs bank programs - 12,000 Paid Not To Work Big 3 and suppliers pay billions to keep downsized UAW members on payroll in decades-long deal.
(added to Unions and 'A Charter School Tale')
Posted 1/25/06
Some recent news regarding school choice:
No
Choice
1/16/05 Editorial (The Paducah Sun) on Blackenterprise.com
A good article on the recent decision by the (liberal) Florida Supreme Court to overturn portions of the recent Charter/Voucher education reforms passed by the Republican legislator and signed by Gov Jeb Bush (who. IMO, is one of the best governors in the nation). I especially like this article's emphasis on race and that it was featured in an African American magazine. Since Conservative/Libertarian philosophy is race neutral, this might seem hypocritical. But this approach is necessary, as seen throughout this website, in order to refute those on the left who constantly emphasize race:
Florida's
voucher program was challenged in court by the usual collection of school choice foes, including the
state teachers' union and the NAACP.
It's interesting that the NAACP backs the education establishment on vouchers,
given that polls show most blacks favor school choice. In several states, voucher programs have been
established to serve minority students in troubled inner-city school systems.
Black parents tend to support school choice because their children are disproportionately affected by the failures of the public school system. Against that, it's curious that the Florida Supreme Court -- at the behest of the NAACP -- has ruled that poor minorities must keep their seats in the back of the public education system's bus.
The Florida program was in its infancy, but almost 95 percent of the students who were
receiving state scholarships to attend private schools were black or Hispanic. A pioneering
school choice program in Milwaukee, Wisc., was championed by a black activist who battled the state
education bureaucracy and its allies in a successful effort to expand educational opportunities for
poor African-Americans.
Could you imagine the outrage if
Conservatives/Libertarians abolished a program which benefited 95% minorities?
Conservative/Libertarian policies nearly always result in positive outcomes for minorities, yet for
some reason the debate is always diverted to center on the intentions of the proponents of these
positive policies. In another
article, Florida Libertarians call the ruling "bizarre,
unrealistic, and a new form of Jim Crow to keep the poor out of private schools."
A further explanation is found here:
The court found that taxpayer support for private schools in general is unconstitutional because Florida's constitution requires "a uniform, efficient, safe, secure and high-quality system of free public schools." Private schools aren't "uniform when compared with each other or the public system," the justices wrote. They're also exempt from public standards on teacher credentials and requirements to teach about a wide range of subjects, such as civics, U.S. and world history and minorities' and women's contributions to history.
Of course, 'uniformity' is precisely the problem in todays' public
schools. A system contrived from the top down, derived by politically correct bureaucrats, not
entrepreneurs and parents, has resulted only in uniform incompetence and stagnation, hurting the
poorest of the poor.
'He's
Throwing Away My Dream' / Today it's liberal Democrats who stand in the schoolhouse door.
1/16/05 Opinion Journal, John Fund
Milwaukee's innovative school choice program has become a beacon of hope for reformers everywhere. But the educational establishment has never accepted its success and is now striking back. A cap on the number of students that can attend the city's private choice schools has been reached, and starting Feb. 1, education officials will implement a rationing plan to allocate the program's available seats. That could disrupt up to 4,000 families and create such chaos among the participating schools that several could be threatened with closure.
In 1995, then-Gov. Tommy Thompson joined with state legislators to
expand choice in Milwaukee to include religious schools, but a compromise set a limit on the number
of participating students at 15% of the enrollment in Milwaukee Public Schools. Today that means
some 14,500 students, and demand is now higher than that for the slots which give $6,351 annual
scholarships to students opting for choice schools (The public schools' per pupil spending is about
80% higher).
"You could not design a more fiendish way to cripple Milwaukee's choice program while still claiming to keep it alive," says Father Bob Smith, who heads Messmer.
Posted 9/25/06 (By Travis)
9/19/06 A Constrained Vision (blog)
Some interesting statistics on growing educational freedom:
1990:
0 charter schools
January 2004: 684,000 students in 2,996 charter schools
October 2005: 1,076,964 students in 3,625 charter schools
September 2006: 1,149,986 students in 3,977 charter schools
Top Cities:
1.
New Orleans, LA 69%
2. Dayton, OH 28%
3. Washington, DC 25%
4. Pontiac, MI 20%
5. Kansas City, MO 20%
6. Youngstown, OH 20%
I still wonder how many of the nearly 4000 charter schools in the United States are really free. After all, it is the tendency of politicians and government to appease the people by changing the labeling of an issue. For example, fascists, in contrast to communists, appear to allow ownership of 'private property', but then the state contrives so many rules and regulations around what property owners could do with their property that, for all intents and purposes, the state owns all property in all but name. This difference of perception, brought about by psychological sleight of hand, still results in many believing there is a significant difference between fascism and communism.
Posted 10/31/07 (By Travis)
Utahns Can Vote for School Choice Tuesday
10/31/07 John Stossel (RCP)
Next Tuesday, Utah voters go to the polls to decide if their state will become the first in the nation to offer school vouchers statewide. Referendum 1 would make all public-school kids eligible for vouchers worth from $500 to $3,000 a year, depending on family income. Parents could then use the vouchers to send their children to private schools. <.>
But wait. Arrayed against the vouchers are the usual opponents. They call themselves Utahns for Public Schools. They include, predictably, the Utah Education Association (the teachers union), Utah School Boards Association, Utah School Employees Union, Utah School Superintendents Association, the elementary and secondary school principals associations, and the PTA. No to vouchers! they protest. Trust us. We know what's best for your kids.
Posted 1/24/06
Following in the footsteps of my 12/16/05 post on American Indian Charter School, here is another profile of a successful Charter School:
1/17/05 Washington Post Jay Mathews (education writer) is writing a book on KIPP, a charter school chain with 47 schools nationally:
The report says in 2004-2005 more than 80 percent of the KIPP students were eligible for the federal free or reduced-price meal program -- the usual criteria for designating which students are low-income -- and more than 95 percent were African American or Hispanic.
The achievement figures for American students who fit that profile nationally are, on average, abysmal. The achievement figures for American students who fit that profile but have been in KIPP are, again on average, quite the opposite.
"While the average fifth-grader enters KIPP in the bottom third of test-takers nationwide (28th percentile), the average KIPP eighth-grader outperforms nearly three out of four of test-takers nationwide (74th percentile) on norm-referenced reading and math assessments," the report card says. "In the fifth-grade year, approximately 40 percent of KIPP schools outperform their respective districts on state reading exams, and just over 60 percent do so in math. By the eighth grade, 100 percent of KIPP schools outperform their districts in both subjects."
Some other tidbits of interest:
It is encouraging to me that in several instances KIPP principals and teachers whose students were not improving have been shown better ways to do their jobs, and if that hasn't worked, have been fired or allowed to resign.
Two schools, the KIPP Chicago Youth Village Academy and Atlanta's KIPP Achieve Preparatory Academy, have had the right to use the KIPP name revoked effective at the end of this school year.
Private ownership and dedication to results means that those in the system will be held accountable for their performance. As documented, public schools are hardly ever closed for poor performance and subpar teachers often cannot be fired.
What kind of folks established KIPP? If we are to believe the rhetoric of the Teachers Unions, media, and Democratic party, then we must assume these folks were eminently qualified, with PhDs in education and many years of experience and research. Of course, they were not:
KIPP, a way of teaching low-income middle-school children, grades 5 through 8, was invented in 1994 by two Houston elementary school teachers in their twenties who were, they freely admit, making it up as they went along. The KIPP founders, Mike Feinberg and Dave Levin, had at the time no foundation support, no well-known advisers, only two years teaching experience each and almost no support from the various principals and school district officials they had to deal with.
These 'average' folks who created KIP were anything but average. Without government imposed barriers, many more 'ordinary' people would rise up to fashion these storms of 'creative destruction', uplifting and educating millions and spreading prosperity, leaving behind them only the carnage of socialism.
(Added to 'A Charter School Tale')
Posted 12/13/05
12/9/05
Chicago Tribune If anyone doubts that it's hard to fire an incompetent school
teacher in Illinois, now there are statistics to prove it.
Only two teachers a year, on average, get fired for incompetence, according to an
investigative series published this week by a Downstate newspaper chain. Five more teachers get
fired for misconduct.
That's out of 95,500 tenured educators.
Of course, unfortunately, I must make sure I mention that most teachers are hardworking, caring etc... I say 'unfortunately', because this should be implicit in any statement regarding teachers, but for some reason is sometimes taken as a personal attack on all teachers.
What private industry has such statistics? Where else do you have only 7 of 95,500 people fired each year? The reason is, of course, that private industry cares about the productivity and quality of their workers. Government and the Teachers Unions do not.
This echoes what I said in 'A Charter School Tale':
Mrs. Jones remembered how the principal of Hillslane had blown her off when she complained about a teacher who Mary told her always gave her science class meaningless assignments and then surfed the Internet. "I'll take care of it," he told her. When nothing changed, she complained again the next week. This time he got angry, "Look lady, I talked to her. What else do you want me to do? I can't fire these people. Your daughter only has a few weeks left in class, so don't worry about it."
<.>
The Unions had also acted to make it nearly impossible to
fire teachers for incompetence, thus they incentivised incompetence, contributing to the failing
system. These rules were soon revised and Mrs. Jones noted with some satisfaction that the science
teacher whom she complained about years before was one of the first to go.
10/4/04 Neoperspectives - Describes the similarity of the political battles between Welfare Reform and Education Reform. Focuses on Washington D.C., which is actually the area I was thinking of when writing about this hypothetical black family.
How
the Unions Killed a Dream
10/26/03 Time magazine - Joe Klein details the sad story how inner city Detroit schools lost $200
million: In
1999, an unassuming Michigan road builder named Bob Thompson sold his construction company for $442
million, an amount he and his wife Ellen believed was far more than they needed for retirement.
<.> After doing some research, he offered $200 million to build 15
small, independent public high schools in the inner city. A few weeks ago, Thompson withdrew his
offer after the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT) led a furious, and scurrilous, campaign against
his generosity. The philanthropist is in seclusion now—friends say he is stunned and
distressed—but his is a story that deserves telling.
Public schools no place for teachers' kids
Washington
Times - Nationwide, public school teachers are almost twice as
likely as other parents to choose private schools for their own children, the study by the Thomas B.
Fordham Institute found. More than 1 in 5 public school teachers said their children attend private
schools.
In Washington (28 percent), Baltimore (35 percent) and 16 other major
cities, the figure is more than 1 in 4. In some cities, nearly half of the children of public school
teachers have abandoned public schools. In
Philadelphia, 44 percent of the teachers put their children in private schools; in Cincinnati, 41
percent; Chicago, 39 percent; Rochester, N.Y., 38 percent. The same trends showed up in the San
Francisco-Oakland area, where 34 percent of public school teachers chose private schools for their
children; 33 percent in New York City and New Jersey suburbs; and 29 percent in Milwaukee and New
Orleans.
Michael Pons, spokesman for the National Education Association, the
2.7-million-member public school union, declined a request for comment on the study's findings. The
American Federation of Teachers also declined to comment. Why
do teachers pay dues to organizations that destroy the opportunities they afford their own children?
"Public education in many of our large cities is
broken," the surveyors conclude. "The fix? Choice, in part, to be sure."
Threatened by Success One charter school’s fight against the education establishment.
Feb 03 Reason.com A long, but great read detailing Edison Charter school's triumph and the backlash of the powerful teacher's Unions. And a follow-up.
Philadelphia Shows Progress in Schools Run by Companies
11/9/05 Washington Post Philadelphia's School Reform Commission had decided to turn over 45 of the city's 265 public schools to such groups as Edison, a for-profit company, in the hope that outside managers with new ideas would succeed where a succession of school boards and superintendents had failed. Teachers union leaders predicted that the approach -- alternately known as a "partnership management model" or "diverse provider model" -- would lead to more disappointment. <.> Overall, Edison's 20 schools in Philadelphia averaged a gain of 10 percentage points in the portion of proficient students last year, compared with an average annual gain of less than half a percentage point in the previous seven years before Edison took over, company officials said.
Charter School Vouchers Target Cap
11/15/04 Boston Globe - Massachusets state legislators, beholden to the special interest teacher's Unions, have capped the number of Charter schools that can open. Charter school advocates, emboldened by a major Beacon Hill victory last summer, want the Legislature to clear the way for more students to attend the quasi-independent public schools in Boston and dozens of other Massachusetts cities where waiting lists are large and growing. Leaders of Boston's charter schools have met twice in the past month to weigh strategies for raising a state cap that limits the number of students who can attend charters in each school district. Boston reached the limit over a year ago, so existing charter schools cannot expand and no new ones can be created in the city, even though there are more than 6,000 students waiting to get into Boston's 18 charter schools.
A total of 152 communities around the state are at the ceiling. Currently, there are more than 15,000 students enrolled in 56 charter schools in Massachusetts. "Parents and students are definitely banging on our doors to get in," said Michael Duffy, executive director of Boston's City On A Hill Charter School. The school, which has roughly 250 slots, has 325 students on its waiting list.
The fight pits charter school supporters such as Governor Mitt Romney against opponents such as the Boston Public Schools and the teachers' unions, who are generous campaign contributors, especially to the Democrats who dominate the Legislature. <.> Backers also believe that a revised charter school financing system, designed to [permanently] shield traditional public schools from financial harm [A bad idea, but the only way to get the bribed lawmakers in the pockets of the Unions to vote for the law], will make the idea of creating additional charters more politically palatable on Beacon Hill. Earlier this year, lawmakers agreed to give school districts more money for the students they lose to nearby charter schools, and to adjust the amount of money that charter schools get to more accurately reflect the actual students they enroll. But opponents, who believe charter schools harm traditional public schools, are vowing to fight any expansion. Despite the fact that public schools currently don't even loose any money when they loose students to Charter schools (the more the public schools fail the more they will be rewarded in what they can spend per pupil), Richard Stutman, president of the Boston Teachers Union said, "But it's not a level playing field for us." No, it's not a level playing field for the Charter schools and they're still gaining students. As CA Justice Janice Rogers Brown said, "Government is the only enterprise in the world which expands in size when its failures increase."
Posted 9/24/05
Previously I posted an important quote from Frank Chodorov:
The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as `free education' is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned institution; it is socialized education - just like socialized medicine or the socialized post office - and cannot possibly be separated from political control.
To provide an example of this:
Georgia Governor asks state's schools to close to save gas
9/24/05 WISI Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue Friday asked the state's schools to take two "early snow days" and cancel classes Monday and Tuesday to help conserve gasoline as Hurricane Rita threatens the nation's fuel supply line. If all of Georgia's schools close, the governor estimated about 250,000 gallons of diesel fuel would be saved each day by keeping buses off the road. (See previous post 9/1 and story on more gas ridiculousness from 'Republican Gov Sonny Perdue', who, by the way, was rated horribly by the Cato institute.)
Do you want your kid's education at the whim of some governor or some hurricane a few states over? Would you be willing to pay a bit extra to keep your kid in school when the price of gasoline is higher? But, this specific gasoline problem is not the reason I'm posting this story. It is to show the political control and power that government has over the education system. This manifests itself in many ways that don't make the news, but that all work to stagnate the education of our children and limit freedom.
On a side note, I couldn't help but notice this tidbit in the story:
As prices spiraled after Hurricane Katrina, Perdue suspended the state's gas tax and the Legislature quickly approved the measure in a special session, saving motorists an estimated 15 cents per gallon. The tax is scheduled to return a week from Saturday.
Gov Perdue, why is the tax returning?
(For more see 'Gasoline and Government')
Charter schools & choice: What is all the fuss about?
5/1/05 Town Hall - Debra England gives an overview our educational system and charter schools.
Let's get rid of Public Schools (posted 5/18/05)
5/13/05 Los Angeles Times Opinion piece. I really just like the title of it. :)
Posted 9/20/05
9/9/05 Waternbury Republican-American Americans are opposed to school choice, declares Phi Delta Kappa, the international association for "professional educators" who believe it their mission to advocate for "publicly supported education." To bolster its position, PDK annually trots out a poll showing Americans oppose vouchers and other forms of choice in ratios approaching 3 to 2. True to its unflagging belief that the only good monopoly is the public-school monopoly, the news media annually report those biased results uncritically, even though the numbers are intuitively wrong. After all, America has witnessed in the last decade growing criticism of the performance of the public schools, as well as a groundswell of support for school choice. If Americans are so opposed to school choice, why do they keep demanding more choices?
So how does PDK get its polls to reflect a different reality? By loading the question to provoke the response it desires. The Milton and Rose D. Friedman Foundation (I highly recommend Friedmen's Free to Choose), which seeks to improve the quality of education in American by giving parents of all income and social classes the economic freedom to choose where to enroll their children, notes that PDK phrases its question to produce artificial opposition to choice, especially school vouchers. The PDK poll asks, "Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose a private school to attend at public expense?"
To test its premise about the PDK's loaded question, the foundation ran its own poll in which it asked half of those surveyed the PDK's question and the other half a question that reflects the truth about choice and vouchers:
"Do you favor or oppose allowing students and parents to choose any school, public or private, to attend using public funds?" Fifty-five percent of those asked the leading question opposed choice, while 37 percent favored it. Of those asked the accurate question, 60 percent supported choice and 33 percent were opposed. The wording change produced a 23-point shift.
Their conclusion: But Americans won't get the straight scoop as long as biased polls capture the headlines and lazy, ax-grinding journalists refuse, as the foundation put it, "to look at both sides of the issue and to scrutinize all research by the prevailing standards of scientific accuracy."
An example:
9/20/03
CBS Most Americans oppose voucher programs and think teachers aren't paid
enough, a poll finds.
Support for a program that allows students and parents to choose a private school
to attend at public expense dropped to 38 percent from 46 percent last year, according to the poll
conducted by professional educational association Phi Delta Kappa International and Gallup.
This is why Conservatives/Libertarians believe there is a bias in the media. CBS news is doing nothing more than parroting the talking points of a hurtful, liberal special interest group, and working against the education of American children.
This sort of polling skewing is common in the media and by politicians of both parties, but especially the Democratic party, I recall it was heavily utilized when President Bush was attempting to explain the idea of private retirement accounts. This was added to 'A Charter School Tale'.
Posted 10/17/05
October 05 Education Intelligence Agency
Very interesting report from a great site, which was cited by numerous news reports, including the Washington Times (via the Club For Growth website). They obtained a leaked NEA survey given to its members. The NEA's own findings:
One question asked members how involved they were in
I highlight this because this is a figure I have been looking for a long time. Thus far, I've found varying answers in different states. Sometimes people are allowed to not join the union, but still forced to give some of their salary to it, as a condition of employment! For example, from a Chicago legal case (the Union lost):
Approximately 95% of the employees are members of the Union. Until 1982, the members' dues financed the entire cost of the Union's collective bargaining and contract administration, and nonmembers received the benefits of the Union's representation without making any contributions to its cost. In an attempt to solve this "free rider" problem, the Union and the Board entered into an agreement requiring the Board to deduct "proportionate share payments" from nonmembers' paychecks. The Union determined that the "proportionate share" assessed on nonmembers was 95% of union dues, computed on the basis of the Union's financial records.
Without knowing more it is difficult to do further analysis of this 20% number, such as if this represents just the number opposed to joining, those who were forced to join but would have joined anyway, or some combination thereof.
Still, when you consider that the NEA has given over $25 million dollars (over 90% to Democratic candidates) since 1989, the third highest of any organization (and actually even higher than this because of how campaign contributions are defined), it is apparent that somewhere in the area of $5 million dollars was conscripted from members who were, in all probability, forced into membership (not withstanding that a vast majority of Union members would opt out of the Union using their money to make political donation if they could).
The surveys also asked both members and local presidents to self-identify their political philosophies. This may well be the most controversial finding of the surveys, although it is consistent with previous surveys of NEA members.
Respondents were asked if they were conservative, tend conservative, liberal, tend liberal, or
don't know. Fifty percent of NEA members said they were conservative or tend conservative. Only 40 percent described themselves as liberal or tend liberal.Watch what happens to these percentages with the NEA local presidents:
Tiny (less than 50 teachers) = 44% conservative, 49% liberal
Small (50-149 teachers) = 40% conservative, 54% liberal
Medium (150-499 teachers) = 34% conservative, 63% liberal
Large (500-999 teachers) = 26% conservative, 70% liberal
Jumbo (1,000+ teachers) = 14% conservative, 82% liberal
Of course, local presidents are not at the top of the NEA pyramid. There are state and national representatives, and state and national executives. There is no comparable survey of their beliefs, but it isn't much of a stretch to infer that all these tendencies would continue as we moved further up.
As you can see, from my 7/25 post containing the link: 'These are your Teachers', the NEA agenda includes many things outside of education and that would probably be opposed by their members. Or would they? What do NEA members want their union to do?:
However, in a relative sense, their marching orders to NEA are obvious. "Improve/protect medical insurance" and "protect members against unfair actions" were deemed important by 90 percent of member respondents (local presidents agreed by 94 and 95 percent, respectively). Eighty-five percent want the Association to "provide legal protection" (local presidents agreed at 88 percent), and 84 percent want NEA to help "increase salaries" (local presidents – 93 percent). The only meaningful divergence of opinion between the two groups was on class size reduction. Seventy-five percent of members thought this should be a priority, but only 52 percent of local presidents thought so.
Hmmm... So teachers Unions look out for the interest of teachers. This isn't a criticism, it is just what a Union is supposed to do. So why does the NEA, the Media, and the Democratic party (which are pretty much one and the same) always talk as if the Teachers Unions care about the education of students? Why are Unions a credible source when discussing Charter Schools?
Of course, individual teachers care about the education of students, and I'd think even the Union bosses personally care about the education of students, but the goal of a Union is not improving the education of students, especially if it conflicts with improving working conditions of teachers (as it frequently does). I am attempting to demonstrate why one aspect of the many feedback loops in our horrid public education system is broken.
"When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
- Albert Shanker (Former head of American Federation of Teachers)
So why does the 'Conservative' membership not care about the direction the Union takes politically? Well, some do care and are acting bravely on their convictions. Others are apathetic and aren't really that politically active and are so are unaware. However, from my (limited) experience, a large group of these 'Conservatives' see local benefits of the Union doing things like legal representation, good salary and benefit negotiations, and have decided that these things are in their interest and so they put up with their National Union's liberalism... Many of these teachers oppose Charter Schools and other education reforms...
So, in conclusion, we have conclusive proof that Conservative Teachers are being forced to support the Democratic party and that parents of Conservative parents are forced to pay taxes that do the same. How do you feel about this? Is this is freedom? Why is this allowed to continue?
In California they are attempting to do something about it, via Prop 75, which requires that Unions obtain written permission from members to use their dues for political purposes and even the Liberal Los Angeles Times agrees:
10/16/05 Los Angeles Times Editorial
However, the Unions have raised over $100 million to attempt to defeat this commonsense measure. They have raised at least a portion of this money by levying an involuntary 'tax' on their members (and even nonmembers), which a Federal Judge has upheld.
Interestingly, the editorial contains this: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that union members cannot be forced to finance political activity. Really? I'd like to know more about his, especially considering that 20% of NEA members claim they had no choice but to join that Union....
However, sadly, even if this proposition passes, I will be surprised if the corrupting Union power diminishes, as they will 'comply' with the ruling in a convoluted way that still allows them access to the money of it's members. Or maybe they won't comply and just take a slap on the wrist fine. Why would I make this prediction? History.
NEA doesn't show up in Court, Union fined $800,000
7/1/02 Evergreen Foundation
OLYMPIA, WA - A Thurston County Superior Court judge today fined the National Education Association (NEA) $800,000 plus legal fees for “intentional” violations of a Washington state law that prohibits the unauthorized use of agency fees* for political activity. The NEA’s state affiliate, the Washington Education Association, was penalized more than $770,000 last year for breaking the same state law. The NEA’s fine bumps two earlier WEA fines to become the largest in Washington state history.
Preschool
Program for the Poor pays off
Washington
Times - By improving our education system we improve our children's lives and our society in more
ways then one might think: Poor children who attended a
premier preschool in the 1960s were more likely to graduate from high school, hold a job and stay
out of jail than peers who didn't get an early education, says a landmark study that tracked the
children for 40 years.
"The bottom line is that high-quality early care and education programs
not only raise high school graduation rates and test scores but, decades later, they lead to higher
incomes and lower crime rates," said Lawrence J. Schweinhart, president of the High/Scope
Educational Research Foundation, which yesterday released the study of the Perry Preschool program.
The study shows a $17 return for every tax dollar invested in high-quality early education. It also urges policy-makers to offer similar preschool programs to all low-income children.
Court Panel Says New York Schools Need Billions More
12/1/04 New York Times The courts in New York have tyrannically and unconstitutionally usurped the power to tax. It is not up to the legislators or the people to determine what should be spent on Education, but an elitist judge. The report is a major turning point in a lawsuit that could reshape the way education is financed in the state, and is being watched closely by politicians and educators around the nation. <.> The report is a significant step toward a court takeover of what has traditionally been a legislative role: deciding exactly how much money should be spent on schools. <.> The figure the panel recommended - a 43 percent increase to the city's $12.9 billion school budget - came very close to what the city said it needed. It was almost identical to the amount sought by the plaintiffs [I wonder how the Lawyers made out...] in the case and nearly tripled what Gov. George E. Pataki's lawyers had proposed in court. But how much of the money should come from the state or from the city itself the panel did not say, leaving unanswered one of the most daunting and contentious questions facing the lawmakers responsible for coming up with the money. <.> On virtually every major issue, the panel - which sought dozens of opinions during three months of public hearings - sided with the plaintiffs and dismissed the state's arguments. On the question of running the schools, the state argued that an extra $1.93 billion would suffice, but the panel chose a figure that exceeded what either the plaintiffs or the city demanded. Amazing, how the heck do they come up with these numbers! And the court doesn't even care how the money is spent: And while the state argued that more layers of oversight would be necessary to ensure that any additional money was well spent, the panel rejected the state's idea to set up a new statewide office that would monitor spending and wield the power to shut down failing schools. The governor's office called that aspect a particular failure of the report. "We are particularly concerned that the recommendations appear to reject any type of real reform and fail to overhaul the current accountability system, while recommending a substantial infusion of new spending," said Kevin Quinn, a spokesman for Governor Pataki.
Schools Prevail Court: Funding is Millions short (posted 6/7/05)
6/4/05 Witchita Eagle The Kansas Supreme Court ordered the state Friday to spend $285 million more on schools this year --twice the increase lawmakers approved. That would boost education spending to about $3 billion, a 10 percent increase. We already saw a similar situation develop in New York: Court Panel Says New York Schools Need Billions More. What can one do when unelected officials usurp the power to tax? Sen. Tim Huelskamp, R-Fowler, said there has even been talk about impeaching justices. "This is not a case of judicial activism. This is a case of judges out of control," Huelskamp said. "We're facing a constitutional crisis that's been forced on us." He is right. What will the courts do if the elected legislators ignore them or take action against them? The state, a defendant, is also the owner of substantial assets, he said. "Those are subject to seizure and distribution. Putting their hands on money is not an impossible task for courts," he said. So, unelected officials demand to thieve other people's money to spend at their whim and then threaten to seize the property of citizens if they don't comply? Are these the actions of a Representative form of government, or a property respecting Republic - or a Tyrannical Dictatorship?
Posted 7/15/05
For $10,000, Woman Tattoos Ad on Forehead
6/30/05 Associated Press For $10,000, Kari Smith has gone ahead and had her forehead tattooed with the Web address of a gambling site. Why does this women need this money so bad? Does she have a:
A) Drug problem
B) Gambling problem
Answer: C
Bountiful, 30, who sold her unusual advertising space on eBay, said the money will give her 11-year-old son a private education, which she believes he needs after falling behind in school.
"For the all the sacrifices everyone makes, this is a very small one," she said. "It's a small sacrifice to build a better future for my son," she said.You see, the government decided that Kari is too stupid to spend her own money on her school of choice so, under threat of imprisonment, Kari's tax money is stolen from her and conscripted to be wasted at her local, bloated, and failing, public school. In fact, even as her son now goes to a private school, her money will still be forcibly taken from her and squandered at her local public school. I say 'squandered' because teachers and administrative salaries are ridiculously inflated (per productivity) at the failing public schools and, since poor parents are forced to send their kids to the failing public schools, the public schools cannot be hurt by their abject failures and thus remain totally unaccountable.
Now, it might be the case that Kari is so poor that she pays no significant taxes (besides the taxes the government takes from her, wastes a good portion, and then returns to her in the form of shoddy health and shoddy retirement). If this is the case, then wealthier individuals are having their money confiscated and given to the failing school, which Kari's son is forced to attend. So, instead of forcing her to shoot herself in the foot, the government forces the better off citizens to do it.
Kari has a 'Teachers Union problem' because local and national teachers unions fight desperately to keep the educational status quo and donate huge sums of union dues to politicians, mostly Democratic, to sabotage any attempt at reform.
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Posted 7/26/05
<SNIP>
Speaking of which, the NEA, the nation's largest Union (composed of public school teachers), recently passed a resolution stating:
The NEA shall research the possibility of offering, as part of the existing training program, either regional or national levels of training that would support the significant history of labor unions. The training will have a focus that emphasizes delivery of age appropriate curriculum to students.
But, of course, the NEA is a nonpartisan, tax-exempt organization, which is only interested in the education of our children. Right. And North Korea is a workers paradise.
NEA challenged on Political Outlays
4/7/05 Washington Times As much as one-third of the tax-exempt National Education Association's yearly $271 million income (92% to the Democratic party) goes toward politically related activities, according to union documents filed with the Internal Revenue Service. The documents show that the 2.7 million-member teacher's union spends millions annually to field what one critic calls an "army of campaign workers," while maintaining that it spends nothing on politics.
Our tax dollars are currently going to pay the bloated salaries of teachers and administrators at our public schools, who in turn have their money confiscated by the NEA. Many Americans, like me, to put it mildly, dislike the policies of the NEA and the propaganda they are publicly advocating for our children. Don't like it? Tough. What can you do? Well, you could take your kids out of public school, but you'd still be forced to support the public schools, hence the unions. You could refuse to pay taxes, but then you would probably end in jail. See why I don't have respect for the law?
But, I'm not alone, neither does the NEA:
NEA doesn’t show up in court; union fined $800,000 for “intentional” violations of state law
7/1/02 Evergreen Foundation A Thurston County Superior Court judge today fined the National Education Association (NEA) $800,000 plus legal fees for “intentional” violations of a Washington state law that prohibits the unauthorized use of agency fees* for political activity.
The NEA’s state affiliate, the Washington Education Association, was penalized more than $770,000 last year for breaking the same state law. The NEA’s fine bumps two earlier WEA fines to become the largest in Washington state history.
* Teachers who give up their union membership, often for political and ideological reasons, become “agency fee payers.” Washington state law strictly prohibits the use of any agency fees for political activity without first obtaining permission from each individual fee-payer.
Washington is one of only 5 states to pass a law like this. California Unions are terrified that a similar Schwarzenegger backed initiative will become law. So, of course, they accuse Schwarzenegger of being against teachers, against children, against education etc... What sort of society allows thieves to rail against the righteous?
7/9/05
Fox News
This worries union officials because they know that workers, when given
a choice, overwhelmingly refuse to support union political activity.
After
Washington state passed paycheck protection, contributions to the Washington Education Association
political committee dropped from over 80 percent of teachers down to 6 percent. Utah adopted
paycheck protection in 2001 and now nearly 95 percent of Utah Education Association members refuse
to contribute to the union’s political fund.
Workers refuse to support their union’s politicking because the spending is usually at odds with
individual member preferences. For example, although at least 30 percent of California Teachers
Association members are Republican, the CTA just approved a $60 per-member dues increase in order to
raise $50 million to fight paycheck protection and a Republican governor’s education proposals.
This spending discrepancy is consistent with a national trend. The AFL-CIO and affiliate SEIU spent
a combined $100 million to mobilize union household voters against President Bush in 2004, but
surveys indicate that at least one-third of union voters cast their vote for Bush in the last
election.
Forcing a politically diverse workforce to fund organized labor’s single-party devotion is
fundamentally unfair. Paycheck protection is a common sense measure that requires unions to raise
political capital one individual at a time—just like any other political player—but union
officials can be expected to fight the encroachment on their monopoly over California public
employees for all they’re worth.
A storm is brewing, given the unrest within organized labor’s leadership and the dissatisfaction
among rank-and-file members.
It may be time for Big Labor to invest in umbrellas.
Posted 12/17/06 (By Travis)
U.S. Schools Overhaul Sought, Using Private Control
12/14/06 Associated Press
U.S. public schools should be run by private contractors who would graduate most students by 10th grade, concluded an expert commission sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
While I've been critical, perhaps unfairly because after all it's their money, of aspects of the Gates' charitable foundation in the past here at neoperspectives.com (as they don't seem to place heavy focus on the underlying political and economic roots of poverty, disease, and suffering), this recent proposal is quite interesting. The seriousness with which this analysis and proposal is being taken says volumes about the shifting debate and sentiment towards public 'education' and, if we're lucky, 'public' institutions in general. :)
The plan faces opposition from teacher unions, which expressed concern about the proposal to hand operations over to private contractors, and to shift the structure of teacher retirement pay.
No surprises here, nor their method of attack:
The nation's largest teachers union, the 3.2 million-member National Education Association, said that recommendations such as state funding and private control of schools ``could potentially disenfranchise poorer communities and eliminate community voices.''
Of course, the opposite is true, and feel free to extrapolate this contradiction to