By Kristin
Think you could find a way to cut $4.6 billion from Washington State's budget? The League of Education Voters has a nifty interactive calculator that will put you in the power seat.
To fool around and see where you would save (or earn) the state $4.6 billion, click here.
I did it, and managed to cut nothing from early learning. I managed to save 4.6 billion dollars without making state employees take a 3% salary decrease. I did it without taking away food stamps, health care for poor children, or increasing class size.
I did cut the National Board Bonus, because I don't think times like these merit bonuses, and I think those who have claimed to be leaders need to step up and take a hit. I did suspend the teacher COLA, for about the same reason, but I kept our annual experience increase. I'd rather give up a bonus and a COLA than have class size go up, wouldn't you?
And I made up the most money by doing things like increasing ferry rates, taxing cigarettes, and ending the sales tax exclusion on business services and consumer services. Call me crazy, but I think cosmetic surgery should include sales tax.
To see my budget, you can click here.
I can't figure out why Gregoire – someone who really does value education – would take such a big bite out of programs that help kids and won't increase tax on things that grownups can choose to do without. Can you?
By Kristin
Today Washington's governor, Chris Gregoire, announced she would like to streamline education. Currently, she says, “We don’t have an education system in our state … we have a collection of agencies that deal with education."
Her solution? To group all of the educational agencies into one single, cabinet-level Department of Education, headed by a Secretary appointed by the Governor rather than our current, elected, Superintendent of Public Education. To see the clear difference between what is and what might be, look at pages five and six of the policy brief.
What might this entail? What might educators think about this? How might it affect us?
By Kristin
Surprise! China is kicking our butts in testing. The article on Shanghai's dominance in the test scores of 15-year olds can be read here, in The New York Times.
But I don't want to talk about testing, or even Shanghai. I want to talk about my kitchen sink.
By Kristin
As Brian revealed in his recent post, It looks like what happened in Los Angeles will inevitably happen in New York. Despite my frequent frustrations with ineffective teachers, administrators and unions, I have a big problem with newspapers like the Los Angeles Times or the New York Times who think it's their job to rate teachers.
Newpapers aren't in the business of teaching students or evaluating teachers; they're really in the business of selling advertising, so while they try to inform the public, they also tend to jump on the bandwagon of a hot topic in order to get readers. Rating teachers based on test scores is a hot topic right now, but it shouldn't be. If the public walked to a local school or logged on to a district's website, they'd be able to find all sorts of information. They could rate teachers on their own. Neither test scores nor a teacher's skill are kept secret, and it's misleading for newspapers to pretend they are.
By Kristin
Let's open this conversation up. I have no problem with competition and a big problem with the seniority-protects-bad teachers issue. While I disagree that we should do an across the board comparison of charter and traditional schools, I have no problem with charter schools as a well-done alternative to poorly-performing schools.
Say Washington state allowed charter schools. What would you want them to look like? What would you want them to do? If you could design a charter school, where would you put it, who would you put in it, and what would you expect from it?
Instead of just saying "No," let's maybe, here, say "If…"
By Kristin
Remember the Pushmepullyou in Dr. Doolittle? It's an animal with two heads. I was always impressed it got around as well as it did.
Unfortunately, the graduation requirements in Washington State are like a Pushmepullyou that hasn't figured out which direction it's going. The requirements for earning a diploma are at odds with what teachers are expected to accomplish, and I think they need to change.
By Kristin
Scores scores scores. They're everywhere. I agree with testing. I agree with using test scores to evaluate teachers. I agree with getting rid of ineffective teachers. But many of the tests currently used are shoddy assessments. As Brian's most recent post demonstrates, we are not yet to the place where test scores should mean as much as they do. In this panic-driven "race to the top" (and it's not to the top – districts are racing to prove they test) districts are whipping out tests that haven't been, well, tested.
By Kristin
Have you seen the education issue of Time magazine? Be ready. In an earnest but hackneyed effort, Time and its reporters Amanda Ripley and John Cloud throw a lot of numbers around ("16:1 Student-to-teacher ratio in 2007, compared with 22:1 in 1970." Really? Where is that 16-student average coming from?), highlight the temporary contributions of the Teach For America corps, and dabble a bit in some of the better-performing charter schools. And of course, they vilify unions and discount the contributions of excellent public school teachers because they are union members.
Let's take moment to follow the scent Cloud and Ripley wave across the trail, and then we'll look at some real solutions to help public schools serve challenged and challenging kids.
By Kristin
My journalism students are writing their first opinion pieces. One student chose to write about the poor teachers in our building. She complained that her senior project class was chaos, a waste of time.
"The teacher can't handle us," she said.
"You are seniors," I said. "Are you unable to behave for fifty minutes and work on your projects?"
"Well," she answered, "we're rowdy and when she tells us to get to work no one listens to her."
I am not even going to go into the skills of this particular teacher. I think in the context of this situation it's a moot point. Am I really to sympathize that twenty-five seniors - eighteen year olds, most of them – can't use a fifty-minute research period to complete a graduation requirement? I find it hard to fault the teacher. The teacher of this class is there to guide, edit, and encourage. She should not have to manage the behavior of a group of young adults who fully expect to graduate.
Or am I out of line?