Online Schools On Our Dime Should Really Concern You

The state House of Representatives is considering online charter schools. And yes, under the proposal, those "schools" would get full per-pupil funding despite the fact that there are a lot of questions about how kids' attendance would be accounted for, and evidence that kids don't learn as well in these cyber-schools. I'm taking this information from Michigan Parents for Schools and some of their supporters, and I would like to ask you to call your state representative and ask them to vote against the cyber school bill (SB 619). You can find talking points here.

Here's some information about the poor performance of cyber schools in Colorado, and it is mighty disturbing.

From Education News Colorado:
Achievement of online students drops over time, lags state averages on every indicator

Here is some of what that article says:

But an independent analysis of previously unreleased online school data by the I-News Network and Education News Colorado reveals key new findings and an achievement gap that alarmed education officials:

• Online students are losing ground. Students who transfer to online programs from brick-and-mortar schools posted lower scores on annual state reading exams after entering their virtual classrooms.
• Academic performance declined after students enrolled in online programs. Students who stayed in online programs long enough to take two years’ worth of state reading exams actually saw their test results decline over time.
• Wide gaps persist. Double-digit gaps in achievement on state exams between online students and their peers in traditional schools persist in nearly every grade and subject – and they’re widest among more affluent students.

Here are some of the lobbying expenditures by cyberschools and their allies, as compiled by Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools:

Lobbying expenditures in MI:
K12, Inc: $112,826 (2008-11); nearly $30,000 each of last two years
Connections Education: $47,314 (2009-11); over $26K last year
Michigan Virtual Univ.: $307K last 11 yrs; $36K+ last year alone
Pearson Education (now owns Connections): $18K each of last 3 yrs

And here is some testimony that was given to the House Education Committee by the Superintendent of the Ottawa Intermediate School District. It's so compelling that I am producing it in full below.  (It is, after all, part of the public record.)

But before I let this testimony have the last word, let me say something.
Understand that this cyber school bill is just a way to divert funding from public schools that are actually trying to teach students. Understand this cyber school bill as part of the larger attack on public education. Understand this cyber school bill as an effort to dismantle public education. And understand that if your legislators don't hear from you, and this passes, you will have nobody to blame but yourself. At least if you contact them, you can say that you tried.

This testimony is eye-opening. (If it is too small for you to read, you can find the original pdf here: http://house.michigan.gov/SessionDocs/2011-2012/Testimony/Committee5-1-25-2012-1.pdf)

Pushing Teachers by Testing: Hammer vs. Screwdriver

For the most part, most of the teachers and principals that I have spoken with have been fairly strongly anti-standardized testing. However--in the last few months I did have two conversations with acquaintances--one, a teacher, and the other, a principal--who did shed some light on the ways in which testing has been used to advance teaching. And in the interests of fairness and erudition, I thought I would share their reflections.

The teacher explained to me that when the MEAP started, it was seen as a tool to encourage teachers in a certain way. Although there were state curriculum standards, it was sometimes hard to get teachers to teach to them. The thinking went that if skills--particularly higher-level skills--were represented on the tests, then teachers would naturally want to teach them.

And the example she gave me? Manipulatives.

In elementary school math, manipulatives are used to teach math in a concrete way. So, for example, bundles of tens are a type of manipulative. Modern math education theory has as a foundation that students need to understand what numbers really are, and that--for instance--using manipulatives allows students to understand what is really happening when you add 10 + 10. However, at the time--and still today--some teachers only were teaching the arithmetic. In other words, they were/are not teaching what 10 + 10 means, but rather, simply--how do you add 10 + 10.  

So--the designers of the MEAP began
              including questions that involved descriptions of manipulatives,
                        in order to encourage teachers
                                   to introduce actual manipulatives
                                          in order that their students would
                                   remember the actual manipulatives when
                         asked about it on the MEAP.
              And because the test was (becoming) a high-stake test
Even teachers who were resistant to using manipulatives would start using them.

The principal told me a similar story. Fast forward fifteen or twenty years though, to today's environment. And she said, and I'm paraphrasing/summarizing here, that the high-stakes nature of the test allows her to check in regularly with teachers and make sure that they are teaching what they should be teaching.

And my thoughts about this?

We need a test to make sure that principals are able to evaluate teachers? Really? 
I don't believe it.

This whole system reminds me of using a hammer when a screwdriver is required.

Testing Tales

I'm hoping to do a series about testing--talking about the MEAP, the MAP, the ACT, the SAT, the MME, etc. But it's such a vast subject and I've been a little bit stymied as to how to break it up. Add to that conundrum a busy schedule and I've been thinking about how to write this up for a couple of months now, but I haven't actually set pen to paper [rereading this, I feel I should note--that is just a figure of speech!]. Now I have decided I will move from inward to outward. In other words, I'm going to start with myself.

I've never been a particularly anti-test person. I always thought that test taking was a skill that people needed, just like writing, arithmetic, or learning how to tie a shoelace. But I also thought we shouldn't overemphasis tests.

For myself, I have pleasant memories of filing into the school cafeteria to take the Iowa tests. I was lucky that my name wasn't something long like Smolensky or Blagojevich [sneaky reference to a former Illinois governor who is going to jail this week] because they were too long to fit in the bubbles. And of course I made sure to fill in the bubbles well with my newly-sharpened #2 pencil.

Do you remember the Iowa tests? They have a long history. They were first developed in 1935. The Iowa tests are what are called "norm-referenced" tests.  In other words, they score test-takers on a bell curve. Some students will be above average; the majority will be average; and some students will be below average.  [Below, there is a drawing of a bell curve. See how it looks like a bell? Hence the name.]

The Bell Curve

The idea behind a norm-referenced test is that it describes a population's distribution. In other words, not everyone will perform well--some people will perform poorly. But in a particular population (say, for example, Lake Wobegon, where "all the children are above average,") all of the kids could score to the right of the center line--and would look good when compared Lake Woestayhere, where all the kids are below average.

On the other hand, you can see the problem. In the broader population, it is impossible for everybody to score well. Half the test-takers would have to be below average. If a large population moves its scores (everyone starts reading better), then the bell curve shifts to the right--but still, half the kids are below average. Also, norm-referenced tests tend to focus on the kinds of questions that differentiate between students, and not the kinds of questions that show proficiency in certain areas. In other words, the point of the test is to rank students.

If, by chance, you have ever had a teacher who "graded on the curve" or "curved the grades," that teacher was working toward a certain middle ground. If she or he expected that most of the class would get a B, but the average grade was a C, they might think "I guess I made that test too hard" and they would move the average up to a B. I was very thankful for that in college physics, where my C- turned into a B- thanks to a professor's curving of the final exam.

In my test-taking heyday--which might have been eighth or ninth grade--I enjoyed the tests as a break from my regular school work. I enjoyed completely filling in the circles. I didn't feel any pressure about the tests, because a) they didn't mean much of anything and b) I always scored well on tests. In other words, whether it was an Iowa test or an IQ test (which is also scored on the bell curve), I was always well along on the right-hand side of that curve.

I never had test anxiety, which definitely helped.

But it's also true that students who fit my profile tended to do well. And of course, doing well is positively reinforcing. And since I did well the first time, why get nervous about the next year's test?

What, you might wonder, is "my profile?" Well, to begin with, I lived in a primarily white, upper middle/middle class town. I had two well-educated parents, both with graduate degrees. I had lots of books in my house. Only one of my grandparents had finished high school, but they all could read in more than one language. It turns out that the confluence of a comfortable income and an educated, literate family lead a certain population to do very well on tests. And that is true, whether the test is a norm-referenced test like the Iowa tests, or a criterion-referenced test like the MEAP.

Criterion-referenced tests sound, on paper, a lot better. In a sense, they are more like the kinds of tests that we took in high school. If you were taught the future tense in a language class, you would be expected to demonstrate that knowledge on a test. Theoretically, every student in the class could get an A if they had studied and mastered the future tense. And in this simple example, that might actually happen.

In real life, in criterion-referenced tests like the MEAP, that never happens. There are a lot of reasons for this, but here are a few.
1. Students come in with different weaknesses. If one of those weaknesses is reading, that will show up in every single other test. The social studies and science tests--and even the math tests--require a lot of reading.
2. The "cut scores," as to what "proficiency" means, change. That just happened this year in Michigan, and guess what--a lot of kids who looked "proficient" last year don't look proficient this year. Even though they might have actually done better.
3. Not all teachers teach everything that might be on the tests. And even if they cover the subject matter, the questions might be unintelligible to the student. Take, for instance, an example that a teacher gave me a few years ago. Her students (upper elementary) had a question on the reading comprehension exam about logging. Yes, I'm talking about the cutting down of trees. Her students, however, had a different understanding of logging. One logs into a computer, and logs out of a computer. . .  That reading comprehension passage made no sense at all to those kids.

But anyway, back to me. I've now had two children go through the college application process. They've taken a lot of tests. Like me when I was growing up, they have two parents with graduate degrees. Like me growing up, they live in a middle class community--and an academic community too! That is another kind of privilege. Like me, they did relatively well.

And my youngest son? He said to me, "I like the tests."
"Really? Why?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "we don't do any work during the testing periods!"

And that's Part I. More about testing, coming soon to a blog near you.

Spread a Little Sunshine

No, I'm not talking about the lovely weather we had this weekend.

This week is "Sunshine Week" to acknowledge the importance of Open Government, and to pay attention to the Open Meetings Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

These are some extremely useful laws!

Ed Vielmetti has written quite a bit about them.
See, for instance, this most recent article.
Or look at his FOIA Coordinator blog.

The Ann Arbor Area Government Document Repository (I know, a fancy name! But it's not fancy--and its web address is a simple a2docs.org) has quite a few government documents--many of which were gotten through FOIA requests. In my opinion, this is a vastly underutilized place to store "found" documents. [And if you are interested, the Ann Arbor City Council Email Series is there.]

Although they are not perfect laws, take a moment this week to toast the late, Ann Arbor, representative Perry Bullard for his devotion to open government. He sponsored the Michigan Freedom of Information Act and the Open Meetings Act.

And yes, they apply to schools. If you want information, ask the administrators at the school district from which you want information. Often, you won't even need to fill out a freedom of information request. But if you do, don't be intimidated. There is lots of information out there that can help you!

New Tech and Budgets in Ypsilanti: A Good News, Bad News Story

Superintendent Dedrick Martin gave some sobering budget news to the high school teachers in Ypsilanti the other day. I know, that's not surprising, but it is important because the teachers are in the middle of union negotiations.

According to the teacher I spoke with though, his presentation could have been a lot worse. What made it better was that: a) she felt she was being told the truth, and b) the bad news was coupled with some good news. With the good news, Martin described changes that are being made at the middle school and high school levels (for the better, in her opinion). He also shared information about the prizes and accolades that Ypsilanti's New Tech High School has gotten--even though it is only in year two.

My conversation with this teacher reminded me of a conversation I had back in October about New Tech.
That conversation was with a cashier.
I was paying for some goods at a local store, and I must have been buying something related to schools, because my conversation with the cashier immediately turned to school.
Where, she asked, did my kids go to school? I told her.
I asked her where her kids went to school. 
Her son, she told me, was attending New Tech. She reported to me that when he started (last year, in ninth grade), he was way behind in school--particularly reading and math--and what was worse, he didn't care.
[An aside: if you've ever been a parent of a high school student who didn't care about school, it's very hard to even get them to show up at school. For parents, it's a very stressful and no-win situation.]

After a year at New Tech, though, she told me that he had started to care.
She said to me, "He's still behind, but now he's trying to catch up."

And that is some really, really good news.

There Are Things I Will Never Understand

One of those things is people stealing from schools--especially school districts already under stress with kids full of poverty. And the worst part is that those criminals just give all the other hard-working people in the district a black eye, and they make it harder to muster support for all schools.

They are predators.

Witness today's report from the Detroit News: Ex-Pontiac school official indicted in corruption probe.

As the FBI Special Agent in Charge Andrew Arena says in the article,
"This type of public corruption not only violates the trust of the community but also robs children of opportunity."

I'm told this is the tip of the iceberg. . . that there is more scandal to come.

And there is a local connection as well.

A couple of years ago a well-loved principal left Ypsilanti High School. He ended up as a principal in Pontiac, and--eventually--as interim superintendent. Jon Brown was terminated from the Pontiac schools this fall, and now he has filed a whistleblower lawsuit, alleging his termination was related to his efforts to uncover fraud in the district.

Assuming that is true, I believe there will be more indictments.

According to a February 18, 2012 article in the Oakland Press,

Brown alleges that while he was superintendent, he uncovered substantial amounts of fraud and misuse of district funds, including unauthorized payments to staff, suspected misappropriation and overspending of grant funds, execution of vendor contracts without appropriate approvals and misuse of district credit cards.
The district was operating with a $25 million deficit at the time, he said.
“This is a classic whistleblower’s case where a conscientious employee reported violations and got punished,” said Carol Laughbaum, an attorney with Gordon’s firm.
“This is an outrageous abuse of the public trust. The whole thing is beyond troubling.”

Of Presidents and Project-Based Learning

This is a great story about how a 12-year-old girl went above and beyond with a school project, and found out that all of the U.S. presidents except one are related to a certain King John, the one who agreed to the Magna Carta. If you were wondering how project-based learning works, here is a good example. And if you are a genealogist, the cautionary tale here is that you shouldn't ignore the maternal line, even if it is harder to trace. . . apparently all the professionals had only looked at the paternal lines. . .

"The Greatest Parapro Ever"

"Forget Davy Jones," my friend writes. "I'm bummed over Mr. Dixon, the greatest parapro* ever. He was so good with the kids and he was a singer, getting involved in school musical productions but also busting out spontaneously in the classroom."

Mr. Dixon, you were noticed, and you will be missed.

Here is the annarbor.com obituary:

DIXON, STEVE
Passed away at age 62, on Saturday, February 25, 2012. He was born 
in Ann Arbor on February 28, 1949. Steve was a graduateof Ann Arbor High and Eastern Michigan University and he retired 
from Wassana County Juvenile Court. At the time of his passing 
he was employed with the Ypsilanti Public Schools. He is survived 
by his wife, Gwendolyn Powell-Dixon; his son; and 5 siblings. 
He was preceded in death by his parents, Mrs. Minnie and 
Mr. William Dixon. Service will be held at Second Baptist Church, 
850 Red Oak Rd., Ann Arbor, MI, 48103 on Saturday, March 3, 2012, 
9 am viewing, family hour 10 am, funeral service 11 am.


*parapro=paraprofessional, teacher's aide

News Hits

Milan schools are thinking about whether they should drop the Big Reds name and the Native American logos associated with it. I guess another alternative would be to keep the name (which arose from their red uniforms!) and change the logos (which arose from the name Big Reds).

I just found out that the Washtenaw County parks have more than one accessible playground. At Independence Lake park there is an accessible playground and fishing pier. Rolling Hills has a new accessible playground. Rolling Hills also has a new braille description of a walk in Sassafras Woods, available for a loan.

Ann Arbor school's technology millage campaign is kicking off this week. Read more about it in this annarbor.com article. Or if you prefer, look at the Ann Arbor Citizens Millage Campaign website.

The Michigan Islamic Academy is suing Pittsfield Township over its denial of the Academy's rezoning request for property on which they had planned to build a school, based on religious discrimination. The Council on American Islamic Relations has joined the lawsuit, and the U.S. Department of Justice has opened a formal investigation as well.

Last, but not least! The groups collecting signatures to put the emergency financial manager law on the ballot have collected enough signatures to bring them to Lansing to be validated. They have collected over 218,000 signatures and need the state to certify 161,000 of them as legitimate in order to get the voter referendum on the November ballot.

Dreaming of Desegregation, Elections, and Barbers

Two weeks ago I was at the 20th anniversary event for the Fair Housing Center of Southeastern Michigan. The evening included a showing of the Oscar-nominated short documentary, The Barber of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement. No, the movie didn't win the Oscar for short documentary. It was, however, very moving (and worth your time)--and in its honor, I have two thoughts on the second-to-last day of Black History Month 2012 and the day of the Republican primary.

I was--literally--toddling around my house at the time of the civil rights movement. So the history of the civil rights movement is just that to me--history--even though many of the struggles live on today. This documentary brings that history alive. In particular, the barber (James Armstrong) gave me a renewed appreciation for how groundbreaking the election of Barack Obama was. .  . and the path that connects those civil rights activists with his election. The documentary shows some moving footage of the day of the 2008 election, and it honestly did get me excited for the 2012 election. When the "foot soldiers" describe the difficulties they had in registering to vote, it is a reminder to me of how much we should cherish that opportunity. So often history is told in a dry manner. Not in this case.

And part of that history involves the desegregation of the schools. I've written in the past about efforts to desegregate the Ann Arbor schools. In Birmingham, James Armstrong's children were part of the desegregation effort of the Birmingham schools, and there is historic footage of those children walking to school, as well as contemporary footage of one of them as an adult. There is also discussion of the church bombings in Birmingham. Really, there is a lot packed into a short film!

I'm hoping that you will see The Barber of Birmingham, but whether you do or not, it is important to remember that school segregation--though banished by law--still exists in many many schools around the nation. To keep that history alive, I'm including here a video produced by the Baltimore Sun about the history of school desegregation in Baltimore.

Chance Encounters and All-Day Kindergarten

Finally, the Ann Arbor schools have joined the other county school districts s in the rush to create all-day kindergarten--if the districts didn't make the switch, they would lose more state money. Of course, all-day kindergarten costs money too.

I don't like the state requiring schools to provide all-day kindergarten without providing more money for it, and I do worry about kindergartens being too academic, but the trend toward an academic kindergarten has been very evident for years. There was a big change in the tenor of my oldest son's kindergarten class and my youngest son's kindergarten class. (There are seven years between them.) My oldest son's kindergarten class was much more play-based. Sure, skills are important, but little kids acquire skills through playing.

But on the other hand--I am very happy that the schools are going to offer something that private schools have been offering for years. Half-day kindergarten was a pain in the neck. After years of full-day day care, it seemed like almost nothing, and I still had to pay for almost full-time day care. For many years, some other schools had used alternate-day kindergarten--but not Ann Arbor.

At the time that I was looking for a school for my oldest son, I was very attracted to a local, private, parochial school. There were two key attractions--the immersion language program (which was only a true immersion program beginning in first grade), and the full-day kindergarten. I was really struggling with the choice, and even though my husband had his heart set on public school, I was thinking. . . well perhaps for kindergarten. . . and then we could switch.

In a chance encounter one day, I ran into a colleague who had three older children. In the course of catching up, I described my dilemma, and Cheryl said, "Ruth, when you make your decision, you really have to look beyond kindergarten. Kindergarten is only eight months long!"

Cheryl was right. But for that chance encounter, I might not have realized how fleeting kindergarten is. At the time, it seemed like a huge step!

I know now that a lot of parents initially choose a private school for a full-day kindergarten option, and some of them never leave those private schools. But for that chance encounter, I might have had three kids go through private school, at least for their elementary years.

Therefore, I'm glad that in this area, at least, the public schools have leveled the playing field. I hope this will allow more families to start their kids' academic careers in public schools. And perhaps. . . one can hope. . . that full-day kindergarten will also allow more time to play, and do project-based learning, and still allow teachers to cover those academics.

MIFA Theater "One-Acts" This Friday and Saturday

This year, the MIFA One-Act State Competition is being held at Dexter High School on Friday and Saturday, February 17th and 18th. You can come watch if you like--and perhaps cheer on our hometown schools of Skyline and Pioneer. (No other county schools advanced to states.) The shows are 45 minutes long and the shows are free.  (Many of these shows are abridged from longer shows. For instance, Sweeney Todd was just the full-length musical at Huron High School last week. . . the version that John Glenn High School is doing, like all of these one-acts, cannot exceed 45 minutes.)

[Update 2/16/2012: There is a really nice writeup of last week's regional competition at Skyline High School in Community High School's newspaper, The Communicator.  The Communicator is an award-winning paper that engages in serious journalism. I think you will enjoy the article.]

Here is the tentative lineup.

Friday, 2/17/2012:

10 a.m.          Holland--The Diviners
11:20 a.m.     Avondale--The Fall of the House of Usher
1:35 p.m.       Olivet--Property Rites
2:55 p.m.       Skyline--Amadeus
4:15 p.m.       Anchor Bay--Children of Oedipus
6:20 p.m.       John Glenn--Sweeney Todd
7:40 p.m.       Lakers--The Charge is Murder

Saturday, 2/18/2012:

9:00 a.m.       St. John's--Parade
10:20 a.m.     Groves--The Ice Wolf
11:40 a.m.     Pioneer--Spring Awakening
2:10 p.m.       Chesaning--World War Z
3:30 p.m.       Grand Rapids Christian--Dancing at Lughasa
4:50 p.m.       Midland--Quilters

About that state budget proposal. . .

Bridge, News and Analysis from the Center for Michigan, reports that school funding is not actually increased, but cut:

Let’s start with the way funding for K-12 was described. The description in the budget document is that the recommendation for FY 2013 is a 2.5 percent increase, and the “planning budget” for 2014 is a 0.8 percent increase. The problem with that description is, when you add up what the figures for this year, for FY 2013 and for FY 2014, total spending for K-12 declines from $12.74 billion in 2012 to $12.69 billion in FY 2013 — and declines again to $12.6 billion in FY 2014.
So how is a recommendation to spend less an increase?

Read the rest here.  (The blog has some other interesting articles too.)

Steve Norton of Michigan Parents for Schools notes:

I'm doing a line by line comparison of the governor's budget proposal to the current year budget. Finding some interesting tidbits in the Senate Fiscal Agency summary of the current appropriations...

Want a gauge of what kind of funding might be necessary to offset the impact of poverty on our schools? The budget provides additional funding to each "at risk" student, defined as those who qualify for the Federal free lunch program. (Hold-harmless districts are not eligible for this, regardless.) The budget funds this with $318 million. Theoretically, districts could receive an extra 11.5% of their foundation allowance for every qualifying student.

BUT, fulling funding this program this year would cost nearly $497 million [yes, that is half a billion dollars] during the current fiscal year. So qualifying districts get a small fraction of the theoretical total. Yes, you read that right: giving districts an 11% bump just for kids who qualify for free (not reduced price) lunch would cost us half a billion dollars as a state. Not only does this say a lot about the number of children in poverty, but it puts in perspective the resources we would need to commit if we were truly trying to counter the impact of poverty. [The original post said $5 billion but in Steve's comments he notes that was based on a typo in the state budget--still , half a billion is a lot of money, and is less than is budgeted.]

 If you wish, you can join their facebook group here. 

Note also that the governor's proposal continues to fund colleges out of the School Aid Fund.