Illinois proposed constitutional amendment turning pension adversaries into allies by Jayette Bolinski

Springfield — Opposition to a proposed pension-related constitutional amendment that will go before Illinois voters November 6th is creating strange bedfellows — from public employee unions to good-government groups that agree the question is not worthy of a change to the state’s constitution and does nothing to address the pension crisis.

Groups opposed to the amendment are numerous and come from all walks of life. It’s no surprise that public-employee unions from Chicago to Cairo are opposed to the amendment, which requires a three-fifths majority vote before any public body can approve a pension benefit increase.

…Groups, such as the Center for Tax and Budget Accountability and the Illinois Policy Institute, also are against it. So are Protestants for the Common Good, the state’s League of Women Voters and the Illinois Green Party. The groups usually don’t see eye-to-eye on how to achieve pension reform. But Constitutional Amendment 49 has turned adversaries into allies, each with an eye on a common goal – defeating the amendment.

“I wish I could say it’s because of shared principles,” Diane Cohen of the Chicago-based Liberty Justice Center said of the unexpected alliances. “We certainly just view this as fake reform. It does nothing to address the pension crisis in the state. But worse than that, it pulls the wool over the voters’ eyes to try to pretend that the legislators are actually doing something in the face of this crisis.”

Illinois has a pension-funding shortfall of at least $85 billion. New reporting requirements by investment groups put the liability in the neighborhood of $200 billion.

In April the Illinois House unanimously approved a measure put forth by Speaker Michael Madigan, a Democrat, that would ask voters if approval of public-pension boosts in Illinois should require a supermajority vote of three-fifths (60 percent) instead of a simple majority vote. Madigan called it “tough medicine” for a state deep in debt. The Illinois Senate also approved the measure, with only two lawmakers there voting against it. Since then, critics have called the proposal “catastrophic,” “do-nothing,” “misguided,” “incomprehensible” and “diabolical and feckless.”

“The only people we’ve seen pushing this so far are the politicians themselves,” said Anders Lindall, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 31, which represents thousands of state workers. “It really validates our view that this is a politician-protection amendment. This is not a pension amendment. It should be defeated.”

Groups that support the amendment are difficult to find. Some lawmakers spoke in favor of it during the spring legislative session. Rep. Dwight Kay, R-Edwardsville, said the amendment made good business sense.

“This is a big decision that impacts the state of Illinois,” Kay said. “I support this because this is a good business decision. This is the way the state of Illinois should run.”

But others have found numerous reasons to object. For example, the language is too long and complicated for average voters to understand, some say. The proposed Illinois constitutional amendment is more than 700 words — longer than the preamble to the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Meanwhile, the diluted explanation of the proposed amendment that voters will find on the November 6^th ballot is just more than 200 words long.

John Bambenek, a Republican candidate for state senate in the 52^nd District, last week joined a lawsuit filed in Champaign County against the Illinois State Board of Elections seeking to invalidate the ballot question, saying it’s deceptive and inaccurate.

“I get that Madigan and his Chicago friends want to stick it to us, but could they do us the courtesy of doing it in a way we can understand,” Bambenek said. “This ballot question and the amendment itself are incomprehensible gibberish.”

The Illinois League of Women Voters opposes the amendment, saying the three-fifths majority vote requirement removes control from a majority and gives it to a minority. The organization also says the requirement does not belong in the state constitution.

“The Illinois Constitution is not the place for a provision that is this specific to a single issue and to one remedy for a larger problem,” the organization writes on its website. “If the legislature determines that this needs to be done, a statute which can be modified more easily is the appropriate course to take.”

The Center for Tax and Budget Accountability opposes the amendment, saying it’s a misguided attempt to address the state’s pension problems but, most important, does nothing to reduce Illinois’ multi-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability. Amanda Kass, a pension expert with the center, said it’s also impossible to know the full implications of the amendment until after it’s in place.

“There’s no reason this constitutional amendment can’t be part of state statute,” she said, urging voters to read the various analyses of the proposal that can be found online, including one she wrote for the center. “But also ask themselves what’s the fundamental purpose of a constitutional amendment – What’s the purpose of the constitution, and is it appropriate to have a provision in the constitution about pension benefit increases?” she asks.

Ann Lousin, a law professor at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago and an expert on the Illinois constitution, described the amendment as “catastrophic,” noting that it is “very long and includes a number of new concepts and terms which have not been interpreted by anyone.”

She also noted that it probably would lead to an onslaught of lawsuits and that it would require a new level of bureaucracy “to monitor, referee and record countless votes, meetings and issues” for 7,000 governmental entities across the state. “… (T)his proposed constitutional amendment does nothing for the state’s pension-funding problem,” she wrote. “However, it creates many new problems and, if approved, would, in my opinion, be a catastrophe for Illinois.”

Cohen of the Liberty Justice Center said the amendment presents a conundrum for voters. “If you support the amendment, you’re kind of furthering this fallacy that it would actually mean something. But opposing it sends the signal to local decision-makers who already are spending beyond what the taxpayers can afford to just spend more,” she said. “Really, the bottom line is it’s not worthy of the constitution, and we need to stand up and say this is fake reform and we simply can’t support it.”

from http://watchdog.org/60007/il-proposed-constitutional-amendment-turning-pension-adversaries-into-allies/

Education Reform Is Failing and Destructive Across the Nation

The Folly of Value-Added Modeling

“Every classroom should have a well-educated, professional teacher, and school systems should recruit, prepare and retain teachers who are qualified to do the job” (Baker, 2010); of course, every patient “should [also] have a well-educated, professional [doctor]”; every client “should [also] have a well-educated, professional [lawyer as well]…”  However, no one would attempt to apply value-added modeling to evaluate doctors and lawyers because it is foolish.

Should a well-educated, professional teacher be evaluated through value-added modeling then? It is what we know through research that answers this question with an emphatic “No”: “Student test scores alone are not sufficiently reliable and valid indicators of teacher effectiveness to be used in high-stakes personnel decisions… [Furthermore,] drilling students on narrow tests does not necessarily translate into broader skills that students will use outside of test-taking situations” (Baker).

Multiple-choice tests (convergent thinking) do not measure essential communication skills and other proficiencies such as synthesizing and conducting research, validating information, applying knowledge, valuing and cultivating beliefs, and other divergent critical thinking.

It is what we should already know regarding underachievement in public schools across the nation that needs to be the nation’s focus. The significant causes of underachievement in public schools across the nation are poverty, malnutrition, household unemployment, urban violence, dysfunctional parenting and divorce…

What influences students’ achievement? According to research: “Both previous teachers and, in secondary schools, current teachers of other subjects—as well as tutors or instructional specialists…; the quality of curriculum materials…; class size…; school attendance and a variety of out-of-school learning experiences at home, with peers…, [and] summer programs…; family resources, student health, [and] family mobility…[affect students’ achievement]” (Baker).  

What also alters students’ achievement are the “quality of principal leadership, school finance, availability of counseling and special education services…, turnover rates of teachers, and so forth…” (Berliner, 2012).

What are some of the undesirable consequences of mandating value-added modeling? As stated by Richard Rothstein, et al. in Grading Education: Getting Accountability Right (2008): “Research and experience indicate that approaches to teacher evaluation that rely heavily on test scores can lead to narrowing and over-simplifying the curriculum, and to misidentifying both successful and unsuccessful teachers. These and other problems can undermine teacher morale, as well as provide disincentives for teachers to take the neediest students… When attached to individual merit pay plans, such approaches may also create disincentives for teacher collaboration” (Baker).  

Value-added modeling does not address the existing inequities of students from various socio-economic backgrounds or with special needs. What’s more, “value-added scores are affected by difference in the types of students who happen to be in [a teacher’s] classroom…” (Baker). [According to Timothy Sass (2008)]: “Researchers have found that teachers’ effectiveness ratings differ from class to class, from year to year, and from test to test, even when these are within the same content area… A teacher who appears to be very effective (or ineffective) in one year might have a dramatically different result the following year… [In addition,] using test scores to evaluate teachers unfairly disadvantage teachers of the neediest students” (Baker).

The Folly of Bush’s and Obama’s Federal Mandates

No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top do not effectively contribute to students’ learning; there is no evidence to support the claims that these federal mandates are successful, despite the declarations of Arne Duncan and President Obama. Evidence is available, however, that substantiates school reform mandates undermine local governance and democratic education (National Education Policy Center, NEPC).

Moreover, according to research from NEPC, what is essential for student learning and success requires

·         [Moving] from a punitive to a participatory model for engaging local communities in reform efforts;

·         [Encouraging] the adoption by states and locales of curriculum standards that include a substantive focus on (as opposed to mere lip service to) the knowledge, skills, and dispositions necessary for effective participation in a democratic society;

·         [Curtailing] the privatization of public resources through Supplemental Education Services (SES) and school choice;

·         [Seeking] ways to promote integrated schools in order to ensure access to equal educational opportunities and the diverse context of learning that all students need for inculcation of democratic character” (Howe, 2012).

Establishing a system of compliance in the nation’s public schools, one that is driven by billionaire capitalistic bullies that finance segregated and biased charter (and Teach for America) enterprises where students become hostages of for-profit schemes, is a devious ploy. Federal mandates that ignore the significant causes of student failure; that devalue the teaching profession and demean professionally-trained educators; mandates that also use standardized tests to regulate public school funding and to determine teachers’ expertise while advancing for-profit corporations (such as Pearson Education, Inc.) and robbing public school funds (by way of vouchers) reveal an obvious faulty and damaging policy.

The Folly of Teacher Evaluations Knotted to Student Testing

To ask what is right, good or obligatory is to enter the realm of normative ethics – ideals or rules of conduct that constitute moral standards (not only for student learning but for teacher evaluation as well).

“[It is true] there is no simple shortcut to the identification and removal of ineffective teachers. It must surely be done, but such actions will unlikely be successful if they are based on over-reliance on student test scores whose flaws can so easily provide the basis for successful challenges to any personnel action.

“Districts seeking to remove ineffective teachers must invest the time and resources in a comprehensive approach to evaluation that incorporates concrete steps for the improvement of teacher performance based on professional standards of instructional practice, and unambiguous evidence for dismissal, if improvements do not occur… [Test] scores should be only one element among many considered in teacher profiles…

“Given the importance of teachers’ collective efforts to improve overall student achievement in a school, an additional component of documenting practice and outcomes should focus on the effectiveness of teacher participation in teams and the contributions they make to school-wide improvement, through work in curriculum development, sharing practices and materials, peer coaching and reciprocal observation, and collegial work with students… 

“Professional organizations should [also] assume greater responsibility for developing standards of evaluation that districts can use. Such work, which must be performed by professional experts, should not be pre-empted by political institutions acting without evidence… 

“What is now necessary is a comprehensive system that gives teachers the guidance and feedback, supportive leadership, and working conditions to improve their performance, and that permits schools to remove persistently ineffective teachers without distorting the entire instructional program by imposing a flawed system of standardized quantification of teacher quality” (Baker).  

Value-added modeling and federal mandates do not effectively evaluate a teacher’s performance. Besides, it is not difficult to realize the attacks on public school teachers, their unions, and community public schools are part of a greater execution of capitalistic self-interests for the wealthy and powerful; that we are witnessing a blitzkrieg deconstruction of the middle class, privatization of public ownership and industry, cuts to needed spending, and the elimination of the public sphere and social funding.

As stated by Professor William Ayers at the University of Illinois (at Chicago), part of the government and corporate agenda is “[to turn] over public assets and spaces to private management; [to dismantle] and [oppose] any independent, collective voice of teachers; and [reduce] to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person in a test score.”

In short, the unethical “winner-take-all” economy generated by and for wealthy and powerful egomaniacs comes at the expense of everyone else. It is destroying the nation’s public school systems and their teachers and the representative democracy they embody.  

-Glen Brown


Baker, Eva L. et al. (Paul E. Barton, Linda Darling-Hammond, Edward Haertel, Helen F. Ladd, Robert L. Linn, Diane Ravitch, Richard Rothstein, Richard J. Shavelson, and Lorrie A. Shepard). 2010. “Problems with the Use of Student Test Scores to Evaluate Teachers.” Briefing Paper #278. Washington D.C. Economic Policy Institute. http://www.epi.org/publication/bp278/

School Reform by William Ayers

Dear President Obama:


The landscape of “educational reform” at this moment is littered with rubble and wreckage, and, sadly, your administration has contributed to the ruin. You are not alone: the toxic materials have been assembled as a bi-partisan endeavor over many years, and the efforts of the last several administrations are now organized into a coherent push mobilized and led by a band of billionaires including Bill Gates, Michael Bloomberg, Sam Walton, and Eli Broad. These titans work relentlessly to take up all the available space, preaching, persuading, promoting, and, when all else fails, spreading around massive amounts of cash to promote their agenda as common sense. You and Secretary Arne Duncan now bear a major responsibility for this agenda.

The three most trumpeted and most destructive aspects of the united “school reform” agenda are these: turning over public assets and spaces to private management; dismantling and opposing any independent, collective voice of teachers; and reducing education to a single narrow metric that claims to recognize an educated person in a test score. These three components are nested in a seductive but wholly inaccurate metaphor: education is a commodity like any other—a car or a refrigerator, a box of bolts or a screwdriver—that is bought and sold in the marketplace. Within this controlling metaphor the schoolhouse is assumed to be a business run by a CEO, with teachers as workers and students as the raw material bumping along the assembly line while information is incrementally stuffed into their little up-turned heads. 

It’s rather easy to begin to think that “downsizing” the least productive units, “outsourcing” and privatizing a space that was once public is a natural event. Teaching toward a simple standardized measurement and relentlessly applying state-administered (but privately developed and quite profitable) tests to determine the “outcomes” (winners and losers) becomes a rational proxy for learning; “zero tolerance” for student misbehavior turns out to be a stand-in for child development or justice; and a range of sanctions on students, teachers, and schools but never on lawmakers, foundations, corporations, or high officials—they call it “accountability”— is logical and level-headed.

I urge you to resist these policies and reject the dominant metaphor as wrong in the sense of inaccurate as well as wrong in the sense of immoral. Education is a fundamental human right, not a product, and in a free society it is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being; it’s constructed on the principle that the fullest development of all is the condition for the full development of each, and, conversely, that the fullest development of each is the condition for the full development of all.

When the aim of education and the sole measure of success is competitive, learning becomes exclusively selfish, and there is no obvious social motive to pursue it. People are turned against one another as every difference becomes a potential deficit. Getting ahead is the primary goal in such places, and mutual assistance, which can be so natural in other human affairs, is severely restricted or banned. It’s no wonder that cheating scandals are an everyday occurrence in our country and fraudulent claims a commonplace—Race to the Top is but one example of incentivizing bad behavior and backward ideas about education: it’s my state against yours, my school against another, and my second grade in fierce competition with the second grade across 236 the hall.

You have opposed privatizing social security, pointing out the terrible risks the market would impose on seniors if the voucher plan were ever adopted. And yet you support in effect putting the most endangered young people at risk through a similar scheme. We need to expand, deepen, and fortify the public space, especially for the most vulnerable, not turn it over to private managers. The current gold rush of for-profit colleges gobbling up the student loans is but one cautionary tale.

You’ve said that you defend working people and their right to organize and yet you have publicly and noisily maligned teachers and their unions on several occasions. You need to remember that good working conditions are good teaching conditions, and that good teaching conditions are good learning conditions. We can’t have the best learning conditions if teachers are forced away from the table, or if the teaching corps is reduced to a team of short-termers and educational tourists.

You have declared your support for a deep and rich curriculum for all students regardless of circumstance or background, and yet your policies rely on a relentless regimen of standardized testing, and test scores as the sole measure of progress.

In a vibrant democracy, whatever the most privileged parents want for their children must serve as a minimum standard for what we as a community want for all of our children. Arne Duncan attended the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons); you sent your kids to Lab, and so did your friend Rahm Emanuel. There students found small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits, and a minimum of time-out for standardized testing. They found, as well, a respected and unionized teacher corps, people who were committed to a life-long career in teaching and who were encouraged to work cooperatively for their mutual benefit (and who never would settle for being judged, assessed, rewarded, or punished based on student test scores). Good enough for you, good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere—a standard to be aspired to and worked toward. Any other ideal for our schools, in the words of John Dewey who founded the school you chose for your daughters, “is narrow and unlovely; acted upon it destroys our democracy.”

Sincerely,

William Ayers

Effects of Inequality and Poverty vs. Teachers and Schooling on America’s Youth by David C. Berliner

by David C. Berliner

…What does it take to get politicians and the general public to abandon misleading ideas, such as, “Anyone who tries can pull themselves up by the bootstraps,” or that “Teachers are the most important factor in determining the achievement of our youth”? Many ordinary citizens and politicians believe these statements to be true, even though life and research informs us that such statements are usually not true.

Certainly people do pull themselves up by their bootstraps and teachers really do turn around the lives of some of their students, but these are more often exceptions and not usually the rule. Similarly, while there are many overweight, hard-drinking, cigarette-smoking senior citizens, no one seriously uses these exceptions to the rule to suggest that it is perfectly all right to eat, drink, and smoke as much as one wants. Public policies about eating, drinking, and smoking are made on the basis of the general case, not the exceptions to those cases. This is not so in education.

For reasons that are hard to fathom, too many people believe that in education the exceptions are the rule. Presidents and politicians of both parties are quick to point out the wonderful but occasional story of a child’s rise from poverty to success and riches. They also often proudly recite the heroic, remarkable, but occasional impact of a teacher or a school on a child. These stories of triumph by individuals who were born poor, or success by educators who changed the lives of their students, are widely believed narratives about our land and people, celebrated in the press, on television, and in the movies. But in fact, these are simply myths that help us feel good to be American. These stories of success reflect real events and, thus, they are certainly worth studying and celebrating so we might learn more about how they occur (cf. Casanova, 2010). But the general case is that poor people stay poor and that teachers and schools serving impoverished youth do not often succeed in changing the life chances for their students.

America’s dirty little secret is that a large majority of poor kids attending schools that serve the poor are not going to have successful lives. Reality is not nearly as comforting as myth. Reality does not make us feel good. But the facts are clear. Most children born into the lower social classes will not make it out of that class, even when exposed to heroic educators. A simple statistic illustrates this point: In an age where college degrees are important for determining success in life, only 9% of low-income children will obtain those degrees (Bailey & Dynarski, 2011). And that discouraging figure is based on data from before the recent recession that has hurt family income and resulted in large increases in college tuition. Thus, the current rate of college completion by low-income students is probably lower than suggested by those data. Powerful social forces exist to constrain the lives led by the poor, and our nation pays an enormous price for not trying harder to ameliorate these conditions.

Because of our tendency to expect individuals to overcome their own handicaps, and teachers to save the poor from stressful lives, we design social policies that are sure to fail since they are not based on reality. Our patently false ideas about the origins of success have become drivers of national educational policies. This ensures that our nation spends time and money on improvement programs that do not work consistently enough for most children and their families, while simultaneously wasting the good will of the public (Timar & Maxwell-Jolly, 2012). In the current policy environment we often end up alienating the youth and families we most want to help, while simultaneously burdening teachers with demands for success that are beyond their capabilities…

A WRONGHEADED EDUCATION POLICY

 

Bi-partisan congressional support in the USA for the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), passed in 2001, demanded that every child in every public and charter school in the country be tested in grades 3-8 and grade 10. There were severe consequences for schools that did not improve rapidly. The high-stakes accountability program at the center of the policy was designed to get lazy students, teachers, and administrators to work harder. It targeted, in particular, those who attended and worked in schools with high concentrations of poor children. In this way it was believed that the achievement gap between poor students and those who were middle-class or wealthy could be closed, as would the gaps in achievement that exist between black, Hispanic, American Indian, and white students. It has not worked. If there have been gains in achievement they have been slight, mostly in mathematics, but not as easily found in reading (see Amrein & Berliner, 2002; Braun, Chapman, & Vezzu, 2010; Chudowsky, Chudowsky, & Kober, 2009; Lee, 2008; Nichols, Glass, & Berliner, 2006, 2012; Smith, 2007).

It may well be that the gains now seen are less than those occurring before the NCLB act was put into place. In fact, the prestigious and non-political National Research Council (2011) says clearly that the NCLB policy is a failure, and all the authors of chapters in a recently edited book offering alternative policies to NCLB reached the same conclusion (Timar and Maxwell-Jolly, 2012). Moreover, a plethora of negative side effects associated with high-stakes testing are now well documented (Nichols and Berliner, 2007; Ravitch, 2010).

By 2008-2009, after at least five years of high-stakes testing in all states, about one-third of all U.S. schools failed to meet their targeted goals under NCLB (Dietz, 2010). Estimates in 2011, by the U.S. Secretary of Education, are that more than 80% of all U.S. public schools will fail to reach their achievement targets in 2012 (Duncan, 2011), and almost every school in the nation will fail by 2014. And this widespread failure is with each state using their own testing instruments, setting their own passing rates, and demanding that their teachers prepare students assiduously. The federal government at the time this paper is being written is now quickly backing off the requirements of the failed NCLB act, and granting waivers from its unreachable goals to those states willing to comply with other “reform” efforts that also will not work. These other inadequate reforms required by the federal government include the forced adoption of the Common Core State Standards, using numerous assessments from pre-kindergarten to high school graduation that are linked to the Common Core, and evaluating teachers on the basis of their students’ test performance.

In addition, and long overdue, as this paper is being written a backlash against high-stakes testing from teachers, administrators, and parents has begun (see “Growing national movement against ‘high stakes’ testing,” 2012). Still, most state legislatures, departments of education, and the federal congress cling to the belief that if only we can get the assessment program right, we will fix what ails America’s schools. They will not give up their belief in what is now acknowledged by the vast majority of educators and parents to be a failed policy.

Still further discouraging news for those who advocate testing as a way to reform schools comes from the PISA assessments (The Program for International Student Assessment). Nations with high-stakes testing have generally gone down in scores from 2000 to 2003, and then again by 2006. Finland, on the other hand, which has no high-stakes testing, and an accountability system that relies on teacher judgment and school level professionalism much more than tests, has shown growth over these three PISA administrations (Sahlberg, 2011).

Finland is often considered the highest-achieving nation in the world. Their enviable position in world rankings of student achievement at age 15 has occurred with a minimum of testing and homework, a minimum of school hours per year, and a minimum of imposition on local schools by the central government (Sahlberg, 2011). Although we are constantly benchmarking American school performance against the Finns, we might be better served by benchmarking our school policies and social programs against theirs. For example, Finland’s social policies result in a rate of children in poverty (those living in families whose income are less than 50% of median income in the nation) that is estimated at well under 5%. In the USA that rate is estimated at well over 20%!

The achievement gaps between blacks and whites, Hispanics and Anglos, the poor and the rich, are hard to erase because the gaps have only a little to do with what goes on in schools, and a lot to do with social and cultural factors that affect student performance (Berliner 2006; 2009). Policymakers in Washington and state capitals throughout the USA keep looking for a magic bullet that can be fired by school “reformers” to affect a cure for low achievement among the poor, English language learners, and among some minorities. It is, of course, mostly wasted effort if the major cause of school problems stems from social conditions beyond the control of the schools. The evidence is that such is the case.

Virtually every scholar of teaching and schooling knows that when the variance in student scores on achievement tests is examined along with the many potential factors that may have contributed to those test scores, school effects account for about 20% of the variation in achievement test scores, and teachers are only a part of that constellation of variables associated with “school.” Other school variables such as peer group effects, quality of principal leadership, school finance, availability of counseling and special education services, number and variety of AP courses, turnover rates of teachers, and so forth, also play an important role in student achievement. Teachers only account for a portion of the “school” effect, and the school effect itself is only modest in its impact on achievement.

On the other hand, out-of-school variables account for about 60% of the variance that can be accounted for in student achievement. In aggregate, such factors as family income; the neighborhood’s sense of collective efficacy, violence rate, and average income; medical and dental care available and used; level of food insecurity; number of moves a family makes over the course of a child’s school years; whether one parent or two parents are raising the child; provision of high-quality early education in the neighborhood; language spoken at home; and so forth, all substantially affect school achievement.

What is it that keeps politicians and others now castigating teachers and public schools from acknowledging this simple social science fact, a fact that is not in dispute: Outside-of-school factors are three times more powerful in affecting student achievement than are the inside-the-school factors (Berliner, 2009)? And why wouldn’t that be so? Do the math! On average, by age 18, children and youth have spent about 10 percent of their lives in what we call schools, while spending around 90 percent of their lives in family and neighborhood. Thus, if families and neighborhoods are dysfunctional or toxic, their chance to influence youth is nine times greater than the schools’! So it seems foolish to continue trying to affect student achievement with the most popular contemporary educational policies, mostly oriented toward teachers and schools, while assiduously ignoring the power of the outside-of-school factors. Perhaps it is more than foolish. If one believes that doing the same thing over and over and getting no results is a reasonable definition of madness, then what we are doing is not merely foolish: it is insane…

For the complete document that includes Policies for Improving Education and Income Equality, a Conclusion, and References read http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=16889

 

 

 

The Global Search for Education: The Education Debate 2012 -- Diane Ravitch

Making education a focus during the 2012 election debates is our ongoing goal in The Global Search for Education series. Today I [C.M. Rubin] am honored to share the perspectives of Diane Ravitch as we continue the discussion of the issues that we believe will be a priority for the next President of the United States.

Diane Ravitch is Research Professor of Education at New York University and a distinguished historian of American education. She is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. She served as Assistant Secretary of Education for Research and Improvement in the administration of President George H.W. Bush and was appointed to two terms on the National Assessment Governing Board by the Clinton administration. Ravitch is the author or editor of over 20 books on education, including the national bestseller, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (Basic Books)…

What should the role of federal government be in K- 12 education? How much more funding should be given to education reform and in what major areas should it be spent?

The federal government has certain roles that have been consistent since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act in 1965:

First, to equalize spending for the neediest districts, especially those that enroll children who are poor.

Second, to protect the civil rights of children.

Third, to provide accurate and timely information about the condition and progress of education, including support for the no-stakes National Assessment of Educational Progress.

Fourth, to fund the education of children with disabilities.

Fifth, to aid low-income students who enroll in college.

The basic mission of the U.S. Department of Education is to support equality of educational opportunity.

It is not the role of the Department of Education to foist its own unproven preferences -- like evaluating teachers by student test scores or charter schools or merit pay -- on states and districts…

What would be your position on improving the teaching profession, including recruitment, teacher training, compensation, and assignment to low-income schools?

I would like to see higher standards for entry into schools of education. I would wish that every teacher has a four-year degree in a content area, so they are knowledgeable in the subjects they will teach, and a fifth year of study of education, including cognitive science, adolescent psychology, assessment, cultural diversity, the sociology of the family and the community, and the history, politics, and economics of education. No one should be allowed to teach who does not have a year of study that includes practice teaching and research. I would also disallow education degrees earned online. Teachers should be paid more for taking on additional responsibilities; they should not have their pay or evaluation tied to test scores of students.

Teaching should be a prestigious career. Those who enter teaching should be well-prepared and expect to make a career in education…

What would be your position on school choice, including charter schools and their expansion, private schools, vouchers, and investment in inadequately staffed and facilitated low-income schools?

I oppose school choice outside the public school system. I oppose private management of public schools. I oppose for-profit schools. I fear that in time we will see the re-emergence of a dual system of schools in our cities, with charters for the able and public schools serving the rejects from charter schools. I see district after district where charters drain funding and top students away from the public schools. It makes no sense. I oppose vouchers. I believe that it is a public duty to provide a good public school with adequate resources and a rich curriculum in every neighborhood. Every school should have the staff and resources it needs to provide a full curriculum, after-school activities and appropriate services for students.

What would be your strategy to address the domestic and international achievement gaps, including your position on early childhood education, standardized testing, on-line modular education, and teacher/principal accountability?

I think we should stress early childhood education. The US lags far behind the rest of the world in establishing high-quality early childhood education. I think we should minimize the use of standardized testing, use it only for diagnostic purposes, not for accountability, not for rewards or punishments or school closings. Standardized tests reflect gaps, they don't close them. The online schools have very poor results and do nothing to improve achievement. The best way to improve achievement is to improve the standard of living of our poorest children while improving the curriculum at all schools and the professional supports for teachers. One important reform would be to make sure that every child has a regular medical check-up, that every school has access to a health clinic and/or a school nurse. In the schools that serve the neediest children, class sizes should be reduced to no more than 20…

What would be your position on curriculum reform, including the role of the arts, the treatment of ethics, and the adoption of blended online learning?

I believe that every school should have a full and balanced curriculum, with a rich arts program, history, civics, geography, mathematics, the sciences, foreign languages, and literature. Every school should have a library with a full range of resources, including computers and the Internet.

I would ban for-profit schooling.

What would be your position on how to make college affordable for more qualified low income students?

The federal government should increase subsidies for college for low-income and middle-income students. Education is a basic human right and it should not be denied because of inability to pay. Young people should not be buried in debt when they finish college. We can't expect to increase college enrollment rates if young people cannot afford to go. I also think the government should be extremely vigilant in policing for-profit colleges, where the attrition rates are extremely high and young people drop out with heavy debt and no education.

Originally posted at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/c-m-rubin/education-gap_b_1965539.html

Also posted at http://dianeravitch.net/2012/10/20/what-should-the-federal-government-do-to-improve-education/

Senate Candidate John Bambenek Files Suit to Invalidate Constitutional Amendment [HJRCA 49] Question on Ballot

CHAMPAIGN, IL (October 18, 2012) – Yesterday, Senate Candidate John Bambenek joined a dozen other citizens in filing a lawsuit challenging the validity of the state constitutional amendment on the ballot commonly known as Amendment 49 (HJRCA49). The Amendment purports to require a 3/5ths vote for any pension benefit increase. The grounds for the suit are that the form of the question on the ballot and the amendment itself is deceptive, inaccurate and incomprehensible.

“The state constitution is a crucial document protecting citizens from the government. It should not be amendment lightly and certainly not using deceptive and false means by politicians. The ‘notice’ language on the top of the question is simply factually wrong, misleading to the voters and with the amendment text itself not on the ballot, voters will have no idea what they are actually voting for,” said Bambenek.

The notice language, codified in statute reads as follows:

Notice The Failure To Vote This Ballot May Be The Equivalent Of A Negative Vote, Because A Convention Shall Be Called Or The Amendment Shall Become Effective If Approved By Either Three-Fifths Of Those Voting On The Question Or A Majority Of Those Voting In The Election.

“Why is there a mention of a constitutional convention for this amendment? It’s factually wrong and misleading to use scary language to manipulate voters,” said Bambenek.

There are also differing interpretations of what the amendment will actually legally do. According to Professor John Kindt’s op-ed in the Champaign News-Gazette, this amendment would override the pension guarantee clause in the state constitution. Others disagree but there is no real consensus on what the actual amendment does. The amendment is poorly written and incomprehensible to even the experts, much less everyday voters.

“This amendment was written by the Dark Sith Lord Michael Madigan himself with some of the smartest people in the state and they couldn’t write something people could understand? I get that Madigan and his Chicago friends want to stick it to us, but could they do us the courtesy of doing it in a way we can understand? This ballot question and the amendment itself are incomprehensible gibberish,” explained Bambenek.

The suit is Bambenek et al v Illinois State Board of Election filed in the Champaign County Circuit Court. A hearing date is pending. The Plaintiffs are represented by area attorney Mark Hewitt with the help of the American Transparency Institute.

from http://johnbambenek.com/2012/press-room/20-senate-candidate-john-bambenek-files-suit-to-invalidate-constitutional-amendment-question-on-ballot

for further explanation about HJRCA 49: http://teacherpoetmusicianglenbrown.blogspot.com/2012/06/house-joint-resolution-constitutional.html

American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC

The most important voice in state education policy today is the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC.

ALEC has 2,000 state legislators as members, and dozens of corporate sponsors, including the biggest names in business.

Here is an excellent summary of ALEC’s legislative priorities:

ü  ALEC writes model legislation. Its members carry it home and introduce it as their own in their states.

ü  ALEC promotes charters and vouchers.

ü  ALEC likes the parent trigger.

ü  ALEC likes it when the governor can create a commission to approve charters over the opposition of local school boards.

ü  ALEC favors unregulated, for-profit online schooling.

ü  ALEC wants to eliminate collective bargaining.

ü  ALEC doesn’t think teachers need any certification or credential.

ü  ALEC opposes teacher tenure.

ü  ALEC likes evaluating teachers by test scores.

You should learn about ALEC. Read up on it. It is the most influential voice in the nation on education policy.

from http://dianeravitch.net/2012/10/19/the-most-important-voice-in-state-education-policy/

ILLINOIS LEGISLATORS WITH ALEC TIES

Illinois House of Representatives:

• Rep. Patricia Bellock (R-47), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member
• Rep. Franco Coladipetrio (R-45), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member
• Rep. Sandy Cole (R-62), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member
• Rep. Tom Cross (R-84), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force Member
• Rep. James B. Durkin (R-82), told a constituent in October 2012 that he receives position papers and correspondence from ALEC and intends to attend the 2013 ALEC Annual Meeting in Chicago
• Rep. Roger L. Eddy (R-109), ALEC Education Task Force Member
• Rep. Mary Flowers (D-31), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member - Rep. Flowers' staffer reported in May 2012 that Flowers is no longer a member of ALEC. See Legislators Who Have Cut Ties to ALEC for more.
• Rep. Mike Fortner (R-95), ALEC Communications and Technology Task Force Member
• Rep. Renée Kosel (R-81), ALEC State Chairman and International Relations Task Force Member
• Rep. Jerry Lee Mitchell (R-90), ALEC Education Task Force Member
• Rep. JoAnn Osmond (R-61), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member
• Rep. Brandon Phelps (D-118), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member  - Rep. Phelps announced in May 2012 that he is no longer a member of ALEC. See Legislators Who Have Cut Ties to ALEC for more.
• Rep. Sandra M. Pihos (R-42), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member
• Rep. Dennis M. Reboletti (R-46), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member
• Rep. David B. Reis (R-108), ALEC Public Safety and Elections Task Force Member
• Rep. Chapin Rose (R-110), ALEC Civil Justice Task Force Member
• Rep. Darlene J. Senger (R-96), ALEC International Relations Task Force Member
• Rep. Jil W. Tracy (R-93), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Alternate
• Rep. David Forrest Winters (R-68), ALEC Energy, Environment and Agriculture Task Force Member and Communications and Technology Task Force Member

Illinois Senate:

• Sen. Pamela J. Althoff (R-32), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member
• Sen. William E. Brady, Jr. (R-44), ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Alternate
• Sen. Kirk W. Dillard (R-24), ALEC State Chairman and Civil Justice Task Force Member
• Sen. Thomas L. Johnson (R-48)
• Sen. Chris Lauzen (R-25), ALEC Tax and Fiscal Policy Task Force Member
• Sen. David Luechtefeld (R-58), ALEC Education Task Force Member
• Sen. Matt Murphy (R-27), ALEC International Relations Task Force Member
• Sen. Christine Radogno (R-41), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member
• Sen. David Syverson (R-34), ALEC Health and Human Services Task Force Member
• Former Sen. Arthur J. Wilhelmi (D-43, resigned February 2012), former ALEC Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force Member
• Sen. Dale Risinger (R-37)
• Sen. Kathleen Wojcik (R-28)

from http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Illinois_ALEC_Politicians