The importance of protecting education funding

As we near the start of Maryland's legislative session, we are reminded of the importance of properly funded schools. Today, NPR ran a story chronicling the school budget struggles in Texas where $4 billion has been cut from education this year and there has been over 12,000 educators and support employees laid off.

This is new for Texas. It's the first time in over 60 year that the state has not come through with it's funding promises. Schools are charging for more than lunches:

"In many school districts across Texas, though, parents are footing the bill for things like bus transportation, field trips, athletics and uniforms."

The Governor, Rick Perry, refuses to use money from the states $5 billion "rainy day fund" to help close the spending gaps. This is having a greater impact on the poor:

"Already, the $4.3 billion in school funding cuts seems to have made the disparity between poor and wealthy school districts worse. A poor district now gets $800 less per student from the state than a wealthy district.More than 300 school districts are now suing. They're hoping the courts will declare the cuts and the school funding formula in Texas unconstitutional."

When we look at situations like this, we see all to well the importance of ensuring full funding for our schools at the state and  county levels. That's why we have a Maintenance of Effort law. To ensure that funding does not decrease and force schools to then cut programs and charge for things they shouldn't have to. 

MCEA Presents: Understanding Your Retirement Workshop

Tom Henry from Integrated Financial Solutions will be presenting this seminar for all MCEA members, especially those considering retiring in the next five years. The seminar will focus on:

• Pension and payout options in retirement
• Social Security retirement benefits
• Income from you investments

The seminar will be held at the MCEA Conference Center on Thursday January 12, 2012 from 4:30-6:30 p.m. and refreshments will be provided.

RSVP: Jackie Thompson at 301-294-6232 or jthompson@mceanea.org

Taking student's poverty head on

There's a story making the rounds about Justin Bieber donating $100,000 to a high needs school in Las Vegas. Valerie Strauss digs a little deeper into the story, looking the work of the teachers and principal at the school. Even though 85% of the school's students qualify for free and reduced meals, there have been academic gains at the school over the years because the school actively tries to help the students and parents address their unmet basic needs at home.

So rather than ignore poverty like the "reformers" like to, this school (while an exceptional example) is taking it on. Not that we're suggesting that you have to subject the schools to more Bieber, but being innovative in how to address poverty and the problems it causes goes a long way to helping students be successful. 

Nothing unusual about a teachers union leading reforms

Today's Washington Post has an article about the AFT's efforts to rebuild an impoverished school district in West Virginia. The AFT has found several partners to help address the myriad of social issues that afflict the community.

Ed "reformers" say that ineffective teachers and unions like to use poverty as an excuse for under performing students. Take a look at McDowell County and try to ignore the impact of social factors.

"The poverty, broken homes and isolation mean that most McDowell students start school behind. By 3, the average child in this country has a vocabulary of 12,000 words. In McDowell, that child knows 5,000."

There is a high rate of unemployment in the county. Drug use is a such a problem that the two major employers in the county, a coal mine and  a federal prison can't attract enough employees due to the inability of many applicants to pass drug tests. 80% of students are defined as poor by the state. The drop out rate is triple the national average. How could these not affect a child's ability to learn and succeed? But Bill Gates or Michelle Rhee would likely say that the unions are making up excuses to cover for the teachers who weren't working hard enough.

While this may be an extreme case, these same issues impact students all over the country and even here in Montgomery County.

Teachers unions have been helping to improve teaching and learning for decades. There is nothing unusual about it. 

Time to take a quiz

Recently we posted about the school board member who decided to take Florida's standardized test for high schoolers. Valerie Strauss followed up on that story today with some quizzes based on the Florida tests.

You can take the math quiz,by clicking here and you can take the reading quiz, by clicking here.

If you're interested in Maryland's tests, you can click here for released items from the Maryland School Assessment.

See how you stack up against the standards our students are held to!

Calling the reformer's bluff

We've written in this space about the trappings of NCLB and how the proposed changes in Congress may not really be significant anyway. But John Kuhn, a superintendent in Texas wants the reformers to put their money where their mouth is.  He wants to see more work done to address the bigger issue: poverty. Says Kuhn:

“I’m calling for data-driven equality, modeled on Kress’s work, expanding it to force greater societal changes that will help teachers bridge the achievement gap."

While teacher quality may be the top in-school factor for student success, the larger issue is socioeconomic status. A recent article in the Washington Post highlights this in looking at the growing achievement gap between white and minority students in D.C. Public Schools.

The "reformers" want to focus on more tests and fewer teachers because that helps their bottom line. But what about addressing the root causes of these students problems? 

Don't let revenue slip away

We often hear from our elected officials that more revenue is needed to maintain the exceptional level of services our residents enjoy. In these tough economic times it would be ill-advised for a county to let nearly $110 million dollars go away, with no other revenues to replace it, which would lead to further cuts and surely impact county services.

You can read about the letter MCEA President Doug Prouty and other labor leaders sent to the County Council president here:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/local/maryland/2011/12/unions-push-montco-keep-150-percent-increase-energy-tax/1987706

What are we testing anyway?

Here is a different way of looking at the standardized tests that we force on our students year in and year out; what if adults took them. Valerie Strauss looks at the story on one adult, a school board member in Orange County, Florida, who tried and then speaks to him about it after word. 

Mr. Roach, by all accounts a smart and successful individual, had some issues taking the test. Makes you wonder how we can create such pressure on students to pass these tests and why some people think that connecting these scores to teacher evaluations is the best and only way to rate a teacher's ability.

Lecture halls for grade schoolers?

Education "reformers" love to take their shots at teachers. Sure, they say they respect the profession and how hard it is, but then they turn around and make sound as if anyone can do it from anywhere and with with little training. One of the lead "reformers," NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently claimed he could solve all of our education problems:  

"And I would, if I had the ability - which nobody does really – to just design a system and say, ‘ex cathedra, this is what we’re going to do,’ you would cut the number of teachers in half, but you would double the compensation of them and you would weed out all the bad ones and just have good teachers. And double the class size with a better teacher is a good deal for the students.”

This also goes hand in hand with his comment that teachers come from the bottom 20% of their college classes. Matthew DiCarlo explores this concept here.

And people wonder why it's becoming harder to recruit and retain teachers...

More acclaim for the Professional Growth System

More acclaim for the Professional Growth System: Stan Karp of the Rethinking Schools blog writes about the system in his latest post. Mr. Karp looks at how collaboratively developed educator evaluation plans, like the PGS in Montgomery County, go farther to help improve teacher quality than test score driven schemes do. There are quotes from MCEA President Doug Prouty highlighting the success of the program in looking at our profession using multiple measures and providing support to educators who need it. 

http://rethinkingschoolsblog.wordpress.com/2011/12/05/taking-teacher-quality-seriously-a-collaborative-approach-to-teacher-evaluation/

Mr. Karp's essay about the MCEA/MCPS collaboration on the Professional Growth System will also be featured in the book Pencils Down: Why We Need to Rethink High-Stakes Testing and Accountability, edited by Wayne Au and Melissa Bollow Tempel, which will be released next spring. 

Don't want to learn? Put 'em to work!

Former NEA Executive Director John Wilson has recently launched a blog on the Ed Week website. In his most recent post, he writes about Newt Gingrich's plan to motivate poor children in school; fire the unionized janitors and put the kids to work. Because, as Newt tells us, child labor laws are "...truly stupid..." (see the video below) So let's get rid of the adults who keep our buildings running and clean and get these kids excited about school! It is about time that someone pointed out how unionized janitors and child labor laws are driving down student performance.