Blog For Arizona

The Star's Self Satire

by David Safier

The Star indulged in self satire in today's paper, but I'm the only one who knows it, so I want to share the moment with you.

The Star printed my letter in today's paper. The point of the letter is, The Star has studiously avoided publishing information about McCain's questionable connections to land deals that helped his friends and supporters. First was a NY Times article about McCain and Don Diamond, then articles on a different land deal in the Washington Post and Reuters, and most recently another suspicious deal in USA Today. I'm sure it's part of a conscious campaign by the paper to protect McCain's reputation from the odor of scandal.

The fact that The Star published my letter, allowing me to call Debbie Kornmiller The Star Apologist rather than Reader Advocate (though it used small letters where I used capitals, which diminishes my point that the latter is her formal title at the paper, and the former is more appropriate) might make the paper appear to be open to criticism. But the interesting thing is, while I was allowed to blast the paper, my most damning sentence against McCain was left out.

I've had many letters in The Star over the years, and I can't remember being edited for content, ever. I'm obsessive about keeping my word count below the 150 cap so I don't give the paper an excuse to cut my favorite line. In this letter, the paper edited my style in a few places, which is fine. But when I put in a reference to The Keating Five Scandal, I guess that might have tarnished McCain's halo a bit, so they cut it out.

I'll try to be fair here. The paper added 14 words at the beginning of my letter to reference it back to a Kornmiller column, so that put it over the 150 word limit. But that was the paper's choice, not mine. And it doesn't lessen my certainty that the Keating Five reference was cut out for the same reason the articles on McCain's land deals weren't published. To quote my own letter, "The Star has decided to avert its eyes whenever a story might sully McCain's reputation."

Here's the letter. I'm reinserting my Keating Five reference where it belongs in the final paragraph, in brackets and in bold.

Re: the May 4 reader advocate column, "A look back at land-deal coverage."

When Debbie Kornmiller defended the Star's decision not to run a story on John McCain's ties to Don Diamond, she sounded more like the Star apologist than the reader advocate. She claimed the paper already covered the story, and besides, the article got it wrong.

Since then, another story has surfaced about a 2005 land swap McCain pushed through Congress which involved a top campaign fund-raiser. Again, the Star chose to ignore it.

Maybe Kornmiller will once again say the story was covered in the Star or the article got it wrong. But it looks to me like the Star has decided to avert its eyes whenever a story might sully McCain's reputation.

[The Keating Five scandal hangs over McCain’s head to this day.] If he is still peddling influence, the Star's readers need to know, and McCain, not the Star, has the obligation to defend himself.

Nearly $2 Million Worth of TUSD Fixed Assets Missing in One Year

by David Safier

(TASL) It's amazing what you can learn when you attend an open meeting of a TUSD committee. Thursday I was the sole observer at the Tucson School Board's Audit Committee meeting. Here's what I found out:

• About $2 million in Fixed Assets -- items whose value is somewhere between $500-1000 or higher -- went missing from various sites -- read, schools -- around the district last year.

• The number of items missing varied wildly from school to school. One high school reported something like 500 of these high value items were missing. Another high school reported 6.

• For the past 17 years, this issue has not been looked at carefully by the District. The losses have been reported, then basically filed away.

• It's unclear where the buck stopped, so to speak. The inventory lists came in to Asset Management, but whether A.M. sat on them, or whether they were reported to higher authorities and nothing was done, cannot be known unless the District looks into the matter.

The losses were discussed in the outside District Management Audit which was finished earlier this year and got a lot of press for getting the figures on the savings for school closures completely wrong. The Fixed Asset Management section begins on page 3-59. The missing items were mainly electronics stuff -- computers, cameras, camcorders, projectors, etc. -- though one Gator Tractor, 4x2, valued at $5,228, was listed.

According to the Audit Committee, the total value of the District's fixed assets items is about $74 million, which means we're talking about something in the order of a 2.5% loss. I don't know how that ranks, whether it is high or low for school districts in general. But I do know if there are huge discrepancies between the number of items lost at different schools, that should immediately send up a red flag, and someone should figure out what's going on. Maybe there's a good reason why some schools appear to lose more items than others, but ignoring the problem won't answer the troubling questions.

The TUSD Board meets today, Friday, to review the outside audit at 3:30pm in the Badger Room, Tucson Magnet High School, 400 S. Second Ave. The Audit Committee said it plans to submit a report about these fixed assets issues to the Board, but I don't know if the report will be in the Board's hands or if that item is on the agenda.

(Conflicted Emotions Disclosure below the fold.)

TUSD Teacher's Op Ed on Social Promotion

by David Safier

This falls into the "Damn, I wish I wrote that!" category. Nancy McCallion, a third grade teacher in Tucson, published a terrific op ed in today's Star: Fight social promotion with aides in classroom.

Here's the passage that's worth the price of admission:

Teachers promote students because they don't think retention will help them succeed.

Retained students are returned to the same course of study in the same traditional classroom environment that was unable to meet their needs in the first place.

Failing students are failing for a reason. Be it because of learning disabilities or emotional or behavioral problems, they are unable to succeed in the crowded, traditional classroom.

What we need here is not legislation to force teachers to retain students, nor more high paid accountability experts to conduct lengthy and expensive studies.

What we need are warm bodies in the classrooms: aides to monitor one group of students while teachers work with struggling students; tutors to provide one-on-one help for students who are too distracted to focus in a large group setting; high school students in need of community service to listen to a struggling reader.

I was talking about the op ed with a friend this morning, a recently retired art and math teacher. He said he had a math class with two adult volunteers and a special ed aide to help with some special needs kids. "We may not have gotten everyone up to speed," he said, "but everyone who needed help got it."

Here is the final sentence of the op ed, for those people who wonder where we can possibly find the money for all those teacher's aides.

Perhaps the Star could do some research on how many $10-an-hour teachers' aides could be hired with what we pay out to accountability departments and standardized testing companies.

Amen.

Horne Answers Post: "News Flash: Horne Says OK to More Dropouts"

by David Safier

Yesterday I wrote a question to Tom Horne during a live chat on the Star website. His answer, I wrote in a post, gave me the impression that he is OK with the idea that more students will drop out if we end social promotion.

Horne disagrees with my conclusion. He put a comment on the post saying I should have added another question-and-answer to clarify his position.

I'm delighted Horne chose to respond, and I will quote his response in its entirety. But first, let me put up the Q&A that led to my conclusion:

David S (daves): Aren't you concerned about the potential for raising the dropout rate if we hold students back on a regular basis? The Star article mentioned that as a probable outcome.

Tom H (tomhorneaz): No. It doesn't do any good to keep students in school if they aren't learning. Fear of dropouts is sometimes used as an excuse for mediocrity. I categorically reject that.

Here is Horne's comment:

To put the answer you quote in context, you should include the following additional question and answer:

Georgia B (gcb1): What are your proposals for the motivation of those students who for whatever reason refuse to improve in performance and become dropouts of no economic worth to our state?

Tom H (tomhorneaz): We have been studying ways to motivate these students. Please look at our website under dropout prevention. We have a list of Arizona programs that have shown success

Saying that fear of dropouts is not a reason to dumb down everyone’s curriculum is not to say I haven’t worked hard to reduce the dropout rate. I created a position for a dropout prevention specialist that didn’t exist when I took office, and she visited schools and prepared a study of best practices in dropout prevention that all schools can imitate. It is on our website http://www.ade.az.gov/asd/dropout/AZModelsofEffectiveStrategiesApp.pdf.

(Note: the URL Horne gave didn't work for me. I believe you can find the material he's referring to here, on the Department of Ed's Dropout Prevention web page.)

Saying the Dept of Ed has studied ways to prevent dropouts is a pretty passive response. To say he has put the results on his website so schools can imitate the "best practices" takes passivity right to the edge of inertia.

I read this to mean, Horne's first response is "Throw the bums out if they can't cut it!" Then he says, "Oh, by the way, I have a little pamphlet here with some 'best practices' to stop these kids from dropping out." I'm not convinced he's as serious about dropout prevention as he is about his beloved high stakes standardized testing program.

I went through the text of the chat again, and the only mention of dropouts is in the two quotations above. But here are a number of other statements by Horne which add to my impression that he thinks we should stop social promotion first and worry about the consequences later.

"I have been strongly opposed to social promotion for 30 years, going back to my first years on a school board."

"Once the public is used to the High School test that students need to pass to graduate, I support extending this to earlier grades. For example, in Louisianna, they must pass in 3rd and 8tgh grade, to go on to the next grade, and that works well. I believe we need that, or something like it, in Arizona."

"I favor holding back children who have not learned enough to go on to the next grade. It is also a good idea to let the student and the parents know (not necessarily in the first couple of months, but, say, by midyear) that if the learning does not improve, being held back may result."

"Donya M (justasiam): Why do we have social promotion at all?
Tom H (tomhorneaz): It was taught in schools of education because studies showed that students held back did worse in the long run. In my opinion, that misses the point. If you allow social promotion, you lower the motivation and standards of learning for the entire school. This is one of four theories taught in schools of education which I believe have done a lot of damage. The other three are bilingual education, whole language reading, and heterogenious grouping."

The last quote is my favorite. Horne links the "bad idea" of social promotion with other "bad ideas," two of which are whole language reading and bilingual education. As I wrote in earlier posts, the U.S. Dept. of Ed's recent study concluded that students in the $6 billion dollar phonics-based Reading First classrooms performed the same on tests as those who were in other classrooms. And the most recent research on bilingual vs. English Immersion strategies for ELL students also showed no difference in achievement -- except in Arizona, where, for some reason, achievement curved downward. So if we judge the value of Horne's view on social promotion by the company it keeps, it doesn't look very promising.

May the Force (of Mediocrity) Be With Me

by David Safier

A few more quotes from Horne's live chat on The Star's website.

No W (shanafan): What is the status of AIMS tests for other subjects like science and social studies? Will students also be required to pass these subjects?

Tom H (tomhorneaz): Science is tested in 4th grade and 8th grade, and for high school we test biology. There is a need for a test in chemistry, physics and earth science as well, and I have been advocating for that. We also need a history test in grades 3,6,7, and in high school for american history, world history, government, and economics. These added tests are my highest legislative priority, along with higher salaries for teachers. It is difficult for the next two years because of budget problems, but that is what I am working hardest for.

Standardized, AIMS-style tests in science, history, government and economics? That has to mean a standardized curriculum in all of those subjects. Reading and writing are skills. Math tends to be logically sequential. Even if I don't like the idea of high stakes tests, I have to admit that, of all subjects, reading, writing and math lend themselves to that kind of thing. But what should be emphasized in courses like history or government is open to a great deal of interpretation, and I would rather have teachers choosing what facts and concepts to stress than have that driven by a state test. (By the way, I would love to see how an AIMS biology test treats evolution and how a science test covers the age of the earth. Questions on those topics could cause a few problems with with Horne's constituency.)

No W (shanafan): Why do you think there has been so much resistance to AIMS testing? Most other states have had high stakes testing for years.

Tom H (tomhorneaz): Some other states have, but most have not. If we are going to fight for excellence, we have to expect that the forces of mediocity (sp) will oppose us, and there is joy in the battle.

Coincidentally, it seems I chose another question from the same person.

I'm proud to be called part of "the forces of mediocrity" (and no, I'm not going to make a "He can't even spell mediocrity" joke. This was fast typing. Spelling doesn't count.), if it's Horne who's doing the calling, and especially if it's because I'm not a fan of AIMS. If he wants to declare that testing is the front line in the "fight for excellence" and "there is joy in the battle," well, what can I say? Maybe if we elect a few more Democrats to the state legislature, Tommy will lose a few of his playmates, and things won't be as much fun any more. That's one more reason to work hard for Democratic candidates this election season.

News Flash: Horne Says OK to More Dropouts

by David Safier

You be the judge.

As I write this, Tom Horne is conducting a live chat on the Star's website about social promotion. As you know if you read my earlier post on the topic, he's against social promotion. So I decided to ask a question, and Horne decided to answer.

See if you read this the same way I do:

David S (daves): Aren't you concerned about the potential for raising the dropout rate if we hold students back on a regular basis? The Star article mentioned that as a probable outcome.

Tom H (tomhorneaz): No. It doesn't do any good to keep students in school if they aren't learning. Fear of dropouts is sometimes used as an excuse for mediocrity. I categorically reject that.

"It doesn't do any good to keep students in school if they aren't learning." To me, that means, if they can't cut it, get rid of them! If ending social promotion increases the dropout rate, that's OK with Horne. Zero tolerance for failure!

Private Orgs Take 10% From Private School Tax Credits

by David Safier

Thanks to Slade Mead for catching this item on his blog, The Dry Heat. As an ex-State Senator and a 2006 candidate for State Ed Sup, he knows more about this kind of insider baseball than I ever will.

I'm sure you know you can get an Arizona Tax Credit for giving scholarship money to private schools. But did you know that private organizations get a 10% cut from the tax credits? I didn't. And did you know a legislator, Steve Yarbrough (R LD-21), runs one of the School Tuition Organizations that skims 10% off the top? According to Slade:

Here is the issue… the state has organizations called School Tuition Organizations that collect tax credit money for private schools. Rather than the schools getting 100% of the money (as do the public schools) these STO’s take a 10% cut. This arrangement runs until June of 2011. Yarbrough runs an STO and is literally making hundreds of thousands of dollars off this cozy arrangement.

Rather than recuse himself from all matters pertaining to STOs, Yarbrough runs the legislation! His bill, HB 2108 has a sunset provision. In conference Yarbrough will attempt to take the sunset provision off.

The 10% rip off is scheduled to end in 2011, but Public Servant Yarbrough wants the gravy train to run on and on and on.

Tucson Schools Raise Fees, Plan Tax Override

by David Safier

(TASL) For the first time in awhile, I once again don my tax-and-spend mantle tassel to praise TUSD for planning a $27 million tax override for the November ballot. Half the money is to be spent on lowering class sizes.

The Star estimated it would cost an owner of a $150,000 home about $10 a month -- 33 cents a day, or $120 a year, depending on how you want to look at it.

The question is whether this is a fair way to tax people to increase school funds. There are probably better ways. But to paraphrase the sage, Donald Rumsfeld, "You go for funding with the taxes you have, not the taxes you want." Or something like that.

TUSD is also increasing some costs to students. Lunch will go up 25 cents. Students will be charged $20 more for high school extracurricular activities -- sports and others -- and middle schools will charge $20 for the first time. A family has a $200 a year cap, and families who can't afford it will be forgiven the fee.

I'm not sure charging fees for extracurricular activities is a terrific idea, but it's not a bad thing. If low funding forces schools to prioritize spending, extracurricular activities are a good place to cut back by increasing fees.

More on Social Promotion

by David Safier

Part 3 of the Star series on social promotion offers up some possible remedies, but as always when it comes to education, they are thin gruel. Not that they're not good ideas and they won't work. Not that they shouldn't be done. But all of them have been done before. Sometimes they get results, other times they don't. It depends on a thousand random and independent factors.

Among the many variables, one of the most important, I've found, is the buy-in by the teachers working in the new programs. If they're passionate and talented, they'll get results, while a school down the road with average, decent, unexcited teachers may use the same approach and show little or no progress.

Schools are not McDonalds franchises, where you simply duplicate what everyone else is doing and get consistent results. Education has a thousand variables. You can't control the nature of students, parents, economic and social situations, facilities, teachers, or administrators. It's a bit of a crap shoot.

I don't mean this to be pessimistic, by the way, just realistic. Honestly, no one really knows what we mean by "education," what we should stress in schools or when we should stress it, or the best way to get results. If anyone pretends to know the answers, be wary and suspicious.

My suggestion is, make peace with uncertainty. Do everything you can to increase the odds that students will be successful, but don't expect miracles. Or, if you expect miracles, also expect to be disappointed on a regular basis.

The Star story agreed with my concern that ending social promotion would raise the dropout rate:

Students who must repeat a grade are 20 percent to 30 percent more likely than their peers to drop out, said Lorrie Shepard, dean of the school of education at the University of Colorado at Boulder. There also may be psychological aspects to retention, she said.

"There is typically a stigma associated with being retained," said Shane Jimerson, a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical & School Psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

"Students, by the way, refer to it as being flunked or they're stupid. They don't use technical terms. They failed. They flunked. They're not as smart."

Jimerson, who is nationally recognized for his research on grade retention, has found that being held back can result in emotional distress, low self-esteem, poor peer relations and even alcohol and drug abuse.

The article noted positive steps taken by districts to give students the skills they lacked. Generally, they took extra time and money. One paid teachers a $5,000 stipend to become mentors and advocates for 12 to 18 students each. Another created a summer school program. Another broke the school into four smaller "academies" (It's not clear whether that was more expensive than the one-school organization).

That's pretty much it for the series. Everything else is detail, which you can read yourself if you're interested. Let me end by listing three things that annoyed me in the article, followed by a moment of comic relief.

1. The article referred to "experts," as if these "experts" have definitive answers. They don't. If they're conservative "experts," they come to one set of conclusions based on the evidence. If they're liberal "experts," they come to a different set of conclusions, often based on the same evidence.
2. The article claimed, "Research shows . . ." No, educational research doesn't "show" anything. It might indicate something. It might allow us to infer something. But there is no definitive research in education -- never has been, never will be.
3. The article used that hated term, "throwing money" at education, as in, "they say that simply throwing more money at the problem won't necessarily fix it." Obviously "throwing money" won't fix anything! Idiots!

Now for the comic relief. Some wacko by the name of Tom Horne (whoever that is) suggested that we can deal with this problem by holding back any eighth grader who hasn't passed the AIMS test, then expand the program to all levels, so any students who don't pass their grade level AIMS tests will be held back.

Where did they dig this guy up?

What? What did you say? He's the Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction? Oh my God! Please tell me you're kidding!

Social Promotion: Not as New, or as Simple, as The Star Makes it Sound

by David Safier

There's so much to be written about the Star's series that began with Social Promotion in Tucson area schools Sunday and continued with Grade Inflation today. I'm going to limit myself to one small aspect of the social promotion question. Maybe I'll write more later.

When I was taking education classes in 1968, one of the two non-instructional topics my profs dwelt on was social promotion. Back then, the concern was the dropout rate. Social promotion would lower the dropout rate, the thinking went, so it should be encouraged. Now, decades later, the consequences of social promotion are seen as the problem.

This is typical in education circles -- or, maybe I should say, it's the typical educational circle. You see a problem, so you create a fix. A few decades later, the fix becomes the problem, so you "fix" it by returning to a variation of the problem you encountered decades earlier.

Around and around we go.

Right now, for the sake of this post, let's create a scenario where we end social promotion completely. When students fail classes, especially core classes like reading and math, they're held back until they pass. No exceptions. Zero tolerance for failure.

Now, let's look at the educational world we'll create, focusing on the eighth grade, just to simplify this tremendously complicated issue.

In this world of ours, eighth graders who fail classes have to repeat the eighth grade. If they fail a second time -- as many will -- they have to repeat it again, and so on. Pretty soon, we have 15, 16 and 17 year olds sitting in cramped middle school desks next to their 13 and 14 year old classmates. The older students are more physically mature, and many are likely to be behavior problems. Do you want eighth grade classes attended by 15, 16 and 17 year olds who might be some of the most difficult students to educate and keep in line? For me, this creates some very uncomfortable scenarios.

But maybe the schools will take care of that problem by putting these repeat eighth graders in separate classrooms, or alternative programs. Still, they won't be promoted to the ninth grade until they have ninth grade skills, which means many of them will stay eighth graders for years. How long will these students tolerate being held back? Not long, I imagine. After one, or at the most two years, many of them will give up and drop out.

We're in the midst of a social and educational experiment the likes of which has never been attempted in the history of the world. We want to keep all our children in school for twelve years, and at the same time, we want all of them to reach a high level of proficiency in reading, writing and math. Those conflicting aspirations put us in a bind. If some of our students aren't proficient, do we adopt a zero tolerance policy on their performance and risk increasing the number of drop outs, or do we do everything in our power to keep them in school, hoping that some of them will kick in later and develop the skills we want them to have, or at the very least will reach a higher level of proficiency by remaining in school than by leaving?

Much of our educational conversation is driven by the dynamic conflict between keeping students in school and increasing their levels of academic proficiency, but we rarely phrase it in those terms.

In Praise of High School Students

by David Safier

I spend a lot of pixels criticizing School Boards and Superintendents and the Arizona Legislature. (Have you ever thought how many pixels had to die, how many ones and zeros were cut down in their prime, to create this post? It's horrifying!) But I can't remember bad mouthing any students in my writing, because I am not one of those who complains about "these rotten kids who have no respect for their elders, have no morals and spend the whole day with their Ipods stuck in their ears."

Why, back in my day . . . Oh wait, my generation's motto was "Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n Roll." Never mind.

Today I want to join the NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof in singing the praises of some students -- many students -- who reach out well beyond their comfort zones to make the world a little better.

In keeping with thousands of years of tradition, I should be wringing my hands about adolescents these days, so lazy and degenerate compared with my own upstanding generation. But when I see high school students working energetically to save the lives of people half a world away, before they are even allowed to buy a beer, I’m reduced to mumbling admiration. These kids are truly inspiring.

Kristof writes about students whose efforts built an elementary school in Cambodia, raised nearly half a million dollars for Darfur, helped buy mosquito netting to prevent malaria in Africa, and on and on.

He recognizes that many of these students are bulking up their resumes to get into college. True enough in many cases. But my feeling is, once they've been part of one of these efforts, it resides forever in their socially-responsible DNA, possibly lying dormant for years, but ready to be pressed back into action at some point in their lives. And I know efforts like these happen in schools where the students aren't thinking about college. It may be at a more local level, like neighborhood cleanups, helping at a senior citizen home or something like that, but it's the same thing. It does somebody good in the world beyond the students' immediate circle of friends and family, and at the same time, it stimulates that altruism gene, which helps it grow stronger.

I was never good at this stuff as a teacher, but another teacher at my high school was a marvel. He got a Key Club group going that developed a national and even worldwide reputation in the organization. One summer the students built a playground in a park. They also planned and created a series of raised planting beds in a senior citizen home where the residents, who wouldn't have been able to work the soil at the ground level, could sit in chairs and spend many enjoyable and purposeful hours planting and tending gardens. Both projects involved a great deal of interaction with the local business communities, and they involved a phenomenal amount of research (What's the best soil to use, how do we create an irrigation system that is efficient and good for the environment?) The guy taught math, so most of this was new to him as well as his students. He had to count on the club members for research and information. Students often turned their research into projects in their science classes.

I sat in on the Key Club meetings a few times. They were held 45 minutes before school began (many of these kids were too busy to meet any other time), in the school's Little Theater. The room was packed. The students conducted the meetings. The teacher occasionally offered comments from the sidelines, but just as often, he stood with his arms folded and watched.

Because this was a middle to upper-middle class high school, most of these kids were college bound, and some of them probably got into the colleges of their choice in part because of their Key Club involvement. But lots of them were going to Community College or the University of Oregon, where either a high school diploma or a reasonable GPA was all they needed to get in. They had no resumes that needed building. They were there because that was the place to be.

Activities like these get an occasional spotlight in the paper, but more often they don't. We hear about the drug busts and fights and dropouts and, in today's Star, students who fail their classes and still get promoted. Yes, that's part of the picture. But it's only part of the picture. With today's youth, as with youth in every generation all over the world, we can find much worthy of praise.

Note: I don't have to tell this to the regular commenters, but anyone who has a positive story about students to share (if you have a negative story, please save it for another time), the Comment lines are always open. Just click on "Comments" at the end of this post, put in a name (you can make up a handle if you want to remain anonymous) and an email address (it will not appear on your comment -- no one will know how to contact you) and type away. Write five words or a few hundred words. Press Preview to see what you've written. When you're satisfied, press Post. That's all there is to it.

New ELL Research Trumps Horne's Old ELL "Research"

by David Safier

I'm no expert on ELL education, and I won't play "Expert" here. I honestly don't know the best way to teach students who aren't proficient in English. But I do know the controversy that raged in Arizona over bilingual vs. English Immersion instruction. EI won. According to Tom Horne, his decision to replace bilingual ed with EI was "Research based."

Anybody remember my post a few days ago about Bush's Reading First program, based on "scientifically based reading research"? Turns out a Dept of Ed study concluded that the $6 billion program had no effect.

Well, chalk up another one for the conservative version of scientific research. It sounds like Horne's "Research based" English Immersion is coming out about the same -- no measurable effect.

See, Horne's "Research" came down to one study, and that study wasn't very thorough and didn't do such a good job controlling for length of time in the U.S., poverty or other factors that are critical to any decent study.

Preliminary findings from a recent, more thorough study indicate that, at best, the three states using the English Immersion model had, um, mixed results, to put it nicely. And of the three, Arizona, which is the most thoroughly English Immersed, seemed to show the poorest results.

Disclaimer: I am not now, nor have I ever been a fan of educational research. For any number of reasons, it's ridiculously hard to get verifiable results in these studies. But people like Horne, who proclaim that they legislate by the study, deserve to be hung by the study as well.

Here's how the director of Linguistic Minority Research Institute summed up the results: "“There’s no visual evidence that these three states [using English Immersion] are doing better than the national average or other states."

Here's my favorite part. Our own Tom Horne was asked what he thought of the results of the new study. He said, the test results the study is based on aren't fair. The states using bilingual education test their students in Spanish, while we test ours in English. Of course their scores are higher.

OK, that makes sense. Except for one little problem. IT'S WRONG! (Sorry for shouting.) The reading test used in the study is always administered in English. Sometimes the math test is given in Spanish, but those all important reading tests that, um, test how well a student reads -- they're always in English.

So the next time you hear Horne give a simple, facile reason why he's right and others are wrong, he may be absolutely right. Then again, he may be lying through his teeth stretching the truth a bit.

Fitz Nails the Arizona Anti-Education Crowd

by David Safier

Today's Daily Fitz in the Star.

(Noteworthy: Great party/event last night, linking Drinking Liberally and Smoking Conservatively. About 70 people there (a "conservative estimate," in honor of the right wing attendees), a mixture of Ds, Rs, Is (Independents) and Ls (Libertarians). Lots of candidates of various stripes as well. A love fest, generally, mixed in with spirited, disputatious discussion. The first, I hope, of many.)

Random Educational Stuff

by David Safier

Florida Sub Fired for Classroom Wizardry: Land O' Lakes, Florida, has moved from the Stone Age all the way up to the Middle Ages. A substitute teacher entertained his class with a magic trick. He made a match disappear and reappear. A parent called the school accusing him of wizardry. The district told him they would no longer call him to sub. The district swears it had other reasons to get rid of him. Trust me. Subs are rarely fired. It was the magic trick. (The story has already been picked up all over the world, by the way. The only way it can get more legs is if Bush and the Republican legislators push a bill forbidding witches and sorcerers from teaching in public schools. Those who persist will be burned at the stake.)

They're laughing at us in Long Beach: Cal State Long Beach's independent student newspaper is making fun of the Arizona bill to make it illegal to denigrate American values in schools. "Doesn't sound like the America we know now, does it? Well it's not. It's Arizona. Our neighbor. The Grand Canyon State." I'd be insulted if I didn't agree.

How to deal with a nursing shortage: don't let students into Nursing School: No wonder people make fun of Arizona education. The stories practically write themselves. "The College of Nursing and Healthcare Innovation can afford to admit only 60 percent of the Arizona State University students who apply each year, even as the state struggles with a nursing shortage." To be fair (I try, really), the article goes on to say, "The nursing college doubled in size the past six years" and has been successful at increasing the number of nurses in the state. But if we cut higher education spending, and it's hard to see how we can avoid it (without increasing revenues, which means increasing taxes, which means people will have to admit that us tax-and-spend liberals sometimes know what we're talking about), nurses, teachers and other needed professionals will be in even shorter supply.

Will Cyber Schools knock out brick-and-mortar schools? A Harvard business prof just published a book, "Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns." According to the article, "disrupting" our education system is a good thing, akin to the disruptive force of computerized businesses on more traditional businesses. He thinks distance learning will simply overwhelm traditional learning, and it will not be done by today's schools changing. It will be new schools replacing the old. Remember, though, business models rarely work in education, which is now and has always been a very labor intensive process. Whether the internet will change that picture, only time will tell. He very well may be wrong, like other business types who said they were going to make education more economical and successful, and failed. Twenty years from now, we can reconvene and see if he got it right.

No Pooch Left Behind

Today's Mother Goose & Grimm (If it's too small, click to enlarge it):

Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly, Part 6: Rep. Lujan Responds

by David Safier

(Here are parts 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.)

I emailed State Representative David Lujan (D-Phoenix) about HB2816, since he is the only Democratic sponsor of the bill, and said I would give him a chance to respond to my concerns. He wrote back within a few hours (I love my Democratic Reps when they care enough to respond so thoroughly and so quickly). So tonight, Lujan gets the last word. I'll chew over what he said and write about it tomorrow.

Hi David,

HB2816 makes changes to the TAPBI (technology assisted project based instruction) program. The TAPBI program was created by the legislature in 1998 to extend academic options beyond the traditional classroom. Of the 14 schools/school districts that are offering TAPBI programs, 7 are charter schools and 7 are traditional public school districts, including Tucson Unified, Mesa Unified, Tempe Union, Deer Valley Unified and Peoria Unified school districts. So HB2816 does not just apply to charter schools.

HB2816 does not provide any additional funding for TAPBI programs. The purpose of the bill is to address and fix issues that were raised in an Auditor General's Report that was conducted last year on the effectiveness of the TAPBI programs. For example, the Auditor General's report found that some of the TAPBI programs that had students who were enrolled in both traditional "brick-n-mortar" schools and a TAPBI program were receiving more funding than they were supposed to from the State. These were both traditional public schools and charter schools that were receiving too much money from the State. So one of the main provisions in HB2816 is to clarify that the ADM for students in TAPBI programs cannot exceed 1.0 students or 1.25 if they are enrolled in a JTED program. HB2816 also addresses concerns raised in the Auditor General's Report about academic accountability by making TAPBI programs more accountable to state standards.

HB2816 has not been a partisan bill. It passed 54-2 in the House and passed unanimously in the Senate Education Committee. I think it is a good bill to ensure that the TAPBI programs are held more accountable as was recommended by the Auditor General. I agree with you that we should be focusing on provided better funding to traditional public schools and I would not support this bill, nor likely would many of my Democratic colleagues, if this bill was going to take away scarce educational dollars.

If you have additional questions, please let me know and I will do my best to get answers. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to respond.

David Lujan
State Representative - District 15

Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly, Part 5: What's $6.4 Million Between Friends?

by David Safier

(Here are parts 1, 2, 3 and 4.)

"Six-point-four million? Safier is making this big deal about six-point-four million? I know that sounds like a lot, but as a percent of the state budget . . ."

The Tucson School District just put its reputation and its standing with the citizenry on the line by suggesting four schools had to be closed to make up some of the district's deficit. The process cost the School Board a huge hunk of credibility it couldn't afford to lose.

Anyone remember the savings projected for TUSD if all four schools were closed?

$1.8 million. One-point-eight million.

Six-point-four million is about three-and-a-third times more than one-point-eight million. Someone else had better tell TUSD, "Don't sweat six-point-four million extra given to Cyber Charter Schools. It's just a drop in the State's budget bucket." I, uh, I'm scared somebody at TUSD might hit me if I told 'em that.

Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly, Part 4: The 6.4 Million Dollar Question

by David Safier

(Here are parts 1, 2 and 3)

(Note: I plan to use a blogger's prerogative in my posts on Cyber Schools to jump to conclusions before I know the whole story. As I continue blogging on the topic, I'll get more information and correct any errors I've made. I'm an honorable man with a somewhat overactive superego, so it's difficult for me to lie, or even stretch the truth. If I am corrected, or I find something I wrote is incorrect myself, I'll make sure to let you readers know. Meanwhile, if you know something I don't, and especially if you are in the field, please add your comments. So far, my posts on the topic of charter schools have received comments from an employee of a Phoenix area bricks-and-mortar charter school, the CEO of Pinnacle Education (an Arizona Cyber School), and a cyber teacher from Pennsylvania. I plan to respond to their comments directly when I have time.)

I have more information about the $6.4 million overfunding of Charter Cyber Schools and what I believe is an attempt to write that overfunding into law.

I've been in email contact about this issue with Nancy Young Wright, who is my State Representative here in LD-26. (She stepped into Lena Saradnik's position when Lena had to step down for health reasons.) Wright has acted exactly as I hoped a Rep would act. She has taken my questions seriously (she has questions about the legislation herself) and forwarded my emails to other legislators who might be interested and knowledgeable. She also forwarded them to Jennifer Anderson, Legislative Research Analyst for the House Committee on Education (K-12). Thanks and kudos to Wright for performing her constituent duties so admirably.

From Anderson, I received a link to an October, 2007, Performance Audit of the Technology Assisted Project-Based Instruction Program (TAPBI) Program. It's a long report which I'll work my way through, but it will take time. Trying to pull out the and interpret the salient passages from these reports takes the diligence and concentration of a Talmudic scholar. If anyone wants to help me wade in, thank you in advance. I'd appreciate the assistance.

Right now, let's mull over a few passages from the short statement at the beginning of the Performance Audit.

Although statute limits funding to 1.0 ADM per student, errors resulted in about 6,800 TAPBI students being funded at 1.17 ADM each, on average, for a total overfunding of about $6.4 million.

This means, what I read in the Citizen article I cited in an earlier post is correct. Cyber Schools were overfunded by $6.4 million. It looks like the inference I drew from the article was correct as well -- that Cyber Schools were double dipping by taking more money for students who were also enrolled in other schools than they should have taken.

So I have a question: Did the state make these Cyber School refund the money -- the ones who overstated the amount they were allowed for students with dual enrollment? I'm pretty sure that a financial balancing is done between charter schools and the state toward the end of the school year, when the state figures out whether each school's projected enrollment was the same as the actual enrollment. If it was lower, the schools have to return the money. If it was higher, they get more from the state. (I think I've got this right. Someone chime in if I don't.) Was this $6.4 million part of that balancing act, and was the money returned to the state? I certainly hope so. If not, it sounds like someone is guilty of robbery of tax dollars, and the state is complicit in the theft.

Here is the next passage:

At $5,526 per pupil in fiscal year 2006, TAPBI schools spent $1,223 less per pupil than brick-and-mortar schools largely because TAPBI schools do not provide transportation and food services, and they have lower plant operation costs. However, costs could be further reduced, particularly for software and management agreements, and charter school administration.

I need to do more research to find out if Cyber Schools are given less than brick-and-mortar charter schools. I think the amount they receive is the same as what charter schools normally receive. But here, I'm way above my pay grade, and I need to dig for answers, or have one of you supply them to me.

What jumps out at me is the statement that the cost of Cyber Schooling "could be further reduced, particularly for software and management agreements, and charter school administration."

Cyber Schools are getting more money than they need, according to the audit. And yet, HB2816 wants to give them even more money than they're currently allowed to receive. Something is very wrong when the auditor suggests a reduction in funds, and legislators go for an increase. We're in a budget crisis, folks, and schools are starving for lack of adequate funding. Why would legislators want to increase funding for schools that are possibly getting too much money already?

I have a whole lot more to write about, but let me make one more point and save the rest for later. HB2816, which allows 125% of the normal allotment for students who have dual enrollment in a Cyber School and another school, is mainly sponsored by Republicans, many of whom are not normally friends of education. A few of them have Zero Ratings from the Arizona Education Association, which means to me, they vote against school funding. (For those of you who know legislators, the Republican sponsors are Rich Crandall, Kirk Adams, Mark Anderson, Judy Burges and Andrew Tobin.) Oddly, the one Democratic sponsor is David Lujan, who is a friend of education. Maybe he knows something I don't about the bill, but until I find out differently, I definitely question his judgement here.

So I ask myself, why would Republicans, many of whom are not fond of educational funding, want to increase funding for this one kind of school? I won't suggest that any of them stand to profit from the legislation, because I have no information to make me think that's true. But I do know that Charter Schools are the Republicans' baby, and maybe increased funding for what they consider "the anti-public school" is a completely different animal than what they love to refer to as "throwing money" at public schools.

More later.

Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly, Part 3: Cyber Schools Fight to Protect Funding

by David Safier

(For background on this post, link to Part 1 and Part 2 of this series.)

Last Tuesday, 800 Charter Cyber School advocates gathered in Phoenix to demand, "Don't cut our funding!" There has been a move afoot, they were told, to cut some 20% from funding for Cyber Schools. The event was covered by the Citizen and the Arizona Republic.

Who wants to cut funding for Cyber Schools? That's not clear. Certainly not Tom Horne, who spoke at the rally against funding cuts. The Citizen article says cuts have been "proposed during closed-door budget meetings."

After reading the articles a few times trying to figure out what the story was, I found a clue in The Citizen article. Apparently, "last year the auditor general concluded that the program [which included funding for Cyber Schools] had been overfunded by about $6.4 million." The reason is: "40 percent of distance learning students were concurrently enrolled in brick-and-mortar schools."

It makes sense that the state should spend no more than 100% for a student, right? If that student splits time between two schools, each school should get a piece of the pie. But I guess right now, Cyber Schools are claiming more than their due amount for some of these students.

I'm not good at reading bills, but I think this all revolves around HB 2816. In its current form, it states:

If a pupil is enrolled in a school district or charter school and also participates in the technology assisted project-based instruction program, the sum of the average daily membership, . . . shall not exceed 1.0.

Currently, in other words, each student should have one student's worth of funds following him/her, and right now $6.4 million is being double dipped by the Cyber Schools.

But there is a revision to that section of the bill adding this clause to the end of the previous sentence:

EXCEPT THAT IF THE PUPIL IS PARTICIPATING IN A JOINT TECHNOLOGICAL EDUCATION DISTRICT THE AVERAGE DAILY MEMBERSHIP SHALL NOT EXCEED 1.25.

I read that to mean, if a student is enrolled in a Cyber School, the state can kick in another 25% to the regular student allotment. (Here is the text of HB2816.)

This, I think, is what it's all about. Not that Cyber Schools are in danger of getting less money than other Charter Schools, but that students enrolled in both Cyber and brick-and-mortar schools should get 25% more.

If I'm right, the entire campaign by the industry's lobbyist, the Arizona Distance Education Association, and Tom Horne's righteous defense of Cyber School funding, is a lie, or, to be fair, a quarter truth. They are in fact defending extra funding going to Cyber Schools, when they claim they are trying to stop a cut in funds.

(For some background on the lobbying campaign, here is an email from the lobbying group sent to parents and others. It ends with a list of legislators to contact.)

The legislature, at a time of budget restraints, shouldn't be slipping in extra funding so that Cyber Schools can get more than is their fair share of state funds.

Increasing Hispanic Students' Interest in Tech Careers

by David Safier

An interesting article in CNN/Money: IBM Launches Effort to Address Shortage of Hispanic Students in Technology Careers. This program, if it's more than just talk, can have an important impact on Arizona and other areas with large Hispanic populations.

A few excerpts:

IBM (NYSE: IBM) today convened an inaugural summit titled "America's Competitiveness: Hispanic Participation in Technology Careers," an effort to bring together leaders in business, education, government, and community organizations to find ways to increase the number of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and math in the United States.

The effort is aimed at a looming problem resulting from the significant decline in the numbers of Hispanic students pursuing careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (or STEM).

----

To address the issue, IBM along with ExxonMobil, Lockheed Martin and Univision, and 150 other leaders will meet on May 5 and 6 in New York, to examine the ways the Hispanic community can improve their participation in STEM.

"The Hispanic community is one of the fastest growing in the country and young Latinos are rapidly joining our workforce," said U.S. Senator Robert Menendez. "It is important that they have the option to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering and math, not only so they can fully develop their potential, but also so they can become professionals in areas that are vital to our economy, our security, our future as a nation. I salute IBM for this important initiative and hope this summit will open up new roads to success for our Hispanic youth."

----

Participants of this strategic gathering will be presented with newly released reports commissioned by the IBM International Foundation from respected research organizations like The Tomás Rivera Policy Institute and Public Agenda, which outline the challenges and opportunities to the nation's Hispanic community and their partners as regards the pursuit of STEM careers.

----

As a means of enabling Spanish-language-only parents to better communicate with teachers -- one of the needs outlined in the Public Agenda study -- IBM is today announcing that it will provide its automatic two-way, English-Spanish, e-mail translation and web translation software called ¡TradúceloAhora! to all U.S. schools at no cost to them.

Additionally, schools and nonprofit organizations will be given unlimited use of the ¡TradúceloAhora! software. And Hispanic older adults and those with disabilities can access the free translation software along with other free software called AccessibilityWorks that helps them view web pages in a customized format for easier and more effective reading and navigation on the web.

----

In response to the need to provide mentors for Hispanic students, IBM commits to expanding the MentorPlace program to focus on school districts in the U.S. with a significant number of Hispanic students, and matching them with IBM employees who can serve as their online mentors.

-- Additionally, IBM will expand its cascade mentoring program -
currently at the University of Arizona at Tucson - to at least 3
universities in California, New York and Texas.
-- The cascading mentoring program is an internet based system that
enables professional mentors, university students, and K-12 students to
engage in a three-way mentoring relationship through secure online
discussions. These discussions focus on past academic experiences and
exploration of what could be in terms of future goals and opportunities.
-- This program completed its third year in Tucson, Arizona and involved
IBM employees, the University of Arizona SHPE (Society for Hispanic
Professional Engineers) Student Chapter, and students from two high
schools.

Anyone out there from the IBM or UA communities who knows more about this effort?

News Flash: McCain Plans to Abandon Israel!

by David Safier

Sorry for poaching on your territory, AZ Blue Meanie, but the English teacher in me couldn't let McCain's latest retracted gaff slip by without my notice.

McCain said basically (I'll include the exact quote later) that if we can end our need for mideast oil, we'll never have to send a soldier there again. Then he "clarified" the statement by saying he was referring to the Gulf War, not Iraq.

Reporters need to listen more carefully. Regardless of the war he was referring to, McCain said the only reason we would ever have a soldier fight in that region is to keep the oil spigots open.

So, Mr. McCain, if we're energy independent and Iran gets nuclear weapons, we won't send soldiers, right?

And, Mr. McCain, if any mideast nation attacks Israel, by land or using weapons of mass destruction, that's Israel's problem, because we're energy independent, right?

Read his exact words:

"My friends, I will have an energy policy that we will be talking about, which will eliminate our dependence on oil from the Middle East that will prevent us from having ever to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East."

In the Old Testament, there is a story about Esau selling his birthright for a mess of pottage. In the 2008 campaign, McCain sold out Israel for a gallon of biodiesel.

I'm not over-parsing his words, just reading them carefully. If Obama had used McCain's words, they would be on an endless cable news loop, repeated over and over and over, analyzed and reanalyzed, condemned by everyone who wants to sink Obama's campaign. But McCain? No problem. He issued a clarification which explains exactly nothing, so everything's OK. Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly, Part 2: Meet Arizona Virtual Academy

by David Safier

A building on Palo Verde just north of I-10 is the home of Arizona Virtual Academy. It's a Charter Cyber School that gives online education to Arizona students all over the state. Because it's a charter school (if you're confused about charter schools, here is a primer), the students pay nothing. The state pays AVA for each student enrolled.

Arizona Virtual Academy is part of a publicly traded company, K12 Inc. The company was co-founded by William Bennett, Reagan's Education Secretary and author of "The Book of Virtues," though he left the company in 2005 when he posed "a thought experiment about public policy" on his radio show suggesting that if black babies were aborted, the crime rate would go down (He had offered to resign a few years earlier when his gambling habit came to light).

In 2007, according to K12 Inc.'s prospectus, it brought in $14 million in revenue from Arizona. In other words, $14 million in taxpayer money was collected by Arizona Virtual Academy. That was 10% of the company's total revenue.

Nothing wrong with making a profit. Nothing wrong with publicly traded companies (it's trading at about $23 right now, by the way). But this for profit company makes its money by charging Arizona and other states to educate their children, and we have a right to know how the money is spent, and how much of it goes for profit and for expenses not directly related to education.

AVA has no school buildings to house its students. They work from home -- though this isn't "home schooling," which is not state funded and is something else entirely. The students are furnished with books and online materials. They're even given a laptop computer to use and an internet hookup if they need it. They have interaction with teachers, though I don't know how much, or how frequently. Since the students are spread all over the state, I doubt if there is much in the way of regular face-to-face contact.

So, should Arizona Virtual Academy get as much money per student as a charter school with a building and teachers who meet with their students on a daily basis?

My answer is no, unless they can convince the state and people like me that they are using our tax dollars for the purpose of education and not to make large profits at our expense.

This post has an accusatory tone to it, and I admit there's a lot I don't know about AVA and the other Arizona Charter Cyber Schools, so maybe I'm being unfair. But these are questions haven't been asked much by the traditional media or, so far as I know, by the state legislature, and they need to be asked, and answered.

"Reading First" (Cost: $1 Billion/Year) Comes in Tied With "Nothing Different"

by David Safier

As part of No Child Left Behind, the Bush administration has plowed $1 billion per year into a program called "Reading First." Its purpose, according to the Department of Ed's website, is "to apply scientifically based reading research—and the proven instructional and assessment tools consistent with this research—to ensure that all children learn to read well by the end of third grade."

The results are in. According to a study by the Department of Education, there is no significant difference between the reading comprehension of children at schools that participated in Reading First and schools that didn't.

Let me repeat. This isn't a study by some lefty/commie/new-age/whole-language think tank funded by George Soros. This is the Department of Ed's own study. And according to the study, $1 billion a year gave us exactly nothing.

Actually, by this administration's standards, that's a positive outcome. Think of the billions spent in Iraq, given to oil companies and used to implement "Clean Skies" and "Healthy Forests." A mere $1 billion a year that does no harm is money well spent for this cabal of "small-government conservatives."

I've been watching the Reading First program for years. Basically, the administration fell in love with one reading program called "Direct Instruction," which is a phonics based program that involves lots of drilling on the smallest units of reading, then helping students knit the units together into words. So when the Reading First people evaluated the various reading programs asking for inclusion, they decided that Direct Instruction was one of the only programs that was proven effective by "scientifically based reading research." They rewarded an inordinate amount of money to that one program and declared others they didn't like "unscientific."

One problem. Some of the advisors on the recommendation panels had ties to the publishers of the materials. According to the NY Times:

In 2006, John Higgins, the department’s inspector general, reported that federal officials and private contractors with ties to publishers had advised educators in several states to buy reading materials for the Reading First program from those publishers.

Typical. This administration has turned cronyism from an art to a science, while anything like the "science" practiced by people called "scientists" is routinely discarded.

Was there really cronyism? Read this passage from the Times article and decide for yourself:

The Reading First director, Chris Doherty, resigned in 2006, days before the release of Mr. Higgins’s report, which disclosed a number of e-mail messages in which Mr. Doherty referred to contractors or educators who favored alternative curriculums seen as competitors to the Reading First approach as “dirtbags” who he said were “trying to crash our party.”

Putting aside my cynicism about everything the Bush administration touches for a moment, I'm actually saddened by this finding. As much as I dislike the "Drill and Kill" approach that is at the heart of the Direct Instruction program, it's a well thought out concept conceived by serious educators, and I would like to see it have a positive effect. Even Drill and Kill can be done in an upbeat way (kids love chanting things in unison, which is a big part of this method), and if successful drill can be combined with reading for understanding and enjoyment, you could have a valuable, balanced reading program. I want us to find methodology that improves the reading skills of those students who tend to fall behind. But I guess I'll have to keep looking.

Arizona Charter Schools: The Good, The Bad, and The Costly

by David Safier

This is the first of what will be a series of posts about Arizona's Charter Schools, and more specifically about Arizona's online charter schools, also known as "Cyber Schools."

The question I'm trying to answer for myself is, Should a Cyber School, with no building and no daily classroom meetings of staff and students, get the same amount of money per student from the state as a bricks-and-mortar Charter School?

The Cyber Schools and their lobbying organization, the Arizona Distance Education Association, say, Yes.

To this point, the Arizona Legislature says Yes as well. But there is a question whether it might be changing its mind.

And I say, No, unless a rigorous examination of the Cyber Schools' books (which has never been done) shows that they use their state-allotted funds wisely to further their students' educations.

(Remember, I may be a Tax-And-Spend Liberal, but I believe in spending money wisely. I don't want my federal tax dollars making Halliburton executives obscenely rich, and I don't want to give state tax dollars to schools only to have a portion spent on their students and the rest going into their pockets.)

First, I need to explain the mechanics of Charter Schools as I understand them, because most people I've talked to don't really know how they work.

Think of a Charter School as a hybrid of a public and a private school -- a publicly funded private school, if you will. An individual or a group of individuals say, "I want to start a school. Here is how it will operate." If the idea is OK'd, the school gets a Charter, the newly created school gathers together students, and the state pays the school on a per student basis. The students pay nothing. Next year, the school gets another infusion of state money based on its student count. And so on, as long as the school stays in operation.

Charter schools have to follow some state guidelines, including giving their students the AIMS test. That's different from private schools. But in many ways, charter schools operate independent of state or school district interference.

Unlike many of my union-supporting brother and sister teachers, I like the idea of charter schools. I'm a strong believer in teachers unions, but I'm also an alternative education guy at heart, and I like the idea of parents and students being offered a number of educational alternatives. Other teachers have problems with the concept that I understand but don't agree with.

But here in Arizona, the Charter School concept has run amok. The state has more charter schools than any other state (I don't know if that's in raw numbers or as a percentage of the population. I'll check that out and include it later). The law was created by conservative legislators as a first step toward creating a voucher system in Arizona,so they gave a Charter to nearly anyone who had a pulse and a proposal for a school. Soon, they figured, the Charter School movement would morph into a full blown voucher system, where private schools of all kinds are given state money.

The best charter schools are excellent. I applaud their founders and staff, and I'm delighted for their students. Others are lousy. Some of the worst schools have folded over the years, but since the state has a minimal budget for people to actually visit and observe the schools, we have no idea how many bad charter schools are out there. (And no, "the invisible hand of the marketplace" will not get rid of bad charter schools. It doesn't work that way.)

Which brings us to Cyber Charter Schools. Students who sign up for these schools work out of their homes. The school supplies them with materials -- online and hard copy -- and the students are required to work a certain number of hours each day, complete assignments, write papers, take tests, and so on. They are in phone and email contact with teachers, and some schools have group events where the students meet and do things together on a semi-regular basis.

These Cyber Schools get the same amount of money per student as bricks-and-mortar Charter Schools. Does that make sense to you? It doesn't to me.

I'll be looking deeper into the Cyber School Question in future posts. I'm beginning a conversation with some state legislators to see what they know about Cyber Schools (and what they don't know, which I suspect is plenty.)

I want your input as well. Do you know people enrolled in Cyber Schools? Do you have information I don't? After all, the concept of using the latest technology to further education is a good one, and if this is all legit and the students thrive, then I'm for it. But I want to know more. I want to find out if the schools are actually educating their students, and if the state is getting its money's worth.

Next Morning Ruminations about the TUSD Board Meeting

by David Safier

I got off one shot before my camera went bad. It was a Tucson Media Circus out there last night.

Here are a few bits and pieces I didn't have time to write about, including some thoughts about the whole process from Mark Stegeman, who is running for School Board.

• The Board's decision to leave all the schools open was not a deal struck ahead of time. It happened on the spot. Someone in the district administration told me they had been talking about this all day, handicapping the chances for each of the schools. And listening to the tone of the Board members, it was clear the situation was evolving until everyone realized that they couldn't get a majority to vote for closure.

Odds were that Ochoa would stay open, and Wrightstown was most likely to close. Tedski was right when he commented yesterday on Rum, Romanism and Rebellion that the might of the Eckstrom political arm put Ochoa out of harm's way.

• I happened to sit next to Peter Ochoa and the Ochoa family during the meeting. Peter is the great grandson of Don Estevan Ochoa, who was Mayor of Tucson in 1875 and gave the city the land to build Ochoa school. He commented that there is probably an historic document about the gift, and if it specified that the land must be used for a school, the district might be called to legal task for closing it. But he was just talking, I think. He showed me an old history of Tucson published in the 1940s with a chapter dedicated to Don Estevan.

• Sitting on the other side of me was Aaron Moreno, who is running for School Board. He's a Pima Community College student, a personable young man. He's majoring in communications, a skill he said the Board could stand to work on. Point well taken.

• After the meeting, I had a longish chat with Mark Stegeman, who teaches Econ at UA and is also running for school board. He was pleased with the decision not to close the schools. He said the process was so flawed and created so much ill will that it could cause parents to pull their kids from TUSD schools and put them in charters or in neighboring districts. The potential cost savings would be wiped out by the exodus.

I asked him, "If you're elected to the school board, do you think you'll see school closings next year?" He thought for a moment, then replied, if he were a betting man, he would put odds that some schools might be closed. But he said he would make sure the process involved the community, so there would be more buy-in to any decision made. He would enter the process with no preconceptions -- that is, he would not be for or against closures. He wanted the discussion and research to move toward its own conclusions. And he did not think the discussion should or would be limited to the four schools on the block this session. He imagined a wider discussion, that could include more than elementary schools. (Follow-up: Mark has a letter in today's Citizen that explains why he was against this round of school closures.)

The Final Decision For Tucson School Closings: PUNT!

by David Safier

A note: Someone should tell the Board members that no one thinks their ideas are so incredibly incisive, so spellbinding, that it makes sense to prattle on endlessly. Brevity is the soul of wit (wit meaning smarts and wisdom), someone once said. It may not be true in every case, but a touch of brevity would be appreciated by everyone.

Man, can these folks talk! And the less one of them has to say, the longer it seems to take to say it.

The Board voted on closing Wrightstown, the only school they agreed it might make sense to close. Only Rodriguez and Burke voted for closing, so the vote failed, 3-2.

And no other school will be closed. So it's PUNT until next year. Meeting adjourned.

And you read it here first. Posted 8:54pm.

Tucson School Board Members Lay Out Their Positions

by David Safier

Joel Ireland says he's voting against all closings. The reason is, the judge's lifting of the desegregation order means schools can be considered for cutting that couldn't be considered under the deseg order. So he wants to table the decision for now and begin the process over again, creating a committee and doing the proper groundwork and considering closure of all schools in the district.

Adelita Grijalva kinda agrees, I think.

Judy Burns agrees with Joel Ireland completely.

So we have two members definitely against any closings, and a third who may be.

Bruce Burke says, "I can count votes, and it looks like we're not closing any schools tonight." But he wants to deal with it tonight and is disappointed the Board is planning to put it off.

Alex Rodriguez says, TUSD is in financial crisis. Our process hasn't been wonderful, but what do you expect from us? We've done our best. He thinks fiscal accountability "trumps not closing schools." Rodriguez says the one school he would have voted to close is Wrightstown, because it is so under-enrolled. He would have voted to keep the others open. So Wrightstown, this is your last chance, says Rodriguez. You have to prove you can raise your enrollment or expect to close when this topic comes up again.

On the Scene at the School Board Meeting

by David Safier

Outside the District Building, about a hundred children and adults are waving signs and shouting, "Save our schools!" led by a bullhorn. Every TV station has its video truck parked outside.

Inside the Board room, the seats are either filled or saved. "Stop School Closures" signs have been passed out to be waved at appropriate moments.

We'll see how the evening progresses. I found there is wireless in the building, so I'll try and report the Board decision on school closings as it happens.

I'd give you photos too, but my battery ran out. And I didn't bring a spare. Idiot! Mike, you can dock my salary.

Tonight: Tucson School Closure Smackdown

by David Safier

This is the big night for four Tucson elementary schools. According to the Star, "The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. today, but the closure portion is expected to start around 7:45 p.m., followed by boundary changes, if warranted. Public input won't be taken." The meeting is at Morrow Education Center, 1010 E. 10th St.

The Star article sets the scene, summarizing the positions of each of the Board members. What I deduced from their statements is, some of the schools will be spared the ax.

Which ones? It seems to me that by rights, Ochoa should be at the top of the "spared" list, though that goes against my cynical view that low income communities tend to lose in these kinds of battles. A Star editorial recommends that Wrightstown and Rogers be closed and Ochoa and Corbett remain open. And in an op ed, a woman with two children at Corbett argues it should remain open.

I'm planning to be there tonight to see what happens. I'll see if I can beat the dailies and the TV news and report the decision -- or indecision -- of the Board when I get home.

Will Mandatory Recess Become the Law for Arizona Schools?

by David Safier

On the one hand, a bill mandating recess in Arizona elementary schools not a big deal, because it's such a no brainer. Who wouldn't be for allowing children to have a run-around-and-laugh-out-loud break during the school day?

But on the other hand, it's a big deal, because many elementary school students don't have that much needed break. And it's also a big deal for this blog, because a few of our regular commenters have earned bragging rights, since they have been intimately involved in the process.

At this point, the Senate has passed House Bill 2037, which says students must have at least 30 minutes of recess. I think there are caveats built in to allow districts to wiggle out of the mandates, but I don't know the details of the bill in its current form. Maybe our resident experts can help me out.

And it's not a bill yet. It still needs to pass in the House.

"Wasting time" is an incredibly valuable part of good education, as any good teacher knows. It can be a teacher schmoozing with students about a movie or a TV show, or a celebration of someone's birthday, or some inane little game the teacher has the students participate in, while assuring them there won't be a test at the end of the game. It's part of establishing the atmosphere of a good classroom. Recess is one of those important types of "wasting time," when students can let out their nervous energy and pent up emotions by hanging out and running and kicking a ball and playing jacks, or just sitting on a bench talking with friends if that's what they choose to do. If I have to choose between free recess and structured PE for K-5, I'll choose recess every time. Both is better still.

UPDATE: According to commenter steve j gall, "The school districts can't wiggle out of this mandate because it states a 30 minute recess plus a 20 minute lunch." He has also been asked by the bill's author (Rep. Anderson, a Mesa Republican) to appear at the House Education Committee session. And commenter Mariana urges everyone to write to Reps in their districts in support of the bill.
District 26
Nancy Young Wright D nyoungwright@azleg.gov
Pete Hershberger R phershberger@azleg.gov
District 27
Phil Lopes D plopes@azleg.gov
Olivia Cajero Bedford D ocajerobedford@azleg.gov
District 28
David Bradley D dbradley@azleg.gov
Steve Farley D sfarley@azleg.gov
District 29
Linda Lopez D llopez@azleg.gov
Tom Prezelski D tprezelski@azleg.gov
District 30
Marian McClure R mmcclure@azleg.gov
Jonathan Paton R jpaton@azleg.gov

An Unrelated Note: I keep finding new reasons to be proud I'm part of Blog for Arizona. The most recent is Mike's ridiculously democratic (small "d") idea of opening the blog to one-timers who have something to say. The first entry is Mickey Duniho's post (two down from this one) about the need to recount the RTA election ballots. The papers have written about this topic from a reporter's vantage point, but Mickey is in the thick of the local Election Integrity group and is able to explain the issue in a way no reporter can match. An excellent start that shows the potential of this experiment.

Black? White? From the Mouth of the Sunday Funnies . . .

by David Safier

Why is it that I find more insight in the newspaper comics, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report than I find on cable news or the op eds in the paper?

Today's insight comes from Berkeley Brethed's Opus,where the characters decide to have a meeting, "our first national conversation on race." Here is the salient panel.

From a cultural-linguistic standpoint, this is an extremely interesting and important question. Why is Obama considered black because one of his parents is black? For that matter, why are people with a discernible trace of African DNA considered black in this country, even if they have more European than African genetic material floating around in their cells?

The first answer that might come to mind is, "Well, you can see that their skin is darker, so it's natural you would say that person is black." But that answer is most probably wrong.

I used to teach a novel, Weep Not, Child, by a Kenyan writer, Ngugui wa Thiong'o. It was told from the standpoint of a young boy growing up during the late 1950s and early 1960s, before Kenya's independence from England. At the beginning of the book, the narrative has the disjointed, half-understood feeling of a child's perspective. At one point, he is talking about World War II:

"The Italian prisoners who built the long tarmac road had left a name for themselves because some went about with black women and the black women had white children."

If I were to see a photo of those "white children," I'm sure I would say they were black. Undoubtedly, many of them had darker skin than a good portion of our African American population. But to the child, and, I'm sure, to his fellow Kenyans, they were white children.

The concept of "black people" and "white people" is a social construct. Change the nature of the society, and the labels change.

We're beginning to talk about this becoming a "blended country," where the racial distinctions become increasingly blurred, and increasingly irrelevant. The growing number of children born to parents who we would say are from "different races" are part of the reason. But the very serious candidacy of Barack Obama, not to mention the prominence of people like Condi Rice and Colin Powell, are helping to change our cultural perspective on the importance of race as a distinguishing characteristic.

Now, why did I have to go to the Sunday Funnnies to find this insight? Why isn't this issue part of the roundtable discussions conducted by the Very Serious Men and Women on news shows?

In the comic, after the panel above, the others are stunned into silence. The lad at the podium slams down his gavel, screams, "Question tabled! Adjourned!" And they all go swimming. I think Breathed has answered my question.

The Dead, the University and the Pope

by David Safier

This post is a bit of a stretch, but it's Sunday, which is my Day of Stretch. Optional headline: Secular Meets Scholarly Meets Sac