Blog For Arizona

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.

Mule Train Mail: Dr. Steve Gall on the Mandatory Recess Bill

Unfortunately, the State House did not vote on the 30 minute recess in elementary school bill, HB 2037.

It has now gone to a Conference Committee of Senate and House members for clarification on charter schools.  According to Rep. Mark Anderson, Republican of Mesa, the bill should come up for a vote again next week in the full house. 

I urge you to e-mail your local state representatives to support HB 2037 which states that every public school grades 1-6 have at least a 30 minute recess period for the children. 

This bill is crucial for the total development of the youngsters.  Some schools are cutting recess to improve their AIMS scores.  Research tells us that these students perform better on tests with a recess break of at least 30 minutes.

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.

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 Sacred.

First, the Secular Meets Scholarly part. The Grateful Dead "will donate a cache of their papers, posters and props on Thursday to the University of California, Santa Cruz, which plans to use the musical miscellany as part of a research center to be known as Dead Central."

The university, located in a hippie-friendly city 75 miles south of San Francisco, already teaches a popular undergraduate course about the Grateful Dead’s music, and is known as “a hotbed of current Deadhead culture,” said Bob Weir, the group’s rhythm guitarist.

Insert jokes about the state of academia here.

In the Secular Meets Sacred part, during the Pope's visit to the U.S., they held a youth rally at St. Joseph’s Seminary, in Yonkers. Now, how do you organize a large, successful youth rally with a star-quality headliner? Line up Christian musicians like Kelly Clarkson, Saint Michael’s Warriors, the Messengers of Christ, A Fragile Tomorrow, and Jammin’ with Jesus & Friends. And call in Chris Wangro, a concert stager for big time rock stars, and a large contingent of roadies he'd worked with over the years, including Ken Viola, the head of the Grateful Dead's security.

The police and the Secret Service—who had mapped out their sniper positions—had told him not to worry, but Wangro said that he’d be relying on Viola’s guys, who, from their years with the Dead, knew concert protocol. “No matter how good the police are, they’re not trained for the things that these people are trained for,” he said.

A few other wonderful tidbits.

They used a modified stage from a Rolling Stones show.

And, because the crew, some of them Jewish, had to work during Passover, Wangro organized

a small Seder, which would be held at sunset in the bishops’ tent, after the papal entourage had left. Wangro, who calls himself “a good atheist Jew,” had included the event out of consideration for the Jewish members of his crew he’d asked to work during Passover. He’d enlisted Father Michael Martine, the procurator of St. Joseph’s, to deliver a blessing.

America. What a country!

Crunch Time for Tucson School Closings

by David Safier

Unless the TUSD School Board decides to "consider" the issue of school closings one more time, Tuesday should be the big night for Ochoa, Corbett, Wrightstown and Rogers elementary schools. The Board is scheduled to vote on the school closure issue at its 7pm meeting (1010 E. 10th St., for anyone interested in attending -- and what could be more interesting than a school board meeting? Though this one promises to have more theater than most).

I've already said that the district has few choices these days. Financial rocks and hard places litter their agenda like land mines. (On top of everything else, the end of the desegregation order has the potential of costing the district millions.) And with shrinking enrollment, school closures seem like a reasonable option.

This tax-and-spend-liberal believes that, if the schools are doing a better job with their limited enrollment than bigger schools, we should find the money to keep them open, and even think about ways to shrink the size of other schools. But, as Ronald Reagan once said, There I go again.

Two school board members, Bruce Burke and Adelita Grijalva, wrote an op ed defending the need to make a decision on the closings at the same time they admitted they haven't handled the issue very well. Reading between the lines, it looks to me like they are likely to close one of more schools.

I wrote a while back that I thought Ochoa was the most likely school to be closed, simply because it has the lowest income population. Saturday, the community held an event to support the school that attracted 900 people. The arguments supporting the value of Ochoa to the community were compelling. This kind of outpouring of support might give the Board pause. But . . .

I still lay odds on Ochoa being closed, even if some of the others are spared. Community activism makes a lot of noise, but a few well placed phone calls from well-heeled community members in the other areas pack more wallop. Money talks, activism walks. That's the rule I've seen play out over and over in school districts and elsewhere. Exceptions are not unheard of, but they are more often concessions to soften the inequity rather than wholesale support of the lower income schools.

This is one time I would love to be wrong. I would be overjoyed to see a level playing field in this decision. Please, if I am in error, beat me over the head with my cynicism in your comments and tell me I should be more optimistic, more idealistic. I will accept the punishment with a glad heart.

Clinton Went and Won Pennsylvania, and All I Got Was this Obama T Shirt

by David Safier

Your roving correspondent returns to Tucson, unbloodied and unbowed. Actually, I had a great time. It was almost perfect, give or take a few percentage points.

So now it's back to the education beat. Let's see, what's happened since I was gone? I hear:

• Russell Pearce wants a law that says all teachers must wear flag lapel pins, pledge allegiance to the Republican States of America, and check with him before they make any statements about the U.S., unless the statement is, "Looks like Pearce got it right again!"

• When the ELL funding bill came to Janet's desk, she said, "What bill? Do you see any bill? I don't see any bill."

• No Child Left Behind will be changed to say that, any public school that has drop outs will declare itself a failure and give all its money to private schools.

• Tom Horne plans to go all the way to the Supreme Court to push the idea that people who know how to say anything in Spanish other than "Cerveza" and "Donde esta el baño" will have to apologize publicly and commit an entire Berlitz English course to memory before a single dollar of state funds will be used to help them learn English.

I may not have all the details right. I have some catching up to do.

On the Ground in Philadelphia, Day 2

by David Safier

Here's your at-the-scene correspondent, giving you the news from Philadelphia.

Last night I ate at a 5-star restaurant. Washed my scampi down with a $300 cabernet. God, it's great to be on the Blog for Arizona expense account! I'll give you the receipts when I get back, Mike. (Mike? Are you there, Mike?)

I spent a few hours at the downtown Obama headquarters, phoning and writing letters. Because it was mid-day and mid-week, we were calling the 60-80 year old set, because they were most likely to be home. That's Hillary country, and more people said they supported her than Barack. But a reasonably number were for Barack, and a surprising number were undecided. I expect the undecideds to go for Clinton when they hit the polls (though I may have convinced a few to lean toward Obama), but it's encouraging that so many are ready to vote for either candidate, because it means that if (I mean, when) Obama is the candidate, it won't be too hard for Clinton supporters to change sides.

The Philly papers played last night's debate pretty evenly. They didn't amplify the "gotcha" tone of the moderators, which is good, since the gotcha-over-substance quality of the questions was pretty vile. Maybe the media won't be all Weatherman, all the time.

The Weekly endorsed Obama, as did the tabloid-sized daily, the Philadelphia News. I don't know if the major paper, the Enquirer, has endorsed. (This is the cover of the Philadelphia Weekly).

Friday, 6pm, there will be a big Obama rally in the area around Independence Hall. They're hoping for a huge turnout, which is probable. The Philadelphia area belongs to Obama. Other parts of the state lean toward Clinton.

On another topic, two Philadelphia charter schools had their contracts taken away, for a variety of reasons having to do with student performance, fiscal reporting, etc. Another is being looked into for possible serious overcompensation of its CEO and his family. Those of you who have been around for awhile, when was the last time an Arizona charter school had its charter taken away? We have more charter schools than any state in the country -- we gave away charters like free popcorn -- and it's unlikely that all of them are spending their money wisely and educating their students well. Yet we don't hear about oversight, because there isn't any. (Part of the reason for the careful oversight here is, the Philly schools were deemed so bad, they were taken over by the state a few years ago. So it makes sense they'd be keeping careful track of how things are going.)

On the Ground in Philadelphia

by David Safier

I'm in Philly visiting family and working on the Obama campaign. Does any other Arizona blog have a correspondent right here where the action is? I don't think so! (Mike, you said you'd pay my expenses, right? Mike? Are you there, Mike?)

I took the photo at around 3:30 Philly Time in front of the Constitution Center where the debate will be happening tonight (I saw Jonathan Alter walk past -- identified him by his hairline more than his face.)

The Clinton and Obama camps were across the street from the center waving signs and chanting slogans. The Clinton campaign way out-organized the Obama folks on this front. They had hundreds of people in matching t-shirts carrying triple signs on long poles. We had about half as many people, most of us waving small lawn signs. Ah well, signage doesn't matter much, does it?

On last night's 11pm local news, the lead story was the campaigns. They asked whether the recent dust-up hurt Obama, and their conclusion was, the polls say no. He's about 6% behind Clinton, which is where things were a few days ago. The words "bitter," "guns" and "God" were not mentioned, which says to me the whole story is over, unless something else revives it.

The two local papers were equally low-keyed about the Obama statement that the Clinton and McCain camps tried to turn into the elite, anti-God, anti-gun statement of the millennium. The worst they could say was, maybe the story slowed Obama's momentum.

On the education front, the Philly Charter Schools are up to have their contracts renewed, and it looks like a few of them might be in trouble. Two might have the plug pulled due to poor performance. And in a completely separate incident, it looks like a family has been paying itself lavishly to run two charter schools, and they could be in deep trouble. This kind of thing couldn't happen in Arizona, of course. Nobody's watching. The state has put no money in the budget for monitoring or oversight of charter schools, so we really don't know much about what they're doing. Some are probably wonderful. Others are probably awful. But no one is minding the store.

Who Gave the Green Light to the Tim Bee Ad?

by David Safier

If you're hoping to get an answer to the headline question, "Who gave the green light to the Tim Bee ad?" you won't find it here. Sorry. Today I tried, unsuccessfully, to answer it.

I called the office of Joel Wirth, the Chief Financial Officer of Chandler School District, whose office number is listed on the Arizona Secretary of State's website as the contact for the Educational Financial Reform Group. That's the lobbying group behind the ad "thanking" Tim Bee for being a friend of education. I left a message on his machine and talked to his assistant, who said he would return my call. He hasn't.

To be fair, Mr. Wirth is probably a busy guy, and he may not consider me worthy of an immediate response. But in Daniel Scarpinato's original article on the topic in the Star, he wrote, "The spokesman for the Chandler Unified School District, which oversees the finances and founded the group, did not return phone calls." So this seems like a pattern of ducking questions. And in the long run, he's not doing himself any favors. He's raising suspicions about his actions, and my hunch is that true impetus behind the ad lies elsewhere.

Since I lack the hard information I wish I had, I'm going to use my 30 years of experience in public schools to take a venture into "creative journalism," which means I'm going to make stuff up that I think explains how this ad came about. If I'm wrong, I will be happy to have someone correct me, and I will gladly print the real story. That's what I want, the real story.

I don't think the school districts that pooled their lobbying funds to create EFRG had the intent of skirting the law to create a political ad for Bee, even though that was the result. That's not the way school district administrators work, in my experience. They're looking out for what they think is best for their districts. Even though I disagreed with my administration on a regular basis, I never saw them pull this kind of a stunt.

The districts pooled their money to lobby for the Career Ladder Program for their districts. It was a reasonable investment -- a few thousand dollars each with a possible return of higher salaries for their teachers.

They hired the lobbying firm, Public Policy Partners, headed by John Kaites, to carry the ball. Kaites is an ex-legislator who is a big Tim Bee supporter. Here's where I think the problem arose. Kaites decided he would try for a two-fer. First, he would score the Career Ladder legislation for the districts, which is what he was paid to do. Then he would give Bee all kinds of public recognition that would help him in his campaign against Giffords. I have no idea whether Bee had any knowledge of what was going on.

I can almost hear Kaites saying to EFRG, "Get some of your people up to Phoenix. Bee will address them. We'll film it, cut it into an ad and give Bee a big public thank you. It'll build you some good will you can use to your advantage in the future." The district reps said, "Sure," and the ad came together.

I doubt the school people considered the ramifications of creating a political ad with school monies, which is a violation of state law. If they had, I think they would have nixed the idea. School districts tend to be very sensitive about bad press, so I can't imagine they would take this kind of risk knowingly. Actually, it was Kaites' job to warn them of the danger and caution against the ad. Instead, I think he pushed it, then had the clever idea of leaving the group's name off the ad so there were no fingerprints.

Let me repeat, the sequence of events I've presented is pure conjecture. But it fits the facts. I hope someone will come forward and clear this up. I don't think this story is over yet. We need the people involved to clarify what parts they played in this ill-conceived, publicly funded campaign ad for Bee.

And the Award for Best Headline Goes to . . .

by David Safier

(TASL) Headline in today's New York Times: Despite Tough Times, Ultrarich Keep Spending.

So, even though lots of people are working multiple jobs to keep from going under (if they can find work, that is), losing their homes and seeing the cost of food and gas spiral upward, people who are obscenely wealthy are still spending lots of money. Who would have guessed?

Here's a headline I hope to see in the future: "Despite Higher Taxes on the Rich, Ultrarich Are Still Pretty Damn Rich."

FEC Complaint Against Bee Ad Certain To Languish

by Michael Bryan

I am reminded by the Bee complaint (and legal eagles with whom I consult on these matters) that the FEC currently only has two members, which means it does not have a quorum and cannot conduct any official business.

This is why the DNC complaint against McCain for promising to take public funds to secure a multi-million-dollar loan and then exceeding the FEC primary caps has not been acted on, either.  The appointments to the FEC are tied up over a dispute between Republicans who want their entire slate of appointees approved in a single vote (because some of them are just too atrocious even for Republicans to be seen voting for), and Democrats who want individual up or down votes on each nominee.

If this dispute is not resolved, the FEC will not be able to issue checks for public  financing of the fall campaign, and the FEC also will not be able to address the complaint against Bee (though it may be assigned to an investigative staff member).

Tim Bee's campaign may have legal liability if there is evidence to show that his campaign coordinated this ad with the Educational Financial Reform Group (EFRG). Proof of such co-ordination could possibly be contained in the b-roll of the footage shot to produce the ad, which may be why Cox Communications and Public Policy Partners who created the ad have so far proven unwilling to release that material to the media. We'll see if they are more cooperative with the FEC investigators when they demand access to that material. Wouldn't it be convenient if that material were somehow destroyed or lost in an administrative SNAFU in the interim?

The fines, if any, against the EFRG and/or the school districts will likely not be too severe; probably 100-200% of the amount in violation ($16K, we know of so far). But in extreme cases, the fines can start with a base of $10K and add as much as 1000% of the amount in violation. So there are potential fines of approaching $200K involved, but such fines would not be applied to Bee's campaign unless he coordinated with the maker of the ad.

There is also the issue of just who the heck the EFRG actually is. Who are it's board of directors and officers? How are they organized and how do they report their activities? What is its budget and how is has it been spent? What is the organization's charter and does it actually provide for lobbying expenditures? Who actually made the decision to spend public funds in this manner? There needs to be much more transparency about these questions if public funds are to be spent to influence public policy. So far, none of those questions have been answered to my satisfaction.

There are really two issues here, however: a legal issue, and a moral issue.  It is not clear at this point whether the Bee campaign did anything legally wrong themselves. But it appears that the EFRG organization may have broken both federal and Arizona elections laws. Will they be held to account for it? Whoever 'they' may be?

But even if this instance of electioneering were perfectly legal, which I doubt, the school districts' spending district tax dollars in support of a candidate rather than on the education of our children is just wrong. Considering the the base funding rate for a pupil in Arizona is just over $6K, a year's worth of education for two children was spent on this silly "Thank You" to Bee.

Emerson, Obama and Clinton

by David Safier

I'm taking another Sunday stroll through Meta-education Land (I'm planning to suggest Meta-Education Land as a new ride at Disneyland. The thrills! The Chills! The Erudition!). Today I'm taking a digression to one of my favorite essays of all time, Ralph Waldo Emerson's "The American Scholar."

I was reminded of the essay when someone on a cable news show mentioned the historical uniqueness of the Democratic presidential primary, where the two candidates left standing happen to be African American in one case and female in the other. The commenter said something to this effect: "We have to think of these two, not as an African American or a woman running for president, but presidential candidates who happen to be African American and female."

I thought these were wise words. Don't place Obama's and Clinton's racial and gender identities as their primary identifiers. Make them secondary descriptors. Say, "Oh, by the way, Barack Obama, the presidential candidate with the following qualifications and positions on the issues . . . is also black," not "Here is this black guy who thinks he can be president." The same for Clinton. Put her positions and qualifications first, and her gender as something you would mention in the same way you say McCain is from Arizona. It's relevant, but not critical to whether she is qualified to be president.

In "The American Scholar," Emerson talks about the fable that there is actually one "Man" (He uses the prefeminist term "Man" to describe humanity, as did everyone at the time, rather than "Person,"), and we are all portions of that one being -- fingers and toes, necks and stomachs, as it were. And he regrets that we refuse to acknowledge our Oneness but instead have become loose appendages severed from the whole:

Unfortunately, this original unit, this fountain of power, has been so distributed to multitudes, has been so minutely subdivided and peddled out, that it is spilled into drops, and cannot be gathered. The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters,--a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man.

In this world of "walking monsters," the Person/Man who indulges in the noble act of farming "sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm." And so it goes with others who are consumed by their professions and ignore their Human-ness: "the attorney [becomes] a statute-book; the mechanic, a machine; the sailor, a rope of a ship."

Two People, two representatives of our greater Humanity, are running to be the Democratic candidate for president. Among the characteristics of these People, one happens to have some of his ancestry going back to Africa, and the other happens to be a female. The question we need to ask ourselves is, "Which of these two People is the best Democratic choice to become the next President of the United States?" Their genders and ancestry are part of the mix, just as the fact that McCain is white and male is relevant. To deny that would be ridiculous. But they should not be the primary considerations.

Are we ready to see these two candidates as People first, as Emerson suggests we should? It is a genuine, and troubling question that, once this election is over, will continue to be discussed for decades.

Money for Potential Arizona Teachers

by David Safier

(TASL) In my ideal world, teachers would be paid considerably more, both to reward them for the difficulty of the work and to attract the best candidates to the field.

In my less-than-ideal-but-better-than-it-is-now world, teachers would have their college loans forgiven for each of the first five years they teach.

We seem to be edging toward the latter. Here are a few ways for teachers to pay for college by committing to teach when they're through.

In Arizona, the Mathematics Science and Special Education Teacher Student Loan Forgiveness Program pays for up to five years of college tuition for students who agree to teach math, science or special ed. Unfortunately, funding only allows for 500 people to take part. David Schapira, D-Tempe, who taught for awhile himself, wants to increase the budget for the program and expand it to include teachers who agree to teach in rural areas.

Beginning with the 2008-2009 school year, the federal government will implement "the Teacher Education Assistance for College and Higher Education (TEACH) Grant Program that provides grants of up to $4,000 per year to students who intend to teach in a public or private elementary or secondary school that serves students from low-income families."

Programs like these will encourage more students to consider a teaching career because of the free or reduced-price education. After five years, if they don't like teaching, they can move on. The programs cost money, of course, but they're not as costly as raising all teacher salaries, so it's more likely they'll be put into practice.

It's a start, and a hell of a lot better than the situation today, where beginning teachers are paid crummy wages, and "Oh, you remember you have to pay back those tens of thousands of dollars in student loans, right?" Maybe if these programs show results, they'll be expanded to include more potential teachers.