DavisParents.org

Open enrollment may become law

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 21:38:00 +0000

Open enrollment may become law

Sunday, February 17, 2008
By LORETTA PARK
Standard-Examiner staff

State Board of Education:

Current rule should suffice

SALT LAKE CITY -- Parents in Davis School District are asking legislators to make open enrollment a law instead of an administrative rule.

The House Education Committee on Friday unanimously approved House Bill 349, sponsored by Rep. Julie Fisher, R-Fruit Heights.

The bill would allow students to transfer to another school during the school year if the receiving school's enrollment is at or below open-enrollment figures. Those figures are based on the number of teachers, Fisher said, and do not require schools to hire additional teachers.

"This bill will give parents greater options to meet the individual needs of their students," she said.

Because of boundary changes, Denise Griffiths' daughter ended up at Woods Cross High School instead of Bountiful High School with most of her friends.

Her daughter's sophomore year turned into a nightmare, said the mother, who was one of a number of parents attending the meeting.

Griffiths applied for a variance so her daughter could transfer to Bountiful High School, but was denied. After appeals were denied, Griffiths said her only option was to transfer legal guardianship over to her mother, who lives within Bountiful High School boundaries.

"I was so upset that I was going to do something that drastic that I drove over to the school district," she said.

Superintendent Bryan Bowles listened to her case and allowed her daughter to attend Bountiful High School, Griffiths said.

Davis School Board member Tamara Lowe said after the meeting she does not think the bill will cause any major changes.

"Kids change schools for a lot of reasons, and parents need that flexibility, but I'm concerned we may crowd one school."

Lowe said the bill came about because of boundary disputes that occurred last year because of the opening of Syracuse High School.

She said she doesn't think a law is needed because the state Board of Education already has a rule in place that is similar to Fisher's proposed legislation.

"The state board rule adequately covers it," said Carol Lear, director of school law and legislation for the state Office of Education.

The state Office of Education still has some concerns about the bill, Lear said. Among them are that concerned parents will request to put their children in schools for special programs, such as gifted and talented, then find out after the child is enrolled that those programs are closed, even though there is space in the school for more students.

The bill does allow Title I schools and schools with special education programs to deny students enrollment if the programs are closed.

Fisher's bill now goes to the House floor for consideration.

Davis has 3 of the top 10 HS in the state

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 15:10:00 +0000

Utah students again rank high on AP tests compared to nation
By Lisa Schencker
The Salt Lake Tribune
Article Last Updated: 02/18/2008 06:23:43 AM MST

More Latino students in Utah are taking Advanced Placement tests, but more work still is needed to increase their participation and that of other minority students on the tests, a state education official said Wednesday.
    White students still accounted for most AP tests taken last year - 85.5 percent, according to data released Wednesday by the College Board. Latino students, who made up 8.9 percent of Utah high school students, accounted for just 5.4 percent of exams taken.
    But the College Board noted that while the state's Latino student population grew 29 percent over the past five years, their participation rate in AP testing more than doubled, from 237 in 2002 to 476 in 2007, a jump lauded by the Utah State Office of Education.
    "While it's good news, it's important to realize we all need to continue our efforts," until Latino and other minority students participate at the same rate as white students, said Associate State Schools Superintendent Larry Shumway.
    He attributed the jump in Latino students' participation to at least two things: counseling in junior high school that steers them toward the classes they'll need to eventually reach AP classes, and the Mathematics, Engineering, Science Achievement (MESA) program in high schools, which targets female and minority students.
    The board's report noted 14,096 Utah students took a total of 22,609 AP exams in 2007 and that 14,891 of those tests came in with a score of 3, 4 or 5, which is good enough to earn college credit.
    That gave the state's public school students an overall pass rate of 65.9 percent, compared with the national passing rate of 57.2 percent.
    Utah students' passing rate on the tests ranks them ninth in the nation, according to the College Board.
    lschencker@sltrib.com

    Top 10 public high schools for passing rates on Advanced Placement tests:
    * Davis High School, Kaysville, 84%
    * Wayne High School, Bicknell, 83%
    * Brighton High School, Cottonwood Heights, 82%
    * Timpview High School, Provo, 82%
    * Viewmont High School, Bountiful, 81%
    * Bountiful High School, Bountiful, 80%
    * West High School, Salt Lake City, 80%
    * Skyline High School, East Millcreek, 79%
    * Bingham High School, South Jordan, 78%
    * Mountain View High School, Orem, 78%
    Source: The College Board

H.B. 349 Open Enrollment Revisions

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 12:52:00 +0000

H.B. 349 Open Enrollment Revisions

1. Clarifies reasons a school may reject an application for enrollment.

2. Defines a schools capacity for open enrollment based on district average class size. As class sizes drop, the capacity of the school drops proportionally.

3. Modifies the threshold below which a school is open for enrollment of nonresident students from 90% of capacity to 90% of capacity or space for 40 additional students.

4. Introduces a “late enrollment” period during which a student may apply for enrollment in a nonresident school. (Late enrollment capacity is based on current staff; therefore late enrollment transfers will not effect staffing plans). The current open enrollment period ends in the February prior to the start of the school year.

5. Requires local school boards to post data on the school district's website regarding school capacity and applications for enrollment of nonresident students.

6. Requires local school boards to establish policies ensuring that schools do not discriminate against any individual or group of nonresident students.

“National PTA supports public school choice, and believes that public school choice can instill competition and competition’s inherent benefits into the education system without diverting taxpayer money to private schools…There are a variety of reasons for parents to seek this type of public school choice, including enrolling a student in a school closer to the parent’s employment, facilitating access to before- and after-school care, and allowing a student to participate in a unique course of academic work.” Source: www.pta.org

“I believe this bill to be a good one that supports the notion of family choice in education. I am a strong believer that families should have tremendous voice in school choice for their children. This bill is a clear, responsible way to accomplish that goal.”
Superintendent Bryan Bowles
Davis School District
Utah’s ’06-07 Superintendent of the Year

Sixteen percent or approximately 85,000 Utah children will not graduate from high school. Parents have the primary responsibility to reduce that number. Open Enrollment empowers parents to make the changes that are best for their children.

Bountiful High 'moving on' after appeal gets rejected

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 16:02:00 +0000

Bountiful High ‘moving on’ after appeal gets rejected
Scott Schulte 18.DEC.07
MIDVALE — “It’s time to move on.” That is what Bountiful High School principal Ryck Astle has said since losing an appeal to the Utah High School Activities Association on its disciplinary action toward the Braves’ basketball program.

Bountiful was found guilty by the UHSAA of using “undue influence” with regards to basketball players who attended Mueller Park Junior High School. The students in question, according to the UHSAA were swayed to attend Bountiful High rather than Woods Cross, the school in which they reside.

The UHSAA said in its initial findings that Bountiful had used undue influence because a former Bountiful High sophomore basketball coach also coached the Mueller Park team, that the Bountiful boys basketball program took junior high school students, including some living in the Woods Cross boundaries to summer camps where they participated as part of the “Bountiful ninth grade team, and that Braves coach Mike Maxwell had coached a super league team that included students who lived in Woods Cross boundaries.

See clipper for more

Davis School Board Elections

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 15:25:00 +0000

Three board members are up for re-election in 2008

Marian Story - Precinct #4
Served since 1997

Barbara Smith - Precinct #1
Served since 1993

William Moore - Precinct #2
Served since 1997

Filing date: March 7-17, 2008
Filing location: Davis Co. Clerks office

For more information call Pat Beckstead, clerks office @451 3540

DHS is #1 in State for AP Tests

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:00:00 +0000

The teachers in the Davis School District are among the best in the state and the nation.

Davis High school is No. 1 in the state for AP participation — 1,345 tests taken — and pass scores, with an 83.5 percent rate. The marks are a feather in Davis' cap, a tribute to teachers and students, principal Rulon Homer said. He also acknowledges AP "is just one piece of the big picture of what you're doing, and it accounts for one group of kids."

"School needs to be rigorous," said principal Homer, who urges sophomores at orientation to seize every opportunity they can. "We live in a day and an age where kids need a solid, solid foundation in academics to go out there and compete."

see DesNews Aug 29

Davis School Board eyes tax hike

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 03:13:00 +0000

Davis School Board eyes tax hike
Clipper
FARMINGTON — The Davis Board of Education is seeking public input at its Aug. 7 meeting. The board is considering voting to expand its Voted Leeway property tax to the maximum limit allowed — something that could bring about $2 in state funds for every local dollar raised.

What that means for Davis schools is if the county pulls in an increase of $1.87 million in property taxes, then an additional $3.5 million will come from state tax monies. That’s money which the board members agreed the district could not afford to lose.

“One of the messages we keep hearing from our legislators over and over when we ask them for more funding is, ‘You are not fully utilizing the funding opportunities that are yours now,’” said board member Bill Moore. “So we need to step up to the plate.”

In past years taxes have been kept low because as house values increase taxes rates could be lowered to maintain the same level of funding. “Our system in the state of Utah is not rate-driven. It is revenue-driven,” said Bruce Williams assistant superintendent and business administrator.

The maximum tax rate is set by the county, and the current rate is below that maximum. “We are at a point now where we have to raise those rates up…or we will lose money,” Williams said.

Board members accepted the first proposal of the possible tax increase Tuesday night for the 2007-2008 budget, but will have to wait for final approval later. The increase would actually boost four tax levies, the Voted Leeway, Board Leeway, Reading Achievement and Transportation, said Williams.

The Voted Leeway Levy is used for general supplies, textbooks, computer equipment and to fund the capital impact of new schools on the operating budget. If the increase is approved, it would generate $1.3 million for the district. If it is not approved, the district would lose $2.7 million, Williams said.

For example, three new schools are opening this fall: Syracuse High School, Ellison Park in Layton and Snow Horse in west Kaysville.

The Board Leeway Levy is earmarked for class-size reduction. This levy would generate $331,000 if approved. Without it, the district would lose $683,000.

The Reading Achievement Levy is used to raise funds for the K-3 reading program, and finally the Transportation Levy is used to fund hazardous bus routes, activity buses, field trips and purchasing of new buses.

“The reason we want to do that is that for three years after the maximum levy is put into place, we can operate as though we’re at maximum even though the certified tax rate falls for three years. If we don’t increase it, state revenue falls off,” Williams said.

If the board approves the local tax increase, it would mean homeowners would pay an additional $17 a year on a $190,000 home, which is estimated to be a median-priced home in Davis County. Board members are trying to be cautious about raising property taxes, but they need the money for the $555 million budget for the 2007-2008 year to work.

“We also need to point that out to the public; that the Legislature has directed us when it comes to funding to be responsible,” Tamara Lowe, board vice president, said.

CONGRATULATIONS - Utah graduation rates top nation

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 23:24:00 +0000

Despite spending less per pupil on its students than any other state in the nation, Utah has the highest high-school graduation rate of any state, according to data released Tuesday by the publication Education Week. Tribune Jun 13 (read more)

The role of Parents in Education

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Mon, 14 May 2007 04:57:00 +0000

Dear Davis County Parents,

Over the last four months as we have worked with the Legislature and State School Board to create public school choice (the right for a parent to remove their child from a neighborhood school and enroll them in another public school with capacity), I’ve come to realize that a core belief among many education administrators is that the “good of the school” outweighs the “good of the child”. While I don’t agree, I understand that good people can approach the common goal of educating children differently. Personally I feel strongly that the common good is to meet the need of the individual child, and to achieve this, parents must have a strong voice in the education of children.

This year we have seen several education battles in our state including “Choice in Education (Vouchers)”, “Public School Choice”, “Small School Districts” and “Public vote for Superintendent Retention” to name just a few. Every one of these issues revolves around one fundamental difference of opinion. Should parents be empowered to choose, or influence, What, When, Where and How their child is educated. Traditionally this has been the responsibility of the educational elite. The century old monopoly approach to education is required if the education elite is to maintain their political and social power to manage the system. Unfortunately, managing the system is not always what is needed to respond to the changing demands of a global economy. Especially when the system has insolated itself from competition and consumer feedback.

As public school parents we should celebrate the 2007 legislative victories. A unanimous vote of the House and Senate has required that the State School Board create new rules to implement “Public School Choice”. Parents were given the right to direct a small fraction of the education dollars in the form of a voucher. Teachers were given an across the board raise and the largest education funding increase in the history of the state was passed. Unfortunately, many career administrators see too much power shifting to parents and are fighting hard to maintain the status quo. I believe that most of these administrators are sincere in their belief that they, not parents, know what is best for our children.

As we prepare for a vote regarding vouchers I strongly encourage you to gain the facts. When you hear how evil they are, find out for yourself. We have and will continue to hear much about how “the sky is falling” on our children’s education because of vouchers. But the facts simply don’t support it. Economically it has the potential of significantly boosting public school spending per child. The math is really quite simple, as a state we spend on average $7,500 per child every year. The average voucher is expected to be less then $2,000. That leaves $5,500 left in the system to reduce class sizes and increase teacher pay. Further, if parents had a choice in education, there is no way the Davis School District could continue to dismiss parents desire of parents.

Please join me this Tuesday for a rally to support school choice (see attached):

WHEN: Tuesday, May 15, 2007
TIME: 1:30 - 2:30 PM
WHERE: State Capitol, Salt Lake City
(courtyard on the north side of the main capitol building)

Sincerely,

Randy Smith
Concerned Father
Spokesman, DavisParents.org

Forcing districts to loosen transfer policies

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 15:41:00 +0000

Forcing districts to loosen transfer policies and to split when they get too large... is how the Salt Lake Tribune started their article abut yesterday's State School Board meeting where DavisParents.org persuade there goal of giving Parents a choice in public education. (See Board Examines Bulging Districts, SLTrib 4/6/07).

It was purely coincidental that the issue with bulging district size was on the same agenda as enrollment options but the correlation between the problems was easy to see. When the district it too large, the district administration is too far aware from the public they are hired to serve.

In the Public School Choice discussion, Granite School District spoke to the fact that 10% of their students attend a non-resident school and Davis School District spoke increasing the allowed tranfers from 1.5% to 2% (but only for one year).

After hearing from the Davis School District, Grantite School District and Davis Parents, Board member Mark Cluff made the following concluding comments:

"I have no doubt in all my working with the districts that they're trying to meet the needs of schools and parents and communities. As we try to over-define what needs to happen, we become more concerned with what's best for us, what's easiest for us, and forget what's best for the parent and the child."

To that I say...Amen.

Several Davis Schools Rate Very High

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Sun, 25 Mar 2007 13:43:00 +0000

The Sutherland Institute released a study of public and private schools this month. Bountiful and Davis High ranked in the top 5 high schools, Centerville tied for 4th in the Jr. High Division and Valley View and Centerville ranked in the top 5 elementary schools.

Congratulations to these great schools.

see Deseret News, Mar. 23 , www.utahschools.org

Parents must have a voice in public education

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Wed, 14 Mar 2007 13:14:00 +0000

Dear Davis County Parents,

Is opposition to Parents for Choice in Education (vouchers), based on a real concern for our children, or a concern that with choice, parents might expect more? I spoke with a mother this week whose daughter had previously suffered from an eating disorder and now in high school was struggling with this terrible affliction again. The mother believes that, among other things, a change in high schools will be critical to her recovery. Her variance request was denied. Armed with letters from two doctors, the mother appealed. It was denied. The desperate mother then appealed to the district Director of Admission who told her there is nothing he could do. When she reminded him there was plenty of room at the other high school he replied “it is not about capacity, it’s about teachers and things you don’t understand”.

What does the district value over the health of a child? When the SL Tribune asked the District about the variance policy that had been used to deny the Haycock’s 9^th grader from attending the same high school as his older sister, District spokesman, Chris Williams said “the district needs to limit transfers so programs aren't harmed by a student exodus.” (See SL Tribune Mar. 7). I thought our public schools were for the benefit of our children, but Mr. Williams tells us that our children are for the benefit of their programs.

When our school administrators are so paranoid of what parents might do if they could choose, their fear of vouchers should not come as a surprise. Last week DEA President Susan Firmage sent an email inviting school employees to an anti-voucher meeting at Davis High, Thursday March 8^th at 4:00 p.m. In the email she stated that Superintendent Bowles had sent an email requesting that all the Principals attend or send a representative from their administration. At the meeting Dr. Bowles, flanked by Board President Storey and Board Member Bain, instructed them about what role they could play in the petition drive against Parents for Choice in Education. Given that he is the CEO of a $470,000,000 education enterprise and the Board President was standing with him, would you feel strong armed into supporting his plan? If you would, the message was is clear, marshal your resources to prevent choice from ruining a perfectly good monopoly.

How can an administration this afraid of competition ever rise to the challenge of preparing our children to compete in the global economy? Last week the U.S. Chamber of Commerce issued a report on whether we are preparing our children to compete in a global economy, they gave Utah a “C” in “Academic Achievement” and “Rigor of Academic Standards” and a “D” in “Truth in advertising about student proficiency” (see Deseret News, Mar 1). Nationally, federal studies concluded that 40% of high school seniors failed to perform at the basic level on a national math test and half of 12th-graders couldn’t demonstrate basic science skills (see Deseret News, Mar. 8). Maybe market influences can help create the change necessary to meet the global challenge.

As a public school parent who never intends to use a voucher, I am convinced that vouchers will strengthen and not harm public education even though it may threaten the status quo. The voucher is far less expensive than the full cost to educate a child, therefore there will be more money available for the children that remain in the system. More importantly, if administrators knew that parents have a real choice, they might be more interested in the will of the parents and more likely to respond to the changing world and changing needs of education.

Please see the article, “Say no to the referendum” and DO NOT SIGN AWAY YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE.

Randy Smith

Spokesman, DavisParents.org

“Because public schools belong to the public”

Gates urges overhaul of schools

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:18:00 +0000

Bill Gates, who has personally donated $3 billion dollars to education since 1999, is calling for an immediate overhaul of the nation’s schools if we are going to keep our jobs from going overseas. As reported in the Deseret News Mar. 9 2007 Gates told congress "The U.S. cannot maintain its economic leadership unless our work force consists of people who have the knowledge and skills needed to drive innovation," Gates told the Senate committee that oversees labor and education issues.”

Why is he alarmed. It’s not hard to understand when you realize that:

* A federal study released last month showed about a third of high schoolers fail to take a standard-level curriculum, which is defined as including at least four credits of English and three credits each of social studies, math and science.

* A federal study found 40 percent of high school seniors failed to perform at the basic level on a national math test.

* On a national science test, half of 12th-graders didn't show basic skills.

"We simply cannot sustain an economy based on innovation unless our citizens are educated in math, science and engineering," Gates said.

Whether you like Gates or not, these are alarming and real concerns for future of our country and standard of living for our children. What are we doing to solve this problem?

State School Board takes closer look at the new voucher rules

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 11:11:00 +0000

As you can tell from the Tribune story below, the meeting with the committee of the State School Board went very well. Most board members there took turns giving their reasons why parents must have the opportunity to transfer. One board member spoke of his experience with New York schools, where every student can choose their school. If schools weren’t good enough to retain their students, they had to either fix the problems or close the school. Another board member noted that 5 students from his district might be alive today, had they been given the opportunity to go to choose their school rather than having to cross the dangerous rail road tracks.

I’m assuming the Woods Cross numbers, reported in the article, came directly from the district because while they are similar to the actual numbers for SY06 they are not what was reported yesterday. Thanks to all the parents that attended. Your voices and personal stories were priceless.

-Randy

Legislature repealed old law; board must tackle a rewrite

By Nicole Stricker
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Article Last Updated:

Jody Haycock thought she'd have no trouble transferring her daughter from chock-full Woods Cross High School to Bountiful High School.
But the Davis School District denied her transfer request and those of roughly 80 other families. The district allowed only 20 students to transfer into Bountiful, which has 100 vacant seats.
Bountiful High "wanted to let her in but said their hands were tied," Haycock said. "It was so frustrating, it just did not make sense to me."
Utah code says students should be allowed to choose any public school "to the extent reasonably feasible," but families such as the Haycocks have been stymied by state and local board of education rules. So they took their concerns to the Legislature, which repealed the state rule. On Wednesday, the Utah Board of Education began discussing how to rewrite it.
The repeal came about when Randy Smith, spokesman of the group DavisParents.org, approached a legislator with concerns about the state school board's rule. It said schools could "close" themselves to transfers if enrollment topped 14 students in early grades and 18 students in grades four and higher.
Under that definition, most schools along the Wasatch Front would be closed to transfers. However, most districts set less stringent criteria for granting "variances" to transferring students. For example, Davis School District policy says schools may accept transfers totalling 1.5 percent of student population. At Bountiful High, that's about 20 kids.
"This year the school board decided to up that to 2 percent," said Chris Williams, the district spokesman. "Our view is, we took a very lenient approach to it all and tried to make opportunities available as much as possible."
Williams and others have said the district needs to limit transfers so programs aren't harmed by a student exodus.
Yet legislators were sympathetic to Smith's cause and even state Schools Superintendent Patti Harrington agreed the current rule could use an overhaul. So lawmakers repealed it, forcing the rewrite now under way.
Members of the state school board's finance committee heard testimony from several frustrated parents Wednesday and asked the state Office of Education to draft a new rule for the board's April meeting. At that meeting, Davis officials will be invited to tell their side of the story before the board votes on a new rule.
In the meantime, after a year of letters and emotional pleas, Haycock finally found a sympathetic ear at the Davis Board of Education.
"He said, 'I will put this before the board one more time for you and see what happens,' " she said. "And they did approve it, finally."
nstricker@sltrib.com

SCHOOL DISTRICT IS "COWARDLY AND ARROGANT," ATTORNEY SAYS

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 02:29:00 +0000

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: [Name Removed]

March 6, 2007

COURT RULING ON DAVIS SCHOOL DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL BOUNDARY

ISSUE DEMONSTRATES THAT SCHOOL DISTRICT IS “COWARDLY AND

ARROGANT,” ATTORNEY SAYS

Judge Michael G. Allphin of the Second Judicial District Court in Davis County issued a

ruling today that dismissed the lawsuit brought by a group of parents and neighbors in

Davis County against the Davis School District that sought a permanent injunction

against the District from further violating the Utah Open and Public Meeting Act. In it,

the court agreed that the District had violated the law, but said that the case was now

“moot” in light of the District’s actions in hiring a consultant whose recommendations on

high school boundaries were adopted by the District in January.

“The judge’s ruling proves how cowardly and arrogant the Davis School District has

been in this case,” said Randall K. Edwards, lawyer for the group that brought the suit.

“Instead of taking a chance that they would actually be forced to listen to the public in an

open and public forum, the District first hired a hand-picked ‘consultant’ – a former

Davis School District superintendent – to make the boundary decisions behind closed

doors, and then begged the court to delay a hearing on the lawsuit until the boundaries

had been changed. The District could then claim that there was ‘no harm, no foul,’

because they had rushed a final decision on the high school boundaries before the case

could finally be heard in court. Not once in the whole process was any member of the

general public ever allowed to speak to the ‘consultant.’ It was a charade from start to

finish.”

The court’s ruling affirmed that the decision issued last November to stop the school

board from considering recommendations from closed “boundary committee” meetings

was “justified, based upon the facts and the law,” and, in rendering its ruling that the case

was now moot, considered that the school board had been forced to issue an internal

directive to adhere strictly to that earlier order.

Edwards remarked, “It’s hard to tell whether the District will have learned anything from

this lawsuit. While it’s true that the board had to face the fact that it was acting in

violation of the law, it’s also true that the board dealt with that by continuing to shut the

public out of the decision-making process, all the time desperately delaying a day of

reckoning before the court. It is the height of arrogance for the District to try to avoid its

responsibilities to listen to the public in a public forum.”

Edwards added, “In my opinion, the school board has shot itself in the foot on this one.

After its shameful conduct in this case, I don’t think anybody trusts the District to be

responsive to its constituents. Instead, the board seems intent on avoiding any

meaningful input from the public it has been elected to serve. Who can believe them

now?”

-end-

Vouchers can improve public schools

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 04:25:00 +0000

Given the recent experience in the Davis School District where the viewpoint of parents were considered to be just a nuisance to the process of running the district, I’ve started looking into vouchers. Not so that Norene and I can remove our children from our public schools but to see if a little competition also known as market forces might help parents to receive a little respect from the monopoly of the Davis School District. Here is some of that data:

Vouchers in Florida improve failing public schools
• A 2004 Manhattan Institute study published in the journal Education Next found that low-performing schools facing the threat of vouchers made significantly greater test-score gains than similarly low-performing schools not facing the voucher threat. Schools where vouchers were actually offered showed the biggest improvements, outpacing other Florida schools by a full 15 points.
• A Cornell University study published in the same issue of that journal found that schools given F grades under the A+ system made greater-than-average gains, while F schools under Florida’s earlier system (with no vouchers) made no gains relative to other schools.
• A 2005 Harvard University study confirms that students in failing schools under the A+ program made superior test score gains.

Milwaukee’s voucher program has also improved public schools
• A 2001 Harvard University study found that public schools more exposed to voucher competition had test score gains that outpaced other public schools by 10.2 percentile points in math and 9.3 points in language over three years.
• A 2003 Manhattan Institute study found that fourth grade test score gains were much bigger in schools where more students were eligible for vouchers, such that a school where 100% of students were eligible would have test score gains 15 points higher than a school with only 50% eligible.

Other voucher programs improve public schools
• A 2002 Friedman Foundation study found that under century-old “town tuitioning” voucher programs in Maine and Vermont, public schools closer to tuitioning towns had better test scores. If a town one mile away from a school decided to tuition its students, the percentage of its students passing the state test would increase by 12 percent.
• A 2003 Manhattan Institute study found that a San Antonio school district facing competition from a privately funded voucher program outperformed 85% of Texas districts in its achievement gains.

Source: http://www.utahtaxpayers.org/

Are District's given free rein to violate the law?

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Sun, 04 Mar 2007 03:21:00 +0000

After the Ogden, Jordan and Davis School Districts have conducted important business behind closed doors in violation of the law, I was surprised that the Attorney General did not file any charges against the Jordan School District last week when he announced that they had violated the Utah Open Public Meeting Act (UOPMA). Each one of these boards would expel a student for violating the law but they seem to believe they are immune from being accountable for their own actions.

Consider the following history of violations.

Winter 2006

The Ogden School Board split its body into halves and conducted two closed meetings of four members each. In doing so, the school board conducted the people's business behind closed doors, which violated the spirit and letter of the law. (see Deseret News Feb. 10, 2006)

Summer 2006

A report from the legislative auditor general in the summer found that some school boards close meetings frequently and inappropriately. (see Deseret News Jan. 1, 2007).

Fall 2006
Parents file a lawsuit against the Davis School District over violations of the UOPMA and were granted an immediate Temporary Restraining Order against the District. The district then chose to go into delay mode trying to make the lawsuit irrelevant by delaying it well past the date the boundaries were decided. (see Deseret News Dec. 10, 2006).

Winter 2007
The Attorney General is compelled to file a lawsuit against the Jordan School District for failure to turn over the audio recordings of a closed meeting. In February, after reviewing the tapes, the AG announces that the Jordan School District violated the UOPMA, but didn’t file any charges. (see Deseret News Feb. 23, 2007)

On Monday March 5^th
Judge Allphin will hear arguments from the Davis School District that they should get a pass for their violations. And why does the district think they should get a pass? Because everyone is doing it. Hopefully the Judge will realize that their argument is exactly why they should not get a pass. After the Attorney General failed to remind our school districts that the laws and the penalties apply to them, maybe Judge Allphin can teach them this important lesson.

School choice prepares kids for the world

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 21:30:00 +0000

Jay Evensen, editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page is dead on in his editorial below. The competition we need to face is not public vs. private education, but rather the U.S. education and the rest of the world.

- Randy

Deseret Morning News, Sunday, January 21, 2007

School choice prepares kids for the world

By Jay Evensen
Deseret Morning News

Private school vouchers are shaping up to be a hot topic at this year's Legislature. Unfortunately, it's the kind of heat that gets passions burning, and when that happens, people stop listening.

So it might help for everyone to calm down a bit and look at the problem from a different perspective.

OK, I know. Even using the word "problem" is a problem. Supporters of the status quo don't think there is much of a problem, or at least that it can be solved within the current framework.

That's why a recent report from the National Center on Education and the Economy is so interesting. It defines the problem fairly well and in ways difficult to refute.

The report, by the way, was supported by foundations that typically don't strike fear in either side of this debate — people such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

The problem, as the report sees it, centers less on competition between public and private schools in America and more on the competition between America and the rest of the world.

"Over the past 30 years, one country after another has surpassed us in the proportion of their entering work force with the equivalent of a high school diploma," the report's executive summary says. "Thirty years ago, the United States could lay claim to having 30 percent of the world's population of college students. Today that proportion has fallen to 14 percent and is continuing to fall."

And the surprising aspect to this is that other nations are producing highly educated people willing to work for much less than our own highly educated people. Even if we succeed in producing more engineers and mathematicians, employers would rather hire theirs for less.

The answer, the report says, is to be the country that produces important new products and technologies and, therefore, can "capture a premium in world markets. ..."

Success "depends on a deep vein of creativity that is constantly renewing itself, and on a myriad of people who can imagine how people can use things that have never been available before, create ingenious marketing and sales campaigns, write books, build furniture, make movies and imagine new kinds of software that will capture people's imagination and become indispensable to millions."

And, quite frankly, our current system of public education, with its agrarian-based, Industrial Age assumptions, isn't cutting it.

I learned about this report from John Fund, an editorial writer at the Wall Street Journal. I sat next to him recently before he spoke to a group of school-choice supporters in Salt Lake City.

Fund referred to the current system as the "education-industrial complex" and compared reform efforts here to "breaking the iron rice bowl." But, he said, "If you don't break it, the Chinese and Indians will break it for you."

Before you get too emotional, consider that the Center on Education and the Economy has a much more radical proposal than school vouchers. It recommends forming state boards of examination that could pass kids onto college when they're ready, regardless of age. It would pay teachers much more than they currently make, and it would make them all state employees, not employees of local districts.

And, yes, it would provide more money for the most effective teachers, as well as for those willing to take on the tough inner-city challenges or the tough subjects.

Perhaps the most radical recommendation is that all schools would be operated by independent contractors, some even owned and run by teachers. These would operate under contracts and monitored for performance, and parents would be allowed to freely choose among them.

You can read the report at www.skillscommission.org.

It sort of makes the debate at this year's Legislature seem like a food fight over baby steps. But if Utah won't even take baby steps in parental choice among its poorest citizens, what chances do our kids have against other nations?

Jay Evensen is editor of the Deseret Morning News editorial page. E-mail: even@desnews.com

How to Bring Our Schools Out of the 20th Century

noreply@blogger.com (Randy) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 19:59:00 +0000

Time.com and CNN

Sunday, Dec. 10, 2006

By Claudia Wallis, Sonja Steptoe

There's a dark little joke exchanged by educators with a dissident streak: Rip Van Winkle awakens in the 21st century after a hundred-year snooze and is, of course, utterly bewildered by what he sees. Men and women dash about, talking to small metal devices pinned to their ears. Young people sit at home on sofas, moving miniature athletes around on electronic screens. Older folk defy death and disability with metronomes in their chests and with hips made of metal and plastic. Airports, hospitals, shopping malls--every place Rip goes just baffles him. But when he finally walks into a schoolroom, the old man knows exactly where he is. "This is a school," he declares. "We used to have these back in 1906. Only now the blackboards are green."

American schools aren't exactly frozen in time, but considering the pace of change in other areas of life, our public schools tend to feel like throwbacks. Kids spend much of the day as their great-grandparents once did: sitting in rows, listening to teachers lecture, scribbling notes by hand, reading from textbooks that are out of date by the time they are printed. A yawning chasm (with an emphasis on yawning) separates the world inside the schoolhouse from the world outside.

For the past five years, the national conversation on education has focused on reading scores, math tests and closing the "achievement gap" between social classes. This is not a story about that conversation. This is a story about the big public conversation the nation is not having about education, the one that will ultimately determine not merely whether some fraction of our children get "left behind" but also whether an entire generation of kids will fail to make the grade in the global economy because they can't think their way through abstract problems, work in teams, distinguish good information from bad or speak a language other than English.

This week the conversation will burst onto the front page, when the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce, a high-powered, bipartisan assembly of Education Secretaries and business, government and other education leaders releases a blueprint for rethinking American education from pre-K to 12 and beyond to better prepare students to thrive in the global economy. While that report includes some controversial proposals, there is nonetheless a remarkable consensus among educators and business and policy leaders on one key conclusion: we need to bring what we teach and how we teach into the 21st century.

Right now we're aiming too low. Competency in reading and math--the focus of so much No Child Left Behind (NCLB) testing--is the meager minimum. Scientific and technical skills are, likewise, utterly necessary but insufficient. Today's economy demands not only a high-level competence in the traditional academic disciplines but also what might be called 21st century skills. Here's what they are:

Knowing more about the world. Kids are global citizens now, even in small-town America, and they must learn to act that way. Mike Eskew, CEO of UPS, talks about needing workers who are "global trade literate, sensitive to foreign cultures, conversant in different languages"--not exactly strong points in the U.S., where fewer than half of high school students are enrolled in a foreign-language class and where the social-studies curriculum tends to fixate on U.S. history.

Thinking outside the box. Jobs in the new economy--the ones that won't get outsourced or automated--"put an enormous premium on creative and innovative skills, seeing patterns where other people see only chaos," says Marc Tucker, an author of the skills-commission report and president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. Traditionally that's been an American strength, but schools have become less daring in the back-to-basics climate of NCLB. Kids also must learn to think across disciplines, since that's where most new breakthroughs are made. It's interdisciplinary combinations--design and technology, mathematics and art--"that produce YouTube and Google," says Thomas Friedman, the best-selling author of The World Is Flat.

Becoming smarter about new sources of information. In an age of overflowing information and proliferating media, kids need to rapidly process what's coming at them and distinguish between what's reliable and what isn't. "It's important that students know how to manage it, interpret it, validate it, and how to act on it," says Dell executive Karen Bruett, who serves on the board of the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, a group of corporate and education leaders focused on upgrading American education.

Developing good people skills. EQ, or emotional intelligence, is as important as IQ for success in today's workplace. "Most innovations today involve large teams of people," says former Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine. "We have to emphasize communication skills, the ability to work in teams and with people from different cultures."

Can our public schools, originally designed to educate workers for agrarian life and industrial-age factories, make the necessary shifts? The Skills commission will argue that it's possible only if we add new depth and rigor to our curriculum and standardized exams, redeploy the dollars we spend on education, reshape the teaching force and reorganize who runs the schools. But without waiting for such a revolution, enterprising administrators around the country have begun to update their schools, often with ideas and support from local businesses. The state of Michigan, conceding that it can no longer count on the ailing auto industry to absorb its poorly educated and low-skilled workers, is retooling its high schools, instituting what are among the most rigorous graduation requirements in the nation. Elsewhere, organizations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Asia Society are pouring money and expertise into model programs to show the way.

What It Means to Be a Global Student

Quick! How many ways can you combine nickels, dimes and pennies to get 20¢? That's the challenge for students in a second-grade math class at Seattle's John Stanford International School, and hands are flying up with answers. The students sit at tables of four manipulating play money. One boy shouts "10 plus 10"; a girl offers "10 plus 5 plus 5," only it sounds like this: "Ju, tasu, go, tasu, go." Down the hall, third-graders are learning to interpret charts and graphs showing how many hours of sleep people need at different ages. "¿Cuantas horas duerme un bebé?" asks the teacher Sabrina Storlie.

This public elementary school has taken the idea of global education and run with it. All students take some classes in either Japanese or Spanish. Other subjects are taught in English, but the content has an international flavor. The school pulls its 393 students from the surrounding highly diverse neighborhood and by lottery from other parts of the city. Generally, its scores on state tests are at or above average, although those exams barely scratch the surface of what Stanford students learn.

Before opening the school seven years ago, principal Karen Kodama surveyed 1,500 business leaders on which languages to teach (plans for Mandarin were dropped for lack of classroom space) and which skills and disciplines. "No. 1 was technology," she recalls. Even first-graders at Stanford begin to use PowerPoint and Internet tools. "Exposure to world cultures was also an important trait cited by the executives," says Kodama, so that instead of circling back to the Pilgrims and Indians every autumn, children at Stanford do social-studies units on Asia, Africa, Australia, Mexico and South America. Students actively apply the lessons in foreign language and culture by video-conferencing with sister schools in Japan, Africa and Mexico, by exchanging messages, gifts and joining in charity projects.

Stanford International shows what's possible for a public elementary school, although it has the rare advantage of support from corporations like Nintendo and Starbucks, which contribute to its $1.7 million-a-year budget. Still, dozens of U.S. school districts have found ways to orient some of their students toward the global economy. Many have opened schools that offer the international baccalaureate (I.B.) program, a rigorous, off-the-shelf curriculum recognized by universities around the world and first introduced in 1968--well before globalization became a buzzword.

To earn an I.B. diploma, students must prove written and spoken proficiency in a second language, write a 4,000-word college-level research paper, complete a real-world service project and pass rigorous oral and written subject exams. Courses offer an international perspective, so even a lesson on the American Revolution will interweave sources from Britain and France with views from the Founding Fathers. "We try to build something we call international mindedness," says Jeffrey Beard, director general of the International Baccalaureate Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. "These are students who can grasp issues across national borders. They have an understanding of nuances and complexity and a balanced approach to problem solving." Despite stringent certification requirements, I.B. schools are growing in the U.S.--from about 350 in 2000 to 682 today. The U.S. Department of Education has a pilot effort to bring the program to more low-income students.

Real Knowledge in the Google Era

Learn the names of all the rivers in South America. That was the assignment given to Deborah Stipek's daughter Meredith in school, and her mom, who's dean of the Stanford University School of Education, was not impressed. "That's silly," Stipek told her daughter. "Tell your teacher that if you need to know anything besides the Amazon, you can look it up on Google." Any number of old-school assignments--memorizing the battles of the Civil War or the periodic table of the elements--now seem faintly absurd. That kind of information, which is poorly retained unless you routinely use it, is available at a keystroke. Still, few would argue that an American child shouldn't learn the causes of the Civil War or understand how the periodic table reflects the atomic structure and properties of the elements. As school critic E.D. Hirsch Jr. points out in his book, The Knowledge Deficit, kids need a substantial fund of information just to make sense of reading materials beyond the grade-school level. Without mastering the fundamental building blocks of math, science or history, complex concepts are impossible.

Many analysts believe that to achieve the right balance between such core knowledge and what educators call "portable skills"--critical thinking, making connections between ideas and knowing how to keep on learning--the U.S. curriculum needs to become more like that of Singapore, Belgium and Sweden, whose students outperform American students on math and science tests. Classes in these countries dwell on key concepts that are taught in depth and in careful sequence, as opposed to a succession of forgettable details so often served in U.S. classrooms. Textbooks and tests support this approach. "Countries from Germany to Singapore have extremely small textbooks that focus on the most powerful and generative ideas," says Roy Pea, co-director of the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning. These might be the key theorems in math, the laws of thermodynamics in science or the relationship between supply and demand in economics. America's bloated textbooks, by contrast, tend to gallop through a mind-numbing stream of topics and subtopics in an attempt to address a vast range of state standards.

Depth over breadth and the ability to leap across disciplines are exactly what teachers aim for at the Henry Ford Academy, a public charter school in Dearborn, Mich. This fall, 10th-graders in Charles Dershimer's science class began a project that combines concepts from earth science, chemistry, business and design. After reading about Nike's efforts to develop a more environmentally friendly sneaker, students had to choose a consumer product, analyze and explain its environmental impact and then develop a plan for re-engineering it to reduce pollution costs without sacrificing its commercial appeal. Says Dershimer: "It's a challenge for them and for me."

A New Kind of Literacy

The juniors in Bill Stroud's class are riveted by a documentary called Loose Change unspooling on a small TV screen at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education, in urban Astoria, N.Y. The film uses 9/11 footage and interviews with building engineers and Twin Towers survivors to make an oddly compelling if paranoid case that interior explosions unrelated to the impact of the airplanes brought down the World Trade Center on that fateful day. Afterward, the students--an ethnic mix of New Yorkers with their own 9/11 memories--dive into a discussion about the elusive nature of truth.

Raya Harris finds the video more convincing than the official version of the facts. Marisa Reichel objects. "Because of a movie, you are going to change your beliefs?" she demands. "Just because people heard explosions doesn't mean there were explosions. You can say you feel the room spinning, but it isn't." This kind of discussion about what we know and how we know it is typical of a theory of knowledge class, a required element for an international-baccalaureate diploma. Stroud has posed this question to his class on the blackboard: "If truth is difficult to prove in history, does it follow that all versions are equally acceptable?"

Throughout the year, the class will examine news reports, websites, propaganda, history books, blogs, even pop songs. The goal is to teach kids to be discerning consumers of information and to research, formulate and defend their own views, says Stroud, who is founder and principal of the four-year-old public school, which is located in a repurposed handbag factory.

Classes like this, which teach key aspects of information literacy, remain rare in public education, but more and more universities and employers say they are needed as the world grows ever more deluged with information of variable quality. Last year, in response to demand from colleges, the Educational Testing Service unveiled a new, computer-based exam designed to measure information-and-communication-technology literacy. A pilot study of the test with 6,200 high school seniors and college freshmen found that only half could correctly judge the objectivity of a website. "Kids tend to go to Google and cut and paste a research report together," says Terry Egan, who led the team that developed the new test. "We kind of assumed this generation was so comfortable with technology that they know how to use it for research and deeper thinking," says Egan. "But if they're not taught these skills, they don't necessarily pick them up."

Learning 2.0

The chairman of Sun Microsystems was up against one of the most vexing challenges of modern life: a third-grade science project. Scott McNealy had spent hours searching the Web for a lively explanation of electricity that his son could understand. "Finally I found a very nice, animated, educational website showing electrons zooming around and tests after each section. We did this for about an hour and a half and had a ball--a great father-son moment of learning. All of a sudden we ran out of runway because it was a site to help welders, and it then got into welding." For McNealy the experience, three years ago, provided one of life's aha! moments: "It made me wonder why there isn't a website where I can just go and have anything I want to learn, K to 12, online, browser based and free."

His solution: draw on the Wikipedia model to create a collection of online courses that can be updated, improved, vetted and built upon by innovative teachers, who, he notes, "are always developing new materials and methods of instruction because they aren't happy with what they have." And who better to create such a site than McNealy, whose company has led the way in designing open-source computer software? He quickly raised some money, created a nonprofit and--voilà!--Curriki.org made its debut January 2006, and has been growing fast. Some 450 courses are in the works, and about 3,000 people have joined as members. McNealy reports that a teenager in Kuwait has already completed the introductory physics and calculus classes in 18 days.

Curriki, however, isn't meant to replace going to school but to supplement it and offer courses that may not be available locally. It aims to give teachers classroom-tested content materials and assessments that are livelier and more current and multimedia-based than printed textbooks. Ultimately, it could take the Web 2.0 revolution to school, closing that yawning gap between how kids learn at school and how they do everything else. Educators around the country and overseas are already discussing ways to certify Curriki's online course work for credit.

Some states are creating their own online courses. "In the 21st century, the ability to be a lifelong learner will, for many people, be dependent on their ability to access and benefit from online learning," says Michael Flanagan, Michigan's superintendent of public instruction, which is why Michigan's new high school graduation requirements, which roll out next year, include completing at least one course online.

A Dose of Reality

Teachers need not fear that they will be made obsolete. They will, however, feel increasing pressure to bring their methods--along with the curriculum--into line with the way the modern world works. That means putting a greater emphasis on teaching kids to collaborate and solve problems in small groups and apply what they've learned in the real world. Besides, research shows that kids learn better that way than with the old chalk-and-talk approach.

At suburban Farmington High in Michigan, the engineering-technology department functions like an engineering firm, with teachers as project managers, a Ford Motor Co. engineer as a consultant and students working in teams. The principles of calculus, physics, chemistry and engineering are taught through activities that fill the hallways with a cacophony of nailing, sawing and chattering. The result: the kids learn to apply academic principles to the real world, think strategically and solve problems.

Such lessons also teach students to show respect for others as well as to be punctual, responsible and work well in teams. Those skills were badly missing in recently hired high school graduates, according to a survey of over 400 human-resource professionals conducted by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. "Kids don't know how to shake your hand at graduation," says Rudolph Crew, superintendent of the Miami-Dade school system. Deportment, he notes, used to be on the report card. Some of the nation's more forward-thinking schools are bringing it back. It's one part of 21st century education that sleepy old Rip would recognize.

With reporting by Carolina A. Miranda

· Find this article at:

· http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1568480,00.html