________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT January 06, 2003 Vol. 3, No. 1 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  Covering education news in Vermont and beyond... Informative, provocative, unique... Published by Vermonters for Better Education  VBE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. Libby Sternberg, executive director: LSternberg@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... WILL VERMONT FULLY COMPLY WITH NCLB? Although new regulations in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act call for districts with schools on the "Title I Schools Needing Improvement" list to offer public school choice, there appears to be some question as to whether all of Vermont's six such schools will comply. The new regulations state that districts with only one school "must, to the extent practicable, work with other districts in the area to establish a cooperative agreement that would allow inter-district choice." In Lamoille North Supervisory Union, however, Superintendent Robert McNamara is interpreting the new regulations to mean he doesn't need to offer students choice because "money is an important factor." There are two schools in McNamara's supervisory district that are effected by the NCLB Act - Belvidere Central and Eden Central. Both are elementary schools. Lamoille North Supervisory Union has four other elementary schools, but because of McNamara's interpretation of what is "practicable," students at Belvidere and Eden will not be able to choose among the other four schools - or any other public school for that matter. In an email exchanged with the editor of this newsletter, McNamara wrote "It is not practicable (nor do I think that it is the congressional intent) that NCLB require a small school district with only one school in a grade level range to use local taxpayer dollars to pay a tuition to another school district." McNamara did not respond to a question about why the state block grant can't be used to underwrite tuition if transfers are inconceivable without it. Nor did he respond to a question about what steps, if any, he had made to form cooperative agreements with other public schools. An email to the U.S. Department of Education to clarify whether McNamara's interpretation is acceptable has yet to be answered. However, Governor-elect Jim Douglas's press secretary was available for comment. "The governor-elect recognizes that the NCLB Act is not a perfect law and needs some work, but he remains fully committed to its implementation in Vermont. This includes choice options for parents whose students attend the Title I schools needing improvement, " says Jason G. Gibbs, press secretary for the Governor-elect.  POWERBALL BILL ALREADY DRAFTED FOR 2003 The first education-related bill of the new session has already been introduced. Senator Susan Bartlett (D-Lamoille County) introduced a bill that would allow Vermont to participate in the multi-state Powerball lottery, with the net revenues from the game deposited in the state's education fund.  ACT 60 RAISES TAXES IN VIRTUALLY ALL TOWNS THIS YEAR The overwhelming majority of Vermont towns will see their property taxes go up because of Act 60 this year. Jeffrey Pascoe, VBE board member and creator of the web site http://www.Act60.org, has compiled a list of Vermont towns with the percentage tax increase expected. It can be found at: http://www.act60.org/2002_eq_study.htm The reason for the increase is the "common level of appraisal" mechanism included in the Act that, in a nutshell, requires towns to adjust their Grand List every year to reflect changes in property values. The adjustments are made by looking at real estate sales in a town and comparing those sale values to listed appraised values, then adjusting the overall real estate values to make up for any differences.  VT SCHOOL BOARDS ASSN HOLDS PR SEMINAR For the cost of $35 per supervisory union, school board members around the state can attend a January 14 seminar sponsored by the Vermont School Boards Association to show them how to "sell" their school budgets to local taxpayers. Entitled "Preparing for Town Meeting," the seminar will include topics such as: "techniques for getting voters on your side before you need them," "guidance on how to present the right kinds and amounts of data to your voters," "step-by-step budget passage advocacy that will keep your board out of court," "celebrating school accomplishments using board meetings...," and "effective school report card models," etc.  ELSEWHERE... COUNTING OUR BLESSINGS... by Chester Finn, of the Fordham Foundation  This is reprinted from the December 30, 2002 "Gadfly," the electronic newsletter of the Fordham Foundation As readers may have noticed, these "desk" messages tend toward the crotchety and Cassandra-ish. That's because we see plenty still not working well in U.S. education, too many dumb ideas, lots of would-be reforms that ran out of gas, and no shortage of would-be reformers who, when push comes to shove, will settle for being pushed by the system rather than shoving harder against it. But you already know all that and you know that the Gadfly knows it. So let's-just this once-look on the bright side. Especially at this time of year, it's appropriate to reflect on America's education blessings. In this last Gadfly of 2002, let us celebrate some of them. My holiday gift list has ten entrants. You may have more. First, everybody who wants it can get as much schooling as they can handle in the U.S., at no cost through 12th grade and bargain prices thereafter. The barriers have fallen. Race, handicap, language, poverty, even immigrant status doesn't bar anyone from school or college. Though sometimes stuffy about what comprises public education, America is earnest indeed about the education of the public. Second, you can always come back for more. The United States has the world's most forgiving education system, ready and willing to furnish second and third chances, to embrace former dropouts, to tailor programs at odd hours and off-beat places for adults who didn't get as much the first time around as they now need. Though you may have to knock on a different door when you return, a door is always ready to open. You can move in and out of the supply side, too, teaching for a while before or after you do something else, embarking on a school principal's career after completing one in business or the military. That's not true in other lands where the merry-go-round only stops once for you. Third, the postsecondary system is willing to fix what went awry in K-12. While many U.S. colleges should be better than they are, and while doing it this way is costly and inefficient, the fact is that you can, if you need to, get a decent secondary education in college, a decent college education in graduate school, a useful skill (or life enhancement) in community college, and the best tertiary education in the world from our top research universities. Fourth, having 50 states is a good thing. Despite people who insist that our reforms would get farther if we had a single national system like England or Japan, the fact is that what Brandeis termed our "laboratories of democracy" enable us to try a lot of different approaches and accommodate differing priorities. That states watch-and envy-each other keeps the process open, competitive and dynamic. Fifth, we're beginning to understand what really works and why. Though much snake oil still gets peddled and "education science" remains underdeveloped, some of its branches are flourishing. Primary reading is the best-known example, but not the only one. Cognitive psychology and neuropsychology are shedding serious light on how people learn, and this holds great promise for how they are taught. So does the push for more randomized field-study types of education experimentation. Sixth, we're willing to innovate. American ingenuity brought us community colleges and now it has brought us charter schools of every sort. It brought "Direct Instruction," "Core Knowledge," and "High Schools That Work." It brought alternative certification and virtual education. Though faddism is an ever-present risk, the fact is that we're better off being willing to try new things and-eventually-to take a hard look to determine whether they really deliver the goods. Seventh, private enterprise and philanthropy are bringing powerful innovations to education and, despite grousing about the profit motive, they've been allowed to. Technology is the most obvious domain-and will likely turn out to be a powerful driver of tomorrow's education gains-but we also have privately-managed (outsourced) public schools, small schools a la Gates, new math and science programs, KIPP academies, GreatSchools.net, Standard & Poors' "school evaluation service" and much more. And that's not even counting the thousands of business and civic leaders who have thrown themselves into the reform enterprise, often functioning as virtual surrogates for education's ill-organized "consumers." Eighth, American education is blessed with thousands of outstanding, dedicated educators. Sure, we wish we had many more of them, but let's acknowledge the teachers and principals (and school board members, guidance counselors, HeadStart workers and bus drivers) who do a terrific job of positively shaping the lives of other people's children, all this for modest wages and without a lot of thanks or praise. Ninth, for at least two decades now, the U.S. public has kept education reform at or near the top of its urgent domestic priorities. For a country with a famously short attention span, that's a mighty long run for an issue as challenging (and sometimes as boring!) as this one. Sure, parents could do a better job of making their OWN kids straighten up and fly right. (Too often, it's the other person's child who is thought to need more homework.) But the durability and zealousness of the public's commitment to better education are much of what keeps the reform effort moving and the politicians engaged. Finally and most important, living in a free society means that government is the people's servant, not their master, and that public education, in the end, means whatever the public wants it to. You need not send your children to a government-run school, a secular school or a religious school. It's up to you. (Indeed, you can educate them at home if you wish.) You can vote for, or against, a bond issue for school construction or a voucher referendum or a gubernatorial (or school board) candidate who promises to raise standards or improve discipline. You can be a critic-even a Gadfly!-without fear of retribution (except from cranky politicians, thin-skinned White House aides and the crackpots on the profession's fringe). You can supplement your child's education with books, software, dancing school and summer programs. You can, to be sure, do more of these things if you are wealthy than if you are poor, but an outpouring of philanthropy and an ever more flexible set of public policies mean that such opportunities are (slowly) reaching more poor families, too. Not so many years ago, the question was whether low-income kids would have any education choices. Today the argument is over how many.  *    *   * DO YOU ENJOY THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT? For almost two years, Vermonters for Better Education has been publishing the Vermont Education Report and emailing it to our subscribers, providing you with information you can't get elsewhere in the Vermont media about a topic of great importance to the life of the state. Show your support of the VER by making a donation to VBE today! Mail contributions to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, Vermont 05701.  The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact LSternberg@aol.com for more information.

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