________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT February 04, 2002 Vol. 2, No. 6 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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: MAILTO:LSternberg@aol.com STATE NEWS... NEW SCHOOL SLATED TO OPEN THIS WEEK A new independent school is slated to open in Reading this week, headed by a former public school teacher who resigned his position amidst some controversy. Gary Hillard was a fifth and sixth grade teacher at the Reading Elementary School since 1996 but resigned several weeks ago after first being suspended. According to the January 29 Valley News, Hillard was suspended from teaching when parents complained that he challenged faster learners but left behind students with special needs. Now some of the students he challenged will follow him to the new Mt. Ascutney School in Windsor, an independent school for grades one through six. According to the Valley News, Hillard is helping to fund his start-up with some of the $65,000 settlement he received from the Reading School District in association with his resignation. FOR TEACHERS, SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS: ECONOMIC EDUCATION OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE Vermont teachers interested in learning more about economics in order to effectively handle the state's economics standards now have a free resource available. The Vermont Council on Economic Education (VCEE) offers ongoing workshops, economic instruction, and resource materials for Vermont teachers at all grade levels in public and independent schools. The materials are designed to work with the Vermont standards, and the department of education web site provides a link to the VCEE web site. Art Woolf, former state economist and current head of Northern Economic Consulting, is the Council's president, or "chief cook and bottle washer" as he jokingly describes his duties. His interest in helping teachers with economics, however, is no laughing matter. As a member of UVM's economics faculty, Dr. Woolf says he came to realize that students coming into college didn't know much about economics. "I would guess that 90 percent of Vermont teachers have never studied economics," says Woolf, "and they have these standards in economics they now have to teach. So we offer education for teachers - what economics really is and where the resources are. These are not just lecture notes but simulations, games, activities that get students involved in economics so they have a feeling of how it works." VCEE has already served about 100 teachers through workshops and hopes to build on that success. Funding for the Council comes from the Freeman Foundation as well as a number of business sponsors. Although all workshops are free, some require a refundable deposit - an economic incentive for those who register to actually show up, says Woolf. Here's a glance at upcoming workshops: February 11: "Using the Stock Market Game to Teach Economics" - for teachers of grades 4-12; Mill River Union High School in North Clarendon, 3:30 to 6:00 p.m.; free; The Stock Market Game teaches students what the stock market is, how it works, applications of mathematics and basic principles of economics. February 13 and 14: "Financial Fitness for Life" - for teachers of K-grade 5 on Feb. 13; teachers of grades 6-8 on Feb. 14; Bradford Fire Station; 3:30 to 6:00 p.m.; $25 refundable deposit. This workshop provides teachers with new financial education materials from the National Council on Economic Education to help make students better consumers, savers, and investors. All teachers will receive a student workbook, teacher workbook, parent workbook, and a CD-ROM with lessons and activities. April 10: "Vermont Economic Challenge" - for high school classes with economic content; New England Federal Credit Union, Tafts Corner, Williston; 9:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.; free. This is a quiz "bowl" competition for high school students studying economics. The winning team will compete against the winners of other New England states at a regional competition at the Boston Federal Reserve Bank. August 10-13: "The Environment and the Economy" - for science and social studies teachers of grades 6-12; Green Mountain Inn, Stowe; $100 refundable deposit. This residential program is designed to present an understanding of how market forces may be used to solve environmental problems. The program includes hands-on classroom activities, lectures, simulations, and a one-day field trip. For information on any conference, or about the Vermont Council on Economic Education, contact: vcee@uvm.edu or call 802-656-4711, or fax 802- 656-8279, or write: 219 Kalkin Hall, UVM, Burlington, VT 05405. The VCEE web site is at: http://www.bsad.uvm.edu/vcee. DOES READING RECOVERY WORK? Reading Recovery, a program designed to help raise reading levels that is used in Vermont as well as in many other states, is the topic of a paper by University of Oregon researcher Bonnie Grossen, Ph.D. whose doctorate is in special education, and co-authors Gail Coulter and Barbara Ruggles. The authors find that the program is remarkably flawed and extremely expensive. They discuss the following observations in their paper: The Reading Recovery data reporting system is flawed. The standard for successful completion of Reading Recovery is not equitable. Reading Recovery does not raise overall school achievement levels. Far fewer students than claimed actually benefit from Reading Recovery. Children who are not expected to be successful are removed from the program and from the calculation of the success rate. Reading Recovery does not reduce the need for other compensatory reading services. Research-based alternative interventions are more effective than Reading Recovery. Reading Recovery is extremely expensive and does not save other costs. Thier paper is available at: http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~bgrossen/rr.htm ELSEWHERE... MORE MONEY DOESN'T EQUAL MORE QUALITY An excellent overview of the question "does improved student achievement require increased resources" appears in this month's issue of "School Reform News" (available on the web at http://www.heartland.org). Written by Hannah Skandera and Richard Sousa, both of the Hoover Institution, the article does not dispute the fact that adequate resources are important in the educational quality picture. However, the authors argue that substantial increases in spending over the past 80 years have not led to improved achievement. "According to the U.S. Department of Education," they write, "expenditures per pupil for the 1919-20 school year were $354, in constant 1999-2000 dollars. By 1960, real expenditures had more than quintupled. In the 1999-2000 school year, per-pupil expenditures were approximately $6,584 --nearly 20 times as high as in 1919-20." Special education, the authors say, does not account for the increase in spending. Instead, it has come about because of smaller classes, rising teacher salaries, and increasing non-instructional expenditures. CLEVELAND CASE OPINIONS... From "A Voice for Choice" at: http://www.childrenfirstamerica.org/avfc/013102.htm Three great columns on the Cleveland Supreme Court case ran recently in anticipation of oral arguments in February. Cornelius Chapman lands the following great punch in a Cleveland Plain Dealer opinion piece: "Connoisseurs of hypocrisy will appreciate the fact that over half of Cleveland's public school teachers don't send their own kids to public schools. In other words, a good portion of the salaries of public school teachers go to private schools as soon as the paychecks clear. When you do it, it's unconstitutional. When they do it, it's for the children." The Buckeye Institute's David Owsiany pointed out in the Columbus Dispatch, "Without the assistance these vouchers provide, almost all of the students in the program would attend Cleveland Public Schools, which are among the worst in the state. In 2000-2001, the schools met only four of 27 minimum-performance standards set by the Ohio Department of Education and the district was deemed in 'academic emergency.'" From overseas, Amity Shales of the Financial Times wrote, "The outcome of Zelman vs. Simmons-Harris will be close. Civil rights, as always, will be on everyone's mind. It would be worse than ironic if the Supreme Court, whose raison d'etre is protecting such rights, denied to city children the chance to compete that is now available to just about everyone else in US society." *    *    * 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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