________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT June 11, 2001 Vol. 1, No. 13 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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... RUTLAND CITY TEACHERS DROP GRIEVANCE Teacher union representatives from Rutland City have withdrawn a grievance protesting make-up days because of snow cancellations earlier in the year, according to the 6/11/01 Rutland Herald (http://www.rutlandherald.com). The city rarely closes school even on days when snow is falling. Harsh weather this winter, however, prompted school leaders to close schools for three days. When administrators decided to add those days to the end of the school year, the local union representative balked and filed a grievance. According to the Herald article, "City teachers thought they'd send a message through their grievance, only to receive one back. The union had planned on dropping its opposition quietly, but decided to speak out after several letters in the Rutland Herald blasted teachers for not wanting to work." The union rep was quoted as saying, "I'm always aghast at how we're perceived by the population at large." Despite dropping the grievance, the Rutland City teachers still make out on the plus side. Their contract calls for them to work 185 days this year, 178 of which are to be with students. The school board has compromised, allowing teachers to work only 183 days, 176 of which will be with students.  MARK YOUR CALENDAR: JULY 14 CONFERENCE "Teaching and the Life of the Mind" is the subject of a July 14 conference to be held at the Burlington Radisson. The morning session will feature a talk on "Autism and the Life of the Mind" with a panel discussion chaired by Jessica Chen, president of the Autism Society of Vermont. The luncheon keynote speaker will be Dr. Sandra Stotsky, deputy commissioner for Academic Affairs and Planning, Massachusetts Department of Education, and research associate at Harvard Graduate School of Education.  In the afternoon, "The Great Books and the Life of the Mind" will be the topic of a panel led by Paul Hollander of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.  The fee to attend all sessions and the banquet luncheon is $40.  To register for the conference, please send a check for $40 made out to the Vermont Association of Scholars to: Ginger Potwin, 87 Radio Drive, Randolph, VT 05060.  For further information about the conference, contact Dr. Laurie Morrow, Conference Organizer, at lpmorrow@aol.com, or at (802) 229-9208.  ELSEWHERE... US SUPREME COURT REQUESTED TO REVIEW CLEVELAND CASE A Washington, DC-based public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, has asked the United States Supreme Court to review and ultimately overturn a lower court ruling striking down the Cleveland Scholarship Program. The Institute represents five families whose children attend private schools on scholarship through the program. Each scholarship is worth $2,250 - less than one-third of the average expenditure per student in the Cleveland public schools. According to an Institute press release, the Cleveland public schools failed all but three of 27 state standards for student performance this year. Last year, they failed all 27. The high school graduation rate is less than 50 percent, and only one in 14 students entrusted to the Cleveland public schools will graduate on time reading and performing math at grade level. In December 2000, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Cleveland's school choice program in a divisive two to one split decision. Judge James Ryan dissented, analyzing Supreme Court precedent that makes it "unmistakably clear that the voucher program passes constitutional muster." The Sixth Circuit has stayed its decision pending possible Supreme Court review. The Institute's lawyers are hopeful that the U.S. Supreme Court will agree to hear the case because the Court voted 5-4 in November 1999 to stay an injunction against the program issued by U.S. District Court Judge Solomon Oliver. While the U.S. Supreme Court has issued six consecutive rulings upholding programs analogous to school choice, lower courts are split over the constitutionality of school choice, which increases the odds that the High Court will hear the case. The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the Ohio Education Association (the teachers' union), American Civil Liberties Union and People for the American Way. The Institute filed their petition in the High Court on May 24.  FROM THE WASHINGTON POST... June 4, 2001 - Publisher's Opinion http://www.childrenfirstamerica.org/DailyNews/01Jun/060401.html THE RECENTLY approved tax bill, among other goodies, grants a tax break to savings that can be used to send children to private elementary and secondary schools. It's an expansion of what was formerly a college savings program and allows contributions of as much as $2,000 a year to education accounts whose earnings accumulate tax free. Some school choice proponents hail the provision as a first step toward vouchers. If so, it's an odd first step, because it does little to help the families who most need financial help. Where Congress should be going on vouchers is toward a pilot program that would focus on helping poor children stuck in failing schools. The House generously granted the middle and upper-middle class tuition tax break as part of the tax bill but rejected vouchers when it passed its version of an education reform bill. Now the Senate is expected to take up the issue when it returns to work this week. One proposed amendment, offered by GOP Sen. John McCain, would create a four-year test voucher program for low-income students in the worst-performing D.C. schools. District officials weren't consulted and are uniformly opposed to vouchers. Staffers say Sen. McCain is reacting to persistent low achievement by D.C. students. That's a valid concern, but singling out the District in this fashion is an affront to home rule. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) has a better idea. He would create a pilot program for which interested systems -- as many as 10 cities and three states -- could apply. It would make vouchers available to low-income children in schools that have been failing for three years. It allows participating districts to set the vouchers' value, holding out the chance that some students might get enough money to actually meet the cost of private tuition. It provides for an outside evaluation of students' performance and the effect on the public schools involved. This experiment might help some individual students trapped in failing public schools while also providing useful data to inform the long-running debate about vouchers' potential effects. Opponents argue that any available federal money should be spent on the public system. It's true that the president's proposed budget falls short of what will be needed to carry out the initiatives in the education bill. Offering vouchers does not take away the obligation to improve troubled public schools. But it's also true that too many students pay dearly, and for the rest of their lives, because they have no alternative to a failing public school. Congress should be willing to explore what might come of giving more choices to some of those low-income students. D.C. officials, given the chance to make their own decision, should be willing to explore that option as well.  NOTABLE... "But it strikes me that the real challenge in educating a sane generation does not rest, or even begin, here in the classroom. Teachers I met would much rather write a lesson plan that begins, 'Today we offer an overview of....' Instead, they must adopt the scattershot entertainment pace demanded by the raw material that lands on the schoolhouse step each semester. Scene, cut, action, fade, lights. The teachers I worked with seem to be doing a pretty creative job of it, trying to make a hearty meal by serving out instant snacks. So what's wrong with 15-minute bursts, anyway? This: Learning is not just burst encounters with information. It is a process. Patience and perseverance are necessary components, and themselves sources of lifelong rewards once mastered. They cannot be taught without allowing for practice. I don't care how skilled the teacher, concentration cannot be broken into 15-minute lessons." -- John Balzar in the June 8 Los Angeles Times *      *      * 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.