________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT July 8, 2002 Vol. 2, No. 28 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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... THEN AND NOW: MCNULTY ON TESTING After the Princeton Review ranked Vermont's testing system among the lowest in the country, Vermont Education Commissioner Raymond McNulty penned a commentary rebutting the testing company's charges. Among his arguments was this one: "In one case, for example, Vermont received a zero (out of two possible points) because it does not release scores within six weeks of testing dates. "An integral part of Vermont's New Standard Reference Exams are essay responses, which provide a wealth of information to complement data gathered through multiple choice questions. "Unlike the primarily multiple choice tests the Review coaches students for, exams using constructed responses cannot be scored by machine. "It is unrealistic to expect such a quick turnaround. Even results of the federally designed and administered National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), machine-scored exams that offer only statewide data (compared to the individual, school and district level reports Vermont produces), take up to a full year to be released." (July 5, 2002 "My Turn," Burlington Free Press) However, just seven months earlier, McNulty sang a slightly different tune. The Vermont Education Report interviewed McNulty as he was about to move from being a Superintendent to the Commissioner's office. Here's an excerpt from that interview, published in the November 12, 2001 VER: VER: Do you think the NSRE (Vermont's New Standards Reference Exam) is doing its job? Does it need to be tweaked? If so, how? RJM: I really haven't given it a great deal of thought. But I do want to say that from speaking with educators, the timing of it in terms of getting results back is problematic. And, are we getting the return for our investment? It's an expensive test. I haven't gotten into the detail of that but I would like to. Are we getting the return that we should be for the amount of money we're putting into it?  THE CANDIDATES ON EDUCATION In the coming months, the Vermont Education Report will survey some of the statewide candidates on education issues. In the meantime, VER will publish whatever information is available on candidates' positions on education. Below is GOP Gubernatorial candidate Jim Douglas's statement on education from his campaign web site. VER will print material from Progressive Michael Badamo and Democrat Doug Racine as it becomes available.  JIM DOUGLAS ON EDUCATION From: http://www.jimdouglas.org Nothing is more important to the future of Vermont than a quality education for our youth. Unfortunately, all too often we fail to give kids the tools they need to succeed. Our children deserve better. Vermont spends a lot on public education. We rank second among the states for education spending per capita. Vermont has the lowest pupil/teacher ratio in the country, and has the lowest pupil/staff ratio in the country. This year alone, the Vermont Department of Education calculates that we're spending more than $9,000 per pupil to educate our children. That should be enough to provide the best education money can buy. But many parents and students are not seeing the results they deserve. In 2000, 27 percent of Vermont's 4th graders and 25 percent of our 8th graders failed to achieve even the basic level of achievement in math. In science, 22 percent of 4th graders and 26 percent of 8th graders scored below the basic level of achievement. Vermont students perform only about average on the SAT. New Hampshire spends 17 percent less per pupil than Vermont, but on average their students score 19 points higher than our students. We need to focus our education resources so that we spend our money on what really matters: a high quality education for all children. To improve education for Vermont students, I will work to: Provide more choice and opportunity to parents and students who are unsatisfied with their current school. One size does not fit all. It's wrong to trap a student in school that is failing to meet their needs. Focus on student achievement. I'll focus our education system on the bottom line - results. Inputs -- the dollars spent, staff size, and so on -- are important, but what really counts is that each child is making a full year of progress each school year. Administer meaningful tests to all Vermont children in grades 3 through 8. I'll implement the landmark education reform law passed by a bipartisan Congress and signed by President Bush. We need to understand how our students compare to students in other states, and where they are falling behind, in order to determine how to help them make progress. Recruit talented people to become Vermont teachers. We need to reduce unnecessary barriers that keep successful, qualified and motivated people out of the teaching profession. Guarantee a good teacher in every classroom. That means competitive pay and a meaningful accountability system. Provide assistance to new teachers. Utilize the skills and methods of experienced teachers to help train new teachers for success. Improve investment in crumbling, overcrowded school buildings and supplies. Vermont spends substantially less than the national average on school buildings and supplies. The result is that too many of our children are in dilapidated buildings with old textbooks. We need to give our kids the tools that they need to learn. Put a drug counselor in every junior and senior high school in Vermont. Substance abuse, especially heroin abuse, has increased dramatically. We need to be able to identify and counsel at-risk youth and provide all students with information regarding the dangers of drug use. Increase after school activities for adolescents and teenagers. The most dangerous time of the day for mischief is in the hours after school and before dinner. Children who are busy with extracurricular activities, community service, athletics and jobs learn from these activities and have fewer opportunities to make bad choices. Ensure a safe, secure learning environment for students and teachers. We need to eliminate drugs and violence from our schools so both students can concentrate on learning and teachers can focus on teaching, not policing. As governor, I'll give all students a truly equal opportunity for a first-rate education. We owe it to them.  CLEVELAND VOUCHER LAWYER TO SPEAK IN VERMONT Vermonters will have a chance to get a firsthand account of the U.S. Supreme Court hearing on the Cleveland voucher program when Institute for Justice attorney Richard "Dick" Komer comes to the state to speak this summer. Sponsored by the Ethan Allen Institute and Vermonters for Better Education (the publisher of this newsletter), Komer's visit will take place on July 24. He will speak at a dinner at the Holiday Inn in South Burlington about "The U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitutionality of Vouchers." Once the U.S. Supreme Court rules on this topic, interest should be high, so attendees are urged to reserve a space early. The details are as follows:  VBE/EAI Summer Dinner featuring guest speaker Richard Komer, Institute for Justice attorney for parents in the Cleveland voucher case "The U.S. Supreme Court and the Constitutionality of Vouchers" Wednesday, July 24, 2002, 6:30 p.m. Holiday Inn, South Burlington Dinner will include a buffet of turkey, ham, roast beef, salads, vegetables, rolls and desserts. $30/person or $50/couple To reserve a space, send a check made out to Vermonters for Better Education to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, Vermont 05701. Call 802-773-5240 for more information. *    *    * COMMENTARY... WHAT WALL? by David W. Kirkpatrick, editor of SchoolReformers.com The Supreme Court decision upholding Ohio's school choice program in Cleveland has caused much gnashing of teeth by opponents that the "wall of separation between church and state" has had "a brick removed." News commentators repeating such statements, often without attribution, imply they share this view. Which proves two things: 1. making a comment doesn't mean you know what you are talking about, and 2. Joseph Goebbels was right that if you say something loud, long and often enough, most people will believe it. Whatever one's view about a "wall," in the 115 years since the Constitution was adopted no Supreme Court has ever found a general student-aid program to be unconstitutional. Thus a voucher "brick" was not removed because it wasn't there. It was a figment of the opponents' rhetorical imagination. The case most often cited by them, 1973's Nyquist, was a program providing aid exclusively to nonpublic schools students. The opposition's constitutional concerns were a smoke screen. Barry Lynn, of Americans for the Separation of Church and State, has said they will continue to fight school choice wherever it appears while National Education Association President Bob Chase has said the teachers union will oppose it using whatever tactics necessary. While they can't prevent those with resources from escaping failing schools, they will try to keep their boots on the necks of low-income students whatever the consequences to the kids.  The "wall" comment originated in a January 1801 letter by Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury Connecticut Baptist Association after he had been elected president but before he took office. Jefferson was not at the constitutional convention of 1787, he was in France. Neither his phrase nor the individual words "wall," "separation," or "church," appear in the constitution, and a remark in a personal letter by a president-elect, even Thomas Jefferson, has no legal standing. Jefferson's remark was largely overlooked even by the Supreme Court until 1947. Then, 160 years after the adoption of the Constitution, 156 years after adding the first 10 amendments, and 79 years after adding the 14th amendment, the Court, in its Everson decision, discovered an unprecedented interpretation of the First and Tenth Amendments, attempting to erect a wall never imagined by Jefferson. Justice Breyer, dissenting from the school choice ruling, said he wanted to "emphasize the risk" the majority decision would "pose in terms of religiously based social conflict." Ironically, it was Everson, and decisions based upon it, that largely initiated the contemporary constitutional conflicts over the public schools. The decision, after citing a supposedly impregnable wall, upheld the constitutionality of public funding to bus students to parochial schools, the basis for the case in the first place. Thus began the Court's confusion and inconsistency over this issue. It's also worth noting that, In the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson referred to "Nature's God," in the first sentence; to men being "endowed by the Creator" in the second, and in his closing statement appealed "to the Supreme Judge of the World," and asserted "a firm Reliance on the Protection of divine Providence."  Nor did he object to governmental religious references while President, after the 1801 letter. What wall? Perhaps Jefferson's most famous comment about education was, "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." This is often cited as support for public schools but, note, there is no reference to them in the quote. Public schools are something that Jefferson himself, along with most of the Founding Fathers and the general citizenry, did not attend. As for government schools, Jefferson was not their advocate. As Governor of Virginia in 1779, he did propose that everyone receive a three-year basic education, but he added, "If it is believed that these schools will be better managed by the governor and council ... or any other general authority of the government, than by the parents within each ward, it is a belief against all experience." He also called for 20 secondary schools with the tuition paid by the students although he was willing to provide public scholarships (the term "vouchers" didn't exist then) for those whose parents couldn't pay. From the better students, the most capable would be aided to move on to higher education. Incidentally, Jefferson, the great Democrat, referred to this as "raking the rubbish." In addition to his comment above about government-run schools, he said things you will never hear quoted by school choice opponents, such as:  "I hope our successors will turn their attention to the advantages of education. I mean education on the broad scale, and not that of the petty academies." "It is better to tolerate that rare instance of a parent's refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a forcible transportation and education of the infant against the will of his father." So much for compulsory education by government mandate, and centralized schools.  *    *    * ELSEWHERE... PANEL SUPPORTS SPECIAL ED VOUCHERS White House to Decide on Commission's Recommendations  From a July 6 Washington Post article by Michael A. Fletcher "A presidential commission has recommended that federal special education funds be allowed to pay for the cost of private services or even private schools attended by disabled students, so long as those options are available to other students under state and local laws. The proposal by the President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education would significantly expand the range of private special education services now paid for with public funds by ensuring that special education money flows to charter schools and to private schools in districts that already have those educational options in place..." For the full article, go to: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30493-2002Jul5.html  NEA WON'T OPPOSE VOUCHERS FOR DISABLED STUDENTS? From the Education Intelligence Agency report on the NEA convention in Dallas: July 4, 2002 - (NEA delegates) defeated an addition to the legislative agenda that would have specifically opposed the use of vouchers for students with disabilities. There were two divergent reasons offered. First, one delegate wanted students with disabilities to be eligible for vouchers - students he was certain the private schools would reject, thereby weakening the cause of all voucher schools and subjecting them to civil rights litigation. NEA President Bob Chase also pointed out to the delegates that NEA's current position is to support the practice of sending some students with disabilities to private schools at public expense when the services they need are unavailable from public schools. Combined, the two factions were able to generate enough support to defeat the measure. On the Web at http://www.eiaonline.com  DO YOU ENJOY THE VER? For more than a year, 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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