________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT July 09, 2001 Vol. 1, No. 16 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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... CHARTER SCHOOL STUDY COMMITTEE NOT YET APPOINTED Late in the legislative session, the legislature directed that a study committee look at charter schools and present a report in December before the next legislative session (see VER June 4th issue on this web site). However, the clock is ticking and the committee has yet to be appointed, let alone start work. According to the legislative directive, the committee is to be made up of the following: two parents chosen by the governor; two representatives of business chosen by the governor in consultation with the Vermont Business Roundtable and the Vermont chambers of commerce; two legislators, one chosen by the speaker of the house and one chosen by the senate committee on committees; two teachers chosen by the commissioner of education in consultation with the VT-National Education Association and the Vermont Independent Schools Association; one school board member chosen by the commissioner of education in consultation with the Vermont School Boards Association; and one administrator chosen by commissioner of education in consultation with the Vermont Superintendents Association. It is expected that Speaker of the House Walter Freed (R-Dorset) will appoint Rep. Howard Crawford (R-Kirby) as one legislative representative. Crawford is Chairman of the House Education Committee, which was woefully short on school choice initiatives this past session. Commissioner of Education David Wolk has sent letters to the various organizations with whom he is required to consult in order to make recommendations. According to the Department of Education's Chief Legal Counsel Bill Reedy, Wolk expects to have recommendations ready by early next week. Reedy reports that Wolk has asked the various organizations for nominations, although this doesn't mean he will necessarily limit himself to the names presented to him when making his final decision. But the governor appears not to have given much thought to the issue yet, and he is responsible for several key recommendations to the committee. For example, as of this writing, the Vermont Business Roundtable has not been contacted by the Governor's office for a recommendation for a business member of the committee. "I have not heard a thing yet," says VBR's Maxine Brandenburg, "and I understand we were identified (as a source for a recommendation)." Brandenburg is philosophical about such recommendations anyway. In the past, VBR has been consulted for recommendations when vacancies appeared on the state board of education, but lately, the business group has not been approached for recommendations when such vacancies occur.   NOT TOO LATE TO REGISTER FOR 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. NEA MEMBERS DON'T THINK VOUCHERS ARE BIG DEAL The Education Intelligence Agency, which regularly reports on the country's teachers' unions, found some surprising information in the NEA's Post-Election Survey. The following is the EIA's report from Los Angeles last week at the NEA convention: "Immediately after each two-year election cycle is complete, the National Education Association commissions a formal survey of its members to discover how they voted and why. The Feldman Group, Inc., a noted Washington, DC, public opinion firm, conducted the confidential poll for the most recent election and presented it to NEA officials in December 2000. While many of the results were what you might expect from a poll of NEA members, there were still enough surprises to make for very interesting reading. "NEA members supported Al Gore over George W. Bush by a margin of 59 to 34 percent, with an additional 3 percent going to Ralph Nader. This was not appreciably different from 1996, when 62 percent of NEA members voted for Bill Clinton and 31 percent voted for Bob Dole. This is significant only to the extent that Dole was said to have blundered in 1996 by attacking teachers' unions in his speech at the Republican National Convention. Bush avoided similar rhetoric in 2000 but it didn't help him much among NEA members. "Gore ran strongest in the Northeast, picking up 72 percent of the NEA vote there to only 19 percent for Bush, but Bush was competitive in the Southwest and the Mountain states, picking up 45 percent and 41 percent of the NEA vote there, respectively. Retired NEA members were most supportive of Gore (66 percent), while Gore's support was weakest among education support personnel (53 percent). Finally, 11 percent of NEA Republicans voted for Gore, down from the 20 percent who voted for Clinton in 1996, while 8 percent of NEA Democrats went for Bush. "Congressional races were even more lopsided. NEA members voted for Democratic Congressional candidates over Republicans by a margin of 65 percent to 35 percent. Democrats again held their largest margins of victory in the Northeast, winning the NEA vote 81 to 19 percent. In the Mountain states, Republican Congressional candidates actually won the NEA vote, 53 percent to 47 percent. "The Feldman survey also provided useful information about the NEA members themselves. Forty-eight percent of them identified themselves as Democrats, 24 percent as Republicans, and 28 percent as independents. Asked to describe their political leanings, 10 percent of NEA members identified themselves as 'very liberal,' 28 percent as 'somewhat liberal,' 31 percent as 'moderate,' 22 percent as 'somewhat conservative,' and 8 percent as 'very conservative.' "The poll also addressed a question that often enters the public education debate: Where do NEA members send their own children to school? Of those who have children, 10 percent either refused to answer the question or had children who were too young to attend school. Taking the rest of the respondents as a separate group with school-age children, 12 percent had at least one child in a private or parochial school. That is higher than the 9.9 percent of the general public, but well within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus three points. So, while the survey provides some welcome hard data, it does not decide the question once and for all. "All this knowledge is helpful to NEA, but more important is how the members are responding to the union's political message. This is much more of a mixed bag. In general, NEA members adhere to the union's positions, but there are some areas of contention. "A healthy 57 percent of members said they were more likely to vote for a candidate who has been recommended by NEA, but a significant 27 percent said an NEA recommendation made them less likely to vote for that candidate. "Most members acknowledged receiving information about the 2000 elections from NEA. Sixty-two percent of NEA Democrats believe the union presented information on candidates in a fair and balanced way, while only 25 percent of Republicans and 36 percent of independents thought so. And despite much rhetoric from NEA headquarters about reaching out to Republicans, only 5 percent of members saw the union as less partisan in 2000 compared to past years. Eighteen percent saw NEA as more partisan and 70 percent thought its partisanship was about the same. "Perhaps the most striking response came to a question regarding NEA's position on certain issues. NEA members were read a list of public education issues 'that NEA might address in the coming year.' Each respondent was asked how important it was 'for NEA to speak out on that issue.' Note that the question did not ask what position the union should take, but merely if it was important to address the issue. One of those issues was 'Providing private school vouchers to parents whose children attend schools where academic progress is suffering, so parents can send their children to the school of their choice.' The results were remarkable. Only 19 percent said it was 'very important' for NEA to address this issue, and 19 percent said it was 'somewhat important.' Another 22 percent thought it was 'not very important' and a stunning 39 percent said it was 'not at all important.' Of the other nine issues on the list, the next highest figure for 'not at all important' was 7 percent, for 'testing students every year to measure their progress. "The survey confirms that the NEA members surveyed agree with much of the union's public education agenda. We can also safely assume that most NEA members oppose school vouchers. What the Feldman survey does tell us, however, is that placed on a list of 10 issues for NEA to address, school vouchers came in last -- and by a large margin." Reprinted with permission. To receive EIA's weekly teachers' union reports, write to EducIntel@aol.com. ELSEWHERE... PRESCHOOL VOUCHERS IN LOUISIANA Louisiana's first school voucher program is set to start this fall in New Orleans, with the state directing public money to pay for 600 financially disadvantaged 4-year-olds to attend local Catholic preschools. An attempt to kill the $3 million program was defeated, 32-7 with all of the New Orleans-area senators voting for the program. Kirby Ducote, a lobbyist for the Louisiana Catholic Conference, hailed the initiative as a "radical change." Asked if he thought this project could lead to more voucher-type programs, Ducote said, "I hope so. I hope we are opening a door." From "Voice for Choice" at: http://childrenfirstamerica.org/avfc/070601.html *      *      * 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.