________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT September 13, 2004 Vol. 4, No. 31 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... SBOE STRATEGIC PLAN ON VDOE WEB SITE The Vermont State Board of Education Strategic Plan is now available on the state's education department web site. This easy-to-read booklet is worth a look. Notable are the board's "Focus Strategies" which are six issues the SBOE intends to include in its work plan for the 2004-05 fiscal year. These six strategies are: 1. Continue support for the implementation of the High Schools on the Move principles 2. Develop a public school choice proposal by January 1, 2005, for submission to the Legislature 3. Adopt measurable School Quality Standards by June 30, 2005 4. Ensure that State Board members receive appropriate professional development 5. Allocate resources and prioritize budget initiatives by October 19, 2004 6. Analyze the cost and quality of education in Vermont in comparison to national data and develop specific recommendations to contain costs while ensuring the quality of education, by June 30, 2005. The full plan can be found at: http://www.state.vt.us/educ/new/pdfdoc/pubs/strategic_plan_05.pdf  TEACHER NOT WANTED The Lamoille County teacher who resigned a position on the NEA executive board when it was discovered he'd had sex with a teacher's assistant in a classroom might be back at work, but a lot of parents don't want him there. Lamoille Union High School teacher Wayne Nadeau is back at work now that VTNEA lawyers successfully argued he shouldn't be let go. However, approximately 500 parents and taxpayers signed a petition asking Nadeau to resign.  STUDY SAYS VERMONT RANKS 33rd For some time now, Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of this newsletter, has been pointing out that Vermont's "top of the charts" rankings on various national tests deserve further scrutiny. For example, National Assessment of Educational Progress test results show that large percentages of Vermont students are not proficient in gateway skills, which should be a source of worry regardless of the fact that our state outscores other states. Now a new study also points out that Vermont students actually face "fewer obstacles to learning" than students in other states. The study was performed by research fellows at the Manhattan Institute. The following is the press release sent out by MI on the study: STUDY FINDS STUDENTS TODAY ARE EASIER TO TEACH  Vermont Ranks 33rd in School Performance When Student Advantages Are Taken into Account Today's students face fewer obstacles to learning from outside of school than students did three decades ago, according to a new study released today by Manhattan Institute scholars Jay P. Greene and Greg Forster. This evaluation, the first of its kind, combines measurements of sixteen social, economic, and demographic characteristics to produce a Teachability Index that measures the overall difficulty of educating students. The study finds that on the whole student disadvantages that pose challenges to learning have declined 8.7% since 1970. It is well understood that social, economic, and demographic factors cause some students to be more difficult to educate than others. Many researchers and policymakers claim that student disadvantages from outside of school explain why academic achievement has remained flat even though education spending has doubled. This groundbreaking study shows that the challenges of educating students have in fact declined over the last three decades, implying that public schools' failure to improve cannot be explained by student characteristics. The study also evaluates the performance of schools in each state once the difficulty of teaching that state's student population is taken into account. States with more highly disadvantaged students, such as states with low average incomes or high migration rates, might have relatively low test scores even if their schools are more effective than those in other states because they must overcome greater challenges outside of the school's control. By empirically measuring the difficulty of educating each state's student population, this study offers the first fair comparison of the test score performances of state school systems. States with school choice or strong accountability testing performed significantly better once differences in student disadvantages are taken into account. The study finds that Vermont's students face disadvantages that are 27.6% lower than the average for all states. When these greater advantages are taken into account, Vermont's schools perform at about the national average. Math and reading achievement levels in Vermont are 99% of the level we would statistically expect them to reach based on the advantages of its students, ranking Vermont 33rd in the nation in school performance. This fairer comparison stands in stark contrast to those that do not adjust for the reduced difficulty of educating Vermont's students. If we don't adjust for the advantages of its students, Vermont's NAEP scores rank the state 6th in the nation. The study is available at http://www.manhattan-institute.org/pdf/ewp_06.pdf. Jay P. Greene, Ph.D., is a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research where he conducts research and writes about education policy. Dr. Greene obtained his doctorate in political science from Harvard University and was a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin before joining the Manhattan Institute in 2000. His education research has been cited in U.S. Supreme Court opinions and has appeared in scholarly and popular publications. Greg Forster, Ph.D., is a Senior Research Associate at the Manhattan Institute's Education Research Office. Dr. Forster earned his doctorate in political science from Yale University. The Education Research Office, a part of the Center for Civic Innovation at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, produces high-quality academic research on U.S. education issues, including school choice policies and other aspects of education reform.  STERN CENTER SCHEDULES CONFERENCE SERIES The Stern Center for Language and Learning is hosting two fall Math Conferences in convenient locations in the state for K-8 educators as well as high school educators working with struggling students. On Friday, September 24, a conference on "Mathematical Learning Disabilities: Research-Based Approaches to Diagnosis and Remediation" will be presented at the Holiday Inn Express in South Burlington. The presenters are Dr. Daniel Berch and Dr. Michele Mazzocco. Berch is a cognitive and developmental psychologist with a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology from the University of New Mexico. He directs a new program at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Mathematics and Science Cognition and Learning. Mazzocco received her Ph.D. from Arizona State University and is currently a research scientist at Kennedy Krieger Institute.  On Friday, October 1, a conference on "Math that Counts: Developing Conceptual Understanding" will be presented at the Cortina Inn in Killington. The presenter in this case will be Doug McFarland who has taught for 28 years in both public and private schools. Currently, he teaches 8th grade at Horizon Academy, a private school for children with learning disabilities. For more information, contact the Stern Center at 802.878.2332 or email educator@sterncetner.org for more information.  *   *   * ELSEWHERE  WHERE DO PUBLIC SCHOOL TEACHERS SEND THEIR CHILDREN?  Urban public school teachers are more likely than either urban households in general or the general public to send their children to private schools, according to a new report by the Fordham Foundation. Entitled "Where Do Public School Teachers Send Their Kids to School," the seven-page report can be found at: http://www.edexcellence.net. The report includes a table of private school enrollment for all families and for public school teachers by top 50 cities. It illustrates the difference between general family enrollment in private schools versus teachers' family enrollment. Even when the financial sacrifice entailed is great, public school teachers still choose private schools at higher rates than similar urban families. * * * From the U.S. Freedom Foundation On the Web at: http://www.freedomfoundation.us THE SUPERINTENDENCY: REPRESENTATIVE OF A TROUBLED SYSTEM by David W. Kirkpatrick Senior Education Fellow The ability of the public school system to resist meaningful reform is perhaps best illustrated by the difficulty of altering, much less abolishing, the office of superintendent. There is only one chief school officer in each of the slightly more than 14,000 school districts nationwide. Given the problems of initiating any meaningful reforms, or introducing variations, to such an arrangement, one may wonder what the likelihood is of altering the entire system with its millions of employees. The weaknesses of the superintendency have been repeatedly discussed and highlighted. They have become ever more magnified in recent years as the tenure in many districts averages three years or less. As should be clear, however talented a superintendent may be, a short tenure is a guarantee that no substantive gains can be made. Yet, when a superintendent leaves, for whatever reason, the previous procedure to obtain one is repeated. And so are the conditions under which the replacement can function. More than one observer has noted the need for a superintendent to be an effective politician. Forty years ago, Martin Mayer noted that "The superintendency system reduced official educational leadership to the level of municipal and state politics." The problem is one of the system rather than of individuals. In the view of Alvin E. Winder and David L. Angus, "Public school administrators who try to give their communities better education than they are used to have a very short life expectancy." People have an image of what a "good" school or school district should be and they tend not to be supportive of changes, however promising they may be. Writing about the same time as Mayer, James D. Koerner in his much-read and discussed book, The Miseducation of American Teachers, wrote that "The staffing of key administrative posts in public schools with persons whose academic training sometimes stops after the sophomore undergraduate year in college and rarely extends to graduate work in any liberal arts field is hardly the way to strengthen the intellectual life of these schools; indeed it is an excellent way to enfeeble it." An observation by the prestigious Carnegie Commission on Higher Education can be applied to both basic and higher education. In its Final Report in 1973 the Commission bemoaned the attitude that "The rational approach for a consensual administrator, who wants to hold on to his job, is to take no risks, to assume a posture of low visibility, to say nothing but to say it well." In a separate report the same year, the Commission said the problem is not one of recruiting school administrators. There is always someone available. The problem, as the Commission saw it, is that "none of the research on the subject provides any clues on how to select effective public school administrators." As important as selection know-how may be, that is not the basic problem. First there must be an available pool of qualified individuals from which to choose. In the late 1980s, Raymond E. Callahan said the education of administrators is an American tragedy. In his view, "The whole development produced men who did not understand education or scholarship. Assuming he is correct, one must determine whether or not the professors of education who prepare educators to qualify for a superintendent's position themselves "understand education or scholarship." They cannot teach what they themselves do not know. Richard A. Gibboney, who has been an Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education, and a former state commissioner of Education for Vermont, wrote in Education Week that two generations of administrators had been trained in a tradition where "Management served no larger end than itself. Efficiency was extolled. School law and finance replaced philosophy and history, learning and children" and, in short, that professional courses were built "on a foundation of sand." Despite the difficulties, all is not lost. In recent years a number of modest alternatives have been explored. These have included the option of hiring of superintendents with nontraditional backgrounds. While the results have varied they have not been significantly worse, and occasionally markedly better.  Opportunities to try alternatives should continue, and be publicized so awareness of them grows. *   *   * COMING SOON... Remember those radio ads we've been telling you about? Vermonters for Better Education will soon be ready to send them on the air. Check out the front page of our web site - we're posting them there in MP3 format so everyone can listen! The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact VTBetterEd@aol.com for more information.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

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