________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT November 17, 2003 Vol. 3, No. 43 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  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: LSternberg@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... NAEP SCORES OUT Last week, the latest National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) scores were released for 2003 tests in mathematics and reading. As has been the case in recent years, Vermont scored among the top states. However, those top scores still mean that only 35 percent of eighth -graders and 42 percent of fourth-graders are "proficient" in math, and only 39 percent of eighth-graders and 37 percent of fourth-graders are "proficient" in reading. The governor's office issued a press release about the scores that read, in part, as follows: "The ongoing education quality and funding debate in Vermont has been remarkably good for our state," Governor Jim Douglas said. "Vermonters are now paying close attention to standards-based instruction and assessment. While the improved results indicate we are on the right path, when more than half of our fourth and eighth-grade students have not yet achieved proficiency in these core subjects we have a great deal more work to do. We are still leaving too many of our children behind." Governor Douglas said the improving results show that education quality and accountability measures implemented in the 1990's and more recently with the federal No Child Left Behind Act are working, adding that he was pleased large numbers of students that previously scored at "below basic" and "basic" levels have demonstrated proficiency. "Vermont's progress has not been limited to those students who have traditionally done well. I was pleased to see that the gender gap has continued to close," Douglas said. "We must also address the growing performance gap between students eligible for free or reduced lunch and those who are not eligible." The Governor said he has every confidence in Vermont's teachers to help improve in these areas and will offer them the support they need. "We should be proud of our teachers who led many of their students to higher levels of achievement. They are among our state's most valuable resources," Douglas said. "They will continue to be the most important part of our effort to eliminate the income gap and help every child achieve proficiency in reading and mathematics." The full set of Reading and Mathematics results is available on the NAEP Web site at: http://www.nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard NEW VT ED COMMISSIONER BEGINS Richard Cate, Vermont's new education commissioner, was interviewed by Claude Marx of the Vermont Press Bureau this week. For a look at the article, go to: http://rutlandherald.com/News/State/Story/74651.html An excerpt: "Cate, who just finished his second week as Vermont's education commissioner, said he is too new on the job to talk about grand plans, but he knows that test scores have to be improved and the financing of schools needs to be re-evaluated. "On day eight on the job, one doesn't want to pass judgment on anything, but we need to do more to reach all students. It's not enough that we have a lot of wonderful programs, but we have diverse needs and there are a lot of students we are not getting through to," he said in an interview... " The article gets one thing wrong, however. It refers to the fact that Governor Jim Douglas "picked" Cate for the job. While the governor was certainly part of the selection process, Vermont law does not give the governor the power to select the commissioner. The unelected State Board of Education has that responsibility.  YES, A REQUEST FOR MONEY! In last week's VER, we asked for help to fund a radio ad campaign that promotes the value of education reform, especially school choice. Thanks to those who have responded to date! But we still need more help, and the sooner we hear from you, the easier our planning will become. Because Vermont is a small state, it doesn't take an exorbitant amount to design ads and buy time. But even a modest campaign would require at least a sum in the five-figure range. Please consider a donation now, if you haven't already done so. Make checks payable to: VBE and send to us care of 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701 Thanks!  WHILE WE'RE AT IT: A REQUEST FOR NEW SUBSCRIBERS! Vermonters for Better Education does not require people to join the organization as "members" in order to receive the Vermont Education Report and other information. But we do want to grow our mailing list. Already, we have around 3,000 people on the VER email list alone. We'd like to grow that list in order to reach as many people as possible - eventually as many as the Vermont-NEA reaches with its communications. So if you know of someone who you believe would enjoy receiving the VER, tell them to contact us either through this web site or by email: Lsternberg@aol.com Thanks!  WORTH REPEATING: COST CONTAINMENT STUDY COMMITTEE TO HOLD PUBLIC HEARING Have something to say about containing costs in Vermont's schools? The Legislative Education Cost Containment Study Committee would like to hear from you. On Thursday, November 20, this committee will hold a public hearing at the State House in Montpelier from 5 to 7 p.m. Act 68, the new education funding law, created the committee to investigate possible education cost containment and report to the Legislature in the following areas: 1. special education uniform standards and litigation reduction 2. review district size for economies of scale in administrative services 3. review teacher-student ratios and class size 4. coordinated staff/teacher recruitment, state-funded assistance with bargaining 5. review state and local mandates 6. joint purchasing of services and supplies 7. health insurance and workers' compensation 8. technology savings 9. improved facilities utilization, including program colocation 10. technical education: efficiencies and alternatives in funding 11. financial implication of interplay between special education, technical education, and local schools 12. alternatives to the inflation index  WHO COVERS EDUCATION IN VERMONT?  WE DO! Maybe you noticed that this is the third "volume" of the Vermont Education Report. That means we're in our third year of covering education stories in the state that you WON'T FIND ELSEWHERE. Education is a complicated and important topic. In Vermont, it's a nearly one-billion-dollar industry. Yet scant notice is given to it in the major newspapers and broadcast media in the state. Only in the VER will you find regular coverage of education issues - stories on what the department of education is doing, what is happening in the education committees in the legislature, and how the state really compares nationwide, as well as tidbits from around the country. Help us keep going - send a contribution today to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701.  *   *   * ELSEWHERE A round-up of notable articles from other education publications. HOME SCHOOLING ON THE RISE  NEW YORK, N.Y. - Families frustrated with traditional schools are increasingly turning to home schooling to meet the needs of their children. According to the U.S. Department of Education, at least 850,000 children are home schooled nationwide, from 360,000 ten years ago. "I was always too afraid to take that giant step outside the mainstream," Penny Kjellberg, who began home schooling her children two years ago, told the New York Times. "Now that circumstances have forced us out, our experience here on the sidelines is so good that I find it harder and harder to imagine going back," she added. Experts say that home schooling is fast becoming a viable option for many families fed up with the current system, especially for children with special needs, whether gifted or learning disabled. Newcomers to home schooling resist easy classification as part of the religious right or freewheeling left, who dominated the movement for decades, according to those who study the practice.  _______  SOURCES: New York Times, "Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home," Nov. 10, 2003 http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/nyregion/10SCHO.html Mackinac Center for Public Policy, "Home Schoolers Make Case for School Choice," May 2002 http://www.mackinac.org/4364 FROM WRIGHTS LAW, THE WEB SITE ABOUT SPECIAL EDUCATION LAW AND ADVOCACY  DOING YOUR HOMEWORK  "Doing Your Homework: Research-based Reading Instruction" is the title of an article posted on the Wrights Law web site complete with links to the International Dyslexia Association and lists of evaluators, tutors and diagnosticians. For full article, go to: http://www.wrightslaw.com/heath/research.based.reading.htm Wrights Law is also offering an interesting book for sale. Entitled "Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind, it's a comprehensive look at what the law says and means for parents, teachers and others. Go to http://www.wrightslaw.com/bks/nclb/nclb.htm#toc for more information. Below is a summary of the book from the Wrights Law web site: Wrightslaw: No Child Left Behind (ISBN: 1-892320-12-6) by Peter W. D. Wright, Pamela Darr Wright and Suzanne Whitney Heath will be published by Harbor House Law Press in December 2003. Introduction How the book is organized, what you will learn, navigation strategies, icons, list of publications on the NCLB CD-ROM  Section I: Learning About NCLB Chapter 1. A Short History of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 Chapter 2. NCLB Law, Regulations, Caselaw Chapter 3. Overview of NCLB by Title Chapter 4. Frequently Asked Questions About NCLB Section Two: How Will NCLB Affect You? Chapter 5. NCLB for Parents Chapter 6. NCLB for Teachers, Principals and Paraprofessionals  Chapter 7. NCLB for Attorneys and Advocates  Chapter 8. NCLB for School Leaders and Academics Section Three: Advocacy Strategies Chapter 9. How to Request Information and Request Action  Chapter 10. How to Report a Problem and File a Complaint  Chapter 11. Sample Letters  Section Four: NCLB Statute with Commentary Chapter 13. Master Table of Statutes for No Child Left Behind Chapter 14. Title I of the No Child Left Behind Act Section Five: Appendices A. Glossary of Acronyms, Abbreviations and Terms  B. List of Publications on the Wrightslaw No Child Left Behind CD-ROM  "Easy to read, incredibly informative - a 'must read' for all parents in America." - Dr. Elaine Holden, The Reading Foundation "Incredible and right on the money! Gives me ammunition to help more parents and kids . . . inspires me and makes me feel like slaying windmills again. Another win for the kids!" - Fran Dobrowolski, advocate "Does an amazing job of making this law understandable and accessible to lay folk, like me." - Sandra Rief, master teacher and author of How to Reach and Teach ADD/ADHD Children "You did a Herculean job of analyzing the No Child Left Behind Act . . . that will pay dividends for parents and advocates." - Torin Togut, Esq.  FROM THE U.S. FREEDOM FOUNDATION http://www.freedomfoundation.us THE LITTLE SCHOOL THAT COULD... by David W. Kirkpatrick, Senior Education Fellow ONCE UPON A TIME there was a conventional K-6 inner-city school in the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Vaughn Elementary School. Nearly 95 percent of its 1200 students were Hispanic, 80 percent were Spanish-speaking English learners, 5 percent were African-American, a handful were Asian, and more than 97 percent were entitled to free or reduced lunches. The school operated on a multi-track year-round basis with only two-thirds of the students attending at any given time. The area was so poor that many residents were reported to live in backyard trailers or even garages. Few schools could match its serious problems or dismal results. For 40 years, since 1951, the school was listed as one of the worst in the district. Its test scores were in single digits, below the 10th percentile, the lowest in the district. Absenteeism was high, as many as 12 percent of the students were suspended, student fights were a daily occurrence, classrooms were regularly vandalized and new computers were stolen before they could be unpacked. About a dozen of the school's 39 teachers left every year with the result that 70 percent of the teachers had less than three years experience. A custodian was robbed and beaten at gun point, and one morning there was a dead body on the sidewalk in front of the school. Relations within the school and with the community were so bad in 1990 that the principal left in March after receiving repeated death threats. His successor, Yvonne Chan, was appointed in May and assigned three campus aides for security reasons. For three years the struggle continued. Then, in the 1993-94 school year, a true transformation began. It began with the same building (symbolically renamed the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center with the slogan "The Little School That Could"), principal, staff and student body that had been there the year before. This suggests that public school problems are primarily systemic, not personal. To overcome them therefore requires changing the system. The security personnel were dismissed by Chan as she successfully sought to restore community relations. When the Assistant Principal and eight other personnel left, the remaining staff took on extra duties rather than replace them. Achievement and attendance rates rose. They finished the school year with more than a $1,000,000 surplus. This made it possible to buy two houses which adjoined school property, one a "crack" house. They were torn down and replaced by a fourteen-room learning center. The construction was completed within ten months, far less time than would have been possible as a regular district school. An insistence that workers from the community be employed on the project was but one of the initiatives to win support from the public as the school became a full-service community based school. Just two years later, in 1995, Vaughn received a California Distinguished Schools Award. In 1996 it was selected for a National Blue Ribbon Schools Award. It is the only Los Angeles school to drop the multi-track schedule and have a 200 school day year. Student attendance as of June 2002 was 97.73 percent and at times has exceeded 99 percent. Among the changes are the following:  1993 - the addition of 22 teaching stations;  1994 - adding six portables and reducing class size to 27 in all grades.  1995- Building of 14 new classrooms, eliminating the multi-track schedule, reducing class size to 20 in grades K-3, and extending the school year to 200 instruction days in grades 1-5.  1999 - building a community library, clinic, museum, multimedia lab science center, professional development center, 10 demonstration classrooms and reducing class size to 20 in every grade.  2000 - buying land for a 650-seat center for pre-K to first grade students and a campus for grades 6, 7 & 8. It was decided to add grades because too many of their now-successful students were running into difficulties as they moved to higher grades in conventional schools within the district. In 2001 another site was purchased to build a 500-student high school academy, to open in July 2005. When that occurs, Vaughn will have 2,400 students on four 600-student campuses within a 3-block radius. Principal Chan has testified at hearings in more than 32 states, a Congressional hearing on school reform has been held at the school and it has been noted in the national media. Despite this, its story remains one which most people, especially those in the public school establishment, need to know. This summary barely touches upon the changes in this school over the past decade, such as a performance pay plan and incentives for all staff. More can be found at its website: http://www.vaughn.k12.ca.us. The home page provides many links. For an overview see the "Introduction" and "Before and After." What made this seismic change possible? On July 1, 1993, following an overwhelming vote of the teachers, Vaughn "became the first independent, urban conversion charter school in the state of California and in the nation," and Principal Chan says it was becoming an autonomous public charter school that made the success possible. - - - - - - - - - - "It's not the kids who have changed, it's the adults who have changed. It's a different culture. I've died and gone to heaven." --Vaughn Next Century Learning Center Principal, Yvonne Chan  *   *   * 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.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

---

Return to Education Report Index | Return to VBE Index | Vermonters for Better Education Homepage 

---

........