________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT November 07, 2005 - Vol. 5, 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: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... VDOE ADVICE: WESTFORD SHOULD LOSE CHOICE It's a good thing the Vermont Department of Education wasn't doling out advice on civil rights during the 1960s. If they had been, their interpretation of equality might have led them to suggest the following method of ending discrimination throughout the land -- don't expand minority voting rights in states where they're restricted; rather, restrict them in states where such rights are expansive. That's akin to the advice they gave the communities of Westford, Essex Junction and Essex Town as the three school districts discussed unifying. Westford is a tuition town with expansive choices offered to students. Essex Junction and Essex Town, however, are not tuition towns. The VDOE's suggestion on how to ensure students in all three towns together are receiving the same "common benefits" was -- don't expand choice in Essex Junction and Essex Town; rather, restrict it in Westford. As reported in last week's VER, the three towns had formed a study committee to look at ways they could consolidate and thus possibly cut costs. A recent report from the study committee indicated that if the three towns were to merge into some shared structure, Westford, in the name of educational equity, would have to lose its tuition town status and its students would only be able to choose among a limited number of public schools. Currently, as a tuition town, Westford's students can choose among public or private schools, both in and out of the state. Most students do choose nearby public schools, but over the years Westford has sent students to private schools as well. Essex Junction and Essex Town, however, have public high schools and are not tuition towns. It should be noted that Vermont statutes allow school boards to tuition students whether there is a public school in the district or not. But school boards rarely vote to allow this to happen, preferring to keep money associated with a community's children flowing into their schools and not others'. So Essex Junction and Essex Town could raise themselves to the same level of educational access as Westford, if they so chose. But the possible loss of choices for Westford is based on advice the study committee received from the Vermont State Department of Education. Specifically, from Commissioner of Education Richard Cate and Legal Counsel William Reedy, according to Rep. Martha Heath (D-Westford), who is also chair of Westford's school board. Heath says that several members of the study committee met with the Commissioner and "he told them that Westford would not be able to retain high school choice in a unified union governance structure." This jibes with what the committee also learned from Reedy, even though earlier, Heath says, Reedy "told us that unified unions were 'wide open'." In fact, after Reedy's initial "wide open" comment on unified unions, Heath felt comfortable enough to reassure her community that it wouldn't lose its choice options under a unified structure. Since then, however, she reports that the Westford School Board wrote a letter to Reedy "expressing our frustration with the fact that we felt we were misled. The discussion about whether to join the study certainly would have been a different one had we known up front that we could not be able to retain high school choice in its present form." Reedy, however, says he remembers only "encouraging" the study committee to explore their options regarding the tuition town issue, but doesn't remember saying that unified unions were "wide open." He also says that the issue of whether Westford can retain choice is not one of "equity" but rather, a "constitutional" concern related to "common benefits." In other words, if a government gives out certain benefits to citizens, it cannot offer some to one group only. Reedy says he urged members of the committee to get their own legal advice on this issue, however. As things stand now, the study committee still has work to do, including a decision about whether to move forward with its proposal. Will Westford decide to chuck an expansive and valuable choice system passed on to them by their town's founding fathers for 130 years -- in the name of consolidation? Westford's school board has yet to decide, as of this writing, whether to bring the issue to a community vote. Another question that needs answering: Why is the Vermont Department of Education advising a tuition town to RESTRICT school choices instead of suggesting other towns expand their choices given the fact there is no statutory obstacle to doing so?  COST-SAVING ALTERNATIVES TO CONSOLIDATION Anyone interested in how small schools can be saved while at the same time saving money should take a serious look at the Reason Foundation's excellent new report: Driving More Money into the Classroom: The Promise of Shared Services. (Available online at http://www.reason.org/ps339.pdf) This report, put together by the Deloitte Research firm, includes examples and suggestions on how schools can come together to share certain expenses without losing the benefits of smallness and local control. The executive summary points out that "education spending constitutes up to half of many state budgets in the United States." Yet, in most states, "at least 40 percent of every dollar spent on education never makes it into the classroom. Instead it is expended on business operations: transportation, human resources, food services, information technology, building maintenance, administration and other largely support functions." Consolidation -- which is often a euphemism for closure of small schools -- has therefore become the goal of many school districts. Unfortunately, that has often meant consolidating the entire operations of schools, which has some serious "downsides: it is politically unpopular, reduces local control, can negatively impact educational outcomes, and eventually can lead to even higher costs due to the dead-weight of bureaucracy. In short, consolidation may not be the most effective strategy to help districts direct more money into the classroom." While many school districts look at consolidating into bigger, and often less responsive, bureaucracies, research shows that small schools are "linked to higher student achievement." In fact, some states are moving toward establishing greater numbers of smaller schools in order to provide more effective educational resources. The report suggests a way to reduce the expenses of small districts: shared services. While many districts are already engaging in some shared services practices, the report points out that "school districts have barely scratched the surface in terms of tapping into the cost savings potential and other benefits from shared service arrangements." The report goes on to give examples of districts around the country that have banded together to provide everything from special education to food services to transportation together. It also includes an outline on how to start a shared services plan, as well as various models of shared services programs. This is a well-done, easy-to-understand, handbook for any district facing the consolidation question.  VERMONT CIVICS EDUCATION SUMMIT On Wednesday, November 16, the public is invited to attend a Civics Education forum at the Statehouse. This forum was mandated by a Joint Resolution of the General Assembly in the past legislative session because of concerns about students' understanding of civic privileges and responsibilities. The forum will take place from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. and is free of charge -- lunch will be included. Speakers will include the governor, the Speaker of the House, the Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court, and other top policy leaders in the state. Individual sessions will be held on the following topics: Dialogue on Freedom: Facilitator is Wendy Morgan of the Vermont Attorney General's Office Lights, Camera....Leadership: A High School Civic Engagement Curriculum - Facilitator is Helen Beattie, a Vermont-based school psychologist and educational consultant. We The People: Facilitator is Hank Eaton and students from St. Johnsbury Academy Street Law: Facilitator is Michael Palmer, who has taught this session and other college-level courses in a variety of settings. Healthy Neighborhoods, Healthy Kids: Facilitators are Jennifer Cirillo and Tiffany Tillman, Shelburne Farms' Sustainable Schools Project Coordinators Civics Resources for Your Classroom: Secretary of State's Office Civic Learning through Action: Facilitator is Jean Berthume and students from Harwood High School State Legislators and Democracy Education: Facilitators will be Anne Winchester and Karl Kurtz. Winchester works in the legislative counsel's office. Kurtz has worked for the National Conference of State Legislatures. Student Rights, Straight from the Supreme Court: Facilitator is Frank Davis, social studies teacher at North Country Union High School Model UN, Model Congress: Facilitators are Richard Caswell, faculty advisor, and Erin Hitchcock-Picton, president of MAUHS Model UN/Model Congress Club Public Issues and World Affairs: Taking a Stand: Facilitator is Bill Price, coordinator of the senior required civics course, Public Issues and World Affairs at South Burlington H.S. Project Citizen: Facilitators are Bill Haines and Dale Newton and students from Twinfield Union School The State of the Civic Mission of Our Nation's Schools: Facilitator is Ted McConnel, director of the Campaign to Promote Civic Education Becoming a First Amendment School: Facilitator is Sam Chaltain, coordinator of the First Amendment Schools project at the First Amendment Center. To register for this forum or get more information about it, go to http://www.vtbar.org and click on the link to the forum.  OTTER VALLEY STUDENTS' SCORES SLUMPING Tenth-grade testing scores have slumped again at Otter Valley Union High school, according to a November 2 Rutland Herald article, and the school board has been "stung by warnings issued by its accreditation agency and two consecutive years of failure to make progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law." Otter Valley students, the article said, "fell short of the state average on both reading tests, with 33 percent meeting or exceeding state standards in reading analysis compared to 46 percent statewide, and 40 percent of Otter Valley students meeting or exceeding the standards in basic reading compared to 57 percent statewide." Also from the article: "Math scores were also uniformly below the statewide averages on all three tests. On the math concepts test 22 percent of Otter Valley students met or exceeded the standards, compared to 45 percent statewide, and 42 percent of Otter Valley students met or exceeded the standard in math skills, compared to 62 percent statewide." Superintendent William Mathis, however, argued that the scores should be put in context, telling the reporter that it's "only on that test, for that grade, for that year." He pointed to Otter Valley's SAT scores which are ranked among the top in the county. Not every student takes the SAT, however. The principal of the school, Dana Cole-Levesque, was quoted in the article as saying: "I'm puzzled. On the National Association of Educational Progress, we consistently score well." It is unclear how Cole-Levesque would know how Otter Valley does on the NAEP, however, since scores are released statewide, not by individual schools. Superintendent Mathis, by the way, is a frequent critic of No Child Left Behind and standardized testing in general.  *   *   * FROM COMMENTARY... WHY NOT TRY SINGLE-SEX EDUCATION by Cheryl Hanna Vermont ranks among the top five states on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, also known as the "Nation's Report Card." That's the good news. The bad news is that mirroring a national trend, our boys aren't doing as well as their female classmates. This is just one of the many reasons why we should rethink our policy toward publicly funded single-sex education. Girls continue to outscore boys on achievement tests, even in science and math. This gender gap in education starts in elementary school and continues through college, where young men account for only 43 percent nationally (at the University of Vermont, 45 percent are male; at the Community College of Vermont, only 28 percent). Yet, male graduates in 2009 can anticipate earning 20 percent more than their female classmates, and will dominate in well-paying fields such math, business, and science. Males may be falling behind in education, but they're still ahead in the job market. There's growing interest in single-sex public education as a way to narrow both of these gender gaps. The 2001 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) opened the door for publicly funded single-sex education; currently more than 160 public schools offer single-sex classrooms, and more than 35 will be completely single-sex campuses. This compares to only four such schools before NCLB was passed. In Vermont, no public school yet offers single-sex educational opportunities. Is single-sex education the answer to gender gaps in education and employment? Certainly not alone, but it does offer an exciting opportunity to narrow the divides. Mounting data suggests that single-sex education can benefit both boys and girls. Earlier this summer, researchers from Cambridge University released the Raising Boys' Achievement Project, a four-year study on gender differences in education. It suggests that carefully structured single-sex classrooms that avoid gender-stereotyping can be remarkably effective at improving boys' performance, particularly in English and foreign languages, as well as improving girls' performance in math and science. This study confirms other recent findings that well-crafted programs can benefit both sexes. Single-sex education may prove especially effective for low-income and minority boys, who are most at risk of being left behind. The majority of public school teachers are white women. An African-American boy, especially one from single-parent families, might never encounter a positive role model who looks like him while in school. Single-sex education can tailor learning to the specific needs of these boys and may provide crucial support for them to realize the long-term advantages of higher education. It's understandable that many would be skeptical of publicly funded single-sex education. Some of the rationale for sex-specific education relies on the premise that girls and boys learn differently, and that those differences are primarily biological. Historically, biological explanations for the differences between the sexes haven't helped women's advancement. The fear is that single-sex education will reinforce negative stereotypes about girls. However, the single-sex provision of NCLB was co-sponsored by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), both graduates of single-sex colleges and champions of women's rights. Neither would support such legislation if they believed it would harm women's overall equality. Are the benefits of single-sex education due to nature or nurture? Emerging research shows male and female brains do develop differently, yet changes in the culture can minimize, if not erase, any claimed biological differences. Vermonters should consider a single-sex educational option, especially for some of our most at-risk children, as one strategy to narrow our statewide gender gap in education and employment. In the end, it doesn't much matter if it's Mother Nature or Western culture that causes boys to fall behind in reading and girls to avoid careers in science. If single-sex education can help both our sons and our daughters achieve their dreams, it's public policy worth promoting. Cheryl Hanna is a professor of law at Vermont Law School. Her commentary appeared recently in the Rutland Herald.  *   *   * WHO COVERS EDUCATION IN VERMONT? We do! Consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, Vermont 05701. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.  *   *   * 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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