When Times Get Tough, The Tough Get Weird

The title of this entry is a Dr. Hunter S. Thompson quote but it applies to an article in today's Courant called, High School Doesn't Have To Take Four Years by Lewis M. Andrews.

The argument Andrews makes is based on Leon Botstein's argument:

Botstein's original case for early graduation was based on academic and social concerns, not fiscal issues. With a rigid structure inherited from the 1830s, he argued that the "traditional high school is an out-of-date strategy and system" that accommodates neither fast nor slow learners, leads to boredom and even delinquency, ignores the relative physiological maturity of modern adolescents and fails to take advantage of new learning technologies.

But today we can add to Botstein's list of reasons the tax savings that could flow from providing high school students with incentives to voluntarily graduate early. Consider:

With per-pupil costs for high school ranging from a low of $9,000 in distressed cities like Bridgeport to nearly $18,000 in wealthier suburbs, the Yankee Institute did a study in 2007 ("Free College for High School Students," available at www.yankeeinstitute.org) showing how much each Connecticut town could save by paying its students to graduate in three years.

Using the latest available census and per-pupil expenditure data from the Connecticut Department of Education, the Institute found that if just 25 percent of all the state's secondary students received a full, two-year community college scholarship (or $5,000 cash equivalent) for finishing high school early, more than $58 million would be left over annually to reduce property taxes.

Like most other states, Connecticut sets high school graduation requirements in terms of courses met, not years attended, and towns as diverse as Middletown, West Hartford and Westport already have written policies on early graduation, although none yet offer an incentive.

-snip-

Unfortunately, the political price for enacting most dual-enrollment programs has been the creation of a redundant payment system. Municipalities still include money in their high school budgets to pay for the places of students who have skipped their senior year and gone to college with the funding provided by taxpayers. For property taxpayers to benefit, the school budget must reflect the reduced cost when a student has either graduated early or, if still technically enrolled in high school while taking a full college course load, is no longer receiving district services. A school will not realize any saving until a large enough number of students skip senior year to allow for a reduction in classes.

True, some school districts might initially resist rewarding early graduation because of the state's Education Cost Sharing program, which supplements education budgets in distressed cities on a per student basis. The fear would be that graduating a substantial numbers of students early could mean a loss of revenue from the state. Prosperous towns get little ECS money, but might worry about damaging popular athletic programs, if some students left after three years.

In fact, Connecticut education statutes give school boards considerable flexibility in offering credit for outside learning. A senior could theoretically move on to the first year of college while remaining technically enrolled in high school at no instructional cost and even participate in sports programs — much the way home-schooled students are currently entitled to participate.

While the national education debate focuses on such contentious issues as vouchers and national testing standards, a simple policy of incentivizing Connecticut high school students to effectively graduate early could expand educational opportunity, combat classroom boredom and help the most disadvantaged afford at least two years of college — all the while providing tax relief to hard-pressed homeowners.

What I find fascinating about almost all the education arguments that are heatedly discussed in the public forums of the Main Stream Media is that the discussions virtually never involve the argument that something might be good for the students except as a co-incidental by-product of a let's save money argument.

Here, the argument that the "traditional high school is an out-of-date strategy and system" that accommodates neither fast nor slow learners, leads to boredom and even delinquency, ignores the relative physiological maturity of modern adolescents and fails to take advantage of new learning technologies." is entirely accurate yet it is not until real estate prices in wealthy suburbs are threatened that anyone from the Department of Education on down uses it.

What's important is that high schools are out-moded but largely because of government policies that treat children like prisoners of war in a battle between neo-con iron-fist tactics and sensible and humane education theory.

A front page story in the same issue of the Courant examines the code of silence among the medical profession when it comes to charges of pedophilia against a professional peer. Entitled Reardon Victim Goes Public, Blasts St. Francis Hospital it describes the nod-and-wink collusion:

There are much higher stakes than money here — like truth, accountability and healing. That's why I'm handing in my John Doe card today. Too much of the money, unfortunately, goes to the lawyers.

"This," one of them told me, testily, referring to their legal assault on St. Francis, "does not concern you."

What a coincidence. St. Francis Hospital has been taking the same dismissive tone for years. I know what the lawyer meant; I'm not the one who filed the sworn statement. But my mother, now 75, may well be the lawyers' winning Powerball number because her testimony could elevate the 100 or so lawsuits already filed against the hospital into a monster payout.

Going public with my story, I hope, will mean substantially more than money for all the victims ignored or discredited for so many years — all those afraid to speak up or whose stories were rejected, sadly, by parents too horrified and shamed to admit they delivered their child to a pedophile.

The deluge of child pornography discovered last year behind a false wall in the basement of Reardon's former home on Griswold Drive in West Hartford isn't the only evidence to corroborate the horrors of the past four decades. Among the hidden reels of film and boxes of slides, West Hartford police also discovered a manila envelope, in a brown cardboard box, containing incriminating documents that, until a month ago, I did not know existed.

My name is on those documents.

They include: the sworn complaint filed by my mother, Marcia Hunt of Wethersfield, detailing the afternoon Reardon photographed me and another boy; a formal letter to Reardon from Joseph S. Sadowski, then a St. Francis neurosurgeon and chairman of the Hartford County Medical Association's Ethics and Deportment Committee, who handled the complaint; an undated "memorandum" from Sadowski summarizing the complaint in greater detail; Reardon's 15-page rebuttal; and, finally, a terse statement from my mother's attorney, the renowned Hartford criminal lawyer James N. Egan, saying criminal charges would not be filed.

A boy's word against a prominent physician would have had no chance in court in 1970. Sadowski, who died in 2001, assured my mother Reardon would be stopped. My mother trusted Sadowski. He was her doctor, a respected neurosurgeon who had operated on her back recently. She told him what happened to me as she sat in his office adjacent to the hospital at 1000 Asylum Ave. during a follow-up visit after her surgery. He's the one who suggested she file a complaint with the ethics committee.

Sadowski was a prominent, powerful physician at the hospital and within the Hartford medical community. My mother believed she had taken the ultimate action — until 1979, the medical association was the top agency governing physicians.

Only in 1993, after multiple complaints against Reardon prompted state health department hearings, did we realize the hospital's chief of endocrinology and growth-study mastermind had gone unchecked for decades.

We were devastated. But without the documentation of our complaint, what could we do? How do you avoid losing when you know you can't win?

Professional educators in this country are in a similar predicament today. Complaints about NCLB are largely ignored because too many in the education profession play the collusion game with the demented but all-powerful Bush administration.

Our high school students and taxpayers are being mis-served but money isn't why. It is this country's children who bear the brunt of this society's conditioned reflex to distrust the schools by blaming them for all of society's ills.

Schools need to change, yes... a thousand times yes but because it is right, because the system is dysfunctional as nothing more than a test dispenser, because our children are being intellectually and psychologically maimed by it.

Our political system is broken when today, just as years ago with the medical profession, educators can ignore good practice and continue to cover up the cancer that is NCLB because it's easy... no one will know... it will never happen again... it will go away on its own...

When I think about wasted money I think about the profession I care about turning its back on the facts, on the children, and on their own integrity.

The Education Money Spigot

A new report has been released and it's reported here, U.S. spends average $8,701 per pupil on education by Reuters. We spend far more. The gist:

Students in northeastern and northern states tend to perform better on standardized tests than students in southern and southwestern states. But experts say the correlation between spending and testing performance is not strong.

The "No Child Left Behind" education reforms passed during President George W. Bush's first term have placed increased emphasis on performance on national standardized tests. Schools can be penalized if they repeatedly fail to meet targets for improving student scores.

"It's not necessarily so that states with higher spending have higher test scores," said Tom Loveless, an education policy expert at the Brookings Institution think tank.

He said Washington, D.C., has among the highest spending in the country but its students have among the lowest scores on standardized tests, while some states like Montana with relatively low spending have fairly high performance on tests.

Loveless said two areas where education spending might make a difference were in teacher salaries and small class sizes for first graders. But overall, the relationship between spending on education and test performance was not strong, he said.

I will argue in coming investigations on class size that it is small class sizes in k-3 complemented by teachers who can individualize instruction and provide innovative feedback loops that really make a difference.

First grade is not enough.

Class Size, Part 1 - Prelude to a Multi-million Dollar Myth

I have spent the last few weeks investigating class size documentation and what I am finding without looking very hard is a frightening history of exaggerated claims, reckless spending of public funds, and an intellectual dishonesty that makes creationist fiction writers look like honest brokers.

With this the first entry in a multi-part series that I will continue periodically, I want to discuss the state of the arguments about class size and why it is such a hot-button issue.

First the popular myth believed whole-heartedly by the majority of parents, teachers, and administrators is that Small Class Size (SCS) is always desirable and, furthermore, that the mantra of Small Class Size applies to every grade. Let's think of these people as the sleep-walking consumers of the concept. Whether or not these consumers are being sold a bad bill of goods or whether they want to buy any bill of goods that's expense and feels good, or whether they are just intellectually too lazy to care is inconsequential. Lemmings are more likely to question their preconceptions than these consumers. And nobody, I mean nobody, is brave enough to give these people a dose of truth, the white lie is far to profitable to derail.

Certain politicians like this argument as well because instead of having to draft thoughtful legislation or fund meaningful programs, the act of shopping and throwing millions of dollars at a solution that all of these people like is oh, so tidy (I, politician, am good and noble). In fact, some politicians think that they've been elected largely to shop for their constituencies. Small Class Size is the shiny, very expensive item in their shopping cart.

The teacher unions also like this idea. Very, very much. And teachers unions also promote this argument in three ways. First, through teachers as advocates, secondly through thinly disguised special interest research groups who predominantly consist of former educators,and finally by overwhelming representation on educational governing bodies - BOEs, State Associations, and so on. They even seed most search engines with their point of view. Try searching on "Small Class Size". You will get a parade of NEA, AFT, and special interest web pages advocating proof positive research papers on the joys of small class size.

And society and politicians have bought in. They can't write checks big enough, fast enough, or with more sincere empathy. Everybody is broke but happy forevermore.

Sigh!

Um, there's a few problems with all of this of course and it will not sit well with the meek of spirit or those feeling bamboozled.

I have read dozens of research papers on this topic, most from scholarly journals, all of which cite dozens more research artifacts. Not a single credible source agrees with the consumers, buyers, and advocates of this myth. Not one.

The studies worth reading - those that demonstrate some intellectual veracity - all lament the lack of adequate research especially in the classes higher than fourth grade, the fuzzy quality of existing studies, and the inability to isolate even under ideal conditions the actual effect of SCS on student achievement.

In this series, I will cite only studies that pass my own sniff test of credibility. You are welcome to add counterpoint in the comments.

And it is fair to ask, Why bother? Although discussions on class size are referred to as debates, these are debates which have been acted upon under false pretenses using precious private lives of children and public resources.

The result?

After thirty years of dwindling class sizes in American public education, no significant academic achievement is to be found on a national scale. This is not to say, that SCS is wholly without merit - there are notable and important places where it is worth pursuing.

But in California that not only legislated SCS but coupled class size to per pupil physical space, resource rooms, art rooms, music facilities, and more were dismantled to accommodate the government mandate.

In Florida, teacher shortages threaten the quality of education.

With a rush to hire ever more teachers, school systems are saddled with more and more poor teachers who become impossible to replace.

Most troubling is that educational, scientific research has become a parody of itself. I have encountered disturbing examples of Master's Thesis papers that conclude that there is no positive effect of small class sizes as advertised but dismiss the conclusion in summary to end with a fictional happy ending proclaiming what society needs is smaller class sizes! Honest self-evaluation may get you drummed out of the profession.

Worse still, University published research often suffers from what I'll call apologetic research conclusions. The authors will find no credible evidence that class size matters and will say so closely followed by "but we really think it should make a difference and if you don't like this conclusion blame the data or rearrange the algorithm or...".

It is as if both science and math have no factual basis in educational research.

The academic dishonesty really needs to stop. It distorts public policy and undermines the credibility of educational evangelists with better ideas.

In coming segments, I'll try to sort out the truth from the inertia of lies.

- Frank Krasicki

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Spending on Schools

Today's Rick Green column is worth your time. Rick's main question is whether or not Connecticut gets a reasonable return on investment when it comes to education dollars and he argues that we need to be sure that we are funding quality programs.

In his column he advocates;

If they're going to jump on the billions-for-schools express, perhaps Gov. Rell and the legislature could also include some less expensive - but controversial - reforms. They should:

Allow parents in failing schools to leave for another public school, immediately.

Demand merit pay for teachers who succeed.

Make it easier to open experimental model schools.

Recruit non-educators to fill critical shortages in school administration.

Create a simple report card with a letter grade for all public schools.

Actually close schools that fail.

I want to simply talk about one of his suggestions and that is to make it easier to open experimental schools. Let me revise that to say, "make it easier to create experimental schools". I strongly believe that what Rick is writing about is a national meltdown in education primarily fueled by NCLB legislation and constraints.

E.O. Smith is not a failing school and will never be but NCLB educational practices are preventing it from becoming a place where our population can learn and grow and stay technologically fit. NCLB's Little House on the Prairie pedagogy is turning this country into a nation of peasant learners while technology, innovation, and creative educational avenues can not even be considered. As a Board we are fighting to upgrade classrooms with smart-boards and other technologies that will bring our students up to what they experience in their basements at home - interactive environments.

Our students [and this applies to all of Connecticut] should all have their own laptop computer. The school is wired. The students and teachers are begging for them yet E.O. Smith cannot break loose of the educational pox of NCLB.

We would be far better off as an independent experimental, innovative high school than an American public high school. How sad is that? Every school district should have every option available to improve schools at its disposal not just the toxic and terminal NCLB prescriptions.

The reality is that the Bush administration and his neo-con henchmen have succeeded in destroying public schools. The administrative bullet to the head that all public schools in America are dying from is called No Child Left Behind. Until it is rescinded we continue down the path of wasted money, lives, and opportunities.

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Rell's Dystopic -cough- "Vision"

The Courant reported today the shocking news that Gov. Rell wants to raise taxes to aid, among other things, education.

I whole-heartedly support increased aid to towns for education but not at the expense of higher State taxes. And these new taxes will violate the spending limits with malice. IMO, this is not a vision nor is it a true relief. This is a stealthy way to raise State taxes without guaranteeing a corresponding reduction in local taxes. Quite frankly we can't afford this bait and switch game.

What this state needs is lower taxes and the elimination of the Department of Education as well as a rollback of numerous inane and regressive education "laws".

Here's where Rell is wrong.

First, considering the negative environmental impact autos have on Connecticut she should not be attempting to eliminate car property taxes. This is regressive for urban dwellers who reap no benefit by using public transportation. Secondly, it's yet another tax break for the rich. We should be creating incentives for public transportation systems not reinforcing big car purchases.

Instead eliminate all taxes on businesses who upgrade high-tech capital equipment and assemble and operate that equipment in Connecticut and who hire local residents of Connecticut first. This creates jobs and growth that lower taxes by introducing prosperity and a larger labor and tax pool. Connecticut needs quality jobs not taxes.

Second, sunset any tax increase the minute that the state education funding is reduced to local entities. Years ago, lottos were legalized because their receipts were ear-marked for education. Soon after, lottery buyers had a better chance of seeing money than schools. Taxpayers are sick of these sneaky deals.

Third, schools cannot afford any more sugar-coated accountability riders to funding. If the governor is interested in accountability then she must address her own campaign activities long before accusing schools of needing more accountability or high-stress tests. This nonsense is killing education nationwide and she needs to get real about improving education by advocating the complete repeal of the NCLB blight.

No more high school graduation requirements. This blovial nonsense is dropping out more students than it saves. The job of schools is to create learners not student widgets. Let's start holding the veracity of employer and CBIA education claims to higher standards of accountability for a change. I recently heard a story about an engineering firm who preached to educators that that couldn't hire engineers fast enough - educational output was failing them. That was when their stock was selling for hundreds per share. Two years later, at four dollars a share they weren't hiring.

The CBIA incessant whining about American education bears examination because it distorts the true quality of the schools and students - defamation using stock market speculative propaganda.

Region 19 Needs a Federal Lobbyist

No wonder we're not being served in Washington. We aren't greasing the wheels enough. As a liberal I'm for lowering the cost of government and returning the money to the taxpayers. But as you can see from this New York Times piece, municipalities are helping themselves to slovenly excessive helpings of tax dollars. All kinds of subsidies, public works pork-barrel projects, and political schenanighans are being paid for with our hard-earned money.

It looks to be an easy game to play, -cough- political payoffs -cough- I mean, passing the hat around the community to pay off a lobbying firm appears to work quite effectively. In schools we teach that elected government officials are expected to fulfill these duties as part of their official duties, but that's all wrong.

It's pointless to complain. Based on the interactive media chart, Simmons looks to be running a quite an operation in his hometown area. Gee, I thought he was looking out for our interests as well. We aren't on the list though. Do we drop off the money in an unmarked brown paper bag?

Maybe then we'll receive some of those tax dollars back.