In many states, teachers (and other state or local government employees) are prohibited by federal law from collecting "spousal retirement benefits" from the Social Security system when they retire if they have state or local government pensions. But a loophole in the law allows them to receive such benefits if they spend a single day-their last working day-in a different job. A GAO report found that school districts not covered by the federal law are arranging for retiring teachers from other districts to work for a single day as a janitor, clerk, or food service employee so that they can retire with the full spousal benefit. The districts charge up to $500 to arrange the one-day job for teachers who want to take advantage of this loophole; sometimes they advertise this deal on their websites. Teachers who participate eventually receive on average $4,800 per year in spousal benefits from Social Security. "Pension loophole exploited," by Allen Pusey, The Dallas Morning News, August 16, 2002
The American Federation of Teachers and some other educators are scrambling to distance themselves from the "blame America" lesson plans produced by the National Education Association for use on and around September 11, 2002. The NEA's lessons urge teachers to discuss instances of American intolerance but avoid suggesting that any group is responsible for last September's terrorist attacks.
NB: On September 3, the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation will release (via our website) our own September 11 curricular recommendations, setting forth what a number of experts believe that children need to learn about American history and civics, about patriotism, heroism and terrorism. "NEA plan for 9/11 not backed by teachers," by Ellen Sorokin, The Washington Times, August 20, 2002
While many are suspicious of the changes that the College Board and ETS are planning for the SAT (changes made largely to placate the University of California, which had threatened to stop requiring the test), college admissions counselor John Harper argues in the cover story of this week's Weekly Standard that the new test is a big improvement. The old one purported to measure student aptitude or sheer intelligence rather than academic achievement, which is heavily influenced by the quality of the school that a student is lucky enough to attend. But Harper points out the reality that higher scores on the old SAT could be bought by those with the means to afford expensive test prep programs, which made a mockery of the idea that the test would equalize opportunities by identifying "diamonds in the rough" who had the misfortune to attend mediocre high schools. "The New, Improved SAT," by John Harper, The Weekly Standard, August 26, 2002
The results of the 34th annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the public's attitudes toward the public schools were released on Tuesday, and as in other years, early attention has focused on what those results show about public support for vouchers.
A few months back, Terry Moe of the Hoover Institution attacked last year's PDK/Gallup poll for "cooking the questions" on vouchers by posing two separate queries on the issue, phrased and framed in different ways, then highlighting in their press release the results that seemed to show less support for vouchers.
This year, the poll found that support for vouchers rose significantly no matter how the question was phrased. When asked whether they favored a policy permitting parents to choose private schools for their children to attend "at public expense" (which Moe notes invites a negative response because it presents vouchers as a special-interest program for an exclusive group), 46% said that they would favor it, up from 34% last year. When asked if they favor allowing parents to send their children to any school they choose, with the government paying all or part of the tuition-the same basic question, but using different language-52% said yes, up from 44% last year.
The press release issued by PDK/Gallup this year made no attempt to disguise the fact that support for vouchers rose, though it did emphasized that a majority (52%) still oppose the idea (using numbers from the question which is biased against support for the program). Note that the survey was conducted before the Supreme Court announced its decision upholding the Cleveland voucher program. It's likely that this rise in public support for the policy, combined with the Court's go-ahead, will add momentum to the voucher movement.
A separate survey commissioned by the Center for Education Reform and also released on Tuesday found even higher support for vouchers. When asked if they favor allowing poor parents to be given the tax dollars allotted for their child's education and permitting them to use the money to send their child to a private school of their choice, 63% said yes. When asked if they support providing parents with the option of sending their children to the school of their choice-public, private, or parochial-76% supported the policy.
Even more popular than vouchers, however, is the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB). Fifty seven percent of those surveyed by PDK/Gallup believe that that the federal government's heightened involvement in local school affairs is a good thing and two-thirds favor annual testing in grades 3-8. Indeed, most would go further than NCLB: 68% would require all states to use a single, nationally standardized test, and 66% favor a national curriculum-these being two of the great education bugaboos of Washington politicians. Large majorities support offering "in-district" choice for students in schools that fail to meet state standards (86%), offering tutoring by state-approved private providers (90%), and termination of the principals and teachers in failing schools (56%), though most oppose closing the school (77%). The public seems unworried by the increase in testing and does not share the concern of some educators that the emphasis on reading and math in NCLB will result in less reduced attention for other subjects. (56% say this would be a good thing.)
The 34th Annual Phi Delta Kappa/Gallup Poll of the Public's Attitudes toward the Public Schools, by Lowell Rose and Alec Gallup, August 20, 2002
Center for Education Reform 2002 National Survey of American's Attitudes toward School Choice, August 20, 2002
"Cooking the Questions," by Terry Moe, Education Next, Spring 2002
In a long essay in the Summer 2002 issue of Daedalus, Diane Ravitch ponders whether the current round of standards-based reform can solve the endemic education problems that undermine effective teaching of history and literature. She describes the spread of the belief that our schools need not teach a common set of facts about history or a common set of literary texts, and she highlights the role that self-censorship by textbook publishers and testing companies have played in purging the curriculum of content. (Think of this essay as a preview of her forthcoming book on that topic.) She shows how bias and sensitivity guidelines developed by these publishers and testing firms have led to the exclusion from textbooks and tests of classic literature on grounds that it reinforces stereotypes; doesn't portray people who are sufficiently diverse; and may contain material that is controversial or could upset students. As a result, Ravitch writes, only the blandest, least controversial, and ultimately least interesting passages are deemed acceptable for tests and textbooks. State academic standards are similarly written to avoid giving offense to anyone; as a result, they eschew content and focus on skills. The resulting content-thin curriculum will make education not a great leveler, but a great divider, Ravitch writes, as only students at some elite private and public schools will be exposed to the great works of literature and the historical events that shaped our world. As our common culture becomes constricted, Ravitch warns, so does the possibility for informed citizens to debate the shape of their shared future. "Education after the culture wars," by Diane Ravitch, Daedalus, Summer 2002. Devoted to education, this issue includes responses to Ravitch's article by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Ted Sizer, and others, which can be found at http://daedalus.amacad.org/issues/summer2002/Su2002coverweb.pdf.
School and classroom websites, once hailed as a way to let parents know what their kids are doing in school, often languish today, with students and parents likely to find only outdated information such as school menus or homework assignments from the previous year. Teacher training in the use of the Internet has been spotty, and many teachers have only limited access to the hardware and Internet connections they need, which makes it hard for them to create and operate the constantly updated websites that parents and students would find useful. A survey of teenagers released last week by the Pew Internet and American Life Project found that students are frustrated that teachers are not making better use of the Internet. "Ghosts of Classrooms Past: A Web Teaching Tool Languishes," by Jeffrey Selingo, The New York Times, August 15, 2002; "Wanted: Web-Savvy Schooling," by Ellen McCarthy, The Washington Post, August 14, 2002
Don't think for a minute that June's Supreme Court decision upholding Cleveland's school-voucher program has opened the floodgates of education choice for American families. Opponents succeeded earlier this month in persuading a Florida judge to nix that state's exit-voucher program, whereby youngsters stuck in public schools that repeatedly fail to meet Florida's academic standards may take their money to private schools or other public schools. (His analysis, contrary to that of Justices Rehnquist, O'Connor and Thomas, held that, because many of these children opt for parochial schools, the program violates a provision in the state constitution barring state aid to sectarian institutions.)
But what really has education watchers twittering is how little actual choice is resulting from a new Congressional mandate that youngsters enrolled in failing "Title I" schools may exit them for other public (and charter) schools.
When Congress overhauled the Title I program last year in the "No Child Left Behind" Act, it included a provision somewhat like Florida's: if a Title I school fails for two straight years to make adequate progress toward its state's academic standards, the local school system must provide its pupils with "public school choice" and may use some of their federal dollars to pay for the transportation.
In the original Bush formulation, a student's choices would also have included private schools and public schools in other districts. But Congress instantly balked at "vouchers" and the White House quickly yielded. Then the education establishment pressed lawmakers to confine children's options to public schools within the same district. Hence Chicago children have no right to enroll in Winnetka's excellent schools nor Los Angeles youngsters in those of Beverly Hills nor Boston kids in those of neighboring Brookline. Their choices are limited to schools run by their present systems (and charter schools within district boundaries).
That does not create a lot of appealing options for kids in faltering systems that abound in failing schools and boast few good ones. But once the lobbyists were finished, that's as far as Congress would go. Except for one wrinkle that was barely noticed when the bill was signed in January: limited as it is, the school-choice provision applies right now-today, school year 2002-3-to more than 8000 Title I schools that have already lingered for two years or longer on their states' lists of education failures.
School districts across America were flabbergasted to learn this summer that they must immediately provide public-school options for those millions of youngsters.
How are they responding? A handful are behaving as they should. District of Columbia superintendent Paul Vance doesn't like this provision-he fears it will "drain" the abler students from the weaker schools in his troubled system-but is nonetheless seeking to clear a number of slots for youngsters transferring from the city's 15 worst-performing schools. "The law is the law," he told The Washington Post. "My job is to implement it."
Across the nation, however, many states and districts are resisting this school-choice requirement, deferring until it's too late for kids to switch, ignoring the law entirely or reinterpreting it in ways that suit them. Thus Education Week reports that "relatively few students will parachute out of low-performing schools this fall."
Many stratagems are at work to frustrate the new federal rule. In a matter of weeks, Ohio whittled its list of failing Title I schools from 760 to 212-not by improving the others but by fiddling with test scores and criteria. Rural South Carolina districts claim that they have so few schools that there's really nothing to choose among-and it's too much bother and expense to send youngsters to schools operated by nearby districts (which NCLB mandates in such situations "to the extent practicable.") Kentucky has decided to wait until mid-September to finalize its list of eligible schools. Texas is holding off until the end of August. By then, of course, the school year will be well underway in those two states and fewer families will want to move their children.
In some cases, it's not clear whether the district's limp response is due entirely to foot-dragging or to genuine problems of capacity. In Baltimore, where 30,000 children are enrolled in failing schools, the district says it has just 200 openings in better ones. In Chicago, a staggering 125,000 kids in 179 schools were originally deemed eligible to transfer but the system has somehow cut that list to 50 schools-and is now "pairing" them with other schools rather than giving students a full range of options. (It says that all 179 schools will get extra help with tutoring and suchlike.) Vance's Washington D.C. is providing pupils who want to move with four alternative schools-but has excluded many of the District's highest-performing elementary schools (which tend to be in upper middle class neighborhoods).
Notwithstanding such shenanigans, thousands of youngsters are changing schools under the new federal requirement, including such upscale places as Montgomery County, Maryland. Denver estimates that almost 5000 students will leave their neighborhood schools, though some are opting into other schools on the list of weak performers. (Down the interstate in Colorado Springs, principals of exit-eligible schools wrote personal letters to parents pleading with them not to leave.) And some families are making these moves for reasons having more to do with playgrounds and personalities than academic achievement. "It's hard to quantify why they picked what they picked," remarked the head of Denver's Title I program.
When all is said and done, however, it's just a few thousand poor children, not millions, who are fleeing bad schools for better ones this fall, never mind the explicit requirements of No Child Left Behind. Mainly what we're seeing is widespread flouting of that law's intent-and a federal government that can do little to make recalcitrant states and school systems change their ways. Though the Bush administration has revived its interest in school choice-filing an important Supreme Court brief in the Cleveland case and proposing tax credits for school expenses-it has few enforcement tools at times like this. The Education Department's hard-working, tough-minded undersecretary, Eugene Hickok, is monitoring the situation and intervening where he can, but nobody is about to cut off Title I funds to districts or states that dawdle over school choice. In fact, No Child Left Behind authorizes the withholding only of a smidgen of administrative money from states and districts that do not fulfill its mandates. Nor do any rewards-save perhaps in Heaven-await those that conscientiously provide solid alternatives for their students.
What we're really seeing, once again, is how the public-education establishment despises school choice, how little it will bestir itself to assist poor families trapped in failing schools to gain access to better schools (even within the same districts), and the hardball tactics it deploys to keep lawmakers from adding more exit doors. If angry, frustrated parents now ratchet up the campaign for private-school vouchers, tax credits and unlimited charter schools, that same establishment will have only itself to blame.
The lesson: Congress can paste whatever label it wishes on its shiny new statute, but when it entrusts a choice program to the same people who brought us 8600 failed schools in the first place, it leaves millions of children behind.
A somewhat different version of this article appears in this week's Weekly Standard. It's available to subscribers at http://www.weeklystandard.com.
"Parents Feeling Left Behind by Schools," by Scott Stephens and Janet Okoben, The Plain Dealer, August 17, 2002
"School Choice Falling Short," by Duke Helfand, Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2002
A memo issued by the California Department of Education last month warned parents that they may not home-school their children unless they have professional teaching credentials, the Washington Times reports. If such a thing were ever enforced, California would become the only state in the union that would require home schooling parents to be certified teachers, according to Michael Smith of the Home School Legal Defense Association. Home schooling advocates said the memo was merely a ploy aimed at frightening parents into sending their children to public schools. For details see "California warns home schoolers," by Ellen Sorokin, The Washington Times, August 21, 2002.
The Heritage Foundation's Krista Kafer has compiled an education "CliffsNotes" of sorts, drawing from data collected by the National Center for Education Statistics and others. If you're looking for fast facts on achievement, expenditures, special education and the like, you'll find some of them at http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/WM134.cfm.
Teachers and administrators at a Florida elementary school hope to convince students that the "F" their school received from the state's accountability system really means "fantastic" and "fun." Pep rallies and t-shirts declaiming "F = Fantastic" are just some of the strategies this failing school is using to boost everybody's sense of self-esteem and complacency. "School's Spin: F = Fantastic," by Lori Horvitz, Orlando Sentinel, August 13, 2002