Grassroots
Guest Blog – Can we really be this stupid? I-1033 is so lame. John Stokes
Posted on 08. Sep, 2009 by jstokes.
All opinions are those of the author and do not represent the opinions of the League of Education Voters or its employees.
Tim Eyman’s latest tax cutting effort, Initiative 1033, is poised to wreck havoc on the state’s property taxes on which vitally important services for the average Joe and Jane and their children depend, and given the economic times, it has a good chance of passing unless we education voters do everything we can to combat it. Otherwise education funding will be dealt another crippling blow and our dreams of funding reform and education transformation will go down the tubes. Six billion new dollars for education will be mighty hard to come by if I-1033 becomes the latest expression of the will of the people in this state.
The great mystery is why ordinary middle class folks, and those who are hoping to become middle class, continue to embrace Eyman initiatives like I-1033 that would devastate them personally and help greatly in destroying the very middle class they represent? Yes, the idea of cutting my taxes is very appealing, and especially when it appears that the rich just keep getting richer, even in these dire financial times when those in control still seem to be pocketing the big bucks. A good friend of mine, with whom I enjoy jousting on economic and governmental matters, while supportive of higher education funding, supports I-1033 because “taxes are too much and the intent is to keep property owners from being taxed out of their homes.” Of course not, but that is what people like to believe?
Kelly Munn recently wrote a good piece about why I-1033 is a bad deal for education and for average people who use government services (that is most of us), and there is an excellent fact sheet on this web page, so I won’t repeat the against arguments here. But it struck me this morning as I read the latest blog from David Brooks in the New York Time (and I am getting to like him more and more as he morphs in his viewpoint), a piece called The Bloody Crossroads, published September 7, 2009.
In it Mr. Brooks poses the great conundrum of our times: when voters have relatively direct control over fiscal decisions, the result is that they vote to tax themselves like libertarians and subsidize themselves like socialists. That is exactly why California is in a fiscal meltdown, and instead of bringing down the special interests that are claimed to control government, it empowered them He cites the growing strength of the teacher’s union, as an example, and we are seeing signs of that here in this state. If the state coffers dry up from I-1033, the battles will more and more be waged on local turf, and children will be much the losers. So, if you care about education funding, work against I-1033 as if it mattered now more than anything, because it does.
John Stokes, Bellevue
All opinions are those of the author and do not represent the opinions of the League of Education Voters or its employees.
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Guest Blogger: Strikes are only Useful in Baseball and Private Industry
Posted on 18. Aug, 2009 by jstokes.
With the threat of strikes by teachers, led by their unions, in Kent, Shoreline, Moses Lake, Toppinish and Grandview, there is much discussion going back and forth about the impact such strikes could have on the school community, and most of all, the kids.
Recently a teacher who supports the union posted comments on a PTA listserv that has wide enough distribution to render it more or less public, so I am paraphrasing for the purposes of this discussion:
Strikes are inconvenient to parents and to some extent kids (though they may enjoy the time off). And that is the purpose of strikes, so that the people who receive the services of the teachers will appreciate what their absence brings to the schools. In short, the aim is to make people suffer. Outlawing strikes is something that happens in a dictatorship. The very fact of inconvenience is what gives labor leverage, and teachers cannot lose the benefit of this tool to get the wages and working conditions they want.
I think some teachers, and mostly their unions, are having a hard time seeing the forest for the trees. I have been a long time union member and official, and am still a member though retired from my position with the agency. I believe in the necessity at certain times for a union in the private sector to strike, and the issue of the Boeing strikes and consequences is a long and convoluted story with little glory on both sides. I also absolutely believe that public employees have no legitimate reason to strike, and by the very nature of the job, they should be legally barred from striking.
My union, one of the largest and strongest federal agency unions, the National Treasury Employees Union, accomplishes the things that teachers and the WEA are talking about in general, even more so than they have been able to achieve without the necessity for a strike (but of course not as much as we think is necessary, but we keep working on it). We also believe we have a public trust and responsibility to keep a high level of service to the public we work for in place and ready to help. We get raises and increased benefits and better working conditions by using smart and organized political and intellectual pressure on the agencies and the Congress. In addition we use the law as smartly and forcefully as we can, but we do not strike and disrupt or inconvenience anyone.
The very idea that any teacher would think their own personal needs are more important than the personal needs and expectations of the people they work for, the parents and taxpayers, and most of all, the children, is appalling. Disrupting the school year, short as it is for the job to be done, is, in my considered opinion, the height of arrogance and shows a singular lack of care and understanding of the dynamics that lead to improvement in the long run for schools. And it is bad for kids.
And, as Kelly Munn keeps reminding us, the problem of salaries, benefits, class size and other educational problems lies with the State Government, the Legislature, not the local schools. There is no money just lying around for the things the Kent EA is thinking of striking over. It will come from something else, and it will hurt kids.
If teachers, especially the union, wants the T in PTA to stand for a collaborative partnership of members from both the parent and teacher ranks (and students too as appropriate), then they have to engage in a civil and intelligent dialog without the lies and distortions rampant in the build up to the passage of ESHB 2261. They have to quit the fear mongering and drop the “me first” attitude that ignores the larger need of the kids and the society we all live in.
By the same token, parents have to join in honest discussions about the need of teachers in the context of what is best for the public and the kids, and school boards and administrators have to also be willing to leave the cozy confines of the status quo and strike out in new and sometimes unchartered direction. The fault zone in our public schools is a mile wide and about two miles deep, and it is caused by all sides and can only be fixed by all sides, working together.
I do not, as some have advocated, want to see the union abolished or crippled. I want to see the union act responsibly, strongly, intelligently, and show the heart, the caring and the competence that most teachers individually show in their daily work with our kids. And that would seem to mean a more enlightened and collaborative leadership and an end to the mentality that says holding our kids hostage for monetary and personal benefits is an acceptable way of serving the public in our public schools.
John Stokes, Bellevue
All opinions are those of the author and do not represent the opinions of the League of Education Voters or its employees.
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July 28 conference call
Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by Kelly.
We hosted a conference call about the current education landscape Tuesday night. Many thanks to those of you who joined us. For those that missed it, we now have a recording of the call. Since it’s a 4MB file, we recommend you email the link rather than the actual file.
Also, to help you follow along, this is the agenda we followed:
- Education Reform Bill HB2661 (George Scarola)
- What is in the bill
- What are the next steps to implement the bill
- Possible reconvening of legislature on 1776
- Overview of School Districts (George Scarola)
- Budget cuts
- Stimulus Funds run out 2010/2011
- National (Lisa Macfarlane)
- Stabilization/Race to the Top Funds
- State wide ballot issues (George Scarola)
- Initiative 1033
- Income Tax - Nov 2010
- Court Cases (Lisa Macfarlane)
- Federal Way equity lawsuit
- NEWS trial Sept
- Early Learning/Higher Education (Frank Ordway)
- Q&A
Listen to the entire conversation here.
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Guest Blogger: A Jeffersonian Education – Is it Time for an 18th Century Solution for 21st Century Problems?- Again
Posted on 30. Jul, 2009 by jstokes.
A Jeffersonian Education – Is it Time for an 18th Century Solution for 21st Century Problems?
John Stokes
As much as I love communicating by the web and through avenues such as this blog, there is nothing like a conversation face to face. Often the best are pure happenstance. Yesterday I went to the event at State Rep. Reuven Carlyle’s house in Seattle for State Rep. Laura Grant, D. Walla Walla. As I wandered into the house from the porch another man introduced himself, noting that we both had great names. His was John Wong. As it turned out, John is Rep. Grant’s husband.
We talked about education, children and related topics. John is a college professor and as passionate about education as I am. In the course of the discussion he said that he believed in the Jeffersonian view of education - the idea of learning as teaching students how to think, thus preparing them to be leaders, entrepreneurs and statesmen. That education is meant to prepare every individual to understand their surroundings and make intelligent decisions about their life and the necessities of a civilized world to live in. Education as the great equalizer and the great lifter.
In contrast, he noted the assembly line approach to education which prepares the student for a job by teaching them what to think, and prizes the ability to regurgitate facts and figures over problem solving (something my daughter calls the Henry Ford method). Unfortunately, we both commiserated, the latter theory is the prevalent one today in many education circles.
Which got me to thinking about the direction of education in this State and how education reform today stacks up against these two views of the purpose of education. While I think there is an segment of the education community that values the idea of teaching our kids in the thinking, innovating and self-sufficient way, the mainstream is more about preparing kids for a job and most of all just getting them out the door with an acceptable test score that makes the school and the district look good for levy time. Thus the drive to shorten tests to multiple choice instead of the more costly and subjective essay form, and to water down the WASL to a more straightforward right ahd wrong answer format. And it is reflected in the “math wars” with the “computational” crowd wanting memorization and focus on doing problems and learning times tables as opposed to learning how to solve a math problem. Fortunately we seem to have come to an uneasy truce on this one that allows both approaches to work in tandem, but the push for getting rid of the investigative aspects, the “fuzzy math,” is fighting for control.
The competing views are also on display in the drive for what we euphemistically call “accountability.” We want hard facts, hard numbers; tell us what Johnnie and Susie need to know by the 4th grade and make sure they can show that in answers on a test. So by the 10th grade, we are satisfied if they can dredge up answers for questions at maybe an 8th grade level, and they can graduate from high school after sitting through two more years, and we consider that education reform. We try to raise the standards to Core 24 (and this is not saying that is actually Jeffersonian), and the howls come forth that kids can’t do that. The problem is that we really don’t know what we want and what is best for the kids, we think and decide from an adult point of view. What does Microsoft need, what does the corner Jamba Juice need in the way of employees, not what does the society need, what is best for our kids so they can have a good life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Think about it.
John Stokes
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Guest Blogger: Getting rid of the WASL may not be such a good idea after all.
Posted on 29. Jul, 2009 by jstokes.
Surprise, surprise!!! Getting rid of the WASL may not be such a good idea after all. John Stokes
In today’s news conference the Center on Education Policy (CEP) announced that its recent study of fifteen classrooms in six high schools in Washington State supports the notion that Washington State educators prefer improving the high school Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) rather than jettisoning it as some critics and politicians have demanded, or at least suggested. The main conclusion from the study is that teachers believe that the WASL actually helps boost student reasoning and writing skills, but also want to have more relevant testing that can be used for quick response to student needs.
They want to be able to track a student’s progress over the school year and have data that is more useable to teachers in the classroom as they deliver the curriculum, along with more professional development on how to use the data to guide their instructional work.
What the teachers especially liked about the use of the WASL as part of their overall teaching strategy is that it helps guide them to cover lessons that emphasize the types of writing and reasoning skills students need to be successful in college and other post secondary work. What was counter to some claims made against the WASL was the general feeling that teachers did not see the WASL as a constricting force. Despite the trend to more scripted daily lessons and the requirement of a directed focus because of the WASL, teachers were observed in the classroom using a Socratic style of discussion to draw out students and used technology in a positive way to motivate student learning. The clearly were cognizant of the demands of the WASL to have students prepared with the skills tested, they did not teach to the test as is commonly charged.This is good news.
While the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Randy Dorn, is widely quoted and credited with saying that he wants to scrap the WASL, I think that this report will actually reinforce the main changes he talks about when he address what he sees as WASL shortcomings. The WASL should not be a one shot high stakes test, but a part of a series of diagnostic tools that can be used to measure the overall achievement in student learning for a class, a school and a district, while also giving useful data and guidance for individual students.
End of course tests, as well as more frequent periodic testing as the class progresses can be in sync with a test like the WASL and give educators much more useful information than the one test alone will ever give. And that is what I hear Randy Dorn saying. Maybe changing the name of the test would signal a change in focus, but changing the essence of the test would apparently be a real step back.
Another part of this report addresses recommended changes in the No Child Left Behind law, and I’ll address those in another blog. But they are very interesting and compatible with the above.
You can access the press release and the full report at this link: www.cep-dc.org.
Go to “What’s New” for the Washington State story and to “News Releases” for that.
John
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Guest blogger: Thoughts about education advocacy and getting things done!
Posted on 27. Jul, 2009 by jstokes.
Being an advocate is tough work. Being an education advocate is tough and frustrating. It is very much a game of highs and lows, and often not much in between. As education advocates pushing for the transformational concepts embodied in the Basic Education Task Force Report, seeing this report was a real high. The next best thing was HB 1310. It went downhill from there. The end result was all in all still pretty good by any standards, but it was not the pinnacle.
There were many good notes along the way, especially the outstanding work done by parent advocates from PTA, LEV and Stand. That and the pragmatic school board members, superintendents, child advocate organizations, the Superintendent of Public Instruction, the State School Board president, and all the others who joined forces to challenge the establishment education organizational status quo approach made the difference. Parent advocates descended on Olympia like never before, day after day, week after week, and wrote countless notes and letters, visited with their legislators, walked their neighborhoods, had coffee with them and shared the stories of hope, promise and great need. The sour notes of the death of 1310 was soon replaced by the sweet notes of the birth of 2261, and without continued pressure, visibility and the profuse thank you’s by the advocates with and to the legislators, and the Governor, something significantly less would have occurred.Then there was the great high of the bill signing day, along with the two balloon bursting item vetoes by the Governor that were a surprise. But overall much good did get put into law.
Now comes the hard part; actually making sure that the promises and plans of 2261 come into being over the next few years. What is disheartening to us advocates is the talk around the State about not having the money; the expectations are too high; the press for funding now out of the current budget without working to put the reforms in place; and taking the “model schools” concept and using it as a way to quantify the cost of a current public school education and focusing on that instead of this being just one piece of the overall new picture of education for the 21st Century. It is enough to make a grown person cry and the advocates to find other things to do with their time and interest, such as focusing on doing things that can be changed in their own school districts. But that is not the answer.
As they say, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Now is not the time to pull back from the long range battle because of exhaustion, frustration or cynicism. That is what kills reform every time. We must keep our eye on the prize, to use another great phrase and cliché. I saw a great bumper sticker the other day. It said “Get involved, the world is ruled by those who show up.” That is exactly right! So we simply have to stay involved, be engaged and bring the bacon home, whether it takes until 2018 or longer. If we don’t, all the work of this year will be essentially lost. We cannot let that happen.
Until the next time, with some concrete ideas on where we go from here.
John Stokes, Bellevue
John Stokes is no stranger to LEV and many of our education friends. He is a longtime advocate and activist whom we are pleased to welcome to the LEV website as a resident blogger. John’s perspective has been shaped by his longtime work as a local, state and national PTA leader and as a trustee of the Bellevue Schools Foundation and chair of its Bridging the Achievement Gap Grants Committee.
John has also served on numerous committees within the Bellevue School District and the state, and in political and bond and levy campaigns. He is a recent appointee to the Bellevue Parks and Community Services Board.
He was instrumental in mobilizing parent and community members to lobby for successful passage of the major education reform bill, ESHB 2261.
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Community leadership in support of education-Anacortes Style.
Posted on 03. Feb, 2009 by admin.
Many people may only know Anacortes as the gateway to the San Juan Islands. But it is quickly becoming known for another reason, as a hotbed of education reform. Through the concerted efforts of administrators, School Board members and parents the Anacortes community is leading the way in supporting substantial reforms of our public schools.
PTAs are holding letter writing parties and parents are keeping each other up to date on the latest developments in Olympia. This week there is a great example of this community’s leadership. The Anacortes High School PTSA invited the other 6 Anacortes PTA’s to join them for their monthly meeting. The focus of the meeting will be education advocacy–calling and letter writing to our legislators. The Anacortes High School PTSA is providing envelopes pre-addressed and paper. All the PTA Presidents in Anacortes sent out a notice to their members inviting them to attend and encouraging them to contact legislators.
The PTA’s have really stepped up in Anacortes!
PTAs have invited local activists and School Board members to attend general membership meetings to provide information of what’s happening and how they can be involved.
Their support has had a big impact on the elected Representatives and Senators from the area with most of them signing on as sponsors in support of the Basic Education Task Force Legislation (SB 5444 and HB 1410). Senator Ranker reports more email and calls in support of education reform than any other subject this session.
Hopefully, communities from across the state can learn from Anacortes and help support reform in, and resources for, our public schools.
