There’s a unique initiative this January where you can share what’s on your mind when it comes to state education policy. Since it’s breaking new ground, this initiative also has a unique name: a “reforum.”

At the reforums you’ll hear about the latest in education and share your thoughts on how to improve schools and make teaching and learning more effective. When teachers come together we can move our ideas on education reform forward and stand up for our students and our communities.

Sign up for one of the meetings now, and invite your colleagues. (Your CEA membership ID number is required to sign up. If you don’t know your ID number you can look it up.)

Meetings will be held at the following times and locations:

• Tues, Jan 17 · 4-6:30 PM – Heritage Hotel, Southbury
• Wed, Jan 18 · 3:30-6:00 PM – The Spa at the Norwich Inn
• Thurs, Jan 19 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Georgina’s, Bolton
• Thurs, Jan 19 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Italian Center of Stamford
• Mon, Jan 23 · 3:30-6:00 PM – The Brushmill, Chester
• Tues, Jan 24 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Inn at Woodstock Hill
• Wed, Jan 25 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Rocky Hill Marriott
• Thurs, Jan 26 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Crystal Peak
• Mon, Jan 30 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Trumbull Marriott
• Tues, Jan 31 · 3:30-6:00 PM – Park Central Tavern

A Brown University professor described as “a little radical” the school funding formula he helped Rhode Island develop. Professor Kenneth Wong said the Rhode Island formula, which includes “money follows the child,” treats charter schools and neighborhood public schools as “entities” that provide educational services in the marketplace.

Wong, Brown’s education department chair, made a presentation to the Connecticut task force looking at overhauling the state’s school funding formula. CEA Executive Director Mary Loftus Levine is a member of the Education Cost Sharing (ECS) Task Force, which met for the third time today.

Senator Andrea Stillman, the task force co-chair, asked Wong whether her constituents’ local tax dollars would go to neighboring towns under the Rhode Island system. He responded, “yes.”

Wong suggested that Connecticut’s current funding formula is leaving too many kids educationally behind.

The task force will be holding meetings that will include public comment on October 18 in New Haven and October 25 in Eastern Connecticut.  Stay tuned for the times and locations of these meetings.

Nationally, five of 10 indicators of child well-being improved, (Infant Mortality, Child Deaths, Teen Deaths, Teen Births, the Percent of Teens Not in School and Not High School Graduates); three worsened (Low Birth Weight, Poverty, and Children Living in Single-Parent Homes); and two (percentage of Teens Not In School and Not Working and Families Where No Parent Has a Full-Time Job) could not be ranked due to recent changes in data collection and reporting methods.

Although not listed an indicators of well-being, the authors suggest that unemployment and foreclosure rates should also be taken into account. Nationally, 11% of children had at least one unemployed parent in 2010 and 4% were affected by foreclosure since 2007. The figures in Connecticut were 10% (79,000 children) and 3% (46,000 children), respectively.

(Kids Count indicates mixed bag – OLReporter)

Do you see the effects of unemployed parents and foreclosures on students in your classroom? What else would you suggest as measures of child well-being?

A hypothetical case demonstrates how NCLB targets are periodically increased, making it more challenging for schools to meet AYP as time goes on.   Consider a school that, for CAPT reading, had 81 percent of its students at or above proficiency in 2010, and this year had 84 percent of its students at or above that level (a 3 percentage-point increase). That school would have failed to meet the AYP target of 2011 on the merits of these scores, even though it made AYP last year and its overall performance on the test improved.

National policymakers have promised to revisit NCLB, but there has been little action, leaving educators and students with a flawed law.  Blogger Bob Murphy offers his insights on what needs to be done below.

The Current State of NCLB: Stalemate

By Bob Murphy

The State Department of Education has released its latest AYP Report and we have no reason to believe that the widely documented flaws in the law will be corrected anytime soon. The law has been eligible for reauthorization for over four years now.  Congress seems incapable of facilitating a democratic bipartisan process, even in an area so clearly connected to the nation’s future economic well-being as its public education system.

Earlier this summer, Secretary Duncan announced that more than 80% of the nation’s schools would fail to make AYP in 2011 if Congress did not complete reauthorization by September.  The secretary’s prediction is higher than that estimated by CEA in a study done in 2006 projecting AYP trends in Connecticut.  The inevitability of the eventual failure of nearly all of America’s schools by June of 2014, however, is no longer a matter of dispute. yet stasis continues to be the order of the day. Is it any wonder that in a recent ABC/Wall Street Journal poll only 13% of Americans approve of the performance of Congress? Arne Duncan threatened to begin issuing waivers to states if Congress failed to step up to the plate, and, of course, they did. The only one who appeared surprised by this was Secretary Duncan.

Many states have been pleading for regulatory relief in lieu of reauthorization. In an August letter NEA urged the President to grant regulatory relief. Indeed, since the law’s inception, over 600 waivers have been granted by the Secretary of Education, but what Duncan proposes is a very different type of waiver, because it will require a quid pro quo similar to Race to the Top. In order to receive a waiver, states will have to meet certain, as yet to be determined, conditions consistent with the administration’s education reform agenda. Even without the details, many states have expressed interest in applying, including Connecticut. The Center on Education Progress (CEP) has set up a “Waiver Watch” on its website. This is their best estimate of who may seek waivers.

There has been little debate over whether or not the Secretary has waiver authority. The point of contention is the imposition of conditions that are beyond the scope of the current law. California, in its request for a waiver, raised this objection:

Finally, the conditional nature of the waivers presents problems for California. I understand that waivers may be granted only if a state commits to certain policy priorities of the Administration, including adopting college- and career-ready standards, imposing a differentiated accountability system, and adopting a teacher/ principal evaluation system that incorporates student test results. These policy priorities would mark dramatic deviations from the existing policies required under NCLB. States would be asked to make commitments beyond NCLB with no commensurate funding to provide the state capacity to implement such requirements. The appropriate forum for consideration of any new legal mandates is through the reauthorization process involving transparency and Congressional democratic debate.

If the Administration is unable to support robust state-determined accountability systems prior to ESEA reauthorization, I urge you to ensure that states are not held hostage to new and under-funded policy requirements in order to receive necessary relief from the unrelenting march toward mislabeling hard-working and effective schools for improvement, corrective action, and restructuring.
[Emphasis added.]

We should all share the concerns raised in the California letter. There is a fundamental issue in all this. It is all about how the federal role in state and local education is determined: through legislation and regulation (as in ESEA) or through competitive coercion (as in Race to the Top and now through the conditional granting of waivers). In the guise of congressional inaction a new reform agenda is taking root in America unburdened by the messiness of public discussion or democratic process. The old agenda was all about testing and winners and losers, the new agenda is all about teachers: how they are paid, how they are evaluated, and how they are incentivized to perform and, oh yes, even more testing. Meanwhile, the march to mythological Lake Wobegon continues unabated.

There are numerous ways to include art in the classroom. Above, life-sized silhouettes of the human body illustrating the different body systems, created by 10th grade art and biology students in New Hampshire. Photo by phoenix hill from Flickr.

On July 26, 2010, the U. S. House of Representatives passed a resolution designating the second week of September as Arts in Education Week.  The week promotes and showcases the immense role arts education has in producing engaged, successful, and college- and career-ready students.

The resolution states: “Arts education, comprising a rich array of disciplines including dance, music, theatre, media arts, literature, design, and visual arts, is a core academic subject and an essential element of a complete and balanced education for all students.”

The Arts Education Partnership has created a hub site for sharing information about National Arts in Education Week including links to partner sites and information about arts education policy and practice in states and communities. To learn more, visit the Arts Education Partnership web site.

Celebrating the Arts in Your Classroom

To help you celebrate the arts in your classroom this week and throughout the year, NEA offers the following resources:

Articles – NEA on the Arts in Education

• Discipline Tips from Drama Teachers
  [Enter, stage left]: The discipline pro! That would be your school’s drama teacher, who shares her strategies for classroom management and student engagement. Ta-da! (August 2009)
• Yo! From Tupac to the Bard
  Educators are stepping to a new beat, making use of hip-hop music to engage their students. (November 2008)
• Dance of the Trapezoid
  Educators use the power of the arts to teach math and science. (May 2008)
• State of the Arts
  When tap shoes are silenced and paintbrush bristles left to harden, student achievement suffers—often at the schools where the arts are needed the most. (January 2007)

Current Grant Opportunities

• Ezra Jack Keats Minigrants (Pre-K and Elementary School)
  Public school libraries and public libraries that host programs encouraging literacy and creativity in children can apply for an Ezra Jack Keats Minigrant of $500.
• Music: Fender Music Foundation Awards
  These awards provide funding and resources for music programs.
• Scholarships: Jack Kent Cooke Young Artist Awards
  Classical instrumentalists, vocalists, and composers (ages 8-18) who have not yet entered college may apply for the $10,000 awards.

How do you use art in your classroom? Let us know in the comments.

A labor leader as well as a civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr.'s national memorial is now open to the public in time for Labor Day.

Just in time for Labor Day, the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial opened to the public August 22 in Washington, D.C.  Although Dr. King’s role as a civil rights leader is widely known his role as a labor leader is less well-known, but no less important.

In a speech to the Illinois AFL-CIO Convention in 1965 King said that, “The labor movement was the principal force that transformed misery and despair into hope and progress. Out of its bold struggles, economic and social reform gave birth to unemployment insurance, old age pensions, government relief for the destitute, and above all new wage levels that meant not mere survival, but a tolerable life.”

It is fitting to remember King’s legacy as a supporter of the rights of struggling ordinary Americans on Labor Day as well as in January.

In an April column in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said that King, “realized that removing legal barriers alone would not bring about equal opportunity and economic justice for African-Americans. He recognized that workers of all races – including public employees like the Memphis sanitation workers – would have to use their collective strength to win a fair deal for themselves and their families.”

King’s dream for economic and social justice is still very relevant today. As Van Roekel wrote,

The politicians behind these attacks [on public workers] are trying to stoke resentment of public employees and other union members among workers who aren’t represented by a union. But no American should resent a neighbor for earning a decent living. Instead, middle-class Americans should be concerned about the widening gulf between an ultra-wealthy elite and everyone else.

NEA leadership had planned to join tens of thousands of people this past weekend for a dedication ceremony for the national memorial. However, poor weather conditions from Hurricane Irene necessitated postponing the event.

For information about visiting the memorial go to www.mlkmemorial.org.

Labor Day teaching resources

Planning a lesson about Labor Day?  Click here for a list of great resources and lesson ideas NEA has compiled from a variety of organizations and institutions.

Our administration will develop a plan that trades regulatory flexibility for reform. If Congress does not complete work on reauthorization soon, we will be prepared with a process that will enable schools to move ahead with reform in the fall. States, districts and schools need the freedom to implement high standards, strengthen the quality of their teachers and school leaders and embrace a more flexible, fair and focused system of accountability.

The purpose of our administration’s plan is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability but, rather, to unleash energy for reform at the local level even as Congress works to rewrite the law. It’s a meaningful step to help educators, parents and community leaders transition from today’s stifling, top-down approach toward a climate of locally designed innovation and excellence.

The Senate is “working” on a bill and Senator Harken remains optimistic that lawmakers can complete it. The House chair, Representative Kline, however, has been emphatic that they will not have a complete bill, but plan on filing several smaller bills dealing with several aspects of NCLB. The critical accountability measures like AYP (Adequate Yearly Progress) or the looming 2014 deadline for 100% proficiency are not among the planned House bills for action this summer.

The states have been pleading for regulatory relief for some time now. In fact, just last month the state of Montana hurled its own gauntlet down to Secretary Duncan. State superintendent Juneau said to Duncan, in a letter which she hand-delivered, that she would not raise the target for AYP for the upcoming school year as required by law. The state had set a path to reform for itself incorporating the elements required by the Race to the Top competition. “I’m not asking permission,” Juneau said in an interview. She said it’s “unfair” to make schools work on both the old priorities of the No Child Left Behind law and the new priorities set by the Obama administration.

Another revealing case is the Montgomery County story. For over a decade this 22,000 student district has been developing and refining a peer evaluation and assistance program called P.A.R. (Peer Assistance & Review). The success of the program has relied upon a deep trust between all parties. The district recently turned down a substantial Race to the Top grant because Secretary Duncan refused to waive the requirement that student test scores be incorporated into the evaluation system in spite of the successful track record of Montgomery County system.

This is just the kind of dogmatic imposition of leveraged reform notions that give the lie to much of Mr. Duncan’s rhetoric about flexibility. Although the department has been vague about specifics, they have indicated that they will be developing a “basket of specific strategies” that states requesting relief will be required to implement.

As desperate as states may be, this looks to be a definite case of  ”caveat emptor” –

let the buyer beware.

You can watch a video of Rep. Kline’s comments to the Heritage Foundation last week at this link. See also George Will’s column  “The GOP sends in a Marine for education reform”

There are three areas which Kline has promised to deal with. First he will eliminate programs that are redundant or unnecessary, he will offer flexibility in spending for states and districts, and he will deal with accountability -although he was less than specific in this area. On may 13th a bill was introduced in the House  by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) which would eliminate 43 education programs. many of the programs have already been targeted for defunding, others have been around for a long time and are regarded by many as successful – e.g. The National Writing Project and Striving Readers. Many of the programs being cut were recommended for consolidation in the Obama Blueprint. The next bill expected in June will deal with flexibility, and Kline said that he expected a bill dealing with accountability by the end of the summer. He has mentioned that there is not yet consensus  on what exactly schools should be accountable for and to whom they are accountable. It is likely to introduce the concept of growth models and focus more attention on the lowest performing schools.

Meanwhile in the Senate a bill called the STAR (School Turnaround and Reward) Act has been introduced by Sen. Kay Hagan (D-NC) which deals with Turnaround schools and would further legitimize the four models introduced as a requirement for receiving School Improvement Grants. The bill includes incentives to force more schools to choose the more draconian, albeit unproven models such as the “Turnaround Model” and “closing schools and reopening as charters.”

Beyond these bills the heavy money still says no reauthorization in sight.  The only consensus seems to be that No Child Left Behind is broken and needs fixing. Most groups with skin in the game have staked out their positions and freely shared them with Congress. Not everyone agrees that radical change is necessary. Most recently the US Chamber of Commerce with the assistance of Margaret Spellings offered their Statement of Principles:

In order for the Chamber to support ESEA reauthorization legislation, the bill must:

• Contain rigorous accountability provisions that are clear, transparent and include all students and all schools;
• Prepare students to be college- and career-ready;
• Provide real choices and options for students and parents; and
• Recognize and reward effective teachers and principals.

After three weeks of high drama in Wisconsin, the home of Robert La Folette and the Progressive Party, 50 years of public employee bargaining history was brought to a screeching halt in the dead of night.

In a political maneuver oozing with sleaze, Senate Republicans stripped the labor provisions out of the so-called “Budget Repair Bill” declaring them “non-fiscal” and thus allowing them to act on them separately without the quorum necessary for budgetary measures. After three weeks of declarations that these proposals were necessary to balancing the Wisconsin budget, suddenly they are “non-fiscal”.

The Democratic Senators who fled the state said that their only hope was to buy time in hopes that the public would have an opportunity to see what is in the bill. This they did accomplish.

Citizens in Wisconsin, as well as around the nation, came to see the measure for what it actually is: an assault on the public employee unions.

Wisconsin polls have shown that the citizens of Wisconsin disagree with their newly elected governor. In a recent poll conducted by the conservative Wisconsin Policy Research Center:

Almost two-thirds of respondents (65 percent) say he should compromise with Democrats and public employee unions while one-third (33 percent) say he should stand strong no matter how long protests last.

This apparently unleashed a flurry of emails between Governor Walker and the Democrats in which he hinted at elements of compromise and a short-lived feeling that an agreement might be possible. The Democrats said the compromise did not go far enough, and Wednesday night what has come to be called the “nuclear option” was hatched and implemented.

If there is any of light in all this, it is that the American public in repeated polls has shown a sense of fairness and opposes these assaults on the rights of public employees. The latest  Bloomberg National Poll on Wednesday found that 64% of respondents — both Democrats and Republicans — say public employees should have the right to bargain collectively for their wages.

The second positive outcome may be a reawakening among union members as to why they belong to a union in the first place. We are at our best when we are “a movement of people with a common purpose,” and an injury to one is, in fact, an injury to all.

When Governor Walker thought he was talking to one of the billionaire Koch brothers, he was talking to a soul mate.  Sadly, he is just a pawn in their game. They, the billionaires who fuel the conservative movement, will jubilantly celebrate this evening. In their view they will be one step closer to neutralizing the biggest remaining countervailing force to their free market agenda.  Public employees, after all, are the only vestigial remnant of the robustness that was once the Middle Class in America – and if their unions go away they will see a precipitous decline in their standard of living.

“Its legality is dubious,” NEA President Dennis Van Roekel said. “Its intent is mean spirited. It is perhaps the most grievous example of how democratic decision making should not take place. The Governor and his legislative minions should be ashamed of what they’ve done.

“In exercising the nuclear option to impose their will on Wisconsites, Governor Walker and Senate Republicans attacked middle class families, from students to seniors, in their state,” said Van Roekel. “This is an affront to teachers, nurses, students, firefighters, construction workers and other everyday people who stood up, spoke out, and learned how much their voice mattered to their elected leaders.  The response will be unified and the collective voice of millions of working Americans from all across this nation will only grow louder.”

Today was an important, if tragic, chapter in a story that is far from ended. The question is, what can we do to influence the ending?  Stay posted.

The Census Bureau predicts that soon the poverty rate for America’s children will reach 25% – and these numbers are based on the obscenely outdated calculus which says that for a family of four income below $22,050 is considered poverty. In a study conducted by the Economic Policy Institute, it was calculated that a family of four actually needs $48,778  to meet a more realistic construct of “just getting by” called family budgeting. Under this measurement, which is much closer conceptually to measures used in European nations, THREE times as many families fall below the official poverty line.

According to the Children’s Defense Fund, Connecticut has nearly 97,000 poor children (12.1%) and 44,752 (5.6%) children living in extreme poverty.

We will soon be, if not already, number one among industrial nations in the rate of children living in poverty. The lack of rational discourse on how best to deal with these deficits, particularly at the federal level, do not give us hope that the lot of children’s lives will improve and indeed it seems more likely they will worsen in the years ahead.

What Scott Pelley has exposed for America to ponder is that these children, who once enjoyed relative, albeit modest, measures of security, now get on the school bus carrying a lot more baggage to the classroom than their backpacks reveal. When we talk about shared sacrifice our test will be who we ask to share the burden.

I was reminded of something that Hubert Humphrey, former Vice President and US Senator, said in his last speech before leaving public life:

“The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”