"Students First" does not put students first. "Stand For Children" does not stand for children. "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) leaves lots of children behind.

POLITICALLY MOTIVATED PROGRAMS LIKE: "Students First" does not put students first. "Stand For Children" does not stand for children. "No Child Left Behind" (NCLB) leaves lots of children behind.

from Schools Matter by skrashen

Sent to Yakima Herald-Republic (WA) for "Saturday Soapbox"
By Jane Watson
August 31, 2012

“Doublethink” is alive and well.

In 1948, George Orwell wrote 1984. “Big Brother is Watching You” was born. So was “doublethink,” the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously and accepting both of them. TVs watch YOU. Language is paradoxical. Less is more. War is Peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

The organization Stand For Children endorses gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna and Charter Schools. Who doesn’t want to Stand For Children? Who wants Children Left Behind? Who doesn’t want Students First?

The fallacies and failures of NCLB (No Child Left Behind – aka No CORPORATION Left Behind) are well documented. ‘Nuff said.

The CEO of Stand For Children is Geoffrey Canada, a well financed man who opened Harlem’s Children’s Zone, a school which was able to provide many benefits to students who otherwise would have been left to the resources of public schools. Canada was able to spend $14,000 per student to help mitigate the effects of poverty. [Wish public schools could do that!]

When students did not get acceptable test scores, Canada kicked an entire class out of school to maintain Harlem Children Zone’s high test scores. http://susanohanian.org/show_atrocities.php?id=9289. Presumably, these students went to public schools, which don’t turn away anybody – kind of like the Statue of Liberty.

Charter schools take money from public education. They do not do better than public schools. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/about-the-brill-story-on-chart.html
Most national research shows that on average public schools perform as well as charter schools or better.

Michelle Rhee heads Students First. She was chancellor of DC public schools, (2007 – 2010) which had low test scores. When she was chancellor, test scores rose. Ms. Rhee’s reputation rests on those test scores, which soared while she was chancellor. Last March, USA Today published the results (http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2011-03-28-1Aschooltesting28_CV_N.htm) of a yearlong investigation of the Washington schools that found a high rate of erasures on tests as well as suspiciously large gains at 41 schools — one-third of the elementary and middle schools in the district. Michelle Rhee is now under investigation for fixing test scores. Michelle Rhee taught third grade for one year, but couldn’t control her class, said the stress gave her hives, and taped children’s mouths to keep them quiet. Rhee’s first year test scores showed a precipitous drop in her class: Average math percentile dropped from 64% to 17%. Average reading percentile dropped from 37% to 21%

In straight talk, Students First does not put students first. Stand For Children does not stand for children. No Child Left Behind (NCLB) leaves children behind.

Where does one get the truth? Talk to teachers. They’re the ones on the front line. They know students are more than test scores. They know children are being robbed of music, art, and many other things by the narrowing of the curriculum as a result of excessive testing.

Go to Parents Across America website. http://parentsacrossamerica.org/ Sign up for their newsletter.

Go to the Save Our schools website. Help them keep the “public” in public ed. http://www.saveourschoolsmarch.org/ Attend their webinars and tweets with educational professionals. (499)


CITATIONS

Charter Schools
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/charter-schools/about-the-brill-story-on-chart.html

Charters vs. public schools: Behind the numbers
http://www.educationjustice.org/newsletters/nlej_iss21_art5_detail_CharterSchoolAchievement.htm

CHARTER SCHOOL ACHIEVEMENT: HYPE VS. EVIDENCE
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/27/education/duncan-and-rhee-on-panel-amid-dc-schools-inquiry.html?_r=1

Gerald Coles: KIPP Schools: Power Over Evidence
http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/08/gerald_coles_kipp_schools_powe.html

"Am I crazy? I believe every child can have an excellent teacher--without firing any teachers?"

TUESDAY, AUGUST 21, 2012

Posted August 21, 2012 by Maura Larkins,

San Diego Education Report Blog

Am I crazy? I believe every child can have an excellent teacher--without firing any teachers!

Lots of kids get stuck for years with various incompetent teachers, but it doesn't have to be that way. We can fix the problem. And save money!

Am I crazy to think this?

HERE'S THE MATH:

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $90 + $45 + $45 + $45 + $45 = $270

HERE'S THE PLAN:

An excellent teacher could come into each classroom for just a few hours a week and make a huge difference--if that teacher had responsibility for student success and authority to make decisions.

Parents should not need political clout to get a good teacher for their child. Every student should--and could--have a great teacher, without wasting time and energy on the losing battle to fire incompetent teachers.

The truth is that the critical moments in learning don't happen continuously five hours a day. They add up to at most a couple of hours each day, and probably much less. The rest of the time an ordinary, mediocre teacher can handle the skill practice and lesson reinforcement, computer activities, art projects, silent reading (how much skill is needed to be in charge of that?) and so on.

GIVING SUPPORT TEACHERS A REAL JOB

At my old school we were paying a top salary--well over $60,000, for a computer teacher who was very nice, but her job was merely to familiarize kids with computer programs. An aide could have done the job. When the principal (Ollie Matos) tried to switch that computer teacher to giving basic reading and math lessons, the teachers went ballistic. The story became a sensation in the San Diego Press, and a group of angry teachers were named the "Castle Park Five" by San Diego Union-Tribune editor Don Sevrens. Basically, what the teachers wanted was 45 minutes a week in which they could send their students to another teacher. But in my plan, classroom teachers would have this kind of help and relief for more than an entire day each week! The nice computer teacher could become a master teacher!

Resource teachers like computer teachers and language and math support teachers could become master teachers. And let's face it: how much good are those resource teachers able to do? They go around and offer suggestions, but they are really doing the equivalent of passing out band-aids. I would never want such a job. It might be relaxing not to have direct responsibility for student learning, but isn't that the point of being a teacher?

NO MORE ABUSIVE TEACHERS

Academics would not be the only thing that master teachers would be responsible for. Abusive, immature teachers with a habit of undermining students could be overruled and guided by the master teacher.

WE COULD SAVE MONEY!

Why do we pay bad teachers the same amount of money as good teachers? It makes no sense!

Excellent teachers should be paid much more than average teachers, and could be responsible for all students in several classrooms.

Each classroom could have a full-time regular teacher who be paid a lower salary, but would be eligible to become a master teacher. The master teacher would also be responsible for helping and guiding the regular teacher.

Here is a chart of average teacher salaries in the US.

In California the average teacher salary is roughly $60,000 (with a starting salary of $35,000.)

We could allow regular teachers to rise in salary to an average of $45 thousand, and allow master teachers to rise to an average of $90 thousand--for overseeing four classrooms.

Money for support teachers and teacher aides would be switched to master teacher positions in the classrooms. (Of course, special education would still require teacher aides.) Some people who are currently teacher aides could become regular teachers.)

Here's the comparison for four classrooms and one extra salary (thousands):

Currently: $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 + $60 = $300

New plan: $90 + $45 + $45 + $45 + $45 = $270

MEANINGFUL EVALUATIONS OF TEACHERS WOULD BE REQUIRED

Of course, meaningful evaluations of teachers would have to be instituted to make this plan work. Current evaluation systems are worse than useless. My plan would call for frequent observations by both master and regular teachers, but they would observe classrooms in other districts to keep school politics out of the process as much as possible. The observations would have a beneficial side effect: they would allow teachers to get pick up new ideas.

I believe it would be good to use student test scores when choosing who is to be a master teacher, but I don't think it's absolutely necessary. The good thing about it is that it would take some of the politics out of teacher evaluation. It should be noted that although student test scores vary widely from year to year for most teachers, some teachers do get consistently high scores from their students year after year.

Hispanic Girls Face Special Barriers on Road to College

Hispanic women are more likely than Hispanic men to complete high school and college, but they still trail white and African-American women

Originally Published in Ed Week 6/19/2012

By Katherine Leal Unmuth

Dallas: After 15-year-old Valerie Sanchez spent a day of her spring break in Fort Worth touring the well-manicured grounds of Texas Christian University and listening to an inspirational talk from members of a Latina sorority, she felt sure of her future.

"I'm going to college," says the teenager after the visit organized by the Dallas center of Girls Inc., a national nonprofit group. "I want to be the first in my family."

But like many young Latinas, she faces a host of challenges in the coming years, as she works to graduate from high school, go on to community college, and then enroll in a four-year institution.

Sanchez moved from Mexico when she was 9 years old and enrolled in the 156,000-student Dallas Independent School District. After taking bilingual classes taught in Spanish and English, she found the transition to all-English classes in middle school difficult.

Consequently, Sanchez was held back in the 8th grade last year at Edison Middle Learning Center here in Dallas. She now attends tutoring sessions after school in addition to programs provided by Girls Inc. that focus on career planning and pregnancy prevention.

The plight of Latino young men often dominates the discussion of graduation rates. But young Latinas also face cultural, economic, and educational barriers to finishing high school and entering and completing college.

"There's the assumption that girls are doing fine," says Lara Kaufmann, a senior counsel at the National Women's Law Center, in Washington. "It's true that within ethnic groups girls are doing better than boys. But they're not doing well."

Falling Behind

While Hispanic women are more likely to graduate from high school and college when compared with Hispanic men, some statistics suggest they trail behind African-American and white women on some such measures.

Postsecondary Engagement Lags for Latinas

Latinas ages 18 to 24 have lower postsecondary-engagement rates than Asian, white, and black women of the same age bracket. Asian women are twice as likely as Latinas to be either enrolled in higher education or to have a postsecondary credential.

SOURCE: EPE Research Center, 2012. Analysis of data from the American Community Survey (2008-2010), U.S. Census Bureau.

According to a Pew Hispanic Center analysis of 2011 Census survey data, about 17 percent of Hispanic females ages 25 to 29 have at least a bachelor's degree, compared with about 10 percent of Hispanic males, 43 percent of white females, and 23 percent of black females in that age span.

To delve into why such gaps persist, the National Women's Law Center collaborated with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund on a 2009 study on educational outcomes for Latinas.

While the middle and high school girls interviewed in the report said they wanted to graduate from college, they also said they didn't expect to achieve that goal. The report also cited challenges for them in reaching educational goals, including such difficulties as immigration status, poverty, discrimination, low self-esteem, higher rates of depression and attempted suicide, gender stereotypes, and limited English proficiency.

A cultural emphasis on loyalty to family also can play a role. Latinas may be expected to take on additional duties as caregivers, such as helping to watch younger children or aid elderly family members. They may be expected to live with their parents until they are married, making it difficult to leave home to go away to college.

Ties That Bind

Celina Cardenas mentors Hispanic girls in the 37,000-student Richardson Independent School District in the Dallas suburbs. Cardenas, a district community-relations coordinator, is Mexican-American and feels she can relate to their experiences.

Valerie Sanchez, 15, works on a writing assignment during reading class at the Thomas A. Edison Middle Learning Center in Dallas. The eighth grader is working to become the first in her family to attend college.

—Allison V. Smith for Education Week

"It's kind of like you're born with responsibility—especially the girls," she says. "Doing something on your own may not sit very comfortably with them because they may not want to let anyone down. I talk to them a lot about not feeling selfish that they're disappointing their family by going away, and understanding there's nothing wrong with having those goals."

Family loyalty can cause Hispanic girls to choose less-competitive colleges than they are qualified to attend so they can keep living with their parents. They may also not be well informed about financial-aid opportunities to attend more expensive schools.

University of Texas at San Antonio education professor Anne-Marie Nuñez says that when girls live at home while in college, they may have a hard time focusing on their studies because of family obligations.

"They may be juggling multiple responsibilities that pull them away from being able to focus on their studies," Nuñez says. "Other family members may not understand the energy they need to focus on their studies."

In Texas, a nonprofit online magazine written by girls, called Latinitas, aims to empower young women. The organization also provides workshops, mentoring, and college tours. On the website, Saray Argumedo, 23, shares her own experiences about the tension with her family when she studied at the University of Texas at El Paso.

"All I can do is ask for forgiveness when my mom questions why I spend all my time outside of the house studying, working, and getting involved in my community," she writes. "I thought that they would be proud of me, but why are they so angry?"

Teenage Motherhood

Young Latinas also are more likely than most young women in the United States to have their own children as teenagers. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, in Washington, about 52 percent of Latinas become pregnant before age 20, nearly twice the national average. In Dallas, the nonprofit group Alley's House helps mothers complete their General Educational Development, or GED, studies and build their confidence.

Yesenya Consuelo, 19, dropped out of Spruce High School in Dallas her freshman year when she became pregnant with her now-4-year-old daughter. Consuelo wants to study at a community college to be a surgical technologist, but she needs to pass the math portion of the GED, which she has failed twice. She comes to Alley's House for math tutoring four days a week.

Consuelo says her daughter is her motivation to finish school. "I'm trying to be the best I can for her," she says.

Despite the challenges, says Nuñez, the education professor, "the truth is Latino families have as high aspirations as other groups. Sometimes, they just don't know how to translate those aspirations to reality."

Katherine Leal Unmuth is a Dallas-based freelance-writer.

Latino education issues at latinoedbeat.org.

CTA Cowards and NTA lackies - hear this

    FUCK MARCHING ON SACRAMENTO.

  MARCH ON BURLINGAME, CALIFORNIA.

    WE WILL BE HEARD! October, 2012!

Diana DeGette You Go ! In the Name of Shirley Chisolm!

Mitt Romney declared, "Planned Parenthood has got to go!" Afraid if it had been around when he was conceived he wouldn't be here today ...

Republicans have a clear agenda for women: Defund Planned Parenthood, deny women access to health care and birth control, and even prohibit women the right to participate in the debate about women’s health care.

Grassroots Democrats around the country have united against the Republican War on Women to launch a Women's Health Accountability Fund. Our goal is to expose the truth about Republicans' war on women with an aggressive rapid response operation including ads, on-the-ground organizing and more.

The Emanant Insolvency of San Diego Unified School District: A Harbinger of Things to Come for Moreno Valley USD??

Original story by andrew.donohue
voice of sandiego

The public proclamations that the San Diego Unified School District faces a state takeover dropped like bombshells this month, but district leaders have had serious discussions about insolvency both publicly and privately for years.

At one point more than two years ago, former Superintendent Terry Grier was so concerned that school board members didn't grasp insolvency's consequences that he scheduled a private briefing from perhaps the state's foremost expert on it, San Diego County Office of Education Superintendent Randy Ward.

"We'd just had numerous discussions with them about the possibility of insolvency. They just didn't believe the state elected officials could or would allow it to happen," Grier said. "There was even early discussion about how becoming insolvent might be the right thing to do."

Ward knows state takeovers well. The state appointed him to take over Oakland Unified School District after it went broke in 2003. He unilaterally ran the district, cleaning up its finances after the superintendent was fired and the elected school board became an advisory council.

When he met with them, Ward didn't tell the board members they were headed for insolvency. Rather, he explained what would happen and how the district would need to take drastic measures to avoid it. "He also rang that warning bell loud and hard," Grier said.

At least twice since that meeting, while the state continually cut funding to local schools, the school board has made high-stakes gambles that state finances would improve or that school spending would significantly increase. In light of California's continued economic problems and those serious ongoing discussions about insolvency, those gambles have begun to look misguided at best and reckless at worst.

District officials have cast the financial crisis as one wholly of the state's making, but talk of insolvency has always hung over the financial gambles the district's taken in order to keep class sizes small and teachers employed in the short-term. The long-term consequences of those decisions only compound the trouble handed down by the state.

Just a year after Ward's talk, the school board entered into a labor contract that, while providing short-term relief, saddled it with burdens it may well not be able to handle. The contract was, by the board president's own admission, a "gamble." Then, this summer, the board voted to rehire hundreds of teachers based on rosy state projections, despite advice to the contrary from their staff and consultant.

Now, with the state's projections looking unlikely to materialize, school board President Richard Barrera is calling for the state to levy taxes on the wealthy, oil extraction or alcoholic beverages to save school districts from insolvency.

Grier, who left the district in 2009 for Houston, said the district's dynamics changed when the teachers union's slate of school board members, John Lee Evans and Richard Barrera, were elected in 2008 and joined with Shelia Jackson to form a pro-labor voting block.

When Barrera and Evans joined the board, Jackson put together a plan to cancel teacher layoffs that had been issued before their election, a move the new board approved unanimously.

Grier said the move went against staff's advice and had little justification as the district's enrollment had been shrinking for the better part of a decade and the teachers simply weren't necessary.

At the time, then-board member Katherine Nakamura said schools were fully staffed and it would be hard to even find places to put the teachers. She warned of the bad timing, too, considering the state's plight. "You don't eat a jelly donut in the middle of a heart attack, no matter how sweet it might be."

Nakamura ended up voting for the plan, though, saying she wanted to move the board forward.

Barrera said his decisions have nothing to do with his relationship with, and support of, labor unions. He said his relationship with the teachers union has soured thanks largely to his vote in favor of layoffs earlier this year.

Make no doubt about it: The state Legislature has made severe changes to the way it funds K-12 education, offering districts 15 percent less money than it did just a few years ago. And it's not even giving the districts the smaller checks it promised, forcing them to borrow money every year and bank on IOUs. That's put districts around the state in serious trouble.

In response, San Diego Unified has made its own harsh changes. It's cut staffing by 15 percent since 2009 and this year it ultimately laid off more than 1,000 workers, including 500 teachers. The threat of insolvency, for example, popped up during the school board's public deliberations about whether to issue layoff warnings to teachers this March.

Today, district leaders say they've cut to the bone and are now evaluating closing some schools. Teachers agreed to shorten the school year by five days the last two years, taking five unpaid days off and saving the district about $20 million.

But, despite those major changes, the school board has been banking on the state Legislature upping education funding or a roaring economy to come to the rescue before the consequences of some of its long-term decisions come due. Every cut that wasn't made a year ago compounds now, and only deepens the budget pain when it eventually has to be made.

Barrera said every budget decision he's had to make has involved risk. "We either risk the education of kids or we risk the financial health of the district, that's the situation we've been in, over and over and over again," he said.

The issue to Barrera is one of drawing a line in the sand.

The board has already made cuts that have raised class sizes to an unacceptable level and impacted the welfare of children, he said, but there's a point the board simply can't cross. If refusing to make cuts entails gambling against the financial health of the district, then that's what he's got to do, he said.

Choose against the financial health of the district too often, though, and you eventually run out of money to even keep a school district functioning.

That's the situation the district faces today.

It's already staring at a $60 million deficit for next year after managing a roughly $80 million deficit this year. It has a rather vague list of solutions to fund that deficit, from closing schools, to selling off land, to asking the union to make concessions on teacher salaries and benefits. All that will have to be decided soon.

If the state's optimistic revenue forecast fails to materialize, next year's deficit could nearly double for and the district will have to find more ways to cut without laying off teachers. So far, the only solution that's been floated for that problem is shortening the school year by seven days, a proposal that, again, the district would have to negotiate with its unions.

If the state goes ahead with the threatened midyear cuts, Barrera and Superintendent Bill Kowba say the district will be on its way to insolvency. If the district goes insolvent, it will get taken over by the state and local control would be eviscerated.

Budget decisions would be made unilaterally by a state-appointed trustee. The superintendent would be fired. The school board would be advisory. The state would have some power over school finances for decades as the district paid back its bailout loan.

Kowba, a former rear admiral in the Navy, served as Grier's chief financial officer. Grier said Kowba had continually raised red flags for the school board.

However, he said, often staff's warnings to the board went unheeded.

"We knew the cuts were going to be painful. We also knew from everyone we talked to that this was not going to get better. We kept sharing that with the board. They were in a hard position, I don't envy them," Grier said. "But they kept going in the opposite direction that staff recommended."

You can reach us at andrew.donohue@voiceofsandiego.org orwill.carless@voiceofsandiego.org. Follow us on Twitter:

San Diego Education Association Places Executive Director on Administrative Leave

The San Diego Education Association’s board of directors placed executive director Craig Leedham on paid administrative leave. Will Carless of Voice of San Diego has the story. As of today, no one from the union would explain the reasons behind the move. No one is talking on the record. Off the record, people who know Leedham describe him as ”nasty,” “aggressive,” “profane” and “paranoid.” 

Accurate or not, none of those attributes is sufficient to get you booted from a high-ranking position in one of the nation’s largest teacher union locals. Something very specific needs to have happened, and I suspect we’ll learn what it was before long. 

The union confirmed Tuesday afternoon that Leedham had been placed on leave. “San Diego Education Association Executive Director Craig Leedham is on paid administrative leave. It is inappropriate for further comment at this time about what is an internal matter,” President Bill Freeman said in a brief statement.

Leedham held several positions at various levels of the Wisconsin Education Association Council before taking a staff job with SDEA in 2006.

 “Teachers are telling us, they have the lowest level of job satisfaction in more than two decades and that a growing number are planning to leave the profession."

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers.

WASHINGTON— Student Success Is Jeopardized when Teachers, Schools Are Denied Tools and Resources Critical to Teaching and Learning. Further, public opinion has a lasting negative effect on those of us who have chosen the Avocation of Education. According to “The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: 'Teachers, Parents and the Economy.” “... budget cuts to public schools and the demonization of teachers have taken a toll on teachers’ job satisfaction and that jeopardizes student success."

More often than ever we hear educators as the root of all evil in public education. But this survey tells us what teachers themselves are thinking, and it’s very sobering. “Teachers are telling us they have the lowest level of job satisfaction in more than two decades and that a growing number are planning to leave the profession, according to Weingarten.

“It’s not surprising that the most satisfied teachers are those who have support; they are treated as professionals, are given opportunities for professional growth, teach in communities where parents and educators collaborate to improve teaching and learning, and have job security. Sadly, at a time when we need to recruit and retain talented teachers and prepare kids for the knowledge economy, the teaching profession is becoming less attractive and more difficult.

“We need to pay attention when the teachers most likely to be dissatisfied are those with at-risk students—students who have the most needs but the fewest resources, at school and at home, because of the economic crisis. Teachers consistently say they need the tools, resources and time to improve teaching and learning—the same things that teachers in top-performing countries receive virtually without fail. U.S. teachers are frustrated with unrelenting cuts in budgets, elimination of arts and after-school programs, larger class sizes, and accountability systems that over-rely on student test scores. This should call into question the obsession with cutting funding for public education and health and family services children and parents rely on.

“The report’s silver lining is that there’s more engagement among parents, teachers and community groups to help students succeed.

“This report provides a commonsense road map for what we need to do to build successful schools: respect teachers, engage parents and the community, and, even in tough times, provide the programs and resources necessary to ensure high-quality public schools." 

Some key findings from “The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher: Teachers, Parents and the Economy”:

• Teacher satisfaction has decreased by 15 points since “The MetLife Survey of the American Teacher” measured job satisfaction two years ago, now reaching the lowest level of job satisfaction seen in the survey series in more than two decades.
• This decline in teacher satisfaction is coupled with large increases in the number of teachers who indicate they are likely to leave teaching for another occupation, and in the number who do not feel their jobs are secure.
• Teachers with high job satisfaction are more likely to feel their jobs are secure and say they are treated as professionals by the community. They are also more likely to have adequate opportunities for professional development, time to collaborate with other teachers, more preparation and supports to engage parents effectively, and greater involvement of parents and their schools in coming together to improve the learning and success of students.
• More than three-quarters of teachers have faced budget cuts in their schools in the last year.
• Two-thirds of teachers report that their schools have had layoffs of teachers, parent/community liaisons or other staff in the last year.
• Nearly three in 10 teachers indicate that there have been reductions or eliminations of health or social services in their schools.
• Six in 10 teachers report that the average class size in their schools has increased.
• One-third of teachers also indicate that educational technology and materials have not been kept up to date to meet student needs.
• Students report greater parent engagement in their education compared with students 25 years ago. Two-thirds of today’s students report that they talk about things that happen at school with their parents every day, compared with four in 10 in 1988.
• There also has been a threefold increase in the number of students who report their parents visit their schools at least once a month, up from 16 percent in 1988 to 46 percent today.

2011 marred by test cheating scandals across US

DORIE TURNER, AP Education Writer 

Dec. 27, 2011 9:16 PM ET

ATLANTA (AP) — It was the year of the test cheating scandal.

From Atlanta to Philadelphia and Washington to Los Angeles, officials have accused hundreds of educators of changing answers on tests or giving answers to students. Just last week, state investigators revealed that dozens of educators in 11 schools in Georgia's Dougherty County either cheated or failed to prevent cheating on 2009 standardized tests.

In July, those same investigators accused nearly 180 educators in almost half of Atlanta's 100 schools of cheating dating back to 2001 — which experts have called the largest cheating scandal in U.S. history. At least 20 students have been charged on Long Island with cheating on SAT and ACT college-entrance exams by paying someone to take the test for them.

"It's a year in which cheating became a national scandal, a scandal of national proportions," said Bob Schaeffer, a spokesman for the National Center for Fair & Open Testing, which advocates against high-stakes testing. "The Atlanta case forced policymakers and journalists in other jurisdictions to look to see if there's anything similar going on in their backyards."

Experts say some educators have bowed to the mounting pressure under the federal No Child Left Behind law as schools' benchmarks increase each year toward the ultimate goal of having all children reading and doing math at their grade level by 2014. Teachers in Atlanta reported that administrators created a culture of "fear, intimidation and retaliation" where testing goals had to be met no matter what, according to investigators.

"This problem existed before No Child Left Behind, but NCLB has exacerbated the problem, clearly," said Walter Haney, a retired Boston College education professor and expert on cheating. "I think testing is really important, but the problem has been the misuse of test results without looking behind the test scores to see who and who is not tested."

Federal officials have been saying for more than a year that the law, which is four years overdue for a rewrite, doesn't accurately depict what's happening in schools. While federal lawmakers agree the law needs to be fixed, an overhaul has become mired in the partisan atmosphere in Congress.

At President Obama's invitation, states have begun filing waivers to get relief from the law. Under the 11 waivers already filed, states are asking to use a variety of factors to determine whether they pass muster and to choose how schools will be punished if they don't improve. Among the factors that could be used are college-entrance exam scores or the performance of students on Advanced Placement tests.

At least 39 states, plus Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, have said they will file waivers, though it is unclear how many will get approved.

In Pennsylvania, an investigation continues into irregularities found in 2009 state standardized tests in reading and math. The probe began last summer after a routine forensics report flagged "highly improbable" results in 90 schools across the state.

The state education secretary ordered the 50 districts representing the named schools to conduct internal investigations and submit reports to him by Aug. 15., But nearly four months later, the reports are still being analyzed and have not been made public.

Twenty-eight of the flagged schools were in Philadelphia, the state's largest district. District representative Fernando Gallard said the system is talking with the state Department of Education over how to move forward with the cheating investigation.

In Washington, D.C., federal and city officials are investigating possible cheating in more than 100 schools from 2008 to 2010. The unusually high rate of erasures in those schools became known after a USA Today investigation into improbable test gains in more than 300 schools in six states and D.C.

City officials tossed out test results for three classrooms in May because of proven cases of cheating.

A Waterbury, Conn., principal resigned earlier this month over an alleged cheating scheme on the Connecticut Mastery Test. A dozen teachers who were also caught up in the scandal lost 20 days of pay and have to perform 25 hours of free tutoring.

In Los Angeles, teachers at three schools have resigned after being accused of coaching students or changing answers on tests. The test scores at two of those schools have been thrown out.

Schaeffer, who follows cheating scandals closely for years, said he's seen as many cheating stories this year as in the last half-dozen years combined. He said there have been confirmed cases of cheating in 30 states and D.C. in the last three years.

___

Reporters Kathy Matheson in Philadelphia and Brett Zongker in Washington, D.C., contributed to this report.

___

Study Warns of Limited Savings from Closing Schools

Edited by I, Praetorian

·         Printer-Friendly

Closing schools doesn’t save air academic progress. And it says school districts can help generate some acceptance for a downsizing plan by involving the community early and establishing clear reasons for why certain schools must close.

The report, released Oct. 19, was written by the Philadelphia Research Initiative to foreshadow what the 154,000-student Philadelphia district can expect over the next few years as it plans to close a number of schools because of declining enrollments. The district currently has 70,000 empty seats, according to the report. School administrators have not decided which schools to close and how many, but internal school documents published in June by the website Philadelphia Public School Notebook listed 26 schools that could be shut down.

The report looks at school closings in Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Mo., Milwaukee, Pittsburgh, and the District of Columbia. Each of those districts has closed at least 20 schools in the past decade, and most of the buildings have been shuttered in the recent past.

For example, Pittsburgh, with around 25,300 students, went through a “right-sizing” effort that closed 22 schools in 2006. The district is now discussing closing seven more schools. The 17,400-student Kansas City district closed 29 schools—nearly half of its school buildings—in 2010.

A Matter of Context

Closing schools does save money, but in districts whose budgets add up to hundreds of millions of dollars or more, the final savings are relatively small, said Larry Eichel, the program director for the Philadelphia Research Initiative, which is a project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Philadelphia’s current annual budget, for example, is $2.8 billion.

Six Cities Shuttering Buildings

To inform deliberations over plans to close schools in Philadelphia, researchers conducted case studies of recent school closings in six other urban districts.

Chicago
Closure Period: 2001-2009
Number Closed: 44
Buildings in Use: 602

Detroit
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 59
Buildings in Use: 130

Kansas City, Mo.
Closure Period: 2009-2010
Number Closed: 29
Buildings in Use: 29

Milwaukee
Closure Period: 2005-2010
Number Closed: 20
Buildings in Use: 137

Pittsburgh
Closure Period: 2006
Number Closed: 22
Buildings in Use: 64

District of Columbia
Closure Period: 2008
Number Closed: 23
Buildings in Use: 11

*As of 2011.

Source: The Philadelphia Research Initiative

“The savings are under a million dollars per school,” Mr. Eichel said. “That’s real money, but not money that changes anything fundamentally.”

The biggest chunk of district money is spent on teachers, and those staff members typically are still needed, just at different locations.

A district also has to pay for some maintenance on shuttered buildings so they don’t become neighborhood eye sores.

And districts should not expect a windfall from selling their old buildings. Those facilities are undesirable to businesses for some of the same reasons that districts decided to close them: The buildings are often located in areas that are losing population. Also, they tend to be in poor condition, and it may be hard to convert them to other purposes, Mr. Eichel said.

The study found examples of repurposing, however. In Milwaukee, a former middle school was bought last year for $600,000 to be converted into senior housing. In Chicago, several closed schools have been converted to charter schools.

Impact on Learning

In examining the academic performance of students in schools slated to be closed, the report focused on a study by the Consortium on Chicago School Research that looked at students whose schools were closed between 2001 and 2006. That study found that student performance fell at schools that were slated to be shut down and remained low for the rest of the school year. A year later, though, the academic performance of those displaced students had rebounded to preclosure levels.

The Pew report also cites a study led by researchers from the RAND Corp. that examined achievement from students from closed schools in a “midsized urban district in the Northeast.” Though the district was not named, the paper noted that the district closed 22 schools in the 2005-06 school year, which corresponds with Pittsburgh’s experience.

That paper said students in the district whose schools were closed did see a drop in their reading and math scores, but researchers found the effect could be mitigated or eliminated if the students were moved to schools that were higher-performing than the ones they left behind.

The Pew report offers several tools that districts can use to reduce the pain of closing schools. For example, it suggests that outside experts can bring a level of objectivity to the proceedings. Seeking community support early is also essential, the report notes.

It says that the 45,000-student District of Columbia school system committed a misstep by moving too quickly to close schools in the face of a 30 percent decline in enrollment. Under the leadership of then-Chancellor Michelle A. Rhee, the school system announced that closures were coming in September 2007, and the final vote to close 23 schools came, after much controversy, four months later.

Mary Filardo, the executive director of the Washington-based 21st Century School Fund, studies school facilities issues and agrees that the system in Washington moved too quickly to shut down schools. Too many school districts distrust the public when it comes to closure decisions, she said.

Taking It to the Public

“The reason you involve the community is not to make [closings] palatable,” she said. “The reason you involve the community is because you want to make better decisions.”

She added that people whose children attend school in such urban areas often “are working-class or low-income. They know about making tough decisions and struggling” and can understand the necessity for some closings.

As District of Columbia school officials learned, making a misstep in school closings can cause political fallout. The community uproar over the closings in Washington was one of the ingredients that led last year to the primary-election defeat of then-Mayor Adrian M. Fenty, who had selected Ms. Rhee, and to the chancellor’s departure.

And after community members in Chicago protested that school- closure decisions were being made in secret, the Illinois legislature passed a law in August that governs how that 409,000-student system can make facilities decisions.

“The political fallout is from not having a trusting relationship with your public,” Ms. Filardo said.

Being Transparent

But involving the public can be a delicate balancing act, said Nancy R. Kodman, the executive director for academic and operations integration for Pittsburgh schools. Just introducing the problem to the community, she said, leads to people saying, “You don’t have any solutions? You don’t have any ideas?” But a full plan is criticized for being drawn up in secret.

“You lessen that by being as transparent as you can,” Ms. Kodman said.

When Pittsburgh closed more than 20 schools, she said, the district talked with the public about what it was hoping to achieve. Academic improvement was put forward as the top goal, and to eliminate some political horse-trading, the closures were considered as a group, in a single up-or-down vote by the school board.

While many urban districts are struggling with how to handle excess space, Ms. Filardo noted that Seattle is dealing with overcrowded classrooms, thanks to unexpected population growth. The Seattle Times reported in October that in one school, a 4th grade class is meeting in a hallway, and many classes are meeting in portables. An infusion of about 1,500 more students than expected is prompting the district to reopen some schools that it had closed, over community objection, in the past few years.