Intercepts

The Christina School District, the largest in the state of Delaware, has uncovered the startling secret to why its budget is in a $13.9 million deficit:

"Audit: Christina hired too many people

"A practice of hiring staffers without the means to pay them is largely to blame for a $13.9 million budget shortfall the Christina School District has two months to fix, state analysts said Thursday."

The audit report went on to note that the district committed 90 percent of it projected discretionary funds to paying salaries, and 107 percent of its project fiscal year 2006 tax revenues to paying salaries.

Who's running that district? Bialystock and Bloom?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:54 | Permalink | Comments

Lawsuits make my eyes glaze over -- none more so than those filed against the No Child Left Behind Act by NEA and the State of Connecticut.

It's nice to see that the brief filed by the Citizens’ Commission on Civil Rights in defense of the law spells out the key fact in the case in terms even the densest of jurists can understand:

"Through the Act, Connecticut has opted to participate in a voluntary federal program in exchange for federal funds. Such programs are common and perfectly legal."

This is even clearer and more concise than the next best quote I have read on the issue:

"In point of fact, however, neither the parental notice requirement – nor, indeed, any of the other requirements in NCLB – are 'imposed' on the states in a legal sense. NCLB has been enacted on the basis of Congress' Spending Power, and states can avoid this and other statutory requirements simply by declining to accept federal Title I funds. If the states decide to accept such funds, however, then they must also accept the conditions that Congress has attached to them."

Who was the brilliant legal mind who wrote that?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:49 | Permalink | Comments

A report by Public Policy Institute of California (hardly a right-wing outfit, so strike that usual counterattack) found that 73 percent of those surveyed supported the state's graduation exam, and 72 percent thought that students should have to pass statewide tests in reading and math before they can be promoted to the next grade, even if they have passing grades in their classes.

Mark Baldassare, the institute's research director, was absolutely correct explaining testing mania to the San Francisco Chronicle. "If someone sent out a notice that students were doing great, that wouldn't be enough for people today," he said. "They need something tangible, and they've gravitated to testing."

What's true in California is probably true elsewhere. Americans need more than reassuring words from school officials that kids can read, write and compute. They need evidence. And until something better than testing comes along, they'll rely on that.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:06 | Permalink | Comments

Fruitful day on the newsgathering front:

* The Native American Academy, a charter school scheduled to open in August, will offer Navajo language classes to middle-schoolers.

* A perennially unexamined aspect of school funding is the amount of voluntary contributions made by parents and community groups.

* Some Massachusetts schools have broken windows, bad plumbing, and overcrowded conditions. Others don’t.

* More hidden costs of K-12 schooling: about 23% of the freshmen at Indiana's public universities and colleges require remedial courses in math or English. "We basically double pay for these students because we pay for them with public dollars in the secondary institutions and then they go and take remedial courses," said David Holt, vice president for work force development policy at the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.

* A new study claims songbirds can learn grammar. There goes your last excuse, kids.

* Next time you hear union officials complain about poor health insurance benefits, remember that the taxpayers footing the bill for those benefits may not have coverage for themselves.

* After the Cartoon Jihad, and all the Al Qaeda propaganda about Crusaders, it's interesting to see the reaction of Catholics to a cheesy blockbuster novel (and a soon-to-be-released cheesy blockbuster movie) that whacks away at the cornerstones of their faith.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:24 | Permalink | Comments

"Aloha Airlines has offered a special one-time only one-way $60 fare for a flight from Sacramento, Calif., to Honolulu." How fast can I get to the airport?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:25 | Permalink | Comments

The New York Times reports that the Change to Win coalition contacted the AFL-CIO in an effort to create a third labor federation, one that would concentrate on politics (as opposed to the other two?).

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney rejected the plan, and publicly released the Change to Win letter in an apparent attempt to embarrass the dissident group.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:58 | Permalink | Comments

A must-read for NEA and AFT members in today's Los Angeles Times headlined Unions' Advice Is Failing Teachers. It's all about union-endorsed investment firms and what you get, and don't get, for your money.

It's important to highlight that the story was written by Kathy M. Kristof, the Times personal finance columnist. I've often maintained we get better coverage of NEA/AFT from labor reporters and business journalists than from education reporters.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:48 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) CTA to Vote on Admitting Support Employees
2) Ohio Per-Pupil Spending Boosted by Charter Enrollment
3) Damned If You Do…
4) …And Damned If You Don't
5) New York Merger Up for Vote This Weekend
6) How Spell Check Can Let You Down
7) School Repairs Fund Does Wonders… for Lawyers
8) Dues Going Up
9) Last Week's Intercepts
10) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 16:35 | Permalink | Comments

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) did its best to mimic its friends at NEA and AFT by releasing a report on the average salaries of college and university faculty. AAUP bemoans increases that are "less than the inflation rate for the second consecutive year."

But the sheer number of tables and categories for professors show why the "average salary" is a statistic with no meaning and no application. It combines the salaries of full, associate and assistant professors, teaching at public, private independent, private religious and community colleges, baccalaureate, graduate and post-doctoral programs, and all disciplines and subjects. The comments section accompanying the story about the report in Inside Higher Ed indicates that readers immediately grasped the limitations of such an approach.

Unlike K-12 public education, higher education operates under many and varied salary structures - from the strict step-and-ladder scale to (gasp!) merit pay to signing bonuses a la professional sports. Universities routinely pay more money to their law school faculty than to their remedial English undergraduate professors. What a concept.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:01 | Permalink | Comments

Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney scolds us this morning for noticing that people don't join unions very much anymore. Gaffney writes:

* "[Non-union] workers "opt to go it alone out of an ideological affinity that is detrimental to their own interests."

* "Union workers can negotiate and create respect on the job and have a democratic voice in the workplace. These are American values. Don't complain because others have a union; complain because you don't."

* "There are also a lot of negative stereotypes about union workers being lazy or unwilling to sacrifice. Say the same thing about any other group and you will correctly be called a bigot."

* "There is also a misconception that unions have wielded too much power. This is a myth.... Unions are a bulwark against unfettered corporate power. Without unions, who will speak for the middle class?"

* "Finally, rooting against your neighbors may give you short-term satisfaction, but it will inevitably lead to losses for you, your family, your community and your country. It's high time to start acting like we're all in this together."

When fewer than 9% of American workers join your organization, there must be something wrong with them. Right, Mark? Keep up the good work recruiting.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:35 | Permalink | Comments

Students at Dible Elementary School in Pennsylvania were treated to a production of "Rachel Carson Saves the Day!" The multimedia presentation is funded by the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute Center for Environmental Oncology and presented by actors in the Shakespeare-in-the-Schools program. (N.B. "They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps.")

In the play, Rachel Carson - a hero of the environmental movement and author of Silent Spring, the best-selling 1962 polemic against the dangers of DDT - is opposed in her attempts to save wildlife by Chemical Man, whom she defeats "accompanied by cartoon balloons with 'Pow' and 'Blam' in them."

Let's leave aside for a moment the fact that many of Carson's claims were debatable then, and remain so today.

I just wonder if it's wise in an America where we're starved for math and science teachers, and where we're constantly decrying lack of student interest in these subjects, especially among girls, to drum into their heads at an early age that Chemical Man is evil.

Paul Hermann Müller was a "Chemical Man" who discovered the insecticide properties of DDT. His discovery saved the lives of countless human beings who would have otherwise died of typhus and malaria. He won the Nobel Prize for it in 1948.

For people who claim to champion critical thinking skills for our students, where is there room for Müller, or the idea that DDT could have been both a very good and a very bad thing?

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:40 | Permalink | Comments

New Jersey voters staged a little tax revolt yesterday, rejecting 47% of school budgets statewide.

The state has the highest property taxes in America, and many areas couldn't stomach further increases, whether they were for school operating budgets, or targeted items like additional teacher hiring.

"We've got to save money," said Gov. Jon Corzine. "We need to make sure that we start squeezing out corruption. We're going to need a new school funding formula, because I think we have a broken system today where we're more focused on districts than we are kids."

Corzine supports a constitutional convention to rework the property tax, an idea long in the works, but opposed by many liberal groups - most prominently the New Jersey Education Association. The union has dropped millions of dollars (included some provided by NEA) in a campaign to stop a ConCon.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:16 | Permalink | Comments

The latest Field Poll shows Proposition 82 - Rob Reiner's preschool tax initiative - losing support, particularly among Democrats. The California Teachers Association has contributed $700,000 to the campaign.

This comes on the heels of a Field Poll showing CTA-endorsed candidate Phil Angelides trailing state Controller Steve Westly for the Democratic nomination for governor.

These results are indicative of the problems faced both by CTA and its opponents: great defense, no offense.

The teachers' union won a clean sweep in the November 2005 general election, defending the status quo against the plans of the governor and his allies. Now the roles are reversed, and CTA appears no closer to enacting its own agenda.

This is nothing new. CTA twice aborted a property tax initiative after spending millions of dollars gathering signatures. A CTA bill to expand the scope of collective bargaining was rejected by Democratic legislators. CTA's discontent with Gov. Gray Davis made his recall, and the election of Gov. Schwarzenegger, possible.

California is a state known for bold ballot initiatives, but at least in the realm of public education, the voters mostly want to be left alone.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:15 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) District Statistics Reveal Much About Size, Spending and the 65% Solution
2) Whatever's Going On in Miami, It's Not Peace and Quiet
3) Place Your Bets!
4) Charter School's Vertical LEAP
5) Who Knew?
6) Last Week's Intercepts
7) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 17:06 | Permalink | Comments

Evidently it's once again a major crisis that California will have to replace 3.3 percent of its teachers annually due to retirement. Actually, they'll just be eligible for retirement; they may in fact continue to teach, or flattening enrollment may mean they don't have to be replaced at all, or maybe we're already producing enough new recruits to replace them, but let's not pick nits, shall we?

Legislative Democrats and the governor may actually team up to do something about this phony problem. As usual, I’ll just link you to this.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:36 | Permalink | Comments

Nothing like a contested election for NEA state affiliate president to reveal entertaining standards and practices. Laura Brown of Hawaii Reporter has the story.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 13:17 | Permalink | Comments

Blogging will be delayed until later this afternoon while I watch the Boston Marathon. Go Meb!

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:30 | Permalink | Comments

In honor of Good Friday, here is a nice little "virtual pilgrimage" to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre and nearby sights in Jerusalem.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:57 | Permalink | Comments

He wants:

* mayoral control of the school board;

* a state audit of classroom spending;

* an end to the district's "culture of complacency;"

* longer school days and an academic year of 10 1/2 months;

* teachers' pay tied to their responsibilities, not to seniority;

* and an increase in the number of charter schools.

When asked about the response of the teachers' union to these proposals, he replied, "They're going to go nuts when [we] do it."

Who is it? None other than teacher union darling Antonio Villaraigosa, mayor of Los Angeles and former teacher union organizer. Villaraigosa has twice addressed the rapturous NEA Representative Assembly ("He should run for governor!!" one delegate told me), and was once hired by the California Teachers Association as a consultant while running for mayor (see "Union Provides 'School Voucher' to Mayoral Candidate").

The stories about his wicked plot are here and here.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:05 | Permalink | Comments

One standard education establishment talking point is that charter schools cost regular public schools money. This, they say, is because charters get the full per-pupil amount while the regular schools are left with their fixed costs.

Regardless of the relative merits of that argument, the Detroit Public Schools arrived at an innovative solution to the problem of losing students and their funding to charter schools: count them anyway.

An audit found that Detroit was counting, and receiving funding for, 628 full-time equivalent students who were actually attending charter schools or schools in other districts.

The district's aid will be reduced until the disparity is covered.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 11:22 | Permalink | Comments

Here is the opening paragraph from a story in this morning's San Francisco Chronicle:

"Now that the San Francisco Unified School District and the city's teachers union have reached a tentative contract agreement and averted the threatened strike, the hard work really begins -- figuring out how to pay for it."

Baa-aa-aa-aah...

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:09 | Permalink | Comments

There are 1,029 public school districts in California - most in the nation - so I hope I can move at least a little faster from here on out.

Check out the figures here.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 14:16 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) New EIA Spending Analysis Reveals Enrollment "Lag"
2) Philadelphia Teacher Firings for Poor Performance Quadruple!
3) Little-Known Culprit in Teacher Turnover
4) The Easiest Prediction Ever
5) Last Week's Intercepts
6) Scheduling Note
7) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:10 | Permalink | Comments

Two quotes from a USA Today story on teacher candidate tests (PRAXIS, et al.):

"How smart a teacher is doesn't necessarily tell us that they're a good teacher." - Marc Claude-Charles Colitti of Michigan State University.

"Just because you're the brightest doesn't mean you're going to be the best." - Reg Weaver, National Education Association president.

Both quotes are constructed so that the emphasis is on a hypothetical smart person who might have trouble in the classroom. Fair enough. But changing the emphasis to intelligence - without changing the meaning of the quote - shows what these two gentlemen are saying:

"A good teacher isn't necessarily smart."

"Being the best doesn't mean you're the brightest."

Teacher candidate exams are not aptitude tests. They are tests of math and verbal skills, and of general knowledge - the notion being that if you can't pass a high-school level exam, you shouldn't be teaching high school.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:59 | Permalink | Comments

Here's something you don't see every day. The Boise School District is losing students. Enrollment has dropped nearly nine percent in the last nine years. Hidden Springs Charter School is popular -- so popular that its board adopted a controversial admissions policy that favored out-of-area families who already have kids attending the school.

So the school and the district will talk about merging.

A question to be decided is whether Hidden Springs would remain a charter school, but regardless of its status, the school's structure, employees, and back-to-basics curriculum would remain in place. Both the district and the charter school would benefit from more state money.

"A primary driver of the charter school movement nationally has been to provide choice within the public school system," wrote school and district officials in a letter to Hidden Springs parents. "When a school district embraces the same educational choices that inspired the founders of a charter school, merger opportunities such as this are a natural result."

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:04 | Permalink | Comments

The lead item in Monday’s EIA Communiqué irked some members of the United Teachers of Dade executive board. One of them sent this e-mail, and cc'ed it to the rest of the UTD board, so I feel justified in sharing it and my reply with you, dear readers:

Dear Mike:

Your concern for the UTD is so touching! I'm getting misty eyed thinking about how deeply you care about our post-Tornillo rebuilding effort. As a member of the Board let me assure you that the UTD is healthy and growing stronger by the day. All efforts aimed at disruption and disunity have so far failed miserably. Hope this helps you sleep better tonight.

Union,
Paul A. Moore

My reply:

They always say that after a good purge.

His response:

Who's "they"?

Are you talking about the purge of Gen. Shinseki from the U.S. military after he disagreed with Rumsfeld? The purge of Valerie Plame Wilson from the CIA when her husband exposed Bush Administration lies? Or are you going back in time to Nixon's purge of the Justice Department in Watergate? Let me give you an example of a purge you can sink your teeth into if you're about constructive criticism.

Prior to the 2004 elections, Florida's Gov. Jeb Bush attempted to reprise the so-called felons list which so effectively suppressed the Black vote in the 2000 election. Bush took active measures to keep the 2004 list in the shadows. His motivation in that regard became clear when media outlets petitioned the courts and the list was forced into the light. The names of more than 22,000 African-Americans appeared on the list of 47,763 alleged felons. Meanwhile, 61 Hispanics were listed.

Now of course EIA I know you were trying to connect UTD with the Soviet Politburo or Mao's Cultural Revolution. Infantile and quite silly! If you ever want a serious discussion of the situation here in Miami-Dade though call us at 305-854-0220.

Yours truly,
Paul A. Moore

My reply:

Actually, I was referring to laxatives, but, judging from your reply, your conscience needed to vent. I'm glad I was able to give you that opportunity.

So keep those cards and letters coming, UTD. People can freely express contrary opinions here without losing their jobs. Refreshing.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 07:11 | Permalink | Comments

Micheal Ocello, owner of a string of strip clubs, won a seat on the Mehlville school board in Missouri. You can read EIA's examination of Ocello's career here.

"I will strive to create a culture of openness and accountability. I will increase accessibility to the board, and broaden citizen input in the decision making process," Ocello wrote in a statement on his campaign web site.

You can see photos of Ocello and his family here. You can see photos of some of his supporters here, but you have to be 21.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 10:03 | Permalink | Comments

I provide this link without comment, though I'm sure you'll be able to guess how I feel about it.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:41 | Permalink | Comments

It's difficult to imagine a more mangled exercise in public relations than the one just put on by the United Federation of Teachers. Having challenged ABC News' John Stossel to teach in a New York City public school for a week, the union and district officials couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger. Stossel provides his slant on the failed negotiations here. I expect UFT to follow with its own version, blaming Stossel's producers.

Whatever you might hear about this in the coming days, I'm certain I know why this deal fell through: mutually exclusive motives on the district/union side. In order to give Stossel his proper comeuppance, the school situation has to be bad (unruly students, lack of support, sub-standard facilities), but both the district and the union want parents to see the school situation as good (attentive students, modern classroom technology, immaculately clean buildings).

Since no school could satisfy both requirements, the district/union dropped the idea, giving Stossel a caisson full of ammunition for ridiculing them.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:22 | Permalink | Comments

Bruce Fuller, professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, has an editorial in this morning's Los Angeles Times about Proposition 82, the Rob Reiner-sponsored initiative that would provide funding for pre-school to anyone who wants it. Fuller opposes the measure mainly because it isn't targeted to low-income families, whose kids would benefit the most from pre-school.

The best line in the op-ed is one that helps explain why people like me want smaller government.

"According to UC Berkeley research, we could enroll all kids from families earning up to the state's median annual income of $54,000 for $640 million a year -- less than one-third the cost of Proposition 82," Fuller wrote.

If the Berkeley research is correct, that's an appalling finding. It takes gall to come up with a program that costs three times what it would to simply wipe the problem away.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 12:38 | Permalink | Comments

The California Teachers Association spent almost $11 million lobbying state government over the past two years, nearly doubling the lobbying expenditures of the second-ranked Western States Petroleum Association.

These figures don't include campaign contributions, only money paid to lobbyists and for actions designed to influence legislation.

Unions occupied six positions in the top 25 for spending, but accounted for nearly one-third of all spending by those 25 organizations.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 08:01 | Permalink | Comments

Click here to read:

1) United Teachers of Dade Still Fighting Internally
2) Stossel to Teach for a Week
3) "It Is Not Cold Which Makes Me Shiver"
4) You Can't Sing the Blues, But You Still "Gotta Pay Your Dues"
5) Education Reporting: Death Knell or New Direction?
6) Last Week's Intercepts
7) Quote of the Week

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 15:47 | Permalink | Comments

I don't know if I've ever seen education finance analysis quite like this. Reporters Scott Learn and Steven Carter of the Portland Oregonian examine the school district budget and, in layman's terms, explain where cuts could be made. An excellent piece of work.

Posted by Mike Antonucci at 09:05 | Permalink | Comments