“Teachers’ pay, benefits take hit” (Wisconsin State Journal, Matthew DeFour)
The Wisconsin State Journal, which ran this story on August 9, leads with the following statement: “Statewide increases in teacher compensation contracts are on track to be the lowest in more than a decade following last year’s changes in state school district financing.”

I read it quickly, and not very closely, while drinking my morning coffee and eating breakfast. I’m not a morning person, so I probably read it while still waking up. My first thought was, “What a shame, teachers are also getting a paycut – and cut to the lowest wages in ten years.”

Who among us wants to see that happen? After all, we love our teachers.

But then I took a few more sips of coffee, got up, took the dog out, waking up bit by bit. More alert, I came back inside finished my coffee and read the next paragraph. The next paragraph changed everything.

Teachers aren’t getting their pay cut. No, they are getting raises! Ok, good for them. Most of them probably deserve it. Heck, most of us probably deserve it. I also think I deserve a new car with less than 100,000 miles on it, one where the check engine light isn’t on all the time even though the last two mechanics say nothing is wrong.

But what we want, and yes, sometimes what we deserve, doesn’t always work out. It’s part of reality, and part of being an adult. I try to teach my children this. At times, I’m still learning this. After all, why not replace my car since I feel I deserve it? Why not give these teachers raises which I’m certain most of them deserve?

The increase in compensation packages come with a cost, a cost to you and me.

President Obama just signed an aid package doling out 10 billion dollars to states for teachers. In other words, he and congress appeased the demands made by powerful teachers’ unions by reaching further into empty pockets and giving teachers another annual raise. Do congress and the president need to be reminded of the mounting debt crisis: 13 trillion in debt and a 1.5 trillion federal deficit?

Then there is the all too familiar state and local money paid out to teachers. Guess how that will get funded. Either the states go more into the red or they reach their hands out to to the rest of us. In other words, as taxpayers, we get double-whammied with this financial burden.

So while Wisconsin teachers are whining about a modest 3.75% compensation increase (salary and benefits), I’m wondering how many of you, how many tax payers, received a raise this year? How many of you have had your benefits cut? How many of you had hours cut? And how many are still employed?

From my vantage point, that 3.75% raise looks pretty good during these times. It looks down right generous considering its funded by people who haven’t seen a raise in the past few years.

But 3.75% isn’t good enough for teachers. It was less than last year. Less than the year before, probably less than the year before that. Sounds bad when it’s stated like that, doesn’t it?

How about if I take out the spin and give a more accurate presentation of their compensation packages. Here is my version of their compensation: “As part of their regular annual raise, Wisconsin teachers will receive a 3.75% increase in salary. Wisconsin teachers have received an average of 4.13% since 1993 according to the State Journal article. Due to a down-turned economy, the pay increase is the lower than it has been in the past 10 years.”

If I were a teacher I wouldn’t complain to someone living in Janesville or Milwaukee about a pay increase — a pay increase that is likely funded by someone who is out of work.

Wisconsin, like most states is hurting badly. Our state is in the red. Either we cut spending across the board or we come up with a way to finance what we spend. The next line of attack is to increase local taxes. How much more can you tax people? At some point, the government is going to run out of people to tax as more people lose jobs or just watch their income dwindle and their houses foreclose.

The Washington Post reported that the School Chancellor in Washington D.C., Michelle A. Rhee, fired 165 teachers for poor performance. Performance was judged by a new evaluation method, called IMPACT. IMPACT is a radical new approach that ties teacher performance to student improvement.

IMPACT’s approach differs from the No Child Left Behind law. In No Child Left Behind teachers are judged by student test scores (Washington Post, Oct. 1 2009). IMPACT evaluates teachers on improvement in test scores. Proponents claim this “value-added” method reflects a correlation between teacher contribution and each student’s learning development.

Fairness of IMPACT
Washington D.C.’s struggling school system is no secret, so a radical approach may be necessary. Teacher, Jonathan F. Keiler, makes no excuses for teachers who don’t do their jobs in his article “Another Silly Education Fad” (American Thinker, Aug. 5, 2010). As a former Jag Officer and former private practice attorney, Keiler knows that second rate performance does not cut it in most real world situations. Yet, this has become acceptable with one of the most important jobs in the world, teaching our children.

Keiler, however, does not agree with the “value-added” methodology. Citing a study by the Department of Education, Keiler said that this model can be wrong as much as 35% in the first year.

I certainly would not want my performance judged by a system that is wrong more than a third of the time. (By the third year, the number reduces to a mere 25%.) Something this flawed should not be an indicator of teacher performance.

IMPACT does integrate in-class evaluation into the process. While this could be an added tool, it runs the risk of becoming too subjective, and even arbitrary. Other issues must also be taken into consideration.

Testing as an Indicator of Student Performance
As a parent, I don’t want my children taught just for testing. I expect them to apply their learning to future academic and real-life endeavors. Children need to learn critical thinking skills and the ability to adapt those skills to the world around them. Test performance does not always evaluate this. Furthermore, some students don’t test well.

Educators can also evaluate student performance by observing how students apply classroom learning. Class projects, writing, speaking, community jobs, and even properly supervised mentoring, add a richer dimension to the learning and evaluation process.

I am not suggesting that testing should be abolished. Testing does have value. It does offer hard concrete data on performance, and there are times in life when all of us have to perform in a test situation. So while testing should be done, it should be one of many factors when evaluating teacher and student performance.

Responsibility of Parents, Community and Administrators
No doubt, the teacher stands on the front line to learning. But as parents, we must also share in this responsibility. The teacher is not a miracle worker. Parents, community, and society at large, leave an imprint on each child. The teacher then deals with each child’s personal experience in the classroom. Sometimes the experience can be good, other times it is not so good.

Finally, when evaluating a teacher, administrators must ensure that she has the resources to succeed in the classroom. Proper training, quality text books, and access to technology can positively impact learning. But classroom size and classroom dynamics plays a bigger role. Small classes are essential for younger and struggling students. In addition, teachers need more classroom support when dealing with students who have discipline problems.

None of these mitigating factors relieve the responsibility of the teacher. If teachers aren’t able to do their jobs, they should be out of the classroom. I don’t believe in tenure. Nobody is entitled to a job for inadequate performance. It makes no difference if they’ve been there for five years or twenty years. Most employees in business who underperform lose their position regardless of time spent at the company. Companies who keep underperforming employees run into serious problems, ranging from inability to compete in the market place to safety hazards. Our education system faces these same risks. High standards have always been a trademark of success in our country. Our children deserve to also live by these standards.

I agree with holding teachers accountable for student growth. Test scores show student development in the clearest way. But they are not the only indicator. They are one piece of information in a sea of data. Use it, but don’t expect the impossible. We all play a role in our children’s performance. Teachers can only do so much. Hold teachers accountable. But also appreciate the majority who do a good job, often under difficult circumstances.

The other night as I’m sitting watching Kudlow preach from his CNBC pulpit about free market capitalism as the best path to prosperity, I noticed the boy sitting in the chair next to me reading his favorite Star Wars book.   I was so engrossed in the latest financial reason to throw my shoes at the television that I didn’t even notice him reading aloud.  This got me to thinking about the benefits of children reading.

1. It doesn’t involve a cathode ray nipple. (For those of you born after 1990, that means television.)  I mean seriously, does that fact that the kid would rather sit and read books than watch television or play video games need any further explanation?  DUH!  It’s also a way for me to get the boy out of my hair for a while without feeling guilty that I’ve plopped him in front of the electronic babysitter.
2. His language, vocabulary, and ability to understand things has exploded.  I travel occasionally for my job, and last week when putting the boy to bed I noticed he had tucked between the bed frame and the mattress a thick book I hadn’t seen before.  It was Robinson Crusoe.  I asked him, “What’s this?”  The boy’s response wasn’t the excitement over reading a chapter book I had expected. Instead, it was, “Oh Dad, this story is so cool. He built his own boat!”  He then, in great detail, explained to me the adventure of the first four chapters, and how exactly this boat was built.
3. Imagination.  My Dad, who loves math, still at age 69 is constantly searching for new mathematical concepts to challenge his brain, recently discovered fractals.  Fractals are realitively new concept of the past 10-20 years and only with the advent of the computer could they truly been explored.   That’s because a fractal is a pattern that multiplies itself to infinity.  The boy’s imagination right now is like a fractal, just multiplying on itself every time he reads something new.
4. He truly loves it.   When I was a kid, which was in the 70’s, color television was new, at least for my family, and there hadn’t been any research to warn my mother she might turn me into a spastic, jittery freak.  I can remember getting up in the morning, turning on the television, and never turning it off until it was time to go to school, or in the summer, eat lunch.  Our parents didn’t really think anything of it.  (Thus, I have the attention span of a 3 year old at age 37.)  The boy will choose to read a new book over doing a lot of other things when given the opportunity.  Currently, the only thing that he would rather do that than read a book is watch a new episode of Clone Wars.  Although, the tempation of actually reading a Clone Wars or Star Wars book, might even top that. 
5. It makes his Dad proud.  The boy is smart, but he’s human.  He gets good grades, but he struggles a lot with effort.  If there is an easy way or a shortcut to do something, he will find it.   The boy has worked hard to be able to read.  He has given maximum effort, and that makes me proud.

The other day, my first grade son brought home another basic phonics paper he had done in class; so basic, my four year old daughter did her own version of it. It consisted of listening for short vowel sounds and rhyming words. My son, who has been actively reading since the age of four, complained he’s bored in class, understandably so. Now, to keep things in perspective “I’m bored” has become a euphemism in our house for “I don’t want to do any work.” Work ethic aside, he needs more challenging learning activities.

My husband and I both love reading: we read often, visit the library, and keep our bookshelves well-stocked. So, it’s natural that reading began early for our children. They enjoy storytelling, as well as what many consider the pedantic side of reading, such as phonics and grammar. I don’t think my children are unusual. In fact, they are average children who excel in some areas and struggle in others. They love learning new things and enjoy challenges. Sometimes they meet those challenges; other times, they backtrack and try again. Don’t we want our children to be challenged in school, not to the point of frustration, but to the point of good, mental stimulation? At the very least, each child should be working at his ability, not below it.

The school does not deserve all the blame, or even most of it. I think the problem runs deeper. My son attends a good school. He has excellent teachers, a dedicated principal, and a pretty decent peer group. So what’s the problem? Why do American students rank in the twenties (out of thirty) for math and science? Why do seventy percent of our eighth grade students read below their grade level?

We’ve become a nation of underachievers and this has crossed over into the classroom. If society has one expectation, it’s difficult for teachers to enforce higher expectations. As a result, teachers design a curriculum that targets the most basic levels but does not accommodate more challenging levels. I think we underestimate the ability of our children. If a child struggles in an area, he deserves special attention to move him forward, but let’s make sure all students are progressing. If average children can understand basic phonics at four and five, why is so much time spent teaching basic phonics at six and seven? Shouldn’t the learning process gradually become more challenging? Right now, my son’s learning process is in reverse, and I believe this is more common than we realize.

Probably one of the most beneficial solutions would be more classroom help, whether from teacher’s aides, parents, or even older students who could act as mentors. The additional support would allow for more individualized attention. Self-paced learning could allow each child to reach his full potential. Let’s face it, none of us learn at the exact same pace.

Self-paced learning does not always mean working ahead in the classroom. Perhaps, a child who has mastered one subject area could exchange some of that time for a subject in which he struggles. Another option is to allow students to pair up and work as mentors to each other. This offers schools an opportunity to teach leadership, cooperation, and mutual respect among students.

I realize self-paced learning is no easy task. But in the end, I believe it would be worth the effort. Our children deserve this effort. Americans should rank number one in math and science, not twenty-one or twenty-four, and literacy should be mastered by eighth grade.

Earlier this week, USAToday had an article about Rhode Island law forcing public schools to teach about dating violence.  The law requires students be taught to identify and react to signs of domestic violence.  I think this is a good thing, all kids should learn how to identify and deal with tough and dangerous situations.  We just need to be careful how we do it, and be wary of the unintended consequences.

My daughter is only 4, but I know in what will seem like no time at all, boys will be ringing the house, and knocking on the door.  However, I have concern over a law like this teaching girls that all boys are violent, obsessive, sex crazed beasts should they ever find themselves alone with one.  Although it may be true all boys are sex crazed beasts, there is something uncomfortable about this.  Are we teaching the girls don’t ever be alone with a boy because they will abuse you?   Additionally, the boys are sitting through these same classes.  What are they being taught?  Are they be emasculated?  They are basically being told if they get alone with a girl, they’ll become like a werewolf at the sight of the moon.

On the other hand, what responsibility do the girls have?   The story is about a law that was born out of the death of Lindsey Burke at the hands of a jealous boyfriend.  So I’m certainly not trying to minimize the responsibility of the boy.  Boys are overwhelmingly responsible for committing domestic abuse, the girls should be taught their behaviour matters.  They need to understand how they present themselves could be reflected back to them in an undesirable way.  Just like we’re all taught to be aware of our surroundings walking down a dark street at night, girls should be aware of their environment.  Someone should be teaching them if you dress like Brittney Spears, or act like Paris Hilton, you are walking down that dark street with your eyes closed.  It’s just not a smart thing to do.  They are temping the raging hormones of boys when they start grinding their butts into the pelvises of boys on the dance floor.

In the end, it’s a good thing we’re talking about these things, I just pray we are careful in the way we are doing it.

The successes of charter schools in Los Angeles’ rough South Central neighborhood are detailed in the WSJ Op-Ed pages this morning.  The Inner City Education Foundation (ICEF) is expanding because the demand is so overwhelming.

According to the article, the schools were started in 1994, and have the following track record

• -pilot school successfully graduated 2 classes
• -100% of the 2 graduated classes were accepted to college
• -very popular with black and hispanic communities

Public school comparison

• -”42% of black students quit before finishing school”
• -the 42% has increased by 80% in five years
• -public school testing more often that not underperforms charter school testing

Like KIPP, Green Dot and other charter school networks that aren’t constrained by union rules on staffing and curriculum, ICEF has an excellent track record, particularly with black and Hispanic students. In reading and math tests, ICEF charters regularly outperform surrounding traditional public schools as well as other Los Angeles public schools.

Not surprisingly, guess who opposes the charter schools?  The teachers unions.

Despite this success, powerful unions like the California Teachers Association and its political backers continue to oppose school choice for disadvantaged families. Last year, Democratic state lawmakers, led by Assembly Speaker Fabian Núñez, tried to force Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to sign a bill that would have made opening a new charter school in the state next to impossible. Mr. Nunez backed down after loud protests from parents in poorer neighborhoods.

This article was in the morning’s Wisconsin State Journal.

NEENAH, Wis. (AP) — Neenah students who want to bring an occasional treat for their classmates will be limited fruit, vegetables and other healthy snacks.

The Neenah School District tightened its wellness policy this year and banned cupcakes, candy and other sweet treats.

Parent Vicki Denzin is asking the Board of Education to ease those rules. Denzin says banning the items doesn’t teach the children moderation or portion control.

Denzin asks how excited a 6- or 7-year-old would be to bring bananas or carrot sticks to share with their friends.

Tullar Elementary School Principal Diane Galow says it’s not the sugary cupcake that’s important, it’s the ability of the students to share a treat on their birthday or special day.

First, every book, article, or pediatrician we’ve ever consulted about getting our kids to eat more fruits and vegetables says repetition works best. Keep putting it on their plate; keep asking them to try it. Children may not like everything you give them, but they are likely to enjoy some, if not many, of the foods.

Second, the principal is absolutely right.  Typically, our kids get excited at the idea of bringing a treat, any treat. The problem occurs when the child prior to our child brings the sticky sugary treat.  Then the comparisons start.  By instituting a ban like this, the children will literally only be able to compare apples to oranges.  How can that be a bad thing? 

Finally, the sugar snacks turn the kids into jumping beans.  I cannot blame any teacher for wanting to curb that!

It’s school season again, and although the superstores have seemingly been advertising schools supply sales since the 4th of July, most parents will get an unadvertised surprise from their school districts this fall. The price of going to school is going up. School districts already struggling to keep their head above financial water have simply run out of classes and programs to cut as a means of finding room in their budgets, and thus feel they have no other choice but to pass the rising costs onto the parents.

Most school districts fuel expenses, which primarily goes for diesel fuel to run the buses, has gone up 45-55% from last year’s budget. This is causing schools to do things such as expand the distance around the school by which busing will not be provided. Some schools are charging a surcharge to families who wish their children ride the bus within the area that is deemed close enough to walk to school. (Typically this is a 1-3 mile radius around the school.)

If the rising fuel cost weren’t enough, the rising price of food has been on a steady incline for the past several years, turning to a sharp incline last year. Many school districts are having to raise their breakfast and lunch fees for the first time in several years in order to cope. The price of food too is also being effected by fuel costs. Suppliers, like everyone else are not immune from the cost of fuel, and most of them have now started assessing a drop fee surcharge to cover their own fuel expenses. This is just added pressure on the cost of food goods. This reality has schools who in the past would have tried to buy higher quality food and products produced from local suppliers are now fiscally forced to buy from whomever is cheapest. This means that although the students may get the minimum required nutrition, that is all they will get, nothing more.