In continuing the series on the Wisconsin Virtual Schools we take a look at the people taking the issue to their representatives. The court ruled in favor of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), that the schools defy state statutes by not employing state certified teachers as required. As a result, the Wisconsin citizens have taken the fight to their legislature, and the legislature has worked out a deal to keep the schools open. However, now the governor is in the way.

The Wisconsin legislature spent two days hearing from both sides of the issue, and debating among themselves, to negotiate a deal to keep the rapidly growing 3500 students in their schools. The deal will make the operation of Virtual Schools officially legal, and requires, licensed teachers for each subject made available to parents, teachers must respond to student/parent inquiries within 24 hours, parental advisory boards, school board contact information, truancy policies and reporting, and for virtual educators to have 30 hours of “staff development in online teaching.” All of which seems reasonable and to satisfy Virtual School parents and educators.

Unfortunately, now Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle (D) has a problem with the bill. He says he will veto the bill if the legislation does not include a cap on the number of students that can enroll. How ironic, the teachers union (WEAC), is also in favor the same cap on enrollment. The WEAC has wrapped their new argument around current state funding problems, and providing, “taxpayers accountability for the schools’ performance and taxpayer dollars invested in them.”

WEAC President Mary Bell, continues in her public letter to “set the record straight”,

“This accountability is especially urgent in the current budgetary environment, where great schools throughout the state are eliminating essential programs and cutting staff because of revenue caps, and where state revenue projections are now more than $650 million lower than expected.”

Ms. Bell, I ask you, what better time than now, when the state budget is in crisis than to allow a larger enrollment of students into this system? A system where the student and parent are funding the majority of classroom costs normally assigned to a physical brick and mortar school? If the schools are working, and the state is in budget crisis, wouldn’t it make sense to allow, let alone encourage more students, to attend the Virtual Schools?

Of course not, because as we’ve now illustrated, it is not in the best interest of ensuring as many WEAC member teachers are employed as possible. What’s best for the student, and the publics’ fiscal interest be damned.

(continued from…Virtual Schools Work, Teachers Union Fight Them)

There is an interesting debate happening in the state of Wisconsin right now. In recent years, as part of it’s Charter School system, it allowed the creation of several Virtual Schools. These are publicly funded schools that allow the homeschooling parents to continue to teach their children, yet provide an online curriculium for the parents to follow to ensure students are meeting educational guidelines and standards. Last year these schools came under fire, via a lawsuit from the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), claiming that parents, teaching with public funds, are outside the state statute requiring teachers to be state certified.

The Wisconsin Virtual Schools have given parents an option for educating their children that lies somewhere between homeschooling and public education. The concept gives parents the ability to have all the benefits of homeschooling, while still having a government certified curriculm and process to follow. So far, the preliminary results have shown the 3500+- students by in large excel above state averages in just about every single subject.

If students by in large are testing above the state average in most subjects what would be the WEAC problem with them? What else, but….MONEY. The WEAC, which is the state arm of the NEA, has 98,000 members, 70,000 of which are teachers and students studying to be teachers. That’s right, it’s a teachers union. The WEAC’s lawsuit exploted a loop hole in the statute that never considered the possiblity of teaching students over the Internet or any other virtual network for that matter. The court ruled in their favor that,

The question is not whether and how a parent may assist his or her child with schoolwork; rather, it is whether the District can establish a public school, using public funds, that relies upon unlicensed individuals as the primary teachers of the pupils. The problem is not that the unlicensed WIVA parents teach their children, but that they teach in a public school.

So, the issue has nothing to do with how well the students are educated. It has to do with who is educating them. The WEAC knows, that every child that attends a charter school, does not attend a brick and moder school, which requires a teacher in the classroom. Thus, follow the money, the issue has nothing to do with whether the kids are being educated or not, and everything to do with the continued employment of teachers.

The ruling isn’t all bad for the Virtual Schools, the court concluded that if the citizens what the statute changed, they should so make it known. Concluding,

..is for the citizens of this state, through their elected representatives in the legislature, to decide whether and how their tax money is going to be spent. If the citizenry wants tax money spent on virtual schools like WIVA, that is fine. Let the citizens debate it and set the parameters, not the courts.

Next we’ll explore, just that. The citizens have spoken, but now the teachers call in their favors to the governor. Teacher Union Calls In Favor To Governor

It’s a big news day for corn. The university agricultural programs and commercial seed companies are nearing the conclusion of mapping the complete genome of a stalk of corn. The AP is reporting today that a group of scientist, primarily from Washington University (St. Louis, MO), are about to publish they have achieved the “holy grail”.

The benefit for farmers will come from new lines of corn that withstand environmental stress and produce more yield, Fields said. The United States produced about 13.1 billion bushels of corn last year worth $3 billion, which is roughly 44 percent of the global supply.

We’re so freaked out as a culture about cloning, yet nobody seems to have a problem that public money is funding the genetic makeup of Mother Nature. Imagine if you replaced the use of the words farmers and corn or corn stalk with doctors and babies. Ethically, what makes this different from altering the genes of a child, in utero, to make sure the parents produced the most perfect, disease resistant child possible? Once we perfect all the agriculture, what’s next, pets? Then us?

AP - Researchers Map Corn Plant’s Genome

As we’ve spoken about several times at apr, we are not fans of food-based ethanol products. Today’s Financial Times has an article detailing the appearance of William Lapp, of Advanced Economic Solutions, at the annual US Department of Agriculture Conference. Mr. Lapp supported the position this website has taken in the past that food-based ethanol will begin to put pressure, not just of US food commodities, but food commodities world wide.

….that rising agricultural raw material prices would translate this year into sharply higher food inflation.

Mr. Lapp commented to the delegates in attendance,

I hope you enjoy your meal, it is the cheapest one you are going to have at this forum for a while.

Larry Pope, CEO of Smithfield’s Foods commented,

I think we need to tell the American consumer that [prices] are going up. We’re seeing cost increases that we’ve never seen in our business.

Smithfield’s is the largest pork producer in the US.

USDA economist, Joseph Glauber, explained in an interview with the Financial Times that the price of wheat normally traded in a range of $3-$5,

but now the wheat price has jumped to nearly $20 a bushel. These large increases will show up [in consumer prices].

Financial Times - Shoppers warned bigger bills on way

Now Chinese companies are openly defying laws on the use of banned pesticides, and according to this UPI report there is large demand for said pesticides on the black market.

SHIJIAZHUANG, China, Feb. 16 (UPI) — Farmers operating in remote portions of China reportedly are still using a pesticide banned by their government as dangerous to humans.

While the sale or use of the pesticide methamidophos was outlawed by the Chinese government last year, some farmers still use the cheap toxin to protect their crops, the Asahi Shimbun reported Saturday.

News of the pesticide’s continued use stemmed from the discovery of trace amounts of it in food products in China’s Chiba and Hyogo prefectures. Those items were manufactured by Tianyang Food and have since been linked to illnesses in 10 people.

An investigation determined some farmers continue to use the potentially dangerous product because of its effectiveness in killing pests.

The Shimbun spoke to a broker who allegedly participates in the illegal production of the chemical who said there is strong demand for the banned substance.

“We are secretly manufacturing it at our plant,” the unidentified broker said. “We still get a lot of orders. If we are raided before we can deliver the product, we have customers pay the equivalent of the fine.”

This story was originally reported on in TIME Magazine, February 7th.

Since December, frozen gyoza(meat dumplings) produced by Chinese manufacturer Tianyang Food Processing Ltd. have caused at least 10 people to become ill due to contamination by a potentially lethal insecticide. Full TIME Story…

Let me start off with a little background about my wife and the boy. First, I think it has been mentioned in previous posts our son is in kindergarten. Second, the wife is an English major, and language is extremely important to her (not that any of that has rubbed off on me), but as a result the boy is a very good reader already. His school has him testing out at 2nd grade reading level already. She has made it a point to teach both our kids phonics, as the US school system seems to think it’s better we memorize every word in the dictionary, and know it on sight. Yeah, that makes sense! Not to digress, as a result of reading phonetically, the boy sometimes spells words as they should sound, but not necessarily with the correct letters.

So he comes home from school Wednesday, where he’s been dealing with a lengthy visit by a substitute teacher he dislikes, with one of his usual spelling exercises. As any teacher does, the substitute politely crosses out the, “zukeenee”, and corrects it with, “zuccini”. That’s right, I didn’t quote it wrong, the substitute corrected the misspelled word with another misspelled word. We’ve also learned from little things the boy has said that she seems to be a “sit down, and shut-up” substitute teacher. That “style” may work for middle school and high school, but it’s a little much for the hyper-energetic kindergarten crowd. Needless to say, after 3 days of him crying about going to school, and then the “zucchini” incident, the wife made the decision that perhaps he would be better served by a couple of days of homeschooling.