Click here to return to OFCN's Main Index Page.
--- Monday --- December 16, 1996 --- Vol. 6 --- No. 97 ---
D #### ##### #### ### #### #### ##### ### #### ####
A ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
I #### #### #### ## ## #### ## ## ##### #### ## ##
L ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ## ##
Y ## ## ##### ## ### ## ## ## ##### ## ## ## ## ####
THE NATIONAL UPDATE ON AMERICA'S EDUCATION REFORM EFFORTS
A service of the National Education Goals Panel
__________ __________
HAPPY HOLIDAYS | SPOTLIGHT |
The DAILY REPORT CARD will | |
take a holiday break beginning | GETTING THE BUG |
Friday, 20 December. We will | |
return on Wednesday, 8 January. | N.C.'s community college |
Enjoy the season! | system is leading the |
| nation in connecting school |
IGNORING THE WAKE-UP CALL | with work. In particular, |
Despite "the drumbeat of bad | N.C.'s Guilford Technical |
test scores," Mass. parents | Community College is held |
have full faith in their | as a model for producing a |
child's public school, | strong workforce that |
according to a statewide survey | attracts new business. |
(Zernike, BOSTON GLOBE, 12/3). | |
The survey, conducted for Mass | GTCC officials have given |
Insight, was based on phone | a seat at their table to |
interviews with 500 parents | the business community -- |
randomly selected throughout | together they design |
the state. | curricula that meets the |
Parents surveyed showed a | needs of the local economy |
lack of interest in ed reforms, | and produces graduates who |
including more homework and | earn good wages. College |
longer school days. "There's a | officials also work with |
false expectation," said | the public school system to |
Education Commissioner Robert | sponsor a high-school/ |
Antonucci. "Once we begin | higher ed apprenticeship. |
denying those diplomas, that's | |
when people are going to have | The problem: Parents |
to decide whether we're going | want a four-year degree for |
to get real about reform." | their offspring and view |
The interviews were conducted | the community college |
in Oct., before the State Board | option as "tantamount to |
of Education agreed to require | saying their children have |
H.S. seniors to take the GED | a genetic virus." (#2) |
this spring. |_____________________________|
============== QUOTE OF THE DAY ==============
"If people were abandoning the Constitution, there would be
headlines across the country. This is just as damaging." --
David Mathews, director of the Kettering Foundation, on middle-
class flight from public schools. (#4)
_______________________________________________________________
| A service of the National Education Goals Panel |
| Published by the Education Policy Network |
| 1255 22nd Street NW; Wash, D.C.; 20037; 202/632-0952 |
| The DRC hereby authorizes further reproduction and |
| distribution with proper acknowledgement. |
| Publisher: Barbara A. Pape |
Staff Writer: Rosemary Polanco |
|_______________________________________________________________|
============== TABLE OF CONTENTS ==============
GOAL THREE: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND CITIZENSHIP
WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: More school-to-work grants. (#1)
GOAL SIX: ADULT LITERACY AND LIFELONG LEARNING
JOBS AND THE ECONOMY: Community colleges lead the way. (#2)
MONEY MATTERS
SHOWCASE OF HOMES: Parents buy based on schools. (#3)
THE PRIVATE EYE
PRIVATE SCHOOLS: More Florida families going private. (#4)
CHARTING A NEW COURSE
MARCUS GARVEY: What went wrong with a D.C. charter school.(#5)
WHO IS IN CHARGE: Charter-issuers are accountable. (#6)
===== GOAL THREE: STUDENT ACHIEVEMENT AND CITIZENSHIP =====
*1 WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT: MORE SCHOOL-TO-WORK GRANTS
The U.S. DoEd and Department of Labor issued $58M in School-
to-Work grants to 10 states that are poised to implement school-
to-work programs (School-to-Work Opportunities press release,
11/21). "These grants will help give young people the practical
workforce skills and academic knowledge they need to build
promising futures," said President Bill Clinton. "School-to-Work
is as sound investment in our youth and our economy."
The grants will be used to implement statewide School-to-
Work plans. For example, the grants could be used to actively
involve employers and help them develop work-based learning
opportunities for students, or design and implement challenging
secondary school curricula, write the release.
The funds are the first installment of a five-year
investment intended to help states get School-to-Work systems
underway at the local level, notes the release. States receive
funds after submitting comprehensive School-to-Work plans and
demonstrating their readiness to implement them. Implementation
grants are awarded on a competitive basis to new states as
appropriations permit.
According to the release, all 50 states, the District of
Columbia and seven U.S. territories received non-competitive
development grants in 1994, which totaled $24.3M. A development
grant may be renewed until a state is ready to compete for, and
is awarded, a School-to-Work implementation grant.
Examples of winners of this year's implementation grant are:
California -- The goal of the state's School-to-Career
system is to integrate education reform with workforce and
economic development. The state has developed a School-to-Career
Curriculum Framework that emphasized early career exploration in
grades K-8 and promotes connecting school-based and work-based
learning with attention to career pathways in grades 9-12. The
curriculum will be implemented by the Fall of 1998.
Nevada -- A broad-based coalition of the state's education,
business and workforce development community has created a
comprehensive school-to-career system. Nevada's plan includes a
wide variety of strategies and local models to integrate school
and work-based learning, secondary and postsecondary education
and academic and vocational curriculum. The state is moving
toward having all high school students complete one community
college course before graduation to ensure a "foot in the door"
of postsecondary education.
Rhode Island -- The state plans to require students to earn
Certificates of Initial and Advanced Mastery, which will
demonstrate a student's mastery of high academic standards and
workplace competencies. Much effort is being focused on
connecting dropouts with the School-to-Work program, including
providing GED preparation and alternative learning environments.
Other award winners are: Conn., La., Minn., Mo., N.M.,
Tenn. and Texas.
For more information, call the School-to-Work office at
202/401-6222.
===== GOAL SIX: ADULT LITERACY AND LIFELONG LEARNING =====
*2 JOBS AND THE ECONOMY: COMMUNITY COLLEGES LEAD THE WAY
In many states, two-year community colleges are counted on
to produce skilled workers for local business (Bleakley, W.S.
JOURNAL, 11/26). While other states including Calif., S.C.,
Texas and Florida support large community-college systems, N.C.
is considered to be the model for how much a community college
can do for job training and re-training, writes the paper.
In particular, N.C. is one of only a few states to offer
free custom-training of workers in the skills needed by a
company. And students rest comfortably knowing that at the end
of the line is the high prospect of finding a well-paid job,
while paying only $1,000 a year for full-time tuition.
The paper features the Guilford Technical Community College,
located in Guilford County, halfway between Charlotte and
Raleigh. GTCC officials claim credit for the county's continued
economic success, despite workforce cutbacks in its textile,
furniture and tobacco industries. "You look across the county
now and you'll see telecommunications, auto-parts, electronics,
plastics, metalworking, customer-service and financial jobs that
weren't here in the 1970s," explained Don Jud, an economist at
the U of North Carolina at Greensboro. "GTCC has been the key to
that."
A recent study found that of about 600 recent GTCC
graduates, 10% had a starting salary of more than $35,000 a year,
20% began at $25,000 to $30,000 and only 13% were earning less
than $10,000, reports the paper. Another study conducted by
North Carolina State U revealed that the hourly wages of 2,600 of
the state's community college graduates rose 9% to 17%
(inflation-adjusted dollars) in the four years after leaving
school, notes the paper. From the JOURNAL: "So while broken
dreams are the legacy of much job-training, GTCC's students see
its formula -- a mix of technical skills and liberal arts as a
way to get ahead."
Besides training new workers, community colleges are leading
the way at re-training workers already on the job in "everything
from supervisory skills to blue-print reading and computer
basics," writes the paper. Several years ago, GTCC commissioned
a study to determine whether they were producing graduates with
the requisite skills for local business. Business leaders
informed GTCC that too many graduates were deficient in basic
math and English skills and the college was not teaching courses
future workers would need.
GTCC President Don Cameron joined forces with Schools
Superintendent Jerry Weast to form a "turf-free alliance" to
prepare students for the world of work, writes the paper. They
initially targeted the metal-working industry and sponsored a
high-school/higher education apprenticeship and curriculum,
according to the JOURNAl. "In the past, our faculty designed the
curriculum, and labs and business rarely came to the table," said
Cameron. "Then, when companies said that wasn't good enough, we
got defensive." Finally, "we're partners," he added.
According to the JOURNAl, Cameron encouraged business
involvement partly because the private sector often funded new
equipment. N.C. state government is too strapped to adequately
fund the two-year system.
Despite the relative successes of community colleges, some
questions plague the future partnership between college and
business. For example, the JOURNAL queries: "How much public
funding for community college should go toward subsidizing skills
tailored for a specific company? And many educators argue that
the prime mission of a college, even a two-year college, should
be to broaden students minds through liberal arts rather than
lead them into blue-collar work."
Another problem, noted by Jamie Vollmer, a consultant in
Fairfield, Iowa, is parental demands for a four-year degree for
their children. Informing parents that a community college is
the best option for their child is "tantamount to saying their
children have a genetic virus," said Vollmer.
===== MONEY MATTERS =====
*3 SHOWCASE OF HOMES: PARENTS BUY BASED ON SCHOOLS
Parental concern over sending their children to the "right"
public school has driven up housing prices in some neighborhoods,
while deflating them in other areas, according to the W.S.
JOURNAL'S SmartMoney Magazine (December 1996). The National
Association of Realtors reports that a good school district is
one of the "big four reasons" people decide to purchase a home.
Even home buyers without children often choose a home based
on the school district. "It's a resale issue," explained Kevin
Patterson, a broker in Colorado Springs, Colo. "They know if the
market goes soft, you want everything going for your."
According to the magazine, "feeding parental anxiety has
become a cottage industry." Several firms have emerged designed
with supply school data to parents. The Westerville, Ohio-based
SchoolMatch distributes school "report cards" that compare school
districts nationwide based on indicators such as student/teacher
ratio, SAT and ACT scores and average per-pupil expenditures.
The National School Reporting services, in Stamford, Conn.,
publishes "more comprehensive" School Reports that include
similar statistics into one book, writes the magazine.
SmartMoney cautions parents to take for granted the pitch of
real estate agents who "routinely ply parents with reams of facts
aimed at proving that one district's schools are better than
another's -- of course with no self-interest on their part."
"Don't trust the Realtors to get the good scoop," said Nancy
Gill, author of "A Parent's Guide to Schools in the San Francisco
Bay Area." "They'll tell you to buy a house you hate because
you'll get good schools. And then it turns out that they're more
touchy-feely than you want. Or you get very good elementary
schools, but not a great high school."
Instead the magazine recommends that parents judge schools
themselves based on test scores, the child's abilities and
interests and class size. However, SmartMoney warns that
statistics can be deceiving. For example, some principals when
asked to give student/teacher ratios include all school personnel
and divide that into the number of students. "So it's not an
accurate picture of the number of children your child will be
competing for attention with in algebra class," writes the
magazine. Instead, Ted Sizer, professor emeritus at Brown U,
suggests that parents ask "What's the teacher work load at
school?" Sizer: "It's better to have 30 students and two
classes than teach five classes with 20 students each."
The level of community-wide support for public schools is
another factor to be considered when purchasing a home, according
to the magazine. And SmartMoney recommends that parents make
visits to the schools. "You wouldn't buy a car without test-
driving it, would you?" asks Sizer.
Robert Inman, a finance professor at the U of Pennsylvania's
Wharton School, observed that "good schools and high taxes don't
necessarily go together." SmartMoney explains that if there are
numerous businesses in the area paying taxes, the burden on
residents will be less. "That [business tax] subsidy will allow
them to buy very good schools," said Inman.
===== THE PRIVATE EYE =====
*4 PRIVATE SCHOOLS: MORE FLORIDA FAMILIES GOING PRIVATE
The MIAMI HERALD published a detailed article describing the
exodus of Fla. families from public schools to private academies
(Mailander, 12/2). "A broad, historic commitment to public
schools has disappeared," said David Mathews, director of an
Ohio-based research organization called The Kettering Foundation
and author of, "Is There A Public for Public School?" "If people
were abandoning the Constitution, there would be headlines across
the country. This is just as damaging."
According to the paper, children from middle-class families
made up 31% of public school enrollment in Dade County in 1980.
By 1990, the middle class made up 27% of public school
enrollment. Even more significant, writes the paper, is the
steady increase of disadvantaged children entering public
schools. Low-income children occupy almost three of every five
seats in an average Dade classroom, reports the HERALD.
The middle class is fleeing urban areas for suburban public
school systems, but also for private schools. "We are finding
more families coming to us who haven't had an experience with
private education before," said C. Skardon Bliss, executive
secretary of the Florida Council of Independent Schools. The top
reason for interest in private education is safety, added Bliss.
"Every time there is a problem in public schools that makes the
press, we get more interest in our schools," he said.
Dade County schools, with a high number of Hispanic
families, especially suffers from the fact that Hispanic
families, more than other groups, prefers private schools. About
half of Hispanic, upper-income families send their children to
private schools, compared to 34% of non-Hispanic white families
at the same income level. Fourteen percent of upper-class black
families enroll in private schools, writes the paper. The HERALD
notes that cultural carryover, smaller classes, safety and
preservation of ethnicity factor into a Hispanic family's
decision to attend private schools.
The paper presents arguments against middle-class flight
from pubic schools. "Middle-class people are more likely to
know a congressman or politician, or know how to advocate for
kids," explained Robert Slavin, co-director of the Center for
Research on the Education of Students Placed at Risk, based at
Johns Hopkins U. "It's not the presence of the kids themselves -
- it's the fact they draw resources and attention that poor kids
may not get otherwise."
Another issue is money, reports the paper. "I think the
danger is an economic one," said outgoing Dade Schools
Superintendent Alan Olkesk. Along with taxes, such a thing as a
bond issue would probably fare poorly if parents can't afford to
even pay for their children's lunch. A more affluent community
with its kids in public schools is more likely to say,'Look, we
want to build more schools. We'll pass the bond issue.'"
Yet, the "overwhelming presence of poor children" in public
schools has frightened middle-class parents who "worry their own
kids will be shortchanged or held back as teachers devote their
attention to the less fortunate," writes the paper. A recent
study conducted by the national Opinion Research Center at the U
of Chicago found that family income counts more than race,
ethnicity, sex or test scores when it comes to determining the
expectations and future education of teens, reports the paper.
The HERALD notes that 94% of last year's graduates of Dade's
private schools went on to college; only 69% of public school
graduates were college bound.
The HERALD points to magnet schools and the potential for
charter schools to help public education. Fla. lawmakers
continue to reject legislation to allow for vouchers to private
schools. The state also is trying to re-build local decision
making with a program called "site-based consensus building,"
that would include principals, teahers and parents in the school
decision-making process.
Another group mentioned by the HERALD is Parents for Public
Schools, a national organization that emerged seven years ago
"when a group of middle-class parents in Jackson, Miss." met and
decided to "reclaim their public school by returning to it en
masse and encouraging others to do so." Chapters have sprung up
nationwide, with parents seeking change at their local public
school.
For more information on Parents for Public schools, call
800/880-1222, or send an e-mail to PRSChapter@aol.com.
===== CHARTING A NEW COURSE =====
*5 MARCUS GARVEY: WHAT WENT WRONG WITH A D.C. CHARTER SCHOOL
Earlier this month, a scuffle broke out at a Washington,
D.C., charter school that signaled the beginning of a race war
(Wilgoren, WASH POST, 12/16). A WASH TIMES reporter, who is
white, allegedly was accosted by Mary A.T. Anigbo, the African-
American director of the Marcus Garvey Charter School, and school
staff.
Anigbo tells a different story. She claims the reporter,
Susan Ferrechio, threatened her and school staff responded.
Police were called in and reported a scuffle with Anigbo and
staff. They also report that Anigbo and others screamed racial
slurs at Ferrechio and a WASH TIMES photographer.
What has ensued is a legal battle, finger pointing and a
review of who is responsible for ensuring the quality of charter
schools and their staff. According to the paper, overseeing
charter schools is one of the few remaining authorities held by
the District's elected school board, "which largely was displaced
last month by an appointed emergency board of trustees."
However, transcripts from the board meeting in which the
Marcus Garvey charter was granted depict a perfunctory review of
the school's mission and the qualifications of the staff, reports
the paper. The POST reports that the school's charter
application contained a "revolutionary educational approach."
For example, standard English would be taught as a foreign
language, no child would fail or be classified as needing special
education; and history and science would focus on their effects
on black communitites and the contributions that Africans and
African Americans have made.
Board members were not aware of or did not care about
Anigbo's "past problems with creditors, that her brother would
serve as chairman of the board of trustees, or that Anigbo's
nephew, a convicted armed robber and drug user, would be hired as
the school security guard, writes the paper. When board member
Jay Silberman questioned the curriculum, he was dismissed by
other board members. Silberman voted with the other members to
grant charter school status to Marcus Garvey.
"A couple of my colleagues raised race, saying it was an
Afrocentric application, and they were looking to see whether
white colleagues would vote only for white-run schools," conceded
Erika Landberg, a board member. "As long as we stay in those
race boxes, we'll stay mediocre in this city, and we'll fail our
children."
School board President Karen Schook defended the board's
decision to grant charters to Marcus Garvey and three other
schools. She claims the board felt rushed by Congress to quickly
get charter schools up and running in the district. However, a
letter sent in the summer from Sen James Jeffords (R-Vt.) reveals
that Jeffords explained that if the board wanted charters to open
in September, they should quickly process the applications to
give the schools time to get ready. A Jeffords spokesman said
that whether a charter should be granted is "in the hands of the
Board of Education."
According to the paper, the board also underestimated its
responsibility to oversee charter schools. Board members
complain that since they have been stripped of most of their
power, they cannot properly oversee the charters. "The board has
no investigative staff," said Silberman. "The board has no legal
staff. [Besides, charter schools] report to their own board.
There is no direct accountability relative to the school board."
John Schnur, a U.S. DoEd official who works with charter
schools nationwide, told the POST that charting authorities can
and must act when a school official is charged with inappropriate
behavior, writes the paper. The DoEd has referred Shook to
officials in Minn. and Calif. who have "dealt with allegations of
wrongdoing at schools they have chartered."
*6 WHO IS IN CHARGE: CHARTER-ISSUERS ARE ACCOUNTABLE
In a WASH POST editorial, Chester Finn, writing in response
to the brouhaha over Washington, D.C.'s Marcus Garvey charter
school, observes that "the test of a sound charter school program
has as much to do with the judgment and prowess of the character-
issuers as with the performance of the schools themselves."
(12/15) (See today's DRC, # 5) Finn, a senior fellow at the
Hudson Institute, notes that the majority of the nation's 500
charter schools are "keeping their noses clean and doing well by
their students and communitites."
Finn stresses that it is "incumbent upon the charter issuer
to monitor its schools; not for compliance with a mound of
superintendent's office procedures but for fiscal probity,
education effectiveness and maintenance of the norms of civil
society."
He points out four charter schools that have had their
charters revoked: three in Calif., and one in Ariz. Reasons
range from financial irregularities (Edutrain School in Los
Angeles and Citizen 2000 in Ariz) to fire code violations
(Windows Charter School in San Diego) to "power struggles over
the school's autonomy (Johnson Elementary in San Diego,) writes
FInn.
According to Finn, most charter-issuers "take great pains at
the front end" to ensure high quality schools and staff so
charters do not need to be revoked mid-year. For example, it is
customary for charter-issuers to do criminal record checks and to
check the credit history of the school's leaders.
For Finn, the D.C. Board of Education was "over-hasty in its
initial approval of the Garvey charter (and perhaps others),
failing to establish careful review procedures, neglecting to
check the records of the individuals involved and not building
clear accountability norms and monitoring arrangements into the
charter document itself." He recommends that the board close the
school or at least replace its leadership, if media accounts of
what took place are accurate.
Finn: ". . . the charter movement is strengthened by
visibly holding its schools and educators to account for their
actions."
Click here to return to OFCN's
Academy Program
Click here to return to OFCN's Main Index Page.
John Kurilecjmk@ofcn.org