Recently the LA Unified School District announced it would bid out the management of 250 public schools to private non-profit organizations. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa (D) announced, “This school board understands that parents are going to have a voice.” With all the talk of empowering parents, it looked like a sure win for educational choice.
Not so fast, says Greg Forester, a senior fellow at the Friedman Foundation in a recent column for pajamasmedia.com. According to Forester, “The policy before the school board that day had nothing to do with school choice. It only said that contracts to manage schools could be bid out to non-profits. And bidding out the management of public schools without changing the underlying dynamic of the system has always proven to be a recipe for failure in the past.”
While this may be a bait and switch with no real parental choice in education, at least it is an open admission by Democrats that the government monopoly on public education has been a failure and something needs to be done.
Read the whole article at pajamasmedia.com
September 17, 2009
September 14, 2009
CCSD still rewarding mediocrity
Last week the Clark County School District’s board of trustees voted to extend the teacher contract by one year. The contract continues to pay teachers based on longevity and their number of degrees — rather than on the quality of teaching delivered.
During the 08-09 school year, earning a Master’s degree netted a teacher an additional $5,655 a year. Unfortunately, earning a Master’s degree does not improve the teacher’s quality, and that means millions of dollars wasted.
Eric Hanushek, of Stanford University, and Steven Rivkin, writing in the 2006 edition of the Handbook on the Economics of Education, cite the “most ... remarkable ... finding” from numerous studies “that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes” (page 11 of the article, “Teacher Quality“). Advanced degrees are not likely to increase the quality of the teaching and, more importantly, there is no evidence that they increase student achievement.
Teachers in Clark County also received an additional $1,465 for each additional year worked. But teacher quality does not improve after the first few years. Essentially, longevity pay ends up rewarding mediocrity, as teachers receive little to no reward for the effectiveness of their teaching.
A merit-pay system based on value-added assessment (testing to see the gains an individual student makes from year to year) would be a far better system. Teachers would be rewarded based on the effectiveness of their teaching, providing a strong incentive for improving their teaching skills. High-quality teachers would receive top tier pay while poor teachers would be shown the door.
Dr. Matthew Ladner, a policy fellow with the Nevada Policy Research Institute and vice president for research at Arizona’s Goldwater Institute, recently highlighted several methods that could result in high-quality teachers earning more than $100,000 a year for their efforts.
Perhaps the board of trustees hasn’t kept up with the research on teacher pay and teacher quality. Or perhaps they simply don’t care. Either way, teacher pay in Nevada continues to reward mediocrity.
In this way, Nevada school boards — crying poverty all the while — waste millions of dollars that could be used more productively elsewhere.
Even worse, however, is the needless waste, for hundreds of thousands of Nevada youth, of what these students could potentially achieve.
During the 08-09 school year, earning a Master’s degree netted a teacher an additional $5,655 a year. Unfortunately, earning a Master’s degree does not improve the teacher’s quality, and that means millions of dollars wasted.
Eric Hanushek, of Stanford University, and Steven Rivkin, writing in the 2006 edition of the Handbook on the Economics of Education, cite the “most ... remarkable ... finding” from numerous studies “that a master’s degree has no systematic relationship to teacher quality as measured by student outcomes” (page 11 of the article, “Teacher Quality“). Advanced degrees are not likely to increase the quality of the teaching and, more importantly, there is no evidence that they increase student achievement.
Teachers in Clark County also received an additional $1,465 for each additional year worked. But teacher quality does not improve after the first few years. Essentially, longevity pay ends up rewarding mediocrity, as teachers receive little to no reward for the effectiveness of their teaching.
A merit-pay system based on value-added assessment (testing to see the gains an individual student makes from year to year) would be a far better system. Teachers would be rewarded based on the effectiveness of their teaching, providing a strong incentive for improving their teaching skills. High-quality teachers would receive top tier pay while poor teachers would be shown the door.
Dr. Matthew Ladner, a policy fellow with the Nevada Policy Research Institute and vice president for research at Arizona’s Goldwater Institute, recently highlighted several methods that could result in high-quality teachers earning more than $100,000 a year for their efforts.
Perhaps the board of trustees hasn’t kept up with the research on teacher pay and teacher quality. Or perhaps they simply don’t care. Either way, teacher pay in Nevada continues to reward mediocrity.
In this way, Nevada school boards — crying poverty all the while — waste millions of dollars that could be used more productively elsewhere.
Even worse, however, is the needless waste, for hundreds of thousands of Nevada youth, of what these students could potentially achieve.
September 11, 2009
BEACON presents Empowerment Schools
The Business Educational Alliance for the Children of Nevada (BEACON) is a private group of concerned business leaders in Nevada advocating for education reform. Their primary focus for reform has been on Clark County School District’s empowerment school model.
Empowerment schools offer schools autonomy over their budgets in exchange for becoming accountable for results. Watch the excellent presentation by Mike Strembitsky, a hog farmer from Canada who became a school district superintendent and reinvented public education as we know it. The video above is a five part presentation.
September 10, 2009
Assessing Obama's speech to schoolkids
Obama’s speech to schoolkids promoted outrage and concern among parents and pundits. Unfortunately, the political left ignored some very reasonable arguments and focused on the more extreme positions. Even though the president’s speech may appear harmless, scholars at the Cato Institute point out some of the rational concerns with the speech in the video above (about six minutes).
September 9, 2009
Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care - WSJ.com
Sarah Palin: Obama and the Bureaucratization of Health Care - WSJ.com
Sarah Palin makes sense. I know--some of you think she's a nitwit--you're wrong. The nitwit is Obama along with all the other nitwits in Congress who support a voodoo health care plan. Jim
Sarah Palin makes sense. I know--some of you think she's a nitwit--you're wrong. The nitwit is Obama along with all the other nitwits in Congress who support a voodoo health care plan. Jim
September 8, 2009
Teaching with marshmallows
Fun Fact Friday! - Student/Teacher Ratio from Education Gadfly on Vimeo.
Check out this great Fordham Foundation video on classroom size and student achievement (see above). As NPRI policy fellow Dr. Matthew Ladner has said, emphasizing small class sizes over teacher quality is a poor choice.
Step Up for Students
Step Up For Students
Florida’s successful Step Up For Students program is a corporate tuition tax credit program that grants scholarships to low-income children so they may attend private schools or out-of-district public schools.
With continued problems of unequal education for minorities and low income students – especially in a state with the nation's worst graduation rate – Nevada desperately needs a similar program.
Watch the commercials below or visit http://www.stepupforstudents.org/ for more information.
Florida’s successful Step Up For Students program is a corporate tuition tax credit program that grants scholarships to low-income children so they may attend private schools or out-of-district public schools.
With continued problems of unequal education for minorities and low income students – especially in a state with the nation's worst graduation rate – Nevada desperately needs a similar program.
Watch the commercials below or visit http://www.stepupforstudents.org/ for more information.
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