Friday, August 26, 2005

BOEHNER REPLIES TO PHI DELTA KAPPA ABOUT NCLB

U.S. Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), chairman of the House Committee on Education & the Workforce, today criticized the methods used to produce the latest Phi Delta Kappa (PDK) annual survey, which claims to independently assess Americans' views on K-12 public education. "The PDK survey is released annually, and has annually drawn criticism from education reform supporters for its `softball' questions that protect the interests of education establishment lobbyists. This year's survey, released this morning, carries on this dubious tradition," said Boehner.

"The United States spends more than $500 billion a year on K-12 education - more than we spend on national defense - yet our students lag behind those of other nations in key subjects, and millions of disadvantaged children do not have the same educational opportunities as their more fortunate peers," Boehner said. "The Phi Delta Kappa survey relies on a number of loaded questions carefully phrased by education reform opponents to make it appear the American public isn't bothered by these facts. The result once again is a confusing tangle of survey information that is frequently contradictory and of questionable value to the education reform dialogue in our country."

Boehner listed a number of ways in which the PDK survey presents a distorted picture of public opinion on President Bush's No Child Left Behind (NCLB) education reforms and efforts to expand parental choice in education:

* Special education students can learn. The PDK report implicitly contends Americans do not believe public schools should be held accountable if special education students do not make academic progress - but the survey avoids asking that question directly. The poll presents no evidence to suggest Americans do not believe public schools should be accountable for ensuring all of their students, including students with special needs, make academic progress.

* Minority children do not yet have equal educational opportunities. Asked "do black children and other minority children in your community have the same educational opportunities as white children?" - the PDK report suggests most Americans answer by saying "yes, the same." What the survey is careful not to ask is whether respondents believe black and other minority children in general have the same opportunities as white children. The poll presents no evidence to suggest Americans believe black and other minority children overall have the same opportunities as white children in America , and even contradicts itself by showing an overwhelming majority of Americans believe closing the achievement gap between minority students and white students is a very important goal.

* Americans are far more concerned about children not learning to read than they are about "too much testing." The PDK poll suggests the number of Americans saying there is "too much testing" has increased, but fails to note polls consistently show Americans are far more concerned about children passing through public schools without learning to read than they are about children being tested too much. Asked which is the bigger problem - children passing through U.S. schools without learning to read, or children being forced to take too many tests - Americans overwhelmingly (77%) believe the more important problem in education is that children are passing through schools without learning to read, according to a 2004 poll of 1,000 Americans conducted for Americans for Better Education (ABE) by The Winston Group, a top national polling firm.

* Loaded school choice questions. The PDK report contends public support for giving low-income families the right to send their children to the school of their choice (private or public) - an option PDK refers to only by the codeword "vouchers" - is decreasing. The PDK poll presents no evidence to suggest Americans believe low-income parents should not be allowed to transfer their children to better performing private schools if their public schools are chronically underachieving or dangerous. President Bush fought successfully for legislation giving this option to more than 1,000 low-income children and families in the District of Columbia .

* "Single test" myth. The questions in the PDK survey repeatedly suggest - incorrectly - that schools are judged under NCLB based on the performance of their students on a "single test." But NCLB simply requires states, in exchange for billions in federal education funds, to use tests that generate results that can be compared from one year to the next in key subjects such as reading and math. Nothing prohibits states from taking performance in other subjects into account as well for their own purposes in addition to reading and math. NCLB not only explicitly bans anything resembling a national test taken by all students, but allows states to design and implement their own tests, and makes clear that no two states are required to adopt the same test.

* "Narrow curriculum" myth. The questions in the PDK survey suggest - incorrectly - that an increased focus on basics such as reading and math forces states and schools to teach students less in other areas, such as art, music, and history. But across the nation, thousands of schools are reporting improved results in the core subjects under NCLB without having abandoned their efforts to teach these other subjects.


Source. Note: The poll itself is here




CALIFORNIA FUDGES THE FIGURES

By ignoring dropouts

UCLA researchers say the state is overestimating the number of students passing the California High School Exit Exam. But state officials say it depends on how you do the math. And they prefer their method. This year's incoming seniors make up the first class that must pass the exam to receive a diploma. The Department of Education reported last week that 88 percent of students in the class of 2006 have passed the English language arts part of the test and 88 percent have passed the math.

But at a meeting at National Hispanic University here, researchers on Tuesday presented a study showing lower numbers - an 81 percent passage rate in language arts for students in the class of 2006 and 80 percent passage rate in math. Students must pass both portions of the test to receive a diploma. The reason for the difference: UCLA's calculations include class of 2006 students who dropped out in 10th and 11th grade or didn't take the test for some other reason. The California Department of Education includes only students still enrolled and trying to pass the test by the end of 11th grade. "This difference is highly consequential," said UCLA professor John Rogers, one of the study's authors. Rogers was among 200 educators and civil rights advocates gathered at a conference partly sponsored by Harvard University's Civil Rights Project, an organization that researches social justice issues in education. "The state has forgotten about 40,000 students in each section," Rogers said.

Where the state Department of Education says about 54,000 students have not yet passed each section of the two-part test, Rogers says the number is closer to 90,000 for the English part and 100,000 for the math.

Department of Education officials said their measurement is more accurate. "We're measuring how many kids that are taking the (exit exam) are passing it," said Rick Miller, spokesman for Jack O'Connell, the state superintendent of schools. "That seems like the information we ought to want to know." Miller said the state's dropout rate is a significant problem. But information on graduation and dropout rates should be examined separately from the exit exam data, he said. "What we're trying to talk about is not how many are graduating, but how many are passing the (exit exam)," Miller said.

For exit exam opponents, the two pieces of information are related. Students who don't graduate from high school - either because they fail an exit exam or because they drop out - will likely have a hard time earning a living. Russell Rumberger, an education professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who spoke at Tuesday's event, estimated that high school graduates earn about $7,000 more a year than those who don't have a diploma, a difference in lifetime earnings of around $270,000.

More here

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For greatest efficiency, lowest cost and maximum choice, ALL schools should be privately owned and run -- with government-paid vouchers for the poor and minimal regulation.

The NEA and similar unions worldwide believe that children should be thoroughly indoctrinated with Green/Left, feminist/homosexual ideology but the "3 R's" are something that kids should just be allowed to "discover"


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