TW: Have remarked before on the Texas Board of Education's influence on national education curriculum. Personally their influence does not give me much comfort.
From Floyd Norris at NYT:
"The Texas Board of Education voted today to make changes sought by conservatives in the state’s social sciences curriculum, James C. McKinley reports.
In economics, the revisions add Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, two champions of free-market economic theory, among the usual list of economists to be studied, like Adam Smith, Karl Marx and John Maynard Keynes. They also replaced the word “capitalism” throughout their texts with the “free-enterprise system.”
“Let’s face it, capitalism does have a negative connotation,” said one conservative member, Teri Leo. “You know, ‘capitalist pig!’ ”
The highlight of the article, at least for me, was this challenge from a board member:
“I reject the notion by the left of a constitutional separation of church and state,” said David Bradley, a conservative from Beaumont who works in real estate. “I have $1,000 for the charity of your choice if you can find it in the Constitution.”
Then I learned that one man that my high school teachers spoke well of was no longer appreciated:
Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well-liked among the conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)
“The Enlightenment was not the only philosophy on which these revolutions were based,” Ms. Dunbar said."http://norris.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/12/is-capitalism-a-bad-word/
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Education. Show all posts
Saturday, March 13, 2010
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Should Schools Close On Muslim Holidays?
TW: This is the kind of story that can get folks riled. Then again perhaps fundamentalists would like the idea of more religious holidays. Christian traditions are deeply embedded within our schedules even within our theoretically secular schools. Obviously in most geographies Christians remain and will remain the strong majority population. However, in certain districts Jewish children represent a substantial minority, if not majority. With the growth of Muslim (and perhaps other religious orientations), certain local populations are starting to attain sufficient size to request their own accommodations.
Places like NYC given its melting pot status are somewhat unique in that they have significant minorities across several faiths unlike say Dearborn, MI, which is majority Muslim at this point.
To me the Hillsbourough, FL solution outlined below would be my preference. I have a simple metric for religious integration into the secular world. If it works and reconciles for all faiths, it is probably fine. If it does not, then perhaps it is a problem.
From Wall Street Journal:
"Muslims groups here are pressing city officials to close public schools on two of the faith's holiest days, just as schools do for major Jewish and Christian holidays...Muslim groups have asked the city to cancel classes on Eid Ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
New York is one of many public-school systems now struggling with appropriate ways to recognize religious holidays for a diverse population. An estimated 100,000 Muslim children are enrolled in New York City schools, about 10% of the enrollment.
The matter has taken on a political aspect as Mr. Bloomberg, seeking a third term as mayor, has steadily courted the endorsement of a slew of ethnic groups. One city councilman said Muslims might withhold their votes if the mayor doesn't heed their wishes...
The mayor often says children need to be in school more, not less, and that establishing more holidays would encourage every religious group to demand that their holy days be recognized...
Other states have found a workable approach. Dearborn, Mich., where nearly half of the 18,000 students are Muslim, is believed to be the first city to close school on Muslim holy days, a spokesman said. Several cities in New Jersey now close school on the holy days.
After Muslims asked for school closings in Hillsborough County, Fla., the school board in 2007 approved a secular calendar that doesn't commemorate any religious holidays for the 189,000 students. Schools remain open on Good Friday, a Christian holiday, even though many students are absent, said Linda Cobbe, a spokeswoman. "There are so many religions we don't want to single out one or two," she said.
...New York City schools close on major federal holidays, as well as the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. School recesses are scheduled during Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Passover. City schools permit children to stay home on days when they are celebrating a religious holiday..."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125297372149610431.html
Places like NYC given its melting pot status are somewhat unique in that they have significant minorities across several faiths unlike say Dearborn, MI, which is majority Muslim at this point.
To me the Hillsbourough, FL solution outlined below would be my preference. I have a simple metric for religious integration into the secular world. If it works and reconciles for all faiths, it is probably fine. If it does not, then perhaps it is a problem.
From Wall Street Journal:
"Muslims groups here are pressing city officials to close public schools on two of the faith's holiest days, just as schools do for major Jewish and Christian holidays...Muslim groups have asked the city to cancel classes on Eid Ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan, and Eid Ul-Adha, which marks the end of the annual pilgrimage to Mecca.
New York is one of many public-school systems now struggling with appropriate ways to recognize religious holidays for a diverse population. An estimated 100,000 Muslim children are enrolled in New York City schools, about 10% of the enrollment.
The matter has taken on a political aspect as Mr. Bloomberg, seeking a third term as mayor, has steadily courted the endorsement of a slew of ethnic groups. One city councilman said Muslims might withhold their votes if the mayor doesn't heed their wishes...
The mayor often says children need to be in school more, not less, and that establishing more holidays would encourage every religious group to demand that their holy days be recognized...
Other states have found a workable approach. Dearborn, Mich., where nearly half of the 18,000 students are Muslim, is believed to be the first city to close school on Muslim holy days, a spokesman said. Several cities in New Jersey now close school on the holy days.
After Muslims asked for school closings in Hillsborough County, Fla., the school board in 2007 approved a secular calendar that doesn't commemorate any religious holidays for the 189,000 students. Schools remain open on Good Friday, a Christian holiday, even though many students are absent, said Linda Cobbe, a spokeswoman. "There are so many religions we don't want to single out one or two," she said.
...New York City schools close on major federal holidays, as well as the Jewish holy day of Yom Kippur. School recesses are scheduled during Christmas, Good Friday, Easter and Passover. City schools permit children to stay home on days when they are celebrating a religious holiday..."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125297372149610431.html
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Makes Sense To Me
From Economist:
"OVER the weekend Bill White, the mayor of Houston, and a phalanx of officials went door to door looking for high-school dropouts. They found 64 students in the Houston Independent School District who promised to come back:
'Mayor Bill White asked [18-year-old Francisco Frias] why he hadn't been to class.
“I have to work,” the young man explained.
Houston ISD's new superintendent, Terry Grier, suggested that Frias consider attending Eagle Academy, a program recognized for its nontraditional offerings and flexible schedules.
“You can do this,” said Grier, whose father and grandfather were dropouts. “The thing that is true about all successful people is that they don't give up. They don't give up. That's what you have to do. You don't give up. … We're not going to give up on you.”
A great idea from the city of Houston. Since they started this "Reach Out to Dropouts Day" effort six years ago, they have had several thousand students re-enroll, and a dozen other cities in Texas have launched similar initiatives. The numbers may seem like small potatoes (in a neighbouring district, 100 volunteers reported promises from 18 students, according to the Houston Chronicle). And the individual interventions don't address the underlying factors that are driving the city, state, and country's troubling dropout rates (18.7% for Class of 2008 in Houston ISD, again per the Chronicle). But every student who re-enrolls is a student whose future prospects just took a big step forward. And this is a population, at-risk teenagers, that could surely use more attention.
As a side note, Mr White shines at this kind of hands-on, practical effort, and this is partly why many Texas Democrats wish he was running for governor, not senator."
"OVER the weekend Bill White, the mayor of Houston, and a phalanx of officials went door to door looking for high-school dropouts. They found 64 students in the Houston Independent School District who promised to come back:
'Mayor Bill White asked [18-year-old Francisco Frias] why he hadn't been to class.
“I have to work,” the young man explained.
Houston ISD's new superintendent, Terry Grier, suggested that Frias consider attending Eagle Academy, a program recognized for its nontraditional offerings and flexible schedules.
“You can do this,” said Grier, whose father and grandfather were dropouts. “The thing that is true about all successful people is that they don't give up. They don't give up. That's what you have to do. You don't give up. … We're not going to give up on you.”
A great idea from the city of Houston. Since they started this "Reach Out to Dropouts Day" effort six years ago, they have had several thousand students re-enroll, and a dozen other cities in Texas have launched similar initiatives. The numbers may seem like small potatoes (in a neighbouring district, 100 volunteers reported promises from 18 students, according to the Houston Chronicle). And the individual interventions don't address the underlying factors that are driving the city, state, and country's troubling dropout rates (18.7% for Class of 2008 in Houston ISD, again per the Chronicle). But every student who re-enrolls is a student whose future prospects just took a big step forward. And this is a population, at-risk teenagers, that could surely use more attention.
As a side note, Mr White shines at this kind of hands-on, practical effort, and this is partly why many Texas Democrats wish he was running for governor, not senator."
Monday, September 7, 2009
Education Conundrums
TW: Two of the fundamental conundrums in American education- increasing public service union flexibility and addressing the significant disparities in funding across geographies (the 2nd cartoon is from St. Louis, Clayton is an affluent suburb, Festus I assume not so). If and when and probably not before, we come up with viable means by which to improve these two dynamics is when we will significantly improve our educational success rates. Monday, August 31, 2009
Public Service Unions Need Reform
TW: I am not in the all unions are bad camp. Just like I am not in the all rapacious capitalists are bad even though many are. But there is one type of union with whom I have serious problems- public service. Public service unions wield disproportionate power due to the frequent monopolistic power of their industries (i.e. teaching, fire fighting, police etc.) and their exceedingly strong electoral impact especially locally.
Public service unions typically are a core Democratic constituency. That does not mean they should be immune to reform. I have not plowed through the New Yorker article referenced below but am looking forward to it. Improving education is a multi-faceted challenge but increasing the quality of teachers should be part of the solution.
From Economist:
"...studies have shown that the quality of one's teacher is probably the most important factor in determining a student's educational success. But in New York, where the pay and promotion schemes are nearly automatic, good teachers are treated much the same way as bad teachers. Moreover, the tenure system is such that bad teachers stick around for as long as they want. After running through the elaborate and costly system for dealing with incompetent teachers,
Mr Brill [author of New Yorker piece] notes
'[I]n the past two years arbitrators have terminated only two teachers for incompetence alone, and only six others in cases where, according to the Department of Education, the main charge was incompetence.'
Tenure is one of the biggest problems: after three years on the job, teachers are basically guaranteed employment for life. Joel Klein, the city's schools chancellor, has made a dent there, but problems persist.
[From Brill]
'In seven years, Klein has increased the percentage of third-year teachers not given tenure from three to six per cent. Unsatisfactory ratings for tenured teachers have risen from less than one per cent to 1.8 per cent. "Any human-resources professional will tell you that rating only 1.8 per cent of any workforce unsatisfactory is ridiculous," [Dan Weisberg, the general counsel and vice-president for the New Teacher Project] says. "If you look at the upper quartile and the lower quartile, you know that those people are not interchangeable...'
...Why shouldn't public-school teachers be treated like bankers or lawyers or most other occupations in America? Why should they be guaranteed employment after three years, and why doesn't performance play a bigger role in decisions about salaries and promotions? These aren't new questions. Barack Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, has been pushing for reforms to the current system. And Mr Klein has been battling the UTF for seven years. But the teachers' union is powerful, and the state's politicians are easily cowed. In the city, the teachers' contract is up for renewal in October, which should lead to another battle over tenure, evaluation and pay."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/those_who_cant_teach_teach.cfm
Public service unions typically are a core Democratic constituency. That does not mean they should be immune to reform. I have not plowed through the New Yorker article referenced below but am looking forward to it. Improving education is a multi-faceted challenge but increasing the quality of teachers should be part of the solution.
From Economist:
"...studies have shown that the quality of one's teacher is probably the most important factor in determining a student's educational success. But in New York, where the pay and promotion schemes are nearly automatic, good teachers are treated much the same way as bad teachers. Moreover, the tenure system is such that bad teachers stick around for as long as they want. After running through the elaborate and costly system for dealing with incompetent teachers,
Mr Brill [author of New Yorker piece] notes
'[I]n the past two years arbitrators have terminated only two teachers for incompetence alone, and only six others in cases where, according to the Department of Education, the main charge was incompetence.'
Tenure is one of the biggest problems: after three years on the job, teachers are basically guaranteed employment for life. Joel Klein, the city's schools chancellor, has made a dent there, but problems persist.
[From Brill]
'In seven years, Klein has increased the percentage of third-year teachers not given tenure from three to six per cent. Unsatisfactory ratings for tenured teachers have risen from less than one per cent to 1.8 per cent. "Any human-resources professional will tell you that rating only 1.8 per cent of any workforce unsatisfactory is ridiculous," [Dan Weisberg, the general counsel and vice-president for the New Teacher Project] says. "If you look at the upper quartile and the lower quartile, you know that those people are not interchangeable...'
...Why shouldn't public-school teachers be treated like bankers or lawyers or most other occupations in America? Why should they be guaranteed employment after three years, and why doesn't performance play a bigger role in decisions about salaries and promotions? These aren't new questions. Barack Obama's education secretary, Arne Duncan, has been pushing for reforms to the current system. And Mr Klein has been battling the UTF for seven years. But the teachers' union is powerful, and the state's politicians are easily cowed. In the city, the teachers' contract is up for renewal in October, which should lead to another battle over tenure, evaluation and pay."
http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2009/08/those_who_cant_teach_teach.cfm
Friday, August 28, 2009
Income And Education
(click on graphs to enlarge)
TW: The first graph above is from Greg Mankiw's blog, he dismisses it:
"...Of course! But so what? This fact tells us nothing about the causal impact of income on test scores...This graph is a good example of omitted variable bias...The key omitted variable here is parents' IQ. Smart parents make more money and pass those good genes on to their offspring.Suppose we were to graph average SAT scores by the number of bathrooms a student has in his or her family home. That curve would also likely slope upward..."
TW: He is right. The graph implies causation when many other variables could be relevant (including although certainly not limited to IQ). But my guy Krugman counters with the second graph. Low income kids with high scores manage to attain fewer college degrees than high income kids with LOW scores. Why is that?
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Texas Working Hard To Mess Up Our History Books
TW: As I have posted before, if Texans want to create their own alternative universe fair enough I suppose. The challenge is that their state is sufficiently large to influence textbooks makers in the rest of the country. I actually would find it useful for students to learn more about some of the folks like Hannity, Limbaugh, Schlafly, Dobson et al. As long as it was done in a proper compare and contrast with how they pale in comparison to previous leaders of both the left and right. I suspect that is not the intention.
From the Houston Chronicle:
"AUSTIN — Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals — under the first draft of new standards for public school history textbooks.
And the side that got left out is very unhappy.
As it stands, students would get “one-sided, right wing ideology,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the House Mexican American Caucus.
“We ought to be focusing on historical significance and historical figures. It's important that whatever course they take, that it portray a complete view of our history and not a jaded view to suit one's partisan agenda or one's partisan philosophy,” he said.
The State Board of Education has appointed “review committees” made up largely of active and retired school teachers to draft new social studies curriculum standards as well as six “expert reviewers” to help shape the final document.
The standards, which the board will decide next spring, will influence new history, civics and geography textbooks.
The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.”
Gingrich helped lead House Republicans to their 1994 takeover of Congress and became House speaker. Schlafly founded the conservative Eagle Forum and became a leading opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment aimed at formalizing women's equality with men. The Moral Majority formed in the late 1970s as an evangelical Christian organization that influenced politics and public policy for decades.
...Whether students will also be exposed to liberal examples from the ebb and flow of American politics is hard to predict. Conservatives form the largest bloc on the 15-member State Board of Education, whose partisan makeup is 10 Republicans and five Democrats.
...“It is hard to believe that a majority of the writing team would approve of such wording,” said Terri Leo, R-Spring. “It's not even a representative selection of the conservative movement, and it is inappropriate.”
Advocate for both sides
Another board conservative, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, thinks students should study both sides to “see what the differences are and be able to define those differences.”
He would add James Dobson's Focus on the Family, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to the list of conservatives. Others have proposed adding talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the National Rifle Association.
“I think, at the end of the day, we will want the young students to be able to identify what's conservative, what's their advocacy and who are the conservative groups, individuals and leaders. And what is liberal in contrast,” Mercer said.
Among liberals to include, Mercer would nominate the National Education Association, MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood and the Texas Freedom Network — a group that says it promotes “religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the radical right.”
“We don't think it's appropriate to be listing groups and people in the standards just because they're conservatives or liberals,” said Kathy Miller, the group's president. “The state board should simply stop putting politics ahead of our kids' education and putting teachers in the position of indoctrinating students with political agendas.”
The debate will likely intensify in coming months. Two reviewers have recommended that César Chávez, the late farm workers union leader, be removed from history books because they deem him an unworthy role model.
Board members appoint the review committees and typically choose people who share their philosophies."
From the Houston Chronicle:
"AUSTIN — Texas high school students would learn about such significant individuals and milestones of conservative politics as Newt Gingrich and the rise of the Moral Majority — but nothing about liberals — under the first draft of new standards for public school history textbooks.
And the side that got left out is very unhappy.
As it stands, students would get “one-sided, right wing ideology,” said Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, chairman of the House Mexican American Caucus.
“We ought to be focusing on historical significance and historical figures. It's important that whatever course they take, that it portray a complete view of our history and not a jaded view to suit one's partisan agenda or one's partisan philosophy,” he said.
The State Board of Education has appointed “review committees” made up largely of active and retired school teachers to draft new social studies curriculum standards as well as six “expert reviewers” to help shape the final document.
The standards, which the board will decide next spring, will influence new history, civics and geography textbooks.
The first draft for proposed standards in United States History Studies Since Reconstruction says students should be expected “to identify significant conservative advocacy organizations and individuals, such as Newt Gingrich, Phyllis Schlafly and the Moral Majority.”
Gingrich helped lead House Republicans to their 1994 takeover of Congress and became House speaker. Schlafly founded the conservative Eagle Forum and became a leading opponent of the Equal Rights Amendment aimed at formalizing women's equality with men. The Moral Majority formed in the late 1970s as an evangelical Christian organization that influenced politics and public policy for decades.
...Whether students will also be exposed to liberal examples from the ebb and flow of American politics is hard to predict. Conservatives form the largest bloc on the 15-member State Board of Education, whose partisan makeup is 10 Republicans and five Democrats.
...“It is hard to believe that a majority of the writing team would approve of such wording,” said Terri Leo, R-Spring. “It's not even a representative selection of the conservative movement, and it is inappropriate.”
Advocate for both sides
Another board conservative, Ken Mercer, R-San Antonio, thinks students should study both sides to “see what the differences are and be able to define those differences.”
He would add James Dobson's Focus on the Family, conservative talk show host Sean Hannity and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee to the list of conservatives. Others have proposed adding talk show host Rush Limbaugh and the National Rifle Association.
“I think, at the end of the day, we will want the young students to be able to identify what's conservative, what's their advocacy and who are the conservative groups, individuals and leaders. And what is liberal in contrast,” Mercer said.
Among liberals to include, Mercer would nominate the National Education Association, MoveOn.org, Planned Parenthood and the Texas Freedom Network — a group that says it promotes “religious freedom and individual liberties to counter the radical right.”
“We don't think it's appropriate to be listing groups and people in the standards just because they're conservatives or liberals,” said Kathy Miller, the group's president. “The state board should simply stop putting politics ahead of our kids' education and putting teachers in the position of indoctrinating students with political agendas.”
The debate will likely intensify in coming months. Two reviewers have recommended that César Chávez, the late farm workers union leader, be removed from history books because they deem him an unworthy role model.
Board members appoint the review committees and typically choose people who share their philosophies."
Monday, July 27, 2009
Our Handwriting Has Gone To the Crapper
TW: My handwriting was never good. Now it is barely legible even to myself. Kids today are barely even learning how to write cursive. As the article says (although I did not clip much of the historical stuff), handwriting has always evolved. Try reading a 19th century letter. I am not particularly concerned by this latest evolution.
I will just offer a shout out to my parents who forced me to take a typewriting class in high school (that would have been in the BC period- before computers). At least I can type on a keyboard pretty darn well, which in this day and age is all one really needs.
From Time:
"...I am a member of Gen Y, the generation that shunned cursive. And now there is a group coming after me, a boom of tech-savvy children who don't remember life before the Internet and who text-message nearly as much as they talk. They have even less need for good penmanship. We are witnessing the death of handwriting.
People born after 1980 tend to have a distinctive style of handwriting: a little bit sloppy, a little bit childish and almost never in cursive. The knee-jerk explanation is that computers are responsible for our increasingly illegible scrawl, but Steve Graham, a special-education and literacy professor at Vanderbilt University, says that's not the case. The simple fact is that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. "Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore," he says.
...Over the decades, daily handwriting lessons have decreased from an average of 30 minutes to 15.
...Technology is only part of the reason. A study published in the February issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology found that just 9% of American high school students use an in-class computer more than once a week. The cause of the decline in handwriting may lie not so much in computers as in standardized testing. The Federal Government's landmark 1983 report A Nation at Risk, on the dismal state of public education, ushered in a new era of standardized assessment that has intensified since the passage in 2002 of the No Child Left Behind Act. "In schools today, they're teaching to the tests," says Tamara Thornton, a University of Buffalo professor and the author of a history of American handwriting. "If something isn't on a test, it's viewed as a luxury."
...Is that such a bad thing? Except for physicians — whose illegible handwriting on charts and prescription pads causes thousands of deaths a year — penmanship has almost no bearing on job performance. And aside from the occasional grocery list or Post-it note, most adults write very little by hand..."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912419,00.html
I will just offer a shout out to my parents who forced me to take a typewriting class in high school (that would have been in the BC period- before computers). At least I can type on a keyboard pretty darn well, which in this day and age is all one really needs.
From Time:
"...I am a member of Gen Y, the generation that shunned cursive. And now there is a group coming after me, a boom of tech-savvy children who don't remember life before the Internet and who text-message nearly as much as they talk. They have even less need for good penmanship. We are witnessing the death of handwriting.
People born after 1980 tend to have a distinctive style of handwriting: a little bit sloppy, a little bit childish and almost never in cursive. The knee-jerk explanation is that computers are responsible for our increasingly illegible scrawl, but Steve Graham, a special-education and literacy professor at Vanderbilt University, says that's not the case. The simple fact is that kids haven't learned to write neatly because no one has forced them to. "Writing is just not part of the national agenda anymore," he says.
...Over the decades, daily handwriting lessons have decreased from an average of 30 minutes to 15.
...Technology is only part of the reason. A study published in the February issue of the Journal of Educational Psychology found that just 9% of American high school students use an in-class computer more than once a week. The cause of the decline in handwriting may lie not so much in computers as in standardized testing. The Federal Government's landmark 1983 report A Nation at Risk, on the dismal state of public education, ushered in a new era of standardized assessment that has intensified since the passage in 2002 of the No Child Left Behind Act. "In schools today, they're teaching to the tests," says Tamara Thornton, a University of Buffalo professor and the author of a history of American handwriting. "If something isn't on a test, it's viewed as a luxury."
...Is that such a bad thing? Except for physicians — whose illegible handwriting on charts and prescription pads causes thousands of deaths a year — penmanship has almost no bearing on job performance. And aside from the occasional grocery list or Post-it note, most adults write very little by hand..."
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1912419,00.html
Sunday, June 28, 2009
The Not So Big Education Gap Between the U.S. and the Rest Of the World
TW: This piece speaks to an area where I think the U.S. is under appreciated- the great leveling impact of our university system. Folks tend to see those educational aptitude tests which take snapshots of students in grade school and high school and lament how far behind U.S. students are relative to other nations. What is missed sometimes though is that many international students slow their growth post-high school as many international universities are not as rigorous as American universities. Americans on the other hand accelerate their educational growth during the college years. Or more simply many international students work their asses off in high-school then take a break. Americans may not spend as much time in school prior to college but continue working hard through college graduation. At the end the educational attainment has equalized.European universities tend to be relatively under-funded, dogmatic in their approaches and less pragmatic than their American counter-parts.
From Economist:
"...German universities are underfunded by international standards (see chart). Professors juggle scores of students; at top American universities they nurture a handful. In switching to the bachelors-masters degrees prescribed by Europe’s standardising “Bologna process”, many universities tried to cram bachelors degrees into just six terms. Only six German universities are among the top 100 in the Shanghai rankings (Munich is highest, at 55th). Just 21% of each age cohort gets a degree; the OECD average is 37%.
...the federal and state governments approved an €18 billion plan to create more university places, boost funding for research and cultivate a small group of elite institutions. It is “a signal that research and education are being taken seriously,”
..In the past, universities were interchangeable, and most students chose one close to home. But since the early 1990s budget cuts have encouraged them to compete and specialise. Their state paymasters began to link cash to professors’ publications and their ability to attract outside money. The government’s new “excellence initiative” goads them to differentiate still more, showering €1.9 billion on research programmes and nine “top universities” with promising “future concepts”.
...Goethe University is in the vanguard. Last year it became a “foundation university”, loosening its ties to the state of Hesse, and expanding its freedom to hire and manage staff, and to raise money from private sources. “We can now pay competitive salaries,” says Mr Müller-Esterl. The university has hired 50 new professors, including some from foreign rivals. No longer a state agency, the university now finds it easier to raise money from private donors who want to know how it will be spent. Mr Müller-Esterl hopes the university will build its puny €125m endowment up to €5 billion-6 billion.
...The main gap in university financing is not the contribution of the state, which matches America’s, but in private funding and fees. Tuition fees, as the student protests suggest, are politically explosive...Most western German states allow tuition fees of a meagre €500 per term, but universities “can’t plan long term because they don’t know if the next government will take it away,” says Ms Wintermantel.
...Still, these pressures push German universities in the right direction. World rankings tend to underrate them, partly because non-English-speaking laboratories are penalised. They would do better if research at non-university institutes like the Max Planck Society were brought into academies, adding teaching to research. That is happening: an example is the merger of Karlsruhe University and the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe to form Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, modelled on MIT. “In ten to 15 years a few universities will have a place in the top international league,” says Matthias Kleiner, head of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, which funnels money to research. Perhaps Goethe University will be among them. "
Friday, June 12, 2009
If Not Now When: Education Reform Anyone?
TW: Alter's point is simple, given the still new administration, a respected energetic Secretary of Education and the available stimulus money if educational reform cannot occur now, when will it ever. Two things stand in the way. A recalcitrant Congress dominated by those who love to smear educational funding around like peanut butter without actually accomplishing anything (another systematic bi-partisan governance failure which I blame on voters not their elected lackies). Two an educational establishment firmly entrenched and not amenable to hard-hitting accountability processes. The educational establishment dominated by a huge Democratic constituency, teacher's unions, and local governments guarding their turf with aplomb.
Call me skeptical on much reform occurring.
As a footnote, I have several acquaintances who are teachers, they are absolutely petrified at expressing their opinions to an acquaintance. There is some sort of Orwellian thing going on where they fear for their jobs should they speak out.
From Jon Alter at Newsweek:
"...[Obama and Educ. Secretary Duncan] understand that the key to fixing education is better teaching, and the key to better teaching is figuring out who can teach and who can't.
Just as Obama has leverage over the auto industry to impose tough fuel--economy standards, he now has at least some leverage over the education industry to impose teacher-effectiveness standards. The question is whether he will be able to use it, or will he get swallowed by what's known as the Blob, the collection of educrats and politicians who claim to support reform but remain fiercely committed to the status quo.
Teacher effectiveness–say it three times. Last week a group called the New Teacher Project released a report titled "The Widget Effect" that argues that teachers are viewed as indistinguishable widgets–states and districts are "indifferent to variations in teacher performance"–and notes that more than 99 percent of teachers are rated satisfactory. The whole country is like Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon, except all the teachers are above average, too.
Why? The short answer is teachers' unions. Duncan complained recently that the California school system has a harmful "firewall" between student evaluation and teacher evaluation. In other words, teachers can't be evaluated on whether their students actually learned anything between September and June. The head of the San Francisco union says it's nuts to judge teachers on whether there's evidence that shows improvement in their classrooms. An A for accountability, eh?
Fortunately, Duncan has a huge new club in his hands–billions in stimulus money and Title I aid for poor schools. A chunk of it (about $10 billion total) is reserved for innovative "Race to the Top" funds. Duncan's idea (with backing from Obama) is that a few states that are moving fast on turning around failing schools and improving measurable teacher effectiveness should get most of that money.
This is spot-on substantively, but treacherous politically. Congress likes to see money spread like peanut butter across the country. It makes members look like they're "doing something for education." Recall how Duncan's predecessor, Margaret Spellings, saw her "Innovation Fund" used for such cutting-edge projects as a whaling museum.
Like Obama and Duncan, Rep. George Miller, the leading reformer in Congress, wants the money to be targeted on just a few programs with track records in turning around poorly performing schools and training teachers better. He rightly figures we know what works now and should just go ahead and fund it. But his colleagues have their own whaling-museum ideas, so the peanut-butter politics continue.
On Capitol Hill last week, members of Congress insisted that the administration stick to the "formulas"–Washington-speak for the same old, same old. And they want to make sure the $48 billion (real money, even by Geithnerian standards) in education stimulus funds continue to be spent exclusively on preventing teacher layoffs, not on reform...
The big question now is how to tighten the weak strings that were attached to the stimulus. Those strings merely ask states to show they are "making progress" and "making improvements" in critical areas like standards, data systems to measure success and incentives for teachers to work in at-risk schools.
With some bureaucratic cojones, Obama can enforce those requirements before the last $16 billion in "state stabilization" stimulus funds get disbursed this fall. This is easier said than done. The incentive to peanut-butter (sorry, Teacher, I turned it into a verb) the money is powerful not just on Capitol Hill but inside the Department of Education, where making nice to Congress is the path of least resistance. It takes a tough man to say, in the middle of a recession, "no improvement, no check." But if not now, when?..."
Call me skeptical on much reform occurring.
As a footnote, I have several acquaintances who are teachers, they are absolutely petrified at expressing their opinions to an acquaintance. There is some sort of Orwellian thing going on where they fear for their jobs should they speak out.
From Jon Alter at Newsweek:
"...[Obama and Educ. Secretary Duncan] understand that the key to fixing education is better teaching, and the key to better teaching is figuring out who can teach and who can't.
Just as Obama has leverage over the auto industry to impose tough fuel--economy standards, he now has at least some leverage over the education industry to impose teacher-effectiveness standards. The question is whether he will be able to use it, or will he get swallowed by what's known as the Blob, the collection of educrats and politicians who claim to support reform but remain fiercely committed to the status quo.
Teacher effectiveness–say it three times. Last week a group called the New Teacher Project released a report titled "The Widget Effect" that argues that teachers are viewed as indistinguishable widgets–states and districts are "indifferent to variations in teacher performance"–and notes that more than 99 percent of teachers are rated satisfactory. The whole country is like Garrison Keillor's Lake Woebegon, except all the teachers are above average, too.
Why? The short answer is teachers' unions. Duncan complained recently that the California school system has a harmful "firewall" between student evaluation and teacher evaluation. In other words, teachers can't be evaluated on whether their students actually learned anything between September and June. The head of the San Francisco union says it's nuts to judge teachers on whether there's evidence that shows improvement in their classrooms. An A for accountability, eh?
Fortunately, Duncan has a huge new club in his hands–billions in stimulus money and Title I aid for poor schools. A chunk of it (about $10 billion total) is reserved for innovative "Race to the Top" funds. Duncan's idea (with backing from Obama) is that a few states that are moving fast on turning around failing schools and improving measurable teacher effectiveness should get most of that money.
This is spot-on substantively, but treacherous politically. Congress likes to see money spread like peanut butter across the country. It makes members look like they're "doing something for education." Recall how Duncan's predecessor, Margaret Spellings, saw her "Innovation Fund" used for such cutting-edge projects as a whaling museum.
Like Obama and Duncan, Rep. George Miller, the leading reformer in Congress, wants the money to be targeted on just a few programs with track records in turning around poorly performing schools and training teachers better. He rightly figures we know what works now and should just go ahead and fund it. But his colleagues have their own whaling-museum ideas, so the peanut-butter politics continue.
On Capitol Hill last week, members of Congress insisted that the administration stick to the "formulas"–Washington-speak for the same old, same old. And they want to make sure the $48 billion (real money, even by Geithnerian standards) in education stimulus funds continue to be spent exclusively on preventing teacher layoffs, not on reform...
The big question now is how to tighten the weak strings that were attached to the stimulus. Those strings merely ask states to show they are "making progress" and "making improvements" in critical areas like standards, data systems to measure success and incentives for teachers to work in at-risk schools.
With some bureaucratic cojones, Obama can enforce those requirements before the last $16 billion in "state stabilization" stimulus funds get disbursed this fall. This is easier said than done. The incentive to peanut-butter (sorry, Teacher, I turned it into a verb) the money is powerful not just on Capitol Hill but inside the Department of Education, where making nice to Congress is the path of least resistance. It takes a tough man to say, in the middle of a recession, "no improvement, no check." But if not now, when?..."
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Good Times Stop Rolling For Universities...Maybe Not Such a Bad Thing
TW: Generally funding cuts for education I would regard as a bad thing including those for top level universities. But when I read stories like this one I think perhaps not all funding cuts will be negative. Universities seem to have fallen into an arms race of sorts whereby providing their core service- higher education at a reasonable cost to a broad spectrum of students- has lost priority. Instead universities engage in highly expensive capital projects, which will generate high maintenance costs in the future, and other projects that appear more oriented toward rankings than their core mission.
From NYT:
"When Michael Crow became president of Arizona State University seven years ago, he promised to make it “The New American University,” with 100,000 students by 2020. It would break down the musty old boundaries between disciplines, encourage advanced research and entrepreneurship to drive the new economy, and draw in students from underserved sectors of the state.
He quickly made a name for himself, increasing enrollment by nearly a third to 67,000 students, luring big-name professors and starting interdisciplinary schools in areas like sustainability, projects with partners like the Mayo Clinic and Sichuan University in China, and dozens of new degree programs
But this year, Mr. Crow’s plans have crashed into new budget realities, raising questions about how many public research universities the nation needs and whether universities like Arizona State, in their drive to become prominent research institutions, have lost focus on their public mission to provide solid undergraduate education for state residents.
These days, the headlines about Arizona State describe its enormous cuts.
The university has eliminated more than 500 jobs, including deans, department chairmen and hundreds of teaching assistants. Last month, Mr. Crow announced that the university would close 48 programs, cap enrollment and move up the freshman application deadline by five months. Every employee, from Mr. Crow down, will have 10 to 15 unpaid furlough days this spring.
...Public universities everywhere are bracing for deep cuts in next year’s budgets, but the federal stimulus package, providing billions for education and billions more for research, should ease the problem somewhat.
...“It may be that the idea of a 100,000-student research university was never very sustainable,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which promotes access to higher education. “In this economy, the places that have been trying to claw their way up the ladder, the ones whose aspirations have exceeded their financial vision, are going to have the toughest time. They can’t be all things to all people.”
...His university, he said, is an inclusive institution where there are 7,000 students with no family income at all and a growing population of American Indian students. Tuition in most programs is under $6,000 a year for state residents, in part because of a State Constitution provision that it be as “nearly free” as possible, which courts have interpreted to mean that its tuition must be in the bottom third of public universities nationwide.
Mr. Crow’s record for improving quality is impressive, too. He has hired more than 600 tenured or tenure-track faculty members, and last year, for the first time, won a spot on the National Science Foundation’s list of the top 20 research universities without a medical school, along with powerhouses like M.I.T. and the University of California, Berkeley.
But not every university can be in the top 20. And in a time of shrinking state budgets, undergraduates at public universities will most likely pay the price in higher tuition, larger classes and less interaction with tenured professors. So it is a real question how many public research universities the nation can afford, and what share of resources should go to less expensive forms of education, like community colleges
From NYT:
"When Michael Crow became president of Arizona State University seven years ago, he promised to make it “The New American University,” with 100,000 students by 2020. It would break down the musty old boundaries between disciplines, encourage advanced research and entrepreneurship to drive the new economy, and draw in students from underserved sectors of the state.
He quickly made a name for himself, increasing enrollment by nearly a third to 67,000 students, luring big-name professors and starting interdisciplinary schools in areas like sustainability, projects with partners like the Mayo Clinic and Sichuan University in China, and dozens of new degree programs
But this year, Mr. Crow’s plans have crashed into new budget realities, raising questions about how many public research universities the nation needs and whether universities like Arizona State, in their drive to become prominent research institutions, have lost focus on their public mission to provide solid undergraduate education for state residents.
These days, the headlines about Arizona State describe its enormous cuts.
The university has eliminated more than 500 jobs, including deans, department chairmen and hundreds of teaching assistants. Last month, Mr. Crow announced that the university would close 48 programs, cap enrollment and move up the freshman application deadline by five months. Every employee, from Mr. Crow down, will have 10 to 15 unpaid furlough days this spring.
...Public universities everywhere are bracing for deep cuts in next year’s budgets, but the federal stimulus package, providing billions for education and billions more for research, should ease the problem somewhat.
...“It may be that the idea of a 100,000-student research university was never very sustainable,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, which promotes access to higher education. “In this economy, the places that have been trying to claw their way up the ladder, the ones whose aspirations have exceeded their financial vision, are going to have the toughest time. They can’t be all things to all people.”
...His university, he said, is an inclusive institution where there are 7,000 students with no family income at all and a growing population of American Indian students. Tuition in most programs is under $6,000 a year for state residents, in part because of a State Constitution provision that it be as “nearly free” as possible, which courts have interpreted to mean that its tuition must be in the bottom third of public universities nationwide.
Mr. Crow’s record for improving quality is impressive, too. He has hired more than 600 tenured or tenure-track faculty members, and last year, for the first time, won a spot on the National Science Foundation’s list of the top 20 research universities without a medical school, along with powerhouses like M.I.T. and the University of California, Berkeley.
But not every university can be in the top 20. And in a time of shrinking state budgets, undergraduates at public universities will most likely pay the price in higher tuition, larger classes and less interaction with tenured professors. So it is a real question how many public research universities the nation can afford, and what share of resources should go to less expensive forms of education, like community colleges
“Universities aspire to prestige,” Ms. Wellman said, “and that is achieved by increasing selectivity, getting a research mission and having faculty do as little teaching as possible, not by teaching and learning, and taking students from Point A to Point B.”
Mark G. Yudof, president of the University of California, laments that it has become an article of faith that every depressed area needs a research university.
“Research universities are very expensive,” Mr. Yudof said, “and you can’t have one in every county and every state. Your first obligation as a public university is to treat the undergraduates right. That’s going to need a national attitude adjustment from leadership and boards of regents...”
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/17/us/17university.html?_r=1&scp=9&sq=U.S.%20public%20universities&st=cse'
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
A Conservative's Take on Education Reform
TW: Will is a conservative with certainly views to which I do not agree but he is not a polemicist along the lines of a Bill Kristol. He laments the endless promises and little progress made. Will is fairly supportive of the new Sec. of Education Duncan. Obviously I am a huge Obama fan, it is appointments like Duncan that feed my enthusiasm. Obama is trying to do much, but much needs to be done.
From George Will at Newsweek:;
"In 1994, Goals 2000 anticipated a high-school-graduation rate of "at least" 90 percent (it is 75) and American students being "first in the world in mathematics and science" in six years. In 2002, No Child Left Behind decreed 100 percent math and reading proficiency by 2014. That will not happen.
Now comes Arne Duncan, 44, the new secretary of education, fresh from seven years leading Chicago's public schools. There he showed a flair for innovation, which he acquired at his mother's knee. Now 74, she was, her son says, "the crazy white lady" who in 1961 opened, in the "absolute chaos" of a rough neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, an after-school tutoring program for young African-Americans, for whom she still toils, 48 years later.
Her son is impressively impatient with what George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations." But under Bush's NCLB, Duncan says, "we have been lying to children and their parents because states have dumbed down their standards" of proficiency. "Sometimes," he says, "you have to call the baby ugly."
For decades, state legislatures, encouraged by teachers' unions, have embraced the theory that schools' cognitive outputs were a function of financial inputs. The theory was: As with soybeans, so with education—if you want more, increase subsidies.
... One scholar estimated that about 90 percent of the differences among schools in average proficiency can be explained by five factors—number of days absent from school, amount of television watched in the home, number of pages read for homework, quantity and quality of reading matter in the home and, much the most important, the presence of two parents in the home. Government cannot do much to make those variables vary, but Duncan correctly thinks that we actually know how to make schools effective anyway. The keys are time and talent.
...In Chicago, Duncan had many schools open 10 to 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, for voluntary activities, including instruction. There were waiting lists for placements. Until recently, almost all students attended the nearest school. Now, under a policy whereby money follows the students, 59 percent of high-school students are attending schools they choose away from their neighborhoods. By closing failing schools and opening replacements, Chicago is ensuring that the portfolio of schools is churned and improved.
...Asked which he would choose, hiring 100,000 new teachers or firing 100,000 bad teachers, there is a long pause—another good sign—before he says he would take the new teachers because most of the worst teachers are older and are retiring.
He thinks finding talented teachers is more important than reducing pupil-teacher ratios—a third good sign—and he sees a silver lining on today's dark economic clouds: Bright young people who might have gone into investment banking can be lured into teaching by better pay and forgiveness of student loans. By making teaching more fun, his Chicago innovations helped increase the number of applicants from two for each teaching position to 10. And 43 percent of recent hires had master's degrees. Five years of such replacements can, he says, shape public education for 30 years.
From his office at the foot of Capitol Hill, Duncan hopes to use federal money as a lever to move local school systems toward creative improvisations. But in Chicago he had a hammer—the support of His Honor, Mayor Richard Daley. Duncan may be about to receive an education in the difficulty of defeating local inertia from afar."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/189237
From George Will at Newsweek:;
"In 1994, Goals 2000 anticipated a high-school-graduation rate of "at least" 90 percent (it is 75) and American students being "first in the world in mathematics and science" in six years. In 2002, No Child Left Behind decreed 100 percent math and reading proficiency by 2014. That will not happen.
Now comes Arne Duncan, 44, the new secretary of education, fresh from seven years leading Chicago's public schools. There he showed a flair for innovation, which he acquired at his mother's knee. Now 74, she was, her son says, "the crazy white lady" who in 1961 opened, in the "absolute chaos" of a rough neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, an after-school tutoring program for young African-Americans, for whom she still toils, 48 years later.
Her son is impressively impatient with what George W. Bush called "the soft bigotry of low expectations." But under Bush's NCLB, Duncan says, "we have been lying to children and their parents because states have dumbed down their standards" of proficiency. "Sometimes," he says, "you have to call the baby ugly."
For decades, state legislatures, encouraged by teachers' unions, have embraced the theory that schools' cognitive outputs were a function of financial inputs. The theory was: As with soybeans, so with education—if you want more, increase subsidies.
... One scholar estimated that about 90 percent of the differences among schools in average proficiency can be explained by five factors—number of days absent from school, amount of television watched in the home, number of pages read for homework, quantity and quality of reading matter in the home and, much the most important, the presence of two parents in the home. Government cannot do much to make those variables vary, but Duncan correctly thinks that we actually know how to make schools effective anyway. The keys are time and talent.
...In Chicago, Duncan had many schools open 10 to 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, for voluntary activities, including instruction. There were waiting lists for placements. Until recently, almost all students attended the nearest school. Now, under a policy whereby money follows the students, 59 percent of high-school students are attending schools they choose away from their neighborhoods. By closing failing schools and opening replacements, Chicago is ensuring that the portfolio of schools is churned and improved.
...Asked which he would choose, hiring 100,000 new teachers or firing 100,000 bad teachers, there is a long pause—another good sign—before he says he would take the new teachers because most of the worst teachers are older and are retiring.
He thinks finding talented teachers is more important than reducing pupil-teacher ratios—a third good sign—and he sees a silver lining on today's dark economic clouds: Bright young people who might have gone into investment banking can be lured into teaching by better pay and forgiveness of student loans. By making teaching more fun, his Chicago innovations helped increase the number of applicants from two for each teaching position to 10. And 43 percent of recent hires had master's degrees. Five years of such replacements can, he says, shape public education for 30 years.
From his office at the foot of Capitol Hill, Duncan hopes to use federal money as a lever to move local school systems toward creative improvisations. But in Chicago he had a hammer—the support of His Honor, Mayor Richard Daley. Duncan may be about to receive an education in the difficulty of defeating local inertia from afar."
http://www.newsweek.com/id/189237
Reforming Education So Much Talk So Little Action
TW: Every POTUS speaks of greatly improving education in America, of course he would just like he desires peace, economic growth and less crime. The goals never change- higher achievement, better preparation for the future challenges of society, yada, yada, yada. The goals are easy, the execution piece not so much.
The execution founders mainly because it is hard, but also because the federal government has limited leverage relative to local governments, unions and such. Bush did one thing, No Child Left Behind which I have not heard anyone speak well of recently other than W, not a rousing endorsement from my view. Will Obama actually make a difference on this one, he talks the talk but can he walk the walk.
From Int'l Herald Tribune:
"President Barack Obama called for sweeping changes in the U.S. education system Tuesday, urging teachers, parents and students to embrace merit pay for good teachers, a longer school day and school year and a renewed commitment to learning from grade school through adulthood that would make the United States more competitive.
Obama said it was time to erase the limits on charter schools in some states while at the same time closing those that were not working. Such alternative schools are publicly financed but independently run, and the president appeared eager to free them from some restrictions on growth even while tightening accountability.
..."His administration refers to charter schools as "laboratories of innovation." But teachers' unions - one of the Democratic Party's largest and most loyal constituencies, and part of a labor movement that has strongly supported Obama - oppose the schools, saying they take away funding for public schools.
...In a proposal sure to be greeted warily by teacher unions, he renewed his support for a merit-based system of paying educators. "It means treating teachers like the professionals they are, while also holding them more accountable," Obama said. "New teachers will be mentored by experienced ones. Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools."
...The unions generally resist this approach as opening the door to arbitrary pay differentials or favoritism.
...Obama said too many people in his party have resisted the idea of "rewarding excellence" with extra pay, while too many Republicans have opposed spending money on early education "despite compelling evidence of its importance."
...the recently enacted stimulus package calls for spending some $5 billion on the Early Head Start and Head Start programs, which provide schooling for pre-kindergarten children.
That investment, he said, will be rewarded by lower welfare rolls, fewer health care costs and less crime, as well as better classroom performance..."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/10/america/prexy.php
The execution founders mainly because it is hard, but also because the federal government has limited leverage relative to local governments, unions and such. Bush did one thing, No Child Left Behind which I have not heard anyone speak well of recently other than W, not a rousing endorsement from my view. Will Obama actually make a difference on this one, he talks the talk but can he walk the walk.
From Int'l Herald Tribune:
"President Barack Obama called for sweeping changes in the U.S. education system Tuesday, urging teachers, parents and students to embrace merit pay for good teachers, a longer school day and school year and a renewed commitment to learning from grade school through adulthood that would make the United States more competitive.
Obama said it was time to erase the limits on charter schools in some states while at the same time closing those that were not working. Such alternative schools are publicly financed but independently run, and the president appeared eager to free them from some restrictions on growth even while tightening accountability.
..."His administration refers to charter schools as "laboratories of innovation." But teachers' unions - one of the Democratic Party's largest and most loyal constituencies, and part of a labor movement that has strongly supported Obama - oppose the schools, saying they take away funding for public schools.
...In a proposal sure to be greeted warily by teacher unions, he renewed his support for a merit-based system of paying educators. "It means treating teachers like the professionals they are, while also holding them more accountable," Obama said. "New teachers will be mentored by experienced ones. Good teachers will be rewarded with more money for improved student achievement, and asked to accept more responsibilities for lifting up their schools."
...The unions generally resist this approach as opening the door to arbitrary pay differentials or favoritism.
...Obama said too many people in his party have resisted the idea of "rewarding excellence" with extra pay, while too many Republicans have opposed spending money on early education "despite compelling evidence of its importance."
...the recently enacted stimulus package calls for spending some $5 billion on the Early Head Start and Head Start programs, which provide schooling for pre-kindergarten children.
That investment, he said, will be rewarded by lower welfare rolls, fewer health care costs and less crime, as well as better classroom performance..."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/03/10/america/prexy.php
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