What Were Croydon Voters Thinking?

An opportunity of a life time is gone.   Ann at the AG's office,   NH NEA,   NH AFT,  NEA, AFT, and all the other busy bodies that meddled in Croydon's business will make sure this never happens again.  What were you thinking Croydon voters?  If you like your failing and underperforming schools and high taxes you can keep your failing and underperforming schools and high taxes. 

The sad thing is many who will suffer the most under high food and gas prices could have really used that $1000-$3000 savings in their property taxes if the $800,000 budget remained.  

Will you follow people blindly you only hurt yourselves. 

Cathy Peschke 

If you like your Failing Schools

If you like your failing schools and high taxes you can keep your failing schools and high taxes. 

Sound familiar? 

Croydon Village School is ranked #252-267 out of 425 elementary schools.

Newport Middle and High School is ranked #84 out of 89. 

A parent asked me, "Why do you care if we want to send our children to a failing school?"  Someone should care and as a taxpayer I care.  On May 7th Croydon we had an opportunity to do better for our students.   377 people spoke, they want to keep the status quo of failing schools and high taxes.  264 people stayed home because they hoped for better opportunities for Croydon Students.  Apparently two people did not get the message to stay home. 

Cathy Peschke

What is Wrong with Freedom and Prosperity?

Some in town lament libertarians and the Free State Project.  Let us talk about freedom and what some libertarians and a republican lead house, senate, governorship, and executive council has helped New Hampshire to become. 

I borrowed this from Carla an outspoken proponent of freedom. 

New Hampshire is 

"#1 in social and economic freedom even beating Florida. 

Expanded school choice, monies follow the child. 

Unemployment rate 2.5%.

Cuts in interest and dividend taxes.

No sales or income taxes .

Best quality of living. 

Third highest median household income. 

A decrease in property taxes for business. "

If high taxation is what you desire and you find freedom abhorrent there are plenty of states from which to choose.  

When the $800,000 budget remains in place on May 7th.  There are plenty of other cities with higher taxes if that is a desire of my readers.  Now is a good time to sell before the housing market crashes there will be plenty of people who will want to move to the lower property tax town of Croydon, New Hampshire.   Have you checked out housing sales and the history in Croydon?  Could be a good time to get top dollars for your home. 

Cathy Peschke 

Live Within Your Means

The following letter to the editor appeared in the Union Leader on March 21st. 

‘Live within your means’ is message that Croydon sent

To the Editor: Ransom or budget? This was the question posed at the annual Croydon school board meeting. Would we pay the $1.7-plus million demanded by the school district, or would we give the district a budget and instruct them to work with it?

On March 12th, Croydon voters presented a true “live within your means” budget to the school. The 2022 Croydon School budget allocates $10,000 per student, or $800,000 total. Adjusted for inflation, this number exceeds per-pupil spending across the state for most of our history.

Meeting this budget may be challenging, but it represents an incredible opportunity.

Cutting waste on this scale cannot be accomplished through minor changes. Our district can and must reinvent itself to deliver quality education at a sensible cost. Today, countless private and charter schools are meeting this cost target. Not long ago, public schools did the same.

To longtime Croydon residents, shrieks of “impossible”, “can’t be done” and “people don’t want it” are nothing more than unimaginative déjà vu. We started down the path of school choice back in 2006 to this defeatist chorus, sung by many of the same actors.

Today, Croydon school choice is a reality. It is used by many residents, some of whom actively opposed this same choice program only a few years earlier. Croydon forever changed education for the better. We can do it again today.

JIM PESCHKE

Croydon

A Time For Sacrifice

Faith, Hope, Charity and Duty, our Founding Fathers felt they had a duty to our Nation and to fight for true liberty and equality for all. Our Founders made great sacrifices, it is time for us to make great sacrifices as well.

It is time for Libertarians and Conservatives across the Nation to show they truly believe in less government. We are in the predicament we are in today, in part because for generations Taxpayer Funded Socialist Indoctrination Centers aka public schools aka government schools have not been teaching American History to it's students. They have also done a stellar job indoctrinating generations of students into the socialist mindset, so much so that many see it as a badge of honor to live off of the rest of society.

I strongly believe as a parent that it is my duty to educate my children. It is not my neighbors duty to pay to educate my children. With summer break coming every conservative and libertarian who sends their children to public schools must find a way to either homeschool or send their children to a private school by Fall 2010 or Fall 2011 at the latest.

This means taking a good hard long look at your fiances to support the tuition of a private school or to learn to live on one income so that you will be able to homeschool your children. You will have the whole summer to work on a plan and get your finances to line up to do this as well. If you google living on one income you can find plenty of resources on how to live on one income.

This move would aid the conservative/libertarian agenda on so many fronts it would weaken the teachers' unions, reduce the size of government, improve the educational outcomes for generations to come, improve family structure, save families from paying thousands of dollars in property taxes and with one parent coming home to educate their children it would reduce unemployment.

I realize there are single parents out there but there are single parents who do send their children to private school you will have to learn to sacrifice. Homeschooling families could aid by homeschooling a child of a single parent. All will have to sacrifice for us to undo the damage that was caused by liberals, RINO's and progressives over the last 100 years.

Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.

The Slow Awakening

When Jim and I started fighting for education reform and education spending reform in Harvard many people did not like us or trust us but people eventually came around. We know the tax eaters, those living off the taxpayer teat and socialist will never like us and that is okay. In Illinois eventually more people came around to our side, hopefully someday more people will come around to our side in Croydon as well.


The following piece appeared on the Northwest Herald.

Cathy
Spelling errors, grammar errors, misuse of homonyms and typos are left an exercise for my readers.

Education reform

To the Editor:

I can’t even begin to tell you how much it warmed my heart to read the comments to Tony Casalino’s letter to the editor entitled “Supports tax increase” (May 1).

My husband, Jim, and I fought for education reform and education spending reform for four years before we decided not enough people were on board and Illinois was on a nonstop train to bankruptcy due to its spending problems and pension problems.

Good luck to you all, but you must do more than just respond to letters to the editors in newspapers. You must educate your friends and family, start tax-fighting groups, run for public office and, most importantly, support and vote for people who will be fiscally responsible and fight for true education reform.

Do not vote for any candidate who is funded with teachers union dollars. These are just your own education dollars working against you and your children’s futures.

Cathy Peschke

Co-founder Citizens for Reasonable And Fair Taxes, Croydon, N.H.



johnqpublic wrote on May 7, 2010 5:32 a.m.
"Think the NWH just published this letter to show their extensive reach? Not much going on in New Hampshire, huh?"

taxpayer wrote on May 7, 2010 7:20 a.m.
"Well said, Cathy. Finally the people are being made painfully aware of the situation."

kenbob wrote on May 7, 2010 7:23 a.m.
"This letter makes a lot of sense. Money doesn't solve education issues, true reform and a solid family values is what will make education work again. The astro-turf idiots in Springfield demanding to "raise my taxes" are nothing but a bunch of union goons. Throw money at the problem (while taxing everyone at higher rates) is their answer. Not in these days and not in any days is that the right answer."

Wake up America wrote on May 7, 2010 7:37 a.m.
"Hi Cathy....Yes, things have changed in the last few years....people have realized they've been massively ripped off by the schools....BOE's, Administrators and Teachers are now .....on the run.... Thanks to you and Jim for getting the facts out there...it was the start of today's movement..."

50 caliber wrote on May 7, 2010 10:56 a.m.
"John Q Public (Employee) caught RED HANDED! Take you anger out on your union. Thank you Cathy & Jim! The corrupted CRAZY TRAIN.... ALLLLLLL ABOARD, HA, HA, HA, HA, has crashed and burned like "so" many predicted. Your seminar's were damaging to the establishment and the liar's sitting on these school board's. Thank you very much. You are ALWAYS welcome back. "

Curmudgeonman wrote on May 7, 2010 11:30 a.m.
"So, Jim & Cathy, just what sort of reform did you fight for? From what I have read of your cybersquats, the only thing you fought for was to abolish public education. Is that the "reform" you speak of - get rid of schools? No wonder you couldn't find a following: you had no real, tangible ideas of reform. Go back to your maple trees in NH and continue grinding your one-room school district into the ground. "

Mr. Schneebly wrote on May 7, 2010 1:11 p.m.
"Cathy... you had me till the last sentence. Basically ou just used the vehicle of "school reform" to tout your anti-union hatred. Any reform to education should directly involve teachers. Oh and by the way they happen to belong to the union. If you are suggesting any sort of reform happes WITHOUT input from teachers you need to really look at your priorities. Instead of trying to use all parties to fix the problem you just want tos hove whatever concept of education reform you have down our throats. Sorry, anyone with half a brain won't support that!"

Mr. Schneebly wrote on May 7, 2010 1:14 p.m.
"You're talking about labor reform, not education reform. Figure out what your issue is and then try to deal with it. Stop concealing your real agenda with "education reform" and stay the heck away from decisions that effect MY children!"

GoodCitizen wrote on May 7, 2010 1:28 p.m.
"Schneebly, I think Cathy's term of Education Reform is fine in the context of the big picture. Teachers appear to support the Union's policies. Those policies have been shown to be not in the best interest of our children. Teachers have gone from being underpaid, to now being grossly overpaid. I'm not letting administrators off the hook with that statement. Administrators are nothing more than highway robbers. These costly teachers contracts get approved because parents can't take off work while a teachers strike. It's all out of control."

juschill wrote on May 7, 2010 1:30 p.m.
"Mr. Schneebly, what do you say we stay away from desisions that affect your kids and you agree to educate your kids and stay away from our wallets? Or are we supposed to give you our money, but not our input? "

pryan1967 wrote on May 7, 2010 3:57 p.m.
"Curmudgeonman-Where did Jim or Cathy EVER say "do away with public education"? On the other hand...where did the teacher's union (and, by extension, the teachers themselves) ever say "Let's do what's best for the KIDS, rather than what will fatten our wallets"?"

warmfuzzy wrote on May 7, 2010 4:12 p.m.
"Shneeb-You’re wrong! Education Reform will enable LABOR reform. Do this first. Start with getting rid of TENURE. Let the good ones stay and the bad ones get FIRED. The Education System is broken because of a decision that put the needs of workers ahead of the needs of children. Other states that surround Illinois don't have TENURE. Get rid of it and you will see great leaps in education reform. Labor won't like it, but it will take a bite out of Labor's strength. Remove Labor from ALL Public Sectors-You will see HUGE changes and REAL Gov’t reform. Do you get it? Unions are the PROBLEM."

imhotep wrote on May 7, 2010 5:26 p.m.
"Poster Poll, Question 1. The purpose of a public education system is: a.to provide quality education for our children, b.to provide well paying jobs and pensions to "education workers" (teachers & bureaucrats)? 2. If Government mismanagement has bankrupted our Public Education system, the brunt of austerity measures should be borne by: 1."education workers/bureaucrats", or 2. children? "

+froggy+ wrote on May 7, 2010 6:49 p.m.
"nobody wants to takes your poster poll nancy"


IL Tax Payer wrote on May 8, 2010 7:59 p.m.
"Cathy-your letter is right on the mark. I believe MOST Illinoisians are finally getting it. Thanks to YOU and JIM for getting the REAL financial story out there and getting the education of the tax payer ball rolling - e.g., out of line salaries, benefits, 100% of TRS being paid by the tax payer, sick days, more vacation days than anyother sector, and on and on. For years we all believed the "woe is me poor educator" story - we all now know the real story."

Wow from a College Newspaper

I was surprise to see this come from a College paper called the Collegian. The writer appears to be from the department of education. I wonder if he took heat for this article. Around of applause for this piece.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Unions protect bad teachers, not students

By: Shane Cronin | April 26, 2010 |

During the early 20th century, when working conditions were appalling, employers were ruthless and labor laws didn’t exist in
the United States, vulnerable workers formed unions to protect themselves.
Many unions, however, have outlived their usefulness. Today, they stifle innovation and bully or bribe legislators into getting their ways at enormous taxpayer cost. Teachers unions are a perfect example of this.

The teachers unions are possibly the biggest hurdle a student must overcome to receive a high school diploma. To meet every educational innovation is a union leader with a billy club. They are analogous to legalized mafia.

Across the country merit pay, school choice, policy reform and scholarships for low-income children were vigorously opposed by the unions. This keeps well-paid union higher-ups rich and low-income underperforming students poor.

Teachers usually don’t have a choice on whether or not to join the unions in their districts. This is why unions hate non-unionized charter schools: especially the successful ones.




Teachers unions in Massachusetts have fought tooth and nail to keep the charter school caps low. They fought to keep Teach for America out of Boston last year despite the program’s accomplishments. The union argued new educators shouldn’t be hired in a recession which threatened teacher layoffs.

Ostensibly that seems fair. But, my guess is even in the best economic climate the union would reject Teach for America.

Termination is virtually non-existent among tenured teachers in the U. S. In New Jersey, about one in 20,000 teachers are fired annually. In Los Angeles, between 1995 and 2005 only 112 tenured teachers were fired. In 2003, the city graduated only half its high school seniors. Less than one percent of tenured teachers are fired each year in Dallas, Texas.

This is largely due to legal expenses firing tenured educators incurs, which can cost anywhere from $50,000 to $250,000 depending on the district. Furthermore, unions (particularly in urban districts) have diluted the teacher evaluation system making it almost impossible for a teacher to receive an “unsatisfactory” review.

Union leaders, like mafia bosses, are all about dough. Teachers shell out hundreds of dollars per year to feed the hungry union hierarchy. Union leaders earn six-figure salaries, which is exponentially more than many of the teachers they claim to represent. The fewer unionized teachers there are, the fewer dues these leaders can collect.

Essentially, tenure ensures contract-renewal for mediocre educators year after year. The ability principals have to remove these teachers from classrooms is extremely limited. Principles often cite union power for not firing teachers.

In 2007, the National Education Association contributed more than $80 million (20 percent of its budget) to largely left wing, non-education-related causes. That’s $80 million that could have benefited students. But why waste money on them with a blooming money tree growing in their backyard known as the taxpayers?

The gangster-like teachers union in New Jersey, for example, has suggested Gov. Chris Christie raise the nine percent state income tax rather than agree to a one year teacher pay freeze.

Another favorite target of the unions is The No Child Left Behind Act, signed into law by President Bush in 2002. NCLB essentially mandated standardized testing in every state. It also requires every student to be proficient in math and reading by 2014. The bill has its flaws. However, it is a major step in the right direction: standardization. It fails in the sense that it gives states wide latitude in determining what “basic skills” means.

President Obama, who originally pledged to strengthen education standards, seems to have changed course. The New York Times recently reported President Obama wants to revise NCLB. His proposed revisions, however, are more in line with the union agenda than student achievement.

The President’s changes include factoring “pupil attendance, graduation rates, and learning climate” into a teacher’s/school’s level of success. In other words, the edited version of NCLB will require less measurable accountability.

What happens to mediocre or outright incompetent employees in the private sector? They aren’t awarded raises. They are fired because it would be bad business practice to keep them on the payroll. It is just as bad for students when mediocre teachers are kept on the payroll.

In addition, unions largely oppose merit pay also known as extra pay for teachers who produce high-achieving students. The Florida legislature passed a bill that would have enacted merit pay statewide. Gov. Charlie Crist caved to union pressure, however, and vetoed the legislation earlier this month.

Teachers are America’s human capital. The role they play is critical in educating our youth so they can become analytical, high-functioning, hard-working members of an increasingly high-tech economy. Many teachers are overworked and underpaid. Starting salaries for new teachers deter many qualified applicants – especially in the math and science fields.
The private sector compensates math and science majors much more generously than a career in public education does. Unions, with near unilateral authority over policy, can change this. But they won’t if politicians continue to give in to their self-serving, anti-innovation agenda.
Shane Cronin is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at scronin@student.umass.edu.

Why I Homeschool

Reason number 113 why I homeschool my children. At a Newport school board member Jim discussed how are then four year old daughter could read. A teacher turned to Jim and said no four year old can read. At the time she was able to read such books as Go Dog Go by Dr. Suess.


Reason number 347 why I homeschool. My children are my responsibility your property taxes should not have to pay to educate my children.

Someone I have known for 30 years asked me if I was against public education, here was my answer.

Education is a privilege and not a right and should not be funded by the people. Parents should be responsible for funding their children's education. Stalin, Hitler, Marx all loved public education. I am not against education, I am against government funded education.

Friedrich Engels, who in is 1847 draft of the Manifesto called "Principles of Communism" wrote as one of its tenets:
"Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother's care, in national establishments at national cost."

"What luck for rulers that men do not think" - Adolf Hitler "Academies that are founded at public expense are instituted not so much to cultivate men's natural abilities as to restrain them." - Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677)

For centuries scholars have known that education funded by the government has proven to curb the thinking of men.

Taxpayer funded socialist indoctrination centers aka public schools aka government schools have done their job well when men can no longer see the evils of such institutions.

Quote of the Day - "The abilities of a child are only limited by the minds of the adults that surround said child." Cathy Peschke


Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

Can't be said enough.

If you are a State employee or a member of the teachers union you are a part of the problem and not part of the solution you are a factor in bankrupting America, your state and your town. It is time for you to go to your union heads and demand that you work together as a union to switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan before you all lose your retirements because America will have no choice but to not pay out these unsustainable pensions.

The following piece appeared on the American Thinker.


Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

February 19, 2010
News from the public employee front
Ed Lasky
As cities and states face increasing prospects of bankruptcy, who is looking out for the public good ?

Not teachers' unions - the bedrock of the Democratic party and a major beneficiary of the so-called stimulus bill that channeled hundreds of billions of dollars to cities and states so they could meet their payroll and pension obligations. The newly -elected Republican governor of New Jersey owns up to the problem and wants to meet it head on.

Governor Chris Christie:

"Make no mistake about it, pensions and benefits are the major driver of our spending increases at all levels of government -- state, county, municipal and school board. . . . We don't have that money -- you know it and I know it. What has been done to our citizens by offering a pension system we cannot afford and health benefits that are 41% more expensive than the average Fortune 500 company's costs is the truly unfair part of this equation" -- New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, describing the state's fiscal crisis by highlighting the case of one New Jersey teacher due to receive retirement benefits of $1.6 million after contributing only $62,000 into the retirement system.


This is what a leader does. He looks at the problem and deals with it head on. He does not look away from the problem or pass the buck. The buck (and that is a taxpayer buck) stops at his desk.

Conversely his predecessor, Jon Corzine, Democratic and Wall Street fat cat, was in bed with the public employees unions - literally and figuratively. He had a long-time affair with Carla Katz, president of the Communication Workers of America, a union that represented nearly half of all New Jersey state employees. The union endorsed him.

When Carla and Jon broke up, he rewarded her with millions of dollars. Apparently, that was not enough. A few years later, Katz was fired and expelled from the union for financial shenanigans involving the misuse of union funds. The sordid tale was symbolic of the incestuous relationship between many Democrats and public employee unions

This is not just a problem in New Jersey. The problem of sky-high salary and pension and health benefits flowing to members of public unions is an albatross around taxpayers' necks. But Governor Christie is not alone in being strong enough to want to stop the massive bleeding of the budget.

There is this Reaganesque tale:

A school superintendent in Rhode Island is trying to fix an abysmally bad school system.

Her plan calls for teachers at a local high school to work 25 minutes longer per day, each lunch with students once in a while, and help with tutoring. The teachers' union has refused to accept these apparently onerous demands.

The teachers at the high school make $70,000-$78,000, as compared to a median income in the town of $22,000. ... The school superintendent has responded to the union's stubbornness by firing every teacher and administrator at the school.

But wait! It gets better! From an email from someone who seems to know the district:

Teacher salaries at the high school average $72-78k. Apparently 50% of the students at the school are failing all of their classes, and the graduation rate is also under 50%. In an effort to turn the school around, the superintendent requested some changes be made whereby the school day would be slightly extended, teachers would perform some extra tutoring, etc.

Here is my nominee for Education Secretary : that superintendent who gave us all an education in that one act.

Reagan solidified his image as a strong leader very early in his Presidency (1981). His reputation did not hinge on any actions involving the Soviet Union ("Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall" was years in the future). Instead, the Air Traffic Controllers Union (PATCO) broke the law and went on strike, imperiling our nation's aviation system. After fair warning, Reagan fired them. He dealt with the problem by using supervisors and other replacements. The previous controllers were never to be hired again. Reagan was a leader.

There is potential here for new governors and politicians running for public office. There is a revolt brewing out there - in case one hasn't noticed. The people are sick of taxes and bloated budgets. The people are increasingly learning about the rotten deals that their politicians have signed with public employee unions. They know that their childrens' futures and their own retirements are being threatened by the obligation to pay these gold-plated pension and health benefits. They want them broken and then fixed.

I think the Rhode Island teachers' behavior was shameful. Aren't they public servants? Don't they supposedly serve the public? My son's junior high school requires all students to take an absurd course called "Common Good" that supposedly teaches them how to develop a devotion to the community.

Maybe the Rhode Island teachers need to take this remedial course. They have some time on their hands now.

Is Your Child's School Spying on Your Family

The following piece appears in a number of places. Surprisingly the first place I found it was on the Daily Kos.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.



School disciplines student for inappropriate...
by b00g13p0p


Thu Feb 18, 2010 at 08:27:11 AM PST

...behavior.

OK, you say, what else is new?

What's new here is that the "inappropriate behavior" took place outside of school hours, at home, possibly in the student's bedroom.

Wait! It gets better. Or worse, depending on your perspective.

High schools (at least) in the Lower Merion School District in Pennsylvania have been monitoring their student's behavior at home, often in the privacy of their bedrooms, without anyone's knowledge.

b00g13p0p's diary :: ::
Since this is so utterly mind-boggling, right off the top here's a link to the class action lawsuit [PDF] filed on Feburary 11, 2010, on behalf of the high school student who was the target of disciplinary action by his high school for "inappropriate behavior" that took place outside of school hours, off school grounds, at his home, and probably in his bedroom.



All other students of the District in a similar position have been added as a class to the lawsuit.

How did this happen?

The School District was monitoring student's activities at any time, without the student's or the parents' knowledge or permission, through the webcam included in the School District-issued laptop computers that students took home with them.

How do we know this?

... The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence.

The exact nature of the "inappropriate behavior" was not specified, thankfully, and does not matter.

To my mind, the implications of this are staggering, and I don't feel I'm being melodramatic.

How many kids leave their laptops -- and I don't give one good flying f*ck that this laptop came from the School District -- powered up and on a desk or a bed almost full-time when they're at home?

When they're getting dressed, when they're on the phone, when they're hanging out with their buds, when their parents or siblings are in their bedroom?

Speaking only for myself, I hope this School District gets sued into extinction because of this, and after that I hope that every District administrator and staff member, and every single School Board member who had any knowledge of this is fired by whatever husk is left of the District, and is sued into lifetime poverty.

This data point follows on the article at Open Left: "ReThink Interview: Cevin Soling, director of 'The War On Kids'"

The gist of that article is the undocument war on the civil rights of children in America's public schools, and the larger issue of how American children are wildly mis-served by an educational "industry" that's principally focused on pacifying children into mindless thoughtlessness.

- bp

Be sure to visit the Daily Kos website to see the great links associated with the story.

Yesterday 14 Democratic Senators Voted to Kill a Bill to Protect Charter Schools

Yesterday 14 Democratic Senators voted to kill a bill to protect charter schools. This was purely a political move and an outrage to the students served by said schools. This was not a budget saving move as charter schools cost less to operate than public schools this was a move to pander to public ed educrats and the unions. Shame on the whole lot of them. While New Hampshire is blocking the creation of charter schools New York will add 100 charter schools next year. New Hampshire we have a problem and that is the Democrats in control of the House, Senate and Governorship.

The following piece appeared in the Wall Street Journal.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

From today's WSJ: School reforms on the brink; The Empire Strikes back in Milwaukee and NYC
Share
Today at 12:56pm
School Reforms on the Brink
The empire strikes back in Milwaukee and NYC.

The education establishment and its political allies employ multiple methods to keep kids trapped in rotten schools. One tactic is to use control of school boards to prevent or limit the creation of charter schools. Another is to smother existing voucher programs with rules and red tape. Real world examples are currently playing out in Milwaukee and New York City.



The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program provides vouchers for some 20,000 low-income, mostly minority children to attend private schools. Because the 20-year-old program polls above 60% with voters, and even higher among minorities, killing it outright would be unpopular. Instead, Democratic Governor Jim Doyle wants to reduce funding and pass "reforms" designed to regulate the program to death. The goal is to discourage private schools from enrolling voucher students and thus force kids to return to unionized public schools.

To that end, Democrats in the state legislature voted last week to cut per-pupil payments to private schools by $165 while increasing public school spending by $400 per student. Taxpayer support for students in the program is only $6,607 per student to begin with, which is less that half of the $13,468 for students in Milwaukee public schools.

Those funding cuts would be accompanied by mandates of dubious academic benefit. One regulation would require schools that have already been accredited to meet additional accreditation requirements. Another would force schools to offer expensive bilingual programs that suck up scarce resources and are spurned by most immigrant parents who want their children taught in English.

The irony is that satisfaction and enrollment at Milwaukee public schools has steadily declined despite these very policies that choice opponents want to impose on successful private schools. A recent evaluation of the Milwaukee choice program found that its high school graduation rate was 85%, compared to 58% for students in the city's public schools. Between 1994 and 2008, the voucher program saved taxpayers more than $180 million. Yet opponents insist these schools need additional regulations to make them more like the public schools that cost more and produce inferior results.

Meanwhile, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is in a battle royal with the teachers union and state politicians who want to strip him of mayoral control of the schools. Since 2002, the Mayor has been able to hire and fire the schools chancellor and appoint a majority on the city's Board of Education.

Academic results argue strongly for continuing the policy, which expires June 30 unless state lawmakers renew it. According to the latest test scores, 82% of children in grades three through eight scored at or above grade level on this year's standardized tests, up from 74% last year and 57% three years ago. Mayoral control has also eased the expansion of charter schools, many of which are performing better than the district schools. In Harlem, where 19 of the 23 elementary and intermediate public schools are failing, all of the third graders at the Harlem Success Academy passed the most recent state math exam and 95% passed the English exam.

Before 2002 New York had fewer than 20 charter schools because the United Federation of Teachers, the dominant local union, blocked their growth. Thanks to mayoral control, there will be more than 100 charter schools in New York next year, which is one reason that the teachers union doesn't want the policy to continue. The great moral outrage of our time is the way the public schools establishment puts its interests ahead of children, trying to kill every school choice program whatever its success. Genuine reformers should be shouting from the rooftops.

Educational Freedom is a Civil Rights Issue

The following article was sent to me by Bruno Behrend of Extreme Wisdom. Last year in a survey Croydon residents overwhelmingly supported school choice by a near 2 to 1 margin. Residents and nonresidents with clear conflicts of interest are actively trying to fight Croydon residents civil right to educational freedom and their desire to have school choice.

Croydon students are doing poorly on standardized tests, results revealed that 66.7% of students scored proficient or above in reading while 41.7% of the students scored proficient in mathematics. According to the most recent NECAP test results, 31%, 20%, and 78% of 11th grade Newport students scored in the "proficient" level in writing, mathematics, and reading respectively. Croydon School and Newport Schools are failing to educate our students this is a civil rights issue we must give parents a choice as to where to educate their children. We simply cannot force these children to stay in school systems that are failing to educate them. How these children are educated will affect them for the rest of their lives. If parents think that Newport and Croydon schools are so wonderful they will keep them in said schools but the school board should not hold parents hostage and force them to keep their children in a failing system.

The following article appears in the New York Times.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for my readers.

The Harlem Miracle

Article Tools Sponsored By
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: May 7, 2009

The fight against poverty produces great programs but disappointing results. You go visit an inner-city school, job-training program or community youth center and you meet incredible people doing wonderful things. Then you look at the results from the serious evaluations and you find that these inspiring places are only producing incremental gains.


That’s why I was startled when I received an e-mail message from Roland Fryer, a meticulous Harvard economist. It included this sentence: “The attached study has changed my life as a scientist.”



Fryer and his colleague Will Dobbie have just finished a rigorous assessment of the charter schools operated by the Harlem Children’s Zone. They compared students in these schools to students in New York City as a whole and to comparable students who entered the lottery to get into the Harlem Children’s Zone schools, but weren’t selected.

They found that the Harlem Children’s Zone schools produced “enormous” gains. The typical student entered the charter middle school, Promise Academy, in sixth grade and scored in the 39th percentile among New York City students in math. By the eighth grade, the typical student in the school was in the 74th percentile. The typical student entered the school scoring in the 39th percentile in English Language Arts (verbal ability). By eighth grade, the typical student was in the 53rd percentile.

Forgive some academic jargon, but the most common education reform ideas — reducing class size, raising teacher pay, enrolling kids in Head Start — produce gains of about 0.1 or 0.2 or 0.3 standard deviations. If you study policy, those are the sorts of improvements you live with every day. Promise Academy produced gains of 1.3 and 1.4 standard deviations. That’s off the charts. In math, Promise Academy eliminated the achievement gap between its black students and the city average for white students.

Let me repeat that. It eliminated the black-white achievement gap. “The results changed my life as a researcher because I am no longer interested in marginal changes,” Fryer wrote in a subsequent e-mail. What Geoffrey Canada, Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder and president, has done is “the equivalent of curing cancer for these kids. It’s amazing. It should be celebrated. But it almost doesn’t matter if we stop there. We don’t have a way to replicate his cure, and we need one since so many of our kids are dying — literally and figuratively.”

These results are powerful evidence in a long-running debate. Some experts, mostly surrounding the education establishment, argue that schools alone can’t produce big changes. The problems are in society, and you have to work on broader issues like economic inequality. Reformers, on the other hand, have argued that school-based approaches can produce big results. The Harlem Children’s Zone results suggest the reformers are right. The Promise Academy does provide health and psychological services, but it helps kids who aren’t even involved in the other programs the organization offers.

To my mind, the results also vindicate an emerging model for low-income students. Over the past decade, dozens of charter and independent schools, like Promise Academy, have become no excuses schools. The basic theory is that middle-class kids enter adolescence with certain working models in their heads: what I can achieve; how to control impulses; how to work hard. Many kids from poorer, disorganized homes don’t have these internalized models. The schools create a disciplined, orderly and demanding counterculture to inculcate middle-class values.

To understand the culture in these schools, I’d recommend “Whatever It Takes,” a gripping account of Harlem Children’s Zone by my Times colleague Paul Tough, and “Sweating the Small Stuff,” a superb survey of these sorts of schools by David Whitman.

Basically, the no excuses schools pay meticulous attention to behavior and attitudes. They teach students how to look at the person who is talking, how to shake hands. These schools are academically rigorous and college-focused. Promise Academy students who are performing below grade level spent twice as much time in school as other students in New York City. Students who are performing at grade level spend 50 percent more time in school.

They also smash the normal bureaucratic strictures that bind leaders in regular schools. Promise Academy went through a tumultuous period as Canada searched for the right teachers. Nearly half of the teachers did not return for the 2005-2006 school year. A third didn’t return for the 2006-2007 year. Assessments are rigorous. Standardized tests are woven into the fabric of school life.

The approach works. Ever since welfare reform, we have had success with intrusive government programs that combine paternalistic leadership, sufficient funding and a ferocious commitment to traditional, middle-class values. We may have found a remedy for the achievement gap. Which city is going to take up the challenge? Omaha? Chicago?Yours?

"When you read the study I just referenced, you start to realize that busting the cap on charters is a moral imperative on the order of the civil rights movement. Let me take that one step further, to stand in the way of more charters is immoral, and it is time to start to calling into question the moral legitimacy of any politician standing in the way of rapid charterization." Bruno Behrend

Another Education Myth Bites the Dust.

The following is in response to the Editorial in the Union Leader.

Cathy Peschke

So much for the phony, union created "teacher shortage" myth.

In any other field of human endeavor, such a steep labor surplus would drive wages down where they belong. In government monopoly education, we just retain poor teachers making far more than the competent teachers ready and willing to take their place.

Is it any wonder our property taxes are so high (No, its not because we don't have an income tax!)?
Jim Peschke

1,200 applied for 40 high school jobs in Windham
By DERRICK PERKINS
Union Leader Correspondent


WINDHAM – School officials say they have found an upside to the economic turmoil of recent months, tapping into a large pool of experienced and enthusiastic prospective teachers for the new high school.

According to Superintendent Frank Bass, the district received over 1,200 applications for about 40 open professional positions within the new high school, some from neighboring schools and others from as far away as Africa. While Bass said it is not unusual to see a high level of interest in positions within a new school, the nation's economic woes have been to the benefit of the district.



"It's been to our advantage ... there's no doubt in my mind," Bass said. "We had them come in from a lot of places. Usually these people were fearful of how their positions were going to be maintained in their current schools."

As Windham opens up classroom positions to educators across the country, other districts are downsizing. In Salem, school officials declined to renew a total of 13 teacher contracts and Nashua may cut more than 10 teaching positions as officials hammer out the budget. Five teaching positions have also been cut in nearby Merrimack.

Just as the poor economy and municipal budget cuts have increased the pool of potential educators, Bass said the advantages his district's new facility offers teachers also plays a role. Classrooms will be equipped with SMART Boards and each student will be issued a school laptop to use both in class and at home as part of the district's one-to-one computing program. The high school will also have a partnership with Boston College and Plymouth State University, Bass said.

According to Principal Richard Manley, the technologically friendly environment at Windham High School has become one of the larger attractions for prospective staff.

"Almost every teacher has cited the idea of the advantages of technology as a draw to the Windham High School. They relate stories of the difficulties they have in their own schools (where) their equipment is older and not working or they're scheduling the available equipment among other teachers and students," Manley said. "We are attracting a pool of candidates that are more technologically savvy than we would otherwise have."

Manley also believes an interdisciplinary approach to teaching the school intends to adopt for next year's first class of freshmen and sophomore students has attracted educators. Students at the high school will take a humanities class -- a blending of social studies and English courses -- taught by teachers trained in both fields.

While Manley and Bass have finished with the first round of hirings, Manley said he expects to hire more educators as the high school population expands in subsequent years.

For the time being, Bass is pleased with the crop of teachers that will take center stage when the building opens its doors for the first time at the start of the new school year.

"We're really thrilled," he said. "We've got a wonderful cross-section; we've hired some kids and some seasoned veterans."

Cathy's Town Hall Meeting Speech

Below is the speech I intended to give at today's town meeting. I gave parts of the speech throughout the meeting.


Thank you for allowing me to speak. My name is Cathy Peschke I live at 239 Barton Road. I am the mother of two young children. I am asking that we reject the proposed school board budget and accept Jim Peschke's reduced budget proposal.

I want to remind the people of Croydon that our schools exist to serve the people of Croydon. The taxpayers of Croydon are not here to serve the Croydon or Newport School employees. The purpose of schools is not to ensure employment of our residents but to educate our children. Our schools are not an entitlement program for the school employees. Too many of the school employees have taken advantage of the taxpayers for far too long and have failed to adequately educate too many of our children for too long. The education system here in Croydon has become a far cry from what happened in our school house 100 years ago. It is time we return to those principles once again.



Every taxpayer dollar you spend I want to remind you that it is food off of someone's plate, it is someone's fuel, health care or retirement funds. Every tax dollar from our home is a dollar that is removed from my children's college accounts.

I am asking the school board to ask themselves with every dollar they spend "Am I wasting someone's hard earned money, will this money truly benefit the children of Croydon or is it just fulfilling a plea of a special interest group?

“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds” Sam Adams

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.

Flunked the Movie

I have added two new links to our Links of Interest section of our BLOG. The first link is to a movie called "flunked" the second link is to the "flunked" BLOG.

Hat Tip School Choice Illinois.org

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.

Charter School May Unionize

Frequent readers know I am a huge fan of charter schools and hold a dislike for government unions. My dislike of government unions has to do with their effect on the different forms of government, the people they serve, productivity and taxpayers. While doing some research on teacher certification vs. student performance I reminded myself of Jay P. Greene's Blog. We have a ton of links on our site which I do not visit as often as I would like. Jim always tells me, "life is just too short there is so much more I want to learn." Considering he is one of the most intelligent and informative people I know it is amazing he feels he has so much more to learn. Bit I digress.... I ran across the following piece on Jay P. Greene's Blog titled KIPP RIP.

Cathy
Spelling and grammar errors as well as typos are left as an exercise for our readers.

KIPP RIP
(Guest Post by Matthew Ladner)

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, two KIPP schools in New York have had a majority of their teachers vote to unionize under a card check type provision. New York Times story here.

Andy Rotherham attempts to downplay the whole incident. Nice try Andy, but forget about it. KIPP should pull the plug on these schools at the end of the school year, burn down the buildings and plow salt into the ground upon which they once stood. This would be tragic for the people that no doubt worked very hard to bring these schools to life, but let’s face it, their efforts would be much better rewarded in other states.



The whole idea of running a KIPP academy along with a thousand page union contract is absurd. Half-days on Saturday? Not on your life. On call to help with homework? Are you kidding? KIPP has earned many donors, but can they afford a rubber room? Need to change a light bulb in your classroom? Page 844, paragraph 5 clearly states that you must call a union electrician. You kids sit quietly with your heads down in the dark until he arrives. It will be any day now.

KIPP has a methodology and a hard earned brand to protect, and there are plenty of other kids in other states to help. If Congress is misguided enough to pass a national card check, it will be up to individual states to ban the practice. Those that do may find themselves rewarded by the opening of some very high quality schools.

UPDATE Andy has posted a hopeful reply that the first generation of union agreement with KIPP may be benign due to the threat of closing the school, which he views as a PR nightmare. The unions seems nigh immune to bad PR to me, and the best way to get leverage is to display your willingness to use it. Let’s see how events unfold.

To read more of Jay P. Greene's Blog click here. I am also a huge fan of his book Education Myths a must read for all parents who send their children to public schools as well as taxpayers. Cathy

Homeschooling Rights Must Be Protected.

The following piece appears on The Hertitage Foundation website. Homeschooling is on the rise and because of this homeschoolers rights need to be protected. The following article explains why and how this can be done.

I found the picture on Dang It Bill.

Cathy

January 28, 2009
Homeschooling Sees Dramatic Rise in Popularity
by Lindsey Burke

In December, the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics released new estimates on the number of American families homeschooling their children. The new report shows the growing popularity of homeschooling. In view of this trend, it is important that federal and state policymakers safeguard families' right to educate their children at home.



Growing Homeschooling Movement

The report shows that approximately 1.5 million children (2.9 percent of school-age children) were being homeschooled in the spring of 2007, representing a 36 percent relative increase since 2003 and a 74 percent relative increase since 1999.[1] One private researcher estimates that as many as 2.5 million school-age children were educated at home during the 2007-2008 school year.[2]

The homeschooling survey also reveals the most common reasons cited by families as the basis for their decision to educate their children at home. The most frequently referenced reasons included the ability to provide moral or religious instruction (36 percent), concern about the environment at other schools (21 percent), and dissatisfaction with the academic instruction provided at other schools (17 percent).[3] The number of parents reporting the ability to provide moral or religious instruction as a rationale for homeschooling their children increased by 11 percentage points (from 72 percent in 2003 to 83 percent in 2007).[4]

Additional reasons parents homeschooled their children included "other" reasons (14 percent), desire for nontraditional education (7 percent), special needs (4 percent), and physical or mental health problems (2 percent).[5] There was a 12 percentage point increase in the amount of respondents choosing "other" reasons, from 20 percent in 2003 to 32 percent in 2007. This increase could indicate an expansion in the types of demographic groups homeschooling their children.[6]

Benefits of Homeschooling

The available evidence suggests that homeschooling students perform as well as their non-homeschooled counterparts. In general, homeschooled students perform as well as--and in some cases outperform--their non-homeschooled peers.[7]

Homeschooled students succeed academically regardless of family income or teacher certification of parents.[8] Top-tier colleges and universities also recognize the academic abilities of homeschooled students, with Stanford, Yale, and Harvard among the institutions with the most homeschool-friendly policies.[9]

An additional benefit of homeschooling comes in the form of savings to taxpayers and school systems. Analysts have estimated that homeschooled students save American taxpayers and public schools between $4.4 billion and $9.9 billion annually.[10] Other estimates are as high as $16 billion.[11]

Trends and Anticipated Growth

Homeschooling may be the fastest growing form of education in the U.S.,[12] rivaled only by charter schools.[13] The 74 percent increase in homeschooling since 1999 alone suggests continued future growth. The homeschooling movement has also gained traction among minority students, which represent approximately 15 percent of homeschooling families.[14]

The continued growth in homeschooling is facilitated by organizations that assist families with needs ranging from curriculum and instruction to advancing legislation that ensures the freedom to educate children in the home. These burgeoning networks demonstrate that homeschooling is becoming an increasingly viable option for families.

Homeschooling continues to broaden and grow because of the vast array of education options and flexibility it provides for families. This crucial component of education reform creates an additional alternative for parents and students. It is estimated that more than 1 million children attend charter schools or benefit from voucher programs in the United States--a figure on par with the more than 1.5 million estimated homeschooled students. Economists have found that the competitive effects of school choice programs have prompted improvement in public schools.[15] While more research is needed, the homeschooling movement could be taking part in the same trend.

Protecting Homeschooling

Legal rights to homeschooling have been established nationwide, facilitating the growth of home-based instruction. Presently, homeschooling is legal in every state. Policymakers should protect parents' rights to homeschool their children and enact reforms that remove barriers to homeschooling. In order to provide meaningful protections to homeschooling families, Members of Congress should avoid restrictive regulations at all levels of schooling and offer tax relief to homeschoolers through education tax credits or deductions. Homeschooling families provide a valuable contribution to American education, often while incurring a significant financial burden in addition to their taxes paid toward public education. Policies should recognize the educational contribution of homeschooling and ensure that the freedom to homeschool is permanently protected and fostered.

In view of all the benefits that homeschooling provides to homeschooled children as well as society as a whole, lawmakers should enact policies that give more families the opportunity to participate in homeschooling. Federal and state policymakers should work to guarantee that families have the freedom to educate their children at home in the future.

Lindsey M. Burke is a Research Assistant in the Domestic Policy Studies Department at The Heritage Foundation.

Please go to the The Heritage Foundation website to view the footnotes.

More People Fighting for Accountability and Against Big Ed

Jim and I started fighting for education reform and education spending reform six years. There were not a lot of us out there. I am glad to see more and more people fight against the NEA and AFT propaganda line "It's for the kids." If education dollars were truly for the children they would follow the child and not the institution and the NEA and AFT would not fight so hard against school choice and vouchers.

The following piece appeared in the Washington Post.

Cathy

Well-Connected Parents Take On School Boards
Web-Savvy Activists Push For Educational Change

By Michael Alison Chandler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 30, 2009; A01

For a new generation of well-wired activists in the Washington region, it's not enough to speak at Parent-Teacher Association or late-night school board meetings. They are going head-to-head with superintendents through e-mail blitzes, social networking Web sites, online petitions, partnerships with business and student groups, and research that mines a mountain of electronic data on school performance.

These parent insurgents are gaining influence -- and getting things changed.



In recent weeks, parent-led campaigns helped bring down a long-established grading policy in Fairfax County and scale back the unpopular practice of charging fees for courses in Montgomery County. They have also stoked debates over math education in Frederick and Prince William counties.

In Loudoun County, parents are gearing up to topple a grading scale similar to the one overturned in Fairfax. Another Fairfax group is making headway in a drive to push back high school start times.

What binds them is impatience with the school establishment and an aptitude for harnessing the power of the Internet to push for change.

"We are not our moms, who were just involved in the PTA," said Catherine Lorenze, a McLean mother who helped organize Fairgrade, the parent-led campaign to change the Fairfax grading scale by lowering the bar for an A from 94 to 90 percent.

"We worked for a number of years before we had kids," she said. "We know how to research and find information and connect the dots. To expect us to show up and just make photos or write checks does not sit well with this generation. If you are going to invite parents in the door . . . it should be more of a partnership."

School officials say they welcome the heightened interest in public education, because parent involvement often leads to student success. But they also warn that the wildfire Web-based campaigns can spread rumors quickly and tend to benefit affluent, well-connected parents. They can also distract school officials from budget deficits or other pressing issues.

Sometimes such parent groups, whose agendas tend to be limited to helping their own children, fail to carry the day against administrators, who must balance the needs of huge and diverse school systems. Thousands of Fairfax parents last year mounted a sophisticated, costly fight against a county plan to redraw high school boundaries to help fill an under-enrolled school that had higher rates of poor and minority students. Despite their protests, the School Board approved the change.

Still, school officials acknowledge the growing challenge to their authority.

"It used to be that the superintendent and the School Board made decisions and said, 'This is how it's going to be,' and the community would accept that," said Barbara Hunter, assistant superintendent for communications and community outreach for the 169,000-student Fairfax school system.

No longer. Many of today's parents are more skeptical of government and have new ways to engage with schools besides showing up for night meetings. They can make political statements by forwarding e-mails or signing petitions, all possible to do on a BlackBerry while idling on Interstate 66.

The No Child Left Behind law also has given parents more ways to challenge the official line. Since 2002, it has required schools to publish more information than ever about student performance, teacher quality and school safety. Parents back up their positions with bar charts and extensive analyses.

Former Fairfax superintendent Daniel A. Domenech said outspoken, savvy parents can be crucial allies in the fight for school funding. "The other side of the coin, of course, is you have to produce, because they are going to hold your feet to the fire," he said.

Officials caution that the new technology has turned up the volume for select parent voices. It can be especially apparent in parts of Fairfax or Montgomery where well-educated parents are not afraid to throw their weight around and register complaints with a phone call to the superintendent or the media. Blast e-mails and Web sites give these parents even more of an edge, compared with others who lack time or resources, some observers say.

Schools need to be more concerned about the digital divide than ever before, Hunter said. "We don't want to create two levels of power, those with access to information and those without it," she said.

Administrators across the region are looking for new ways to encourage traditionally silent parents to work with schools. In the District, efforts are underway to encourage parents to organize their thoughts into a short speech for the school board or to approach their children's teachers if they are concerned about a grade or a problem.

In Montgomery, the five-year-old Parent Coalition manages an e-mail list with more than 300 members in which parents raise concerns about high school exit exams, school board contracts and other issues in the 139,300-student system. It also maintains a Web site stocked with public documents.

The coalition has claimed two victories in recent weeks. It successfully lobbied the school board to eliminate hundreds of course fees, and its concerns about loose credit-card spending practices among school staff were validated by a state audit.

Brian Edwards, chief of staff for Montgomery Superintendent Jerry D. Weast, said the coalition is run by a "small cadre" of parents who have been longtime critics of the system. In the past, he said, their complaints would have been registered through phone calls or e-mails. Now, organized on the Web, they attract more media and public attention.

Other Montgomery parents are organizing online around issues such as gifted or special education, and they keep close tabs on pending program changes.

Sharon W. Cox, who served on the Montgomery school board from 2000 to 2008, said parents often get news out to the community before the school system does. Sometimes she learned of controversies first from parents. School officials "are always in the position of having to be defensive and to correct misinformation because they are not proactive," she said.

Kitty Porterfield, a former communications director for Fairfax schools and author of the book "Why School Communication Matters," said many school systems "are still responding to 21st-century parents with 20th-century approaches."

A strategic communications team in Fairfax monitors the blogosphere and online message boards for misinformation or rumors, seeking to update the school system Web site and drive traffic there. The school system also is trying out new ways to include parents in important or controversial decisions from the earliest stages.

Fairfax Superintendent Jack D. Dale, whose recommendation to keep the 94-point benchmark for an A was reversed by the School Board after parent lobbying, said it is a challenge to stay on top of the daily avalanche of electronic communication from parents.

But he is trying to meet it. "That is what they expect from us," he said.

This was a shocker.

I found this on a Progressive Website of all places. It sure would be nice if Obama lead from the center and not the left. If nothing else I wish he had the Cahoonas to fight the educational establishment and fight for real education reform. Over the last four decades millions of children have been left behind and those devastated most are black and African American children. It would be great if he would step up to the plate for the children of America.

Cathy

EDU REFORMERS CELEBRATE INAUGURATION WITH FIGHTING WORDS.

Even as official Washington came together to celebrate Martin Luther King Day and Barack Obama's inauguration, fault lines were deepening in an intra-Democratic Party policy debate that the incoming president hopes to avoid -- but may not be able to.

On Monday at Cardozo High School in the Columbia Heights neighborhood of D.C., the Rev. Al Sharpton and New York City schools Chancellor Joel Klein hosted a bipartisan group of civil rights leaders and educators focused on addressing the achievement gap, in part through advancing policies opposed by teachers' unions, including test score based performance pay and private school voucher programs. Other speakers included incoming secretary of education Arne Duncan; Sen. John McCain; outgoing education secretary Margaret Spellings; Newark mayor Cory Booker; New York City mayor Mike Bloomberg; former
speaker of the House Newt Gingrich; D.C. mayor Adrian Fenty; and controversial D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee.

In front of an audience of enthusiastic African American families and District community activists, speaker after speaker came to the podium and attacked the "status quo" in Democratic education policy. To the trained ear, these were thinly veiled fighting words addressed toward the leadership of urban teachers' unions. "As a Democrat, there are forces in our party that hold us back from doing the right thing for children," said Cory Booker, who has been targeted by Newark's teachers' union because of his support for a voucher program. "So I am no longer concerned with right or left. I just want to move forward."

But proving that fiery rhetoric about education reform might be more popular with parents than actual change in their children's classrooms, local schools leader Michelle Rhee -- the embodiment of this movement -- was tepidly received. When Rhee said, "There are a lot of people who benefit from our system being dysfunctional," a few voices raised in the crowd, booing. "That's not true!" a woman shouted. But Rhee continued, referring obliquely to her long-running contract dispute with the Washington Teachers' Union over merit pay and tenure. "People who keep their jobs. People who keep their contract."

--Dana Goldstein

Stating the Obvious

Quote of the Day "That is the biggest lie in America. They waste money." Ben Chavis, Charter School Principal, response to public schools' complaints about money.

The following editorial appeared in the Union Leader. Talk about stating the obvious this is what charter school advocates, some homeschool advocates and school choice advocates have been stating for years. I should not leave out the very few great teachers who know this to be true as well. JFK should have never allowed government employees to unionize, this is when productivity declined and waste and corruption in government began to prosper.

Cathy

Bureaucrats' bane: Charter schools work


How damaging to our children is the byzantine bureaucracy besetting public schools? A new study from Boston offers a disturbing answer: a lot.

The study, conducted for the Boston Foundation by Harvard and MIT scholars, found that students in Boston charter schools significantly outperformed their counterparts who were left trapped in the regular Boston public schools. Charter schools are public schools freed from bureaucratic regulations, and in which teachers are not unionized.

The study compared students who had been chosen by lottery to attend charter schools to students who applied but were not lucky enough to be selected. The charter school students scored far better in math and English than their counterparts left in the regular public schools.

Boston also has what are called "pilot schools." They are public schools in which some innovation is allowed, but teachers are unionized and most bureaucracy remains. Students in those schools performed worse than regular public school students.

This study shows, as others have, that bureaucracy and teacher unionization are associated with lower student performance. At this point, there really is no excuse for continuing to operate public schools the same old way. The data are in, and they show that alternative schools can do more with less.

Yet public school officials at all levels continue to resist changes that have been shown to benefit students. That is evidence enough that the bureaucracy and the unions are more interested in self-preservation than in education.