Board directors, superintendent show disrespect to teachers, union

By Laurie H. Rogers


Un...Be...Lievable.

You think you’ve heard everything. You think public education is as weak as it can be. Then, you go to another school board meeting, and it goes wrong in an entirely new way.

On Oct. 13, the teachers union and a few hundred teachers and staff members went to a Spokane Public Schools board meeting to protest administrative salary increases. I wasn’t there; I was at home, teaching math to my daughter. I’m homeschooling her in math this year, as I did two years ago, because central-office administrators keep interfering with, micromanaging, and basically destroying Spokane’s K-12 math instruction.

On Oct. 13, the teachers and staff filled up the central-office boardroom and spilled out into the hall. Accounts of their protest of the salary increases indicated that – despite the large crowd – they remained respectful and polite. After they finished speaking, they left. An SEA representative stayed behind.

At the Oct. 27 board meeting, that SEA representative recounted to the board some of the things she had heard on the evening of Oct. 13, after the teachers, staff and media had left. According to the representative, three board directors and the superintendent had a lot to say about the teachers and the union leadership. As I listened to the representative tell her story, my mouth dropped open. If the comments she cited had been said about me, I would classify them as untrue, unkind, inappropriate, unprofessional, and even childish.

After the SEA representative chastised the superintendent and three board directors for these comments, no one from the board or district issued any sort of explanation, contradiction or apology; they just moved on.

Having been an education advocate for four years, I feel her pain. From district emails I’ve gotten through FOIA requests, and also based on comments from people who work for the district, I know I’ve been criticized, mocked and undermined – not to my face, where I could challenge the statements and answer the charges – but behind my back. This type of behavior is unprofessional and cowardly. It speaks volumes about how much administrators value and respect the teachers and staff who care about the children, parents who try to be involved, and taxpayers who foot the bill.

Speaking of taxpayers, let’s discuss those administrative raises.

I wasn’t expecting administrators to get a raise this year. The salaries of most administrators are either more than $100,000 or hover in the near vicinity. One hundred and forty-six administrators (not including the superintendent) will make a combined total this year of $13,875,860 in base pay – an average of $95,040 each. More to the point, a number of them should be fired, especially in the execrable Department of Teaching & Learning.

Spokane has a 28.7% cohort dropout rate, a dropout problem in middle school, a drop of about 2,500 full-time equivalent students over the last eight years, and a 38.9% pass rate on the 10th grade math test (a test that required just 56.9% to pass). Four high schools have a 100% remediation rate in math at SCC. Most of the graduates who test into remedial math at SCC or SFCC test into elementary algebra or below – about half of those fail or withdraw early. Few students seem to know any grammar. In the 2008 district survey of families that left Spokane Public Schools, parents did NOT tend to complain about teachers; a full third said, however, that they left the school district because of the curriculum.

Teachers are not at fault, and they aren’t why I pulled my daughter out of two math classes. I pulled her out because of the weak curriculum and because of the refusal of central-office administrators to allow the teachers to teach. Administrators micromanage the teachers, call their professionalism and quality into question, undermine and discredit their concerns, set them up for failure, and then blame them. Caught in the middle are the students, most of whom will graduate (or drop out) without the skills they need for postsecondary life. There are excellent teachers in this district who want to teach my daughter math and grammar. But there is a barrier between us, and that barrier is the district administration.

Meanwhile, the constant administrator refrain is that we have a “problem in Spokane with quality teaching.” We also hear that there is no money for tutoring, no money for smaller classes, no money for libraries, Pratt Elementary School, office supplies, extracurricular activities, or custodial staff. No money, no money, no money. The superintendent said she supports the federal Race to the Top Initiative because she’s “desperate” for money. This district has cut teaching and staff positions to save on costs. And yet, there is this money for administrative raises.

I’ve heard the “reasons” for these raises:

1. Administrators have to earn more than their principals.
   
   • Says who? (Oh, right. The administrators.)
   • District administrators are the ones who negotiate the principals’ salaries. And the principals’ raises led to administrator raises. Can you say “conflict of interest”?
2. The central office supposedly does more with fewer people.
   
   • For the school year 2010-2011, the district has 3 more administrators and will spend nearly $700,000 more on administrator salaries than it did two years ago.
3. This extra taxpayer money will encourage administrators to begin making data-driven decisions.
• Making data-driven decisions is already their job, albeit one they refuse to do.
• Why would anyone give rewards to people who refuse to do their job, in the hope that the reward will somehow convince them to start doing it?
• Rather than trying to convince administrators to do their job, how about if we start firing them when they don’t?

I sat in the Oct. 27 school board “Community Outreach,” trying to convince a board director that Spokane’s K-8 math curricula – which have been criticized across the country since their development, which I have criticized for four years, which have no supporting data behind them, and which have produced an entire generation of students who lack arithmetic skills – are flawed. He’s been on the board since 1996. I don’t have the sense that he gets it.

Then, I sat in the Oct. 27 board meeting, listening to the head of the district’s Department of Teaching & Learning make little sense as she attempted to explain how the district “knows” when our students do have sufficient math skills. That administrator received a bump in pay this summer of $6,337, bringing her annual base pay to $129,299.

Absolutely Un...Be...Lievable.



Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is: Rogers, L. (October 2010). "Board directors, superintendent show disrespect to teachers, union." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

A version of this commentary was published in The Spokesman-Review on Nov. 6, 2010, under the heading "Schools' pay too high at the top." See this link: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2010/nov/06/schools-pay-too-high-at-top/

This commentary also was published on EducationNews.com on Oct. 31, 2010. See this link: http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/102119.html

WTM: WA legislators should vote against CCSS adoption

(Note from Laurie Rogers: The following is a statement from Where's the Math? a mathematics advocacy group in Washington State. The complete statement has been reproduced here with permission from the WTM executive committee. For more -- including comparisons between the common core mathematics standards and Washington State's current mathematics standards -- see the WTM Web site at http://www.wheresthemath.com)

***********************

Where’s the Math?

Washington State Legislature Should Vote Against Adoption
of the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics
October 12, 2010

During the upcoming legislative session, Washington State must decide whether to replace our State’s recently improved math standards with a new and evolving set of national education guidelines, the Common Core State Standards. Over the past five years, Where’s The Math? (WTM) has advocated for rigorous, coherent, and internationally competitive mathematics education for all Washington students. WTM has carefully compared the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) against the mathematics standards Washington State adopted in 2008. The CCSS for mathematics possess significant weaknesses and are not ready for adoption in Washington State or nationwide.

Where’s the Math? urges the WA State Legislature to NOT ADOPT the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics, based on a number of concerns:

• The CCSS have major weaknesses compared to existing Washington State math standards. Reviews of both standards by the Fordham Foundation and WTM have noted the superior clarity and organization of the current Washington standards. The CCSS delays teaching important mathematics skills. Throwing out current state standards in favor of the CCSS would waste an investment of tens of millions of dollars in curricula, training, and assessment.
  
• There is no funding for the adoption of the CCSS in Washington State. Washington is unlikely to receive any near-term funding through Race to the Top grants, and any awards received would only cover a small portion of adoption costs. The costly implementation of these standards must be absorbed by the state and cash-strapped districts.
  
• Adopting the CCSS takes control of standards away from Washington State. The CCSS was produced by a closed group, and conditionally approved by many states without review. States have been pressured with financial incentives and no consideration for possible consequences of nationwide adoption prior to rigorous evaluation in actual classrooms. The limited local discretion permitted by the CCSS process (15%), and the necessity for states to pay for any additional assessments, make significant local enhancements to the CCSS impractical.
  
• The CCSS represents an unevaluated work-in-process. The CCSS is untested and unevaluated in the classroom. A proposed national standard should undergo rigorous testing in a limited number of districts or states before it is adopted nationally. Furthermore, an associated assessment exam has not been created. Clearly, there should be no commitment to the CCSS until it is thoroughly reviewed and tested, and an assessment exam is completed and evaluated.

WTM recommends:

• The WA Legislature should vote against adoption of the CCSS. The legislature should introduce and pass a bill during the 2010-11 session refusing the adoption of the Common Core State Standards.
  
• Washington State should remain engaged in the CCSS process at the national level, including making recommendations for improvements in the standards and their assessment. This process should be modified to give states the latitude to use the CCSS to improve existing standards rather than requiring that the CCSS be adopted in their entirety.
  
• The WA Legislature should encourage public input. Any future consideration of the CCSS should be open to public scrutiny and comment. The legislature should establish multiple opportunities for community members to interact with local and state officials in public forums where their questions and concerns can be aired and addressed.

There is little to gain from the adoption of untested national standards, and potentially much to lose.


Where’s The Math? (WTM) is a statewide math advocacy group comprised of concerned citizens seeking a balanced and rigorous mathematics education for Washington’s kids. Our mission is to ensure that all Washington State students have an equal opportunity to compete successfully in the international economy by aligning our state math standards, assessments and curricula to those of top performing nations in the world. WTM chapters are organized across the state, with members volunteering in schools, on local PTAs, as elected school board directors, and lobbying elected officials to make Washington State the mathematics role model for the country. Visit http://www.wheresthemath.com/ for more information.

Children's Investment Fund: Vote "No"

By Laurie H. Rogers


(Updated Oct. 9, 2010, with information about certain members of the Children's Investment Fund steering committee.)

A brochure and postcard came to my door last weekend, asking me to vote “yes” to the Spokane Children’s Investment Fund, a proposed property tax. The brochure acknowledges Spokane’s “persistently troubling dropout rate,” then states: “While our public school system is doing all that it can” to close achievement gaps, “it truly is a community-wide problem” that “demands” taxpayer “attention” and “resources.”

If the Spokane Children’s Investment Fund is approved in November, taxpayers will pay $30 million over six years for programs to prevent child abuse, engage children after school, provide early-learning opportunities, and offer mentoring. These programs, the brochure assures us without any proof or data whatsoever, will reduce Spokane’s dropout rate.

This $30 million levy would be in addition to the federal, state and local taxes you already pay for education and social services. Spokane Public Schools currently spends more than $10,000 per student per year. According to the state education agency, 68% of that expenditure goes toward “learning.” It’s actually worse than that. Money for “learning” is not the same thing as money for “the classroom.”

The brochure for the Spokane Children’s Investment Fund says, again without proof, that Seattle and Portland have had “remarkable” success with their versions of a voter-approved children’s levy. What does it mean to be “remarkable”? The brochure doesn’t say.

I already know that Seattle has issues with on-time graduation, so I looked into the data.

***

Seattle:

In 1990, Seattle voters approved a “children’s” levy, called the “Families & Education Levy.” At the time, according to Seattle Public Schools, Seattle’s on-time graduation rate was 81%. In the 14 years between 1990 and 2004, Seattle taxpayers paid $138 million for the Families & Education Levy. In the seven years between 2004 and 2012 – you’ll love this – they’re slated to spend nearly $118.6 million on the levy. In 2008/2009, after 18 years of paying for the Families & Education Levy:

• Seattle’s on-time graduation rate was 70.1% (a drop from 1990 of nearly 11%). For black students, the on-time graduation rate was 55.2%.
• Just 75.3% of Seattle’s 2009 student cohort remained in school through Grade 12, giving Seattle a cohort dropout rate of 24.7%. (For black students, the cohort dropout rate was 38.1%).
  That is, indeed, remarkable.

Portland:

In Portland, Ore., the annual $12.5 million “Children’s Levy” has been in place since 2002. According to an America’s Promise report called “Cities in Crisis 2009: Closing the Graduation Gap,” in 2005, Portland’s metropolitan graduation rate was 72.8%. In 2008/2009, the Oregon Department of Education reports, Portland’s graduation rate was 70.1%.

After eight years and $100 million for the Children’s Levy, Portland’s graduation rate failed to improve. Remarkable.

Miami:

In 2002, Dade County voters approved “The Children’s Trust” levy. Six years later, voters approved the levy “in perpetuity.” It will be 2020 before they get another chance to say no to it. In 2008/2009, after hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars spent on The Children’s Trust levy, Miami’s cohort graduation rate was 68.2%. Remarkable.

***

Here's something else you should know:
The Communities in Schools program (a national program located in several cities, including Spokane) is supposedly a leading dropout prevention program. The CIS program does not provide data or research supporting its program, although it claims to be "proven" to work. An organization called ICF International is conducting a study of community-in-schools programs. This study is incomplete.

• Ben Stuckart is executive director of the Spokane chapter of CIS, and he also is on the Advisory Steering Committee for the Children's Investment Fund
• Doug Durham is on the board of directors for Spokane's CIS, and there is a Doug Durham on the Advisory Steering Committee for the Children's Investment Fund
• Lee Taylor is on the board of directors for Spokane's CIS, and there is a Lee Taylor on the Advisory Steering Committee for the Children's Investment Fund

On the Mike Fitzsimmons KXLY radio show Thursday, Oct. 8, Ben Stuckart did not mention his connection to CIS until he was asked what else he did for a living, a question which came well into the show. And when he was asked what he going to do after the vote on the Fund, he did not mention the CIS. The materials for the Fund do not mention the connection between CIS and the Fund. The public is not being properly informed about that connection.
Please vote “no” to the Spokane Children’s Investment Fund property tax initiative. Money isn’t going to fix Spokane’s dropout rate. Vote no, ask your family and friends to vote no, and ask the businesses and organizations that support this levy to withdraw their support.
You are being asked, during an economic downturn, to tax yourselves in support of a nebulous program, run by as-yet unknown mayoral appointees, who will give grants to as-yet unknown organizations, which supposedly will be able to (through as-yet undetermined extracurricular services), reduce Spokane’s dropout rate.
Spokane Public Schools has a dropout problem, no doubt about it. Its 2008/2009 on-time graduation rate was 62.1%. For black students, it was 54.6%. Just 71.3% of the 2009 cohort was still in school in Grade 12, giving Spokane a cohort dropout rate of 28.7%. (The black cohort dropout rate was 32.8%.)
Clearly, something needs to be done in Spokane, but the Spokane Children’s Investment Fund is the wrong tool for this job. According to the initiative's brochure, any grantees will have to show “proven effectiveness and successful track records in fighting the root causes of school dropouts.” But if their track records actually were proven, why is Spokane staring at a 28.7% cohort dropout rate? Why would the levy even be needed?
What exactly are those “root causes”? Could some of them have to do with Spokane Public Schools’ counterproductive academic policies?

• Spokane Public Schools has a habit of cluttering the school day with nonacademic activities, events, parties, assemblies and “character classes.”
• The school district’s absolute and unwavering commitment to constructivism (or “discovery learning”) prevents teachers from directly teaching the students critical subjects such as arithmetic and grammar. Every day, students are guided into muddling in herds, teaching themselves and each other, deferring to groupthink and attempting to reach “consensus” on things they don’t understand.
• District policy is to socially promote students to the next grade regardless of what they know. Standard operating procedure is to plunk them into advanced classes for which they’re insufficiently prepared. In response to queries about these policies, administrators have said to me: “Even if they don’t pass, students must have learned something while they’re there.”

At some point, do you suppose students give up? I can’t imagine suffering with this terrible process for 30 hours out of every week. Can you? How will the Children’s Investment Fund have a positive impact on these disastrous policies? How will that additional $30 million translate into improved graduation rates? Where is the data to support this tax initiative?
Supporters of the initiative want you to vote “yes” for the children by voting “yes” to this tax initiative. I’m asking you to vote “yes” for the children by voting “no” to this initiative. I’m asking you to push Spokane Public Schools to give up on its failing policies, to fire its ineffective administrators, and to give its corps of teachers the freedom to teach their students a strong curriculum in a focused learning environment.

Most of what Spokane administrators need to do for our students is just get out of the way.
Let’s see where we are then with our dropout rates.

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:Rogers, L. (October 2010). "Children's Investment Fund: Vote "no"." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

Ethnicity, Racism and Math…

by Nick Diaz

(Originally published August 31, 2010, on TheTentacle.com: http://thetentacle.com/ShowArticle.cfm?mydocid=3936
Republished on the Betrayed blog with permission from author Nick Diaz, gssuzukiguy2004@yahoo.com,
and from John Ashbury, editor and publisher of TheTentacle.com.)


In early 2009, I was coaching the MATHCOUNTS competition team at The Barnesville School, then my place of employment. MATHCOUNTS is a nationwide system of mathematics competitions, open to middle schools students in the USA.

Students in 6th, 7th, and 8th grades, in public, private, and home schools are eligible to participate. From 1986 through 2009, I coached the math teams at Gov. Thomas Johnson Middle School in Frederick, Middletown Middle, and at Barnesville.

As the four Barnesville eighth graders were getting ready for the upcoming state competition, one of my “mathletes” mentioned that our team didn’t have much of a chance of placing high, because, after all, we didn’t have Asian students on our team. After all, Asian students from China, India, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan are inherently good at math, and better than anyone else.

The stereotyping of Asian students goes on, unabated, throughout our society. I consider this to be as racist an attitude as outright negative discrimination based on skin color and cultural differences.

The general attitude is that Asians are good at math because they’re smarter, can learn math much faster, know “stuff” more deeply, and are much quicker at arriving at answers. Finally, Asian students are good at math because, after all, they’re Asian.

Not only children, but also adults, share this bigoted view of the world; this is unfortunate, since two evils emanate from such attitude:

It allows people to believe that scholarly achievement, particularly in mathematics and science, is determined by genes and by ethnic extraction. This is not so; academic achievement is due to hard work and dedication, to focusing on the importance of learning for its own sake, and on being willing to practice, practice, practice…

It gives those of us who are not of Asian extraction the excuse not to perform at a high level in mathematics, science, engineering, or other similar pursuits. After all, Asians are automatically better, so why try?

It occurred to me then that my Barnesville team members deserved an explanation that was based on general mathematical principles. So, I get up on my high horse and began telling my young students to stop the racist talk and bigoted excuses.

If we would take a cross-section of the population of China, India, Korea, or Japan, I bet we could find dumb people, average people, and smart people, all in about the same ratio as ours in North America. Thinking that Chinese are better at math, and that Indians are better engineers – that smacks of racism, pure and simple, and denies a basic American conviction – that people are people, regardless of nationality or skin color.

So, why is it that so many Asians in North America do so well in math, science, and engineering?

Simple! Who comes here to live, either permanently or temporarily from China, Korea, India, etc? Mathematicians, engineers, scientists – at the graduate degree level or higher. These are the people who are even allowed to leave China and study and/or work in North America. The general population doesn't come here – they stay there. Those who arrive here are the physicians, the theoretical physicists, the mathematicians, the engineers, the chemists, the computer scientists, the microbiologists.

These people usually arrive in North America with families. Guess what their kids will be like! Highly intelligent, well-disciplined, focused on learning, from families where learning is considered a sacred duty, and where math and science achievement is considered to be due not to raw intelligence, but to hard work and dedication.

Where are these people concentrated? In Montgomery and Fairfax Counties, suburbs of DC, where many think tanks and research facilities abound. That explains why Takoma Park Middle School in Montgomery County has won the state MATHCOUNTS competition every year since 1986. TPMS is a math/science magnet school in a highly populated area; the staff at Takoma Park and Montgomery County schools can choose who's in and who's out. As one can expect, on any given year, their top team of four students will consist of Chinese, Indian, Korean, Japanese, or American Jewish extraction.

What that means is that we, in general, must get rid of the stereotypical thinking that allows us to justify our obvious inferiority in math and science achievement, and blow it off as "Americans are dumber than Asians because they just ARE!" It's particularly sad when adults, including parents, subscribe to the nonsense and keep spouting that racist line.

This year one of my eighth graders is a Korean exchange student, a very quiet, reserved girl. After one week of school, I can tell there’s something special about her. Despite the obvious language difficulty, she reads the questions carefully, engages her brain, and answers the questions. Reading and thinking properly, quickly, and accurately are the keys to success in mathematics, regardless of the student’s grade level. To be blunt, this Asian student runs circles around the rest of her classmates.

Why is that? Surely because she’s Asian – that’s what many people would say. Perhaps it could be also that she is more used to focusing, and therefore is able to recall the mathematical principles that all the 8th graders had learned in past years, (to be forgotten quickly and decisively), and put them all together and applied properly. Perhaps her parents insist that she do her best, rather than dismiss their children's poor achievement in math by saying silly things like, "Oh, I was never that good in math," or "My child just doesn't have a mind for math" or "Asians are better at math anyway..."



Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

Pass rates on 2010 state math tests shocking

By Laurie H. Rogers

(Updated Nov. 14 to reflect adjusted scores, per the OSPI Report Card.)


Mathematics is a “gatekeeper” subject. Math guards the “gate” to college, the trades, the military, and entrepreneurship. If high school graduates don’t have sufficient math skills, they cannot pass through these gates.

Washington State’s pass rates for the spring 2010 standardized tests came out this week. I have a few of the math pass rates here, including some for Spokane Public Schools. I hope you’re sitting down.

Pass rates for Washington's 2010 math tests


<><><><>

	Washington students:	Spokane students:
4th grade	53.7%	59.1%
7th grade	55.3%	55.4%
10th grade	41.7%	38.9%

Spokane Public Schools middle school math pass rates

<><><><>

	Chase	Garry	Glover	Sacajawea	Salk	Shaw
7th:	61.0%	44.8%	44.2%	67.5%	59.2%	50.8%
8th:	49.1%	43.3%	30.6%	69.2%	61.4%	31.2%

Spokane Public Schools high school math pass rates
<><><><>

Ferris	Lewis and Clark	North Central	Rogers	Shadle
54.0%	54.2%	27.1%	21.1%	44.4%

Folks, it's bad. But don’t get up from your seat just yet. It's worse than you think. According to the Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI), our students needed to earn slightly more than half of the possible points on these tests in order to pass them.

<><><><>

Grade	Points needed to pass:	Pct. needed to pass
3	21 out of 34	61.76%
4	20 out of 34	58.8%
5	20 out of 34	58.8%
6	23 out of 40	57.5%
7	22 out of 40	55%
8	22 out of 40	55%
10	unchanged from 2009	56.9%

Washington State’s 10th-grade students needed just 56.9% on their math tests in order to pass, and yet 61.3% of Spokane’s 10th graders couldn’t do it.
I’ll bet you also didn’t know:

1. OSPI looks at the completed tests first, and THEN decides where to set the cut scores. The State Board of Education approved these cut scores in August 2010, several months AFTER the students took the tests in the spring of 2010. The cut scores moved to fit -- not math standards nor academic content -- but test outcomes.
2. All of the cut scores dropped from 2009 (thereby making the tests easier to pass), with the exception of 7th grade, which rose 1 percentage point, and 10th grade, which was unchanged.
3. OSPI considers the passing scores noted above to also mean that students are “proficient” in mathematics. Therefore, a 10th grader is supposedly “proficient” in mathematics if he or she earns just 37 points out of a possible 65.

The takeaway message from these numbers is that our students are completely unprepared in mathematics. Worse, our administrators perpetuate this failing system deliberately, purposefully, willfully, stubbornly. It obviously is NOT working for the students. Despite what administrators like to claim, the math problem is NOT because of poor parenting, unmotivated students, unhelpful legislators, insufficient money, ineffective teachers, difficult social issues, insufficient "professional development," changing standards, or raging hormones. The math problem is because students are not being given enough mathematics, and that is because school administrators stubbornly REFUSE to allow the teachers to teach enough mathematics. Instead, our students are fed a steady diet of pretend mathematics, designed to suck up learning days with busy work, group work, “student-centered” activities, and student-created processes and definitions. These programs do NOT provide students with sufficient usable skills in mathematics. You can see for yourself how well the current programs work.

Parents and teachers: You are being betrayed. The children are being purposefully and persistently miseducated. They are not being given the math skills they need for college, for a trade, for business ownership, or for any postsecondary life that depends on or even uses mathematics. Most are unlikely to ever become engineers, doctors, attorneys, pilots, air traffic controllers, architects, or dozens of other types of well-paid professionals. Recent high school graduates who have not had outside intervention are likely to need remedial math classes before beginning college – perhaps several remedial math classes.

And that brings me to one more piece of bad news. In Spokane, nearly half of all SPS-educated students who take remedial math classes at our area two-year colleges fail those remedial classes or withdraw early. And what are their career options then?

Parents and teachers: Rise up. Take back the classroom from those who have stolen it. Go to board meetings, write letters, call school board members. Hold state and district administrators accountable for this education horror. Make the superintendent and the curriculum department personnel answer to you – specifically, out loud, and in public. And if they can't, if they won't ... call for their resignation or firing.

Meanwhile, please take the necessary steps to save the children. Supplement the math program, homeschool in mathematics, provide the children with tutors, or pull them out of the school system entirely. Do not let public-education administrators squander their futures. To those in Spokane: Please let me know if you plan to speak to the school board. I will do my best to be there, to support you and to cheer you on.


Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is: Rogers, L. (September 2010). "Pass rates on 2010 state math tests shocking." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

Grammar problems caused by "hyper-constructivism"

Guest column by Robert Archer, teacher
Shadle Park High School, Spokane, WA


What is a dangling participle? How about a future perfect progressive verb? What’s the difference between intensive pronouns and reflexive pronouns? How do you parse a sentence?

OK. So maybe those were a little too complex for anyone other than English-major uber-nerds. I get that. In fact, anyone who can answer those previous questions simply wants to show off his/her outstanding grammatical knowledge for all the world to witness and, consequently, to have that world bask in his/her pedantic glory. Let’s go a little easier. How about these?

What’s a noun? How about a verb? Can you tell the difference between a complete sentence, a fragment, and a run-on? Can you make sure your subject and verb agree?

Were those better? Was the latter set of questions more apropos for anyone with a high-school education to have as s/he enters the “real world” of being both a productive and an intelligible member of our modern society? Actually, more specifically, isn’t the latter set of questions completely suitable for any American middle schooler to answer correctly before even taking a step into the halls of the modern high school? To answer: Yes. Yes! And just for emphasis, YES!!!

However, in my 14 years of experience as a high school English teacher, such is absolutely not the case. In fact, I would argue that fewer than 10% of my 10th graders could answer each one of those latter questions correctly (and I believe I’m being generous). Simply put, students these days do not know basic grammatical skills and concepts.

Honestly, it’s gotten to the point that trying to make my way through the grammatical land mines that await me anytime I assign a writing assessment becomes so painstakingly tedious that even the solid content of any given essay becomes lost in the ghastly-writing-skills shrapnel. (And don’t even get me started on the spelling skills of this generation of non-phonics-learning texters! OMG!)

Let’s face it—when high school students cannot use their own language correctly, their overall communication skills—both in written and oral form—suffer tremendously. And if their communication skills are sub-par (and, again, I believe I’m being generous), then they are simply not ready to move on to the next level, whether that level is continuing in post-secondary education or becoming a part of our educated work force. Yet, we in education continue to do just that—pass them on to the next level, washing our hands of their complete language inadequacy.

So, where exactly may I point my flaming finger of blame when 15- and 16-year-olds do not know extremely rudimentary grammar skills as they enter my high school classroom? At first glance, it would seem both easy and logical to blame my middle-school peers (since they didn’t force the knowledge into the students’ brains) or even society at large (since we have allowed written communication to be reduced to little more than texting and emailing). However, the first victim of my intended scorn is unfair, and the second is too broad.

Rather, I tend to blame those involved in curriculum development because somewhere along the line, teaching grammar has become something that we teachers can simply “imbed” into the reading and writing curriculum. I guess grammar is just too “boring” and, therefore, will not “engage” our “modern-day students” into true learning.

I'm sorry, but in my experience, the term "imbedded" is nothing more than educationalese for "not ever specifically taught." Somehow, this grammar-is-imbedded movement is supposed to help students naturally take in what proper grammar is (i.e., grammar by osmosis). It's very much a hyper-constructivist approach to education; the students are supposed to "discover" proper grammar on their own as they read good pieces. Then, somehow and some way, they are to emulate these proper mechanical structures in their own writing. And if the students don't quite "take it all in," the teacher may take 2.5 minutes here and there to show them what a damn verb is.

Allow me a moment to let curriculum developers in on an English-teacher trade secret: It ain’t working! When I’m hoping for nothing more than 3-4 grammatically correct sentences being strung together at a time as the sign of a “good” paper, then my expectations have dropped far, far too low. Yet, sadly, this is exactly to what I’ve resigned myself.

I honestly believe that the English curriculum needs to return to its roots—teaching and drilling proper grammar at younger ages—for the sake of helping our students be better communicators. I don’t believe there could be any other answer.



Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.

Remedial rates: Spokane's big, dirty secret

By Laurie H. Rogers


What are the college remedial rates in mathematics? How many high school graduates have to take remedial classes in college BEFORE they can take college-level math classes? Our state education agency -- OSPI -- has previously estimated a 2% remedial rate at the University of Washington. Others have estimated anywhere from 30% to 90%, depending on which colleges they're talking about.

The problem with estimating remedial rates is that one must be specific about which students, which classes, which colleges, and which years. The numbers change, from year to year, they are higher for community colleges, and they are higher for public school students than for privately taught students.

As with any statistic, the numbers can be worked to say whatever we want them to say.

Public? Or private?: The remedial rates tend - almost without fail - to be higher for public school students than for privately educated or homeschooled students.

Mathematics? Or reading and writing?: Public schools teach reading and writing slightly better than they teach math. (This is not a "success," however. Schools still fail to teach sufficient grammar, spelling, and writing skills. Just ask any college English teacher, or any business owner who is looking for graduates who can write.)

Recent graduates (just got out of high school)? Or all graduates?: Remedial rates tend to be higher for people who have been out of high school for a few years. This seems obvious, however students don't have to be out for long to forget the little they were taught. That's because many weren't taught very well to begin with. (This is not - despite what you might have heard from district administrators - necessarily the teachers' fault. This has more to do with curriculum, methodology, and district policies.)

Community colleges? Or four -year colleges?: Remedial rates are much higher at community colleges than at four-year colleges. This is partly because many students begin their schooling at four-year colleges by picking up remedial classes at the community colleges.

College programs that cater to the technical fields? Or those that cater to the liberal arts: The remedial rates in mathematics tend to be higher at colleges that cater to the trades and technical fields.

Everyone? Or just students from specific high schools?: The numbers below are from six Spokane high schools, not from everyone who attended SCC and SFCC.

Everyone who tested? Or everyone who tested and enrolled in a remedial class?: The numbers below are for SPS graduates who tested at SCC and SFCC and then enrolled in a remedial math class.

Spokane's numbers are bad.

• It's true that the numbers below are just for SCC and SFCC. They don't include graduates who went to the four-year colleges or other colleges out of state.
• However, they also don't include students who dropped out in middle school or high school. Spokane currently has a 28.7% dropout rate, along with a serious dropout problem in middle school.
• Nor do the numbers below include students who tested into remedial math at SCC and SFCC but then declined to enroll.
• Nor do the numbers below include students who didn't drop out, who didn't have the math skills for college, but who decided to just not go to college.

Therefore, for students who graduated from a Spokane high school in 2008 and then enrolled at SCC or SFCC in 2008/2009 -- the number of students requiring remediation in mathematics (Source: Data extracted from May 27, 2010, tables provided by CCS Institutional Research):
Lewis & Clark High School:
SCC: 94.2%
SFCC: 71.8%

Joel E. Ferris High School:
SCC: 100%
SFCC: 69%

North Central High School:
SCC: 100%
SFCC: 91.8%

Shadle Park High School:
SCC: 100%
SFCC: 91.8%

John R. Rogers High School:
SCC: 95.8%
SFCC: 90.9%

Havermale:
SCC: 100%
SFCC: 87.5%

• All told, the overall remedial rate in mathematics from six Spokane high schools at SCC and SFCC is 87%.
• Most of these students tested into Elementary Algebra or below.
• Of the ones who took remedial math classes at SCC and SFCC in 2008/2009, almost 47% of them failed their remedial classes or withdrew early.

These numbers are damning of K-12 mathematics in Spokane Public Schools.
Spokane Public Schools could determine actual remedial rates by providing students with exit exams as they leave high school (based on college placement content). Of course, the administrators would have to want to know the remedial rates. They would have to want to engage in transparency, and to learn from their mistakes.

The Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) has not been good a indicator of college readiness because it was a 10th-grade test, it was based on low-level content, and to pass in 2009, students needed just 56.9%. (And yet, in Spokane in 2009, 57.7% of our 10th-grade students could not pass this low-level math test.)

In 2010, just 43% of Washington State students passed the new test, the HSPE. OSPI did tell everyone this -- 19 paragraphs down in its June 16, 2010, press release.

I have been told that students can deal with the weak math curricula in Spokane Public Schools by enrolling in Advanced Placement classes ... But the AP classes are being opened to everyone, including students who lack skills in arithmetic. Since Spokane Public Schools does not value arithmetic, going so far as to have actively and deliberately prevented teachers from teaching arithmetic -- this could be nearly every student.

This situation is unconscionable, destructive, and deceitful. The school board must get its act together and hold its superintendent and curriculum department accountable. Some firings are warranted -- one firing in particular.



Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:
Rogers, L. (June 2010). "Remedial rates: Spokane's big, dirty secret." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/