________________________________________  THE VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT October 24, 2005 - Vol. 5, No. 41 ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯  Covering education news in Vermont and beyond... Informative, provocative, unique... Published by Vermonters for Better Education  VBE is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization whose mission is to enlist parents and the public at large in achieving quality educational opportunities for all the children of Vermont by monitoring the state of education in Vermont; promoting the value of educational freedoms for all parents; and giving parents the evaluative tools with which to identify excellence. Libby Sternberg, executive director: VTBetterEd@aol.com NEWS & ANALYSIS... BEST OF THE NOT-SO-GOOD National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test results were released last week for mathematics and reading assessments in fourth and eighth grades, and once again, Vermont scored well compared to other states at the same time that large majorities of students were found less than "proficient" in both areas.  According to the NAEP 2005, which uses a sample of students in each state to determine overall scores, Vermont students fared as follows:  FOURTH GRADE MATHEMATICS: Proficient or above: 44 percent  EIGHTH GRADE MATHEMATICS Proficient or above: 38 percent  FOURTH GRADE READING Proficient or above: 39 percent  EIGHTH GRADE READING Proficient or above: 37 percent  Even with approximately 60 percent or more of its students not proficient in these areas, Vermont still ranked in the top five states in the nation in reading and math. This fact was noted in the Vermont Department of Education's October 19 press release on the NAEP and state test results, but the actual NAEP proficiency percentages were not included in the release. A link to the NAEP web site was included where media could find the real numbers and not just the rankings. STATE TESTS' STORY While the VDOE didn't list the percentages of students "proficient" or above on the NAEP tests, it did release information on Vermont's own New Standards Reference Exam (NSRE) results. According to those tests, 83 percent of Vermont's second-graders "met or exceeded" statewide reading standards, an increase from 78 percent in 2001.  NSRE results for tenth-graders show 47 percent of students "meeting or exceeding" the math problem solving standards, an increase from 40 percent several years ago.  Only 42 percent of Vermont tenth-grade students met or exceeded the standards in "writing effectiveness," which is down from 50 percent in 2004.  Gaps persist between low-income students and other students, with the former group having smaller percentages of students meeting or achieving the standards in several areas.  Girls outperformed boys, however, on all categories of the NSRE.  DID MEDIA COVERAGE OF SCORES MEET OR EXCEED EXPECTATIONS? After lackluster or no coverage of many important education issues this past year, several Vermont media outlets did an excellent job covering the release of NAEP and NSRE test scores. Most notable was Vermont Press Bureau's Darren Allen, whose story on the tests was an above the fold article in the Rutland Herald. Allen not only reported the actual NAEP percentages, instead of just the state rankings, he stated an obvious fact that is often left unsaid: "...the tests mean that Vermont's education system still fails to adequately meet the needs of all of its nearly 100,000 public school students." The Burlington Free Press' Molly Walsh also did a thoughtful article with an opening paragraph that smartly and sassily sums up the test results: "Welcome to Vermont, where all the children are above average," she wrote, a reference to public radio personality Garrison Keillor's fictional Lake Woebegone community where "all the children are above average." The Free Press article included a handy sidebar on the front page with the actual percentages of students scoring proficient on the NAEP in Vermont compared to those in the other "top" states. Thus, readers could immediately see that the best states in the nation still fail to help 60-some percent of their students achieve proficiency standards in math and reading.  Both the Rutland Herald and the Burlington Free Press headlined their stories with the good news -- that Vermont students "tested well" or scored well "nationwide," a rare example of headline writers going for the sunshine in a story filled with troubling clouds.  WCAX-TV, unfortunately, didn't probe beyond the press release. Their coverage began with an intro that touted the NAEP rankings -- how well Vermont scores compared to other states -- leaving out the actual percentages of students failing to meet proficiency standards on those tests. Viewers were left with the impression that Vermont students were doing exceptionally well nationwide. The rest of the story focused on the NSRE results.  Vermont Public Radio, meanwhile, had little or nothing on the tests, if their web-posted news scripts are any guide. However, it's possible a story aired and wasn't posted.  BURLINGTON FREE PRESS FAILS TO IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDER LETTER WRITERS As the Colchester teacher strike continued, those on both sides of the battle took to writing letters to the editor. The Burlington Free Press, which is the largest paper in the region, printed many of them. But the paper failed to identify letter-writers who had a stake in the battle. One source familiar with the players has identified most of the pro-strike letter-writers as teachers (VT-NEA members) or others involved with the schools. The latest was Tim Wile's letter in Sunday's paper. He's a counselor at South Burlington High School -- yet not identified as such in the paper. Last week, long-time president of the South Burlington teachers union chapter had a letter published -- again with no identification indicating her connection to teachers union causes. And other letters have been written by a science teacher at Essex Junction high school, two teachers at Colchester Middle School, and a retired Colchester teacher. Again, none of these pro-teacher letter-writers had their connections to the teaching profession identified. This is shoddy work on the part of the Free Press. Major newspapers check for any connections to the subject the letter-writer is addressing Because of the Free Press's lax attitude, its readers are left to think that a bunch of ordinary citizens with no stake -- ideological or otherwise -- in the teachers' strike have been voicing their support of the teachers on strike. In reality, one regular reader of the Free Press tells VER he has identified only one non-stakeholder letter in support of the strike. The others have been written by teachers, former teachers and the like, without those identifiers revealed to the readers.  MORE ON WESTFORD LOSING SCHOOL CHOICE Last week the VER reported that Westford might lose its tuition town status as it considers a joint-governance structure with Essex Junction and Essex Town. This consolidation effort holds some important lessons for other towns considering similar moves. In short, it will mean the end of a 130-year-old tradition of school choice for Westford, based on a perverse definition of "equity."  According to a "Unified Union Study Update" from the committee looking into the joint-governance issue, "it was clear that for education in a unified union to be EQUITABLE (emphasis added) for all students, high school choice in a narrower form, would have to be available to all students within the unified union."  In other words, instead of expanding choices to students in Essex Junction and Essex Town to make the situation more "equitable," the committee is looking into ways to restrict choices in Westford to a specific, small list of public schools only. Currently, Westford students, like all tuition town students, can choose among private and public schools.  This discussion of restricting Westford students' choices in the name of equality, by the way, came after a meeting with Commissioner of Education Richard Cate and the VDOE's legal counsel, William Reedy.  The notion that equity is achieved in a group by taking away rights already enjoyed by a portion of that group is preposterous. It turns the notion of "equity" on its head. After all, currently both rich and poor Westford students have access to either public or private schools. Under the study committee's notion of "equity," poor students eventually would lose that opportunity while students from higher-income families would always have access to private schools because their parents could afford tuition. To use an overused word, that concept of equity is simply "Orwellian."  Vermont statutes already allow local school boards to "tuition" students to private schools even when a public school exists in a district. There is no compelling reason -- other than outright opposition to private schooling -- that precludes Essex Junction and Essex Town from joining Westford in tuitioning students to private, as well as public schools.  In Westford, public education is defined the way it should be defined everywhere -- the public's responsibility to support the education of all its children. Obviously, the folks on the study committee believe in a narrower, less "equitable" definition -- public education only involves the kids who want to come to the schools they control. To heck with the needs of the rest.  SPEAKING OF TUITION TOWNS While the "Unified Union Study Committee" in Westford, Essex Junction and Essex Town looks for ways to dismantle the 130-year-old tuition town benefit enjoyed by Westford students, the Milton and Rose Friedman Foundation is releasing a report praising Vermont's tuition town system as "one of the easiest programs in the nation for parents to access and use."  The report, entitled "Using School Choice: Analyzing How Parents Access Educational Freedom," evaluates choice programs across the country and assesses how difficult it is for parents to actually make choices under these programs. The Friedman Foundation ranked Vermont's tuition town system as "excellent" because it places no special burden on parents who choose private schools for their children.  The report, available online, is a good road map to how other states have dealt with school choice programs.  *   *   * COMMENTARY... STILL FAILING TO MEET THE NEEDS OF ITS STUDENTS by Libby Sternberg  The test results released last week by the Vermont Department of Education should have Vermont taxpayers hopping mad.  After spending nearly a billion dollars on education (around $10,000 per student as a rough estimate), Vermont schools still fail to ensure that large percentages of students are "proficient" in basic skills. This, despite the fact that Vermont is not afflicted by some of the more "malignant" problems that beset other school systems around the country -- generational poverty, racial tension, gang issues, violent drug problems, and high crime in general.  In other words, Vermont doesn't have the usual list of "excuses" available to school districts in some areas of the country where larger percentages of students fail to achieve proficiency standards.  Years ago, I attended a conference sponsored by the "No Excuses" program, a project that highlights accomplishments of high-poverty, high-performing schools around the country. Speaker after speaker -- principals and other school leaders -- talked of how they solved problems by looking for real solutions instead of placing blame. As one teacher-turned-charter-school founder put it, "I stopped pointing fingers at everyone else and pointed them at myself." His failing kids were his responsibility -- not drugs, not bad parents, not crime's. He was the teacher. He needed to find ways to teach so they'd learn.  To his credit, here in Vermont Commissioner of Education Richard Cate acknowledged that "we must work even harder to meet the needs of disadvantaged students" when the test scores were released. But this statement was preceded by a pat on the back, celebrating the fact that Vermont students are "scoring well above their peers regionally and nationally."  Well, yes, they are. But when your peers aren't doing so well, outpacing them by a few points is hardly an occasion for breaking out the bubbly.  If anything, it's an occasion for some deep self-examination, and some hard questions. Questions such as: Why do Vermont second-graders do so well in reading tests and yet by tenth grade reading assessment results drop precipitously? Why are boys lagging behind girls in every statewide test? What teaching methods and curricula are working in the best in Vermont schools and how do we purge the system of what doesn't work?  The list goes on. But perhaps the overall question should be: why can't we get it right when we devote so many resources to it?  Year after year, students enter Vermont schools filled with promise, whatever their background or environment. A good education can undo a bad home life and even imperfect parenting. Over and over again throughout history this has been demonstrated. From the time when public schools first came into being they have taken children whose parents didn't speak English, whose homes were afflicted by troubles too sad to imagine, whose days were divided between work and school, and they have helped these children become productive citizens -- through Depression, through war, through periods of social unrest. Why, in this age of technology and prosperity, can't we do at least as well?  Unfortunately, the pattern of affixing blame outside the schools themselves continues. The latest of these finger-pointing exercises is the call for universal, publicly-funded preschool. This initiative is based on the premise that the reason we're failing to meet the needs of so many students is because we simply don't get them into school early enough. The Commissioner of Education, in fact, went so far as to say in a conference last March that without universal pre-K, we simply can't close the achievement gap between rich and poor.  No one would question that helping children in need become ready to learn is a good thing. But is universal preschool going to flip the percentages on our test results to majorities of students scoring in the proficient zone? Or is it more likely to create an expensive new program with no significant change in test results years later, diverting attention, in fact, from other areas in the schools themselves that need fixing?  We have a problem when so many students can't meet basic subject proficiency standards on a national test. Solving that problem, however, means first acknowledging its source. When test scores are released showing large majorities of students failing, what a breath of fresh air it would be to hear school leaders say: This is abominable. It's our fault and nobody else's.  *   *   * WHO COVERS EDUCATION IN VERMONT? We do! Consider a gift to Vermonters for Better Education, the publisher of the weekly Vermont Education Report, Vermont's ONLY continual source of education news. Send donations to: VBE, 170 Church Street, Rutland, Vermont 05701. VBE is a nonprofit organization and contributions are tax-deductible.  *   *   * The VERMONT EDUCATION REPORT is published by Vermonters for Better Education 170 Church Street, Rutland, VT 05701, 802.773.5240 Contact VTBetterEd@aol.com for more information.   Subscribe Here SubscribeRemove

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