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Newswire - July 12, 2005
July 12,2005
Vol. 7, No. 27 THE UNION ONE BIG HAPPY UNION. Over the last two weeks teacher unions hit both coasts, with the NEA convening in Los Angeles and the AFT in Washington, DC. Among hundreds of pieces of business, NEA delegates approved a merger between New York’s local AFT affiliate (NY State United Teachers) and NEA New York, which will go into effect when a new constitution and bylaws are drafted in 2006. As if the kids in New York didn’t have enough to worry about, the NEA approved a policy that charter schools should not be permitted in districts “under state receivership,” when that’s precisely the kind of district that needs them the most. AFT President Edward J. McElroy almost sounded like a reformer with these comments at Thursday’s keynote address: The AFT will, “never back away from high standards and accountability,” touching on the need for improving teacher salaries and looking at new teacher compensation proposals that are gaining steam in statehouses across the country – proposals that sound a lot like pay for performance programs. But there was no endorsement of such programs that make skills and performance the basis for pay. The sugar screen continued through a session with Secretary Spellings on Friday, but got less than cordial when Spellings didn’t back down on the great need and value of the AYP scale, telling the audience “we need to dial down some of the anxiety" on AYP. Click here for CER’s complete toolkit for covering the union conventions, from the AFT response to various education reforms, to national education statistics, to innovations and successes in reform. CER left no stone unturned. For complete play-by-play coverage of the recent conventions, log onto The Education Intelligence Agency at www.eiaonline.com. CHARTER SCHOOLS FROM $1 TO NO DOLLARS. Franklin Career Academy, New Hampshire’s first charter school, will not reopen this year, no thanks to a ruling last week by the Franklin City Council. According to the New Hampshire Center for School Reform, council members “just plain refused” to fund the public charter school even though the state board gave its legal go-ahead earlier this year. According to New Hampshire charter law – currently the country’s 19th weakest – public charter schools should receive 80 percent of the district allocation … but school districts can apparently ignore the law. Back in May the school board voted to reduce funds for Franklin Career Academy from $82,000 to $1! Franklin Academy Board members tried to challenge this move, but officials continued to question the school’s “viability” and denied it funding. Despite great test scores, the school officially closed today, a travesty for kids, families and the town. What’s next? The state board has referred this matter to New Hampshire’s Attorney General. Link here for the latest. For more information on the developments in Franklin, go to www.nhschoolreform.org. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. In 2000 voters in California were fed up with the unequal treatment of public charter school kids compared to those in conventional public schools. So they took their voice to the polls and passed Proposition 39, legislation that requires districts to share available facilities with charter schools. Fast-forward to this Fall, where 223 students at the Ridgecrest Charter School will finally have the building they’ve needed for years. In 2002 the charter school asked the district for additional classroom space under Proposition 39 and after years of legal battles, draining precious time and money, an appeals court decided last week that enough is enough and the Kern County School district must provide adequate facilities. The court reaffirmed the fact that charter school kids are public school kids and are legally entitled to the same funding and treatment as their peers. Newswire has been following Proposition 39 since its inception in 2002. Click here for more. For more details about the charter movement in California, go to www.charterassociation.org. THE GODFATHER. As Ted Kolderie, Senior Associate with the Center for Policy Studies, points out in his tribute to Ray Budde, it’s not easy to be featured in The New York Times; you have to be innovative, unique and newsworthy. You have to be exceptional. Ray Budde was just that when in the 1980’s he proposed changing school districts from "a four-level line and staff organization" to "a two-level form in which groups of teachers would receive educational charters directly from the school board" and would carry the responsibility for instruction. Budde coined them “charter schools” and the Times picked that up. With this brilliant idea he helped start the charter revolution – a movement that is having one of the biggest impacts on public education in this country. Ray Budde passed away last month, but his brainchild lives on with almost 1 million charter school kids nationwide. The New York Times recently featured him again, this time posthumously in an obituary. In 2001, Ray Budde attended a conference hosted by CER. He graciously stated in a letter to CER that he “thoroughly enjoyed listening to charter principals talking about all the challenges they face.” Their passion and ideas gave him “further proof of the need for somehow combating the deep, fundamental, underlying...cultural structure of American public education.” He will be missed. Click here to read Kolderie's tribute, Ray Budde and the Origins of the 'Charter Concept'. SCHOOL CHOICE CHOICE INFECTION. The votes are in. Officials from the Durham, NC Public School system surveyed almost 3,000 Durham parents and the results are clear: parents want more choices in their child’s education. The “choice schools” survey released last week reveals that parents are asking for more schools focusing on math, science and technology, more year-round school options and high schools that provide a more personalized learning environment. School officials plan to use the input from the survey to help create a new plan for school choice options across the district. "Choice and reform are two key words in education right now," said Chris Bennett, the school system's executive director for choice programs. Like other school districts nationwide, this isn’t the first time district officials took notice of increasingly vocal parents and decided to “poll” them about their interests. It’s about time. And it’s a clear indication that choice is impacting districts to behave in ways they never would have before. In Durham, few choices exist among charter schools, but with the current cap having been reached at 100, legislators will have to move to raise the cap to help savvy district officials give the people what they want. STANDARDS AND ACCOUNTABILITY DON’T CALL US, WE’LL CALL YOU. Yesterday, The Washington Post published the findings of a recent and disturbing poll. According to the results compiled by Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a national human resources consulting firm, 44 percent of HR executives did not meet their hiring goals in the first half of 2005 because of a lack of qualified candidates. This country’s workforce is slowly becoming “un-employable” and CEO’s, hiring execs and national thought leaders are becoming more vocal about this issue. Intel CEO Craig Barrett stated earlier this year that "the biggest ticking time bomb in the U.S. is the sorry state of our K-12 education system. It's the educational quality of our workforce that will determine our competitiveness." And Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winner and best-selling author, argues the same, scary point in his best seller The World Is Flat. Fed up with a poorly educated workforce, some are putting their money where their mouths are. Trailblazers like Microsoft's Bill Gates and the late John Walton of Wal-Mart have already made a difference by establishing programs and foundations designed to keep America's competitive edge and give kids in this country a better chance at success in life.
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