|
(click on ads for more
details)
|
|
July 31,
'01
Vol. 1, No. 25
==================================
T H E S C H O O L L I B E R A T
OR
==================================
* Stealth Vouchers * Homeschoolers' Chains *
* White House Reading * Preserve for the
Incorrigibly Incompetent *
--> Hillsdale College held a seminar in May on "Education in
America: Schools and Strategies that Work." Must have been a short
program.
--> Lawrence W. Reed, president of the Mackinac Center for Public
Policy in Midland, Michigan, http://www.mackinac.org
gave a speech at this seminar entitled "New Direction for Education
Reform" that Hillsdale's Imprimis reprinted.
Mr. Reed lays out the arguments against vouchers but then goes on to
endorse stealth vouchers, a.k.a. tax credits.
--> Although he had the courage to mention drawbacks to tax credits,
Mr. Reed gives short shrift to them. When
the extraneous is peeled away from his arguments, we are left with this:
"But taking a broader perspective, tax
credits are the best mechanism we're likely to be able to get for letting
people exercise choice in the use of their
education dollars while restraining government intrusion."
--> Utilitarianism? Libertarian lite? Perfect is the enemy of the good?
As true reformers, we cannot allow ourselves to be lured by this Siren's
song of mediocrity. We must stick
with our principles and demand more than the best we are likely to get. We
must talk about abolishing government
intrusion, not merely restraining it. Nothing less than educational
freedom will do.
--> What would have been freedom's fate had Patrick Henry said, "I
know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me the amount of
liberty I'm most likely to get or give me death"?
--> More on why tax credits are not THE answer below.
--> The Chains We Forge Ourselves Department. Homeschoolers have to be
the most cognitively dissonant bunch there is. As a group, they demand
that government regulation of homeschooling be eliminated, while at the
same time they beg for government
handouts. And the worst offender of the bunch is the self-appointed
national spokesmen for homeschoolers, the Home School Legal Defense
Association (HSLDA).
--> HSLDA's latest bit of slight of hand involves an alert sent out
last week. It begins: "We have an incredible opportunity to end
federal control over homeschoolers." There's just one little
fact missing from this statement: there is no federal control of
homeschoolers. Never has been. Although, HSLDA's
lobbying will bring it on. More on this in future editions.
--> EduAbsurdity. "No child left behind" wasn't good enough
for W. He's now going to solve America's illiteracy problem.
"White House plan to teach children to read."
http://www.csmonitor.com/durable/200
1/07/30/fp2s1-csm.shtml
--> From the article: "Now the Bush administration wants to
make early childhood reading a national priority--but with a twist. It
wants to promote only programs that are 'proven' to be effective with
scientific results. While lauding the new emphasis on accountability,
critics worry about a lack
of funding, a lack of teachers--and what the definition of 'proven' might
turn out to be."
--> I've got two proven programs they should use, with free teachers
and all kinds of accountability--delayed academics and homeschooling. If
these don't make the White House list, maybe W. would consent to visiting
Johnny for a read aloud. Do you think he'll point to the words?
================ ANNOUNCEMENTS =================
--> We are approaching our deadline but we haven't yet reached our goal
$8,500 for our webpage upgrade. Only one day left. We still need two $500
gifts, and a whole bunch of gifts from $25 to $250.
Larger donations are, of course, still welcome. Please make your
commitment of support by TODAY so that we can secure Geoff Braun's
services for the rest of the work.
Email Morgen with your pledge mailto:Morgen@psnw.com
or call 559/292-1776.
Take a look at our new homepage http://www.sepschool.org
and show us how much you like it with your donation. As always, we thank
you for your generous support.
--> SepCon2001 is set for Nov. 16-18 in Arlington VA, the weekend
before Thanksgiving, at the Hilton DoubleTree
Hotel in Arlington VA. We have a SepCon2001 page listing the speakers and
topics. Registration information, too. Go to
http://www.sepschool.org/sepcon.html
Mark your calendar now.
======== SPECIAL OFFER =========
Marshall Fritz lays out the case against tax credits in this recorded
debate, "Private Scholarship Tax Credits
Are a Good Step toward Separation of School and State." Get this 60
minute audiotape as a School Liberator
special--$1 plus $3.50 shipping--a full $7 discount. Call Morgen at
559/292-1776 to order.
==================================
Hammer the Hammer: Public-school teaching as a preserve for the
incorrigibly incompetent is safe for the time being.
By Peter Wood, Associate Provost at Boston University
Colleges and universities in the United States by and large do a shoddy
job of preparing students to become teachers in the nation's public
schools. The public-school teachers return the favor by doing a shoddy job
of preparing their students for college.
Most Americans have gotten used to these little defects. Educational
mediocrity is the worn-out couch in the nation's living room - the
upholstery is stained and the stuffing may be coming out, but it is still
a familiar and comfortable place to sit. Every once and a while, however,
we get an urge to renovate.
Congress apparently felt that urge when it passed the Higher Education
Amendments of 1998. Among the provisions of the HEA was one (Section 207f)
that mandated state "report
cards" for schools of education. The idea was to require states to
publish the number and percentages of students
in each teacher-preparation program who pass that state's
teacher-licensure examination. In theory, with this information, the
public would be able to identify those schools of education that graduate
the least adept would-be
teachers.
The first application of the rule, in 1998, worked exactly as intended.
Numerous schools of education across the country were forced to divulge
unpleasant facts: that, after two or more years of study to become
teachers, only 60 percent (or 50 percent, or 40) of their students could
pass the fairly simple examinations for state licensure. The data were
alarming, and the colleges with the lowest percentages of passing students
faced a crisis. The shoddiness of their teacher-education programs was,
for once, on full display. For a brief moment the educational
establishment had to reckon with the serious
possibility of raising its standards.
No, just kidding. If there is anything at which schools of education
excel, surely it is finding misleading and self-serving ways to count
things. Congress had simply presented a worthy challenge. The solution?
Consider this a test. Can you think like an educationist? While
I tell you about Fitchburg, Massachusetts, home of Fitchburg State
College, see if you can figure out how
to subvert the intent of school-of-education-report-card law.
Fitchburg is an old mill town about 50 miles west of Boston. It is named
after John Fitch, who, along with his family, was carried off by the
Indians in 1748 but who escaped the next year. The town, which once made
paper, shoes, axle grease, and chairs, perhaps reached its high-water mark
in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, when a Norwegian immigrant,
Iver Johnson,
founded his "Arms and Cycle" works that combined handgun and
bicycle manufacturing. In 1908, Iver Johnson's
company began producing Hammer the Hammer" safety hammer
revolvers. But all this is long gone. Fitchburg today is another
struggling former mill town, home to Alpha Rho, "New England's
largest plastic box manufacturer"--
and to Fitchburg State College.
Fitchburg State College produced one of the classes that scored near the
bottom on the 1998 Massachusetts Teacher's
Certification Examination. Only 25 percent of the 80 Fitchburg State
College students who took the exam passed it. But, with a little help from
the Massachusetts Department of Education, teacher training at Fitchburg
is looking up? How?
Time's up. You win if you calculated that the best way to raise a school
of education's teacher-certification
passage rate is to redefine the category of "student." Fitchburg
State College and many other teachers colleges
decided that students who come to the college to take courses in education
will be admitted to the college but
not officially to the education program until after they pass the state
licensure examination. Logically, this will mean that 100 percent of
Fitchburg's supposed cohort of aspiring teachers will pass the test.
Ex post facto enrollment is an ingenious device with lots of other
potential applications. Only individuals
who have been awarded patents will be ex post facto recognized as
engineering students. Only students admitted to medical school will be ex
post facto recognized as pre-med. Only players with NBA contracts will be
ex post facto recognized as members of the college basketball squad.
Something of the escaping spirit of John Fitch must linger in the schist
hills of Fitchburg, or something of old Iver Johnson's fascination with
revolving parts. In any case, rather than close a self-evidently derelict
program or perchance salvage it with top-to-bottom
reforms, Fitchburg simply revolved the students temporarily out of the
program and back again after they had passed the examination. And the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts said: OK, works for us.
But doesn't this mean that Fitchburg's worst would-be teachers, denied
licensure, will not be joining the ranks - the unionized, virtually
unfireable ranks-- of America's public-school teachers? No, many of them
will take the test several times and eventually pass it. The national
teacher shortage will ensure that most of them eventually end up in the
classroom. Public-school teaching as a preserve for the incorrigibly
incompetent is safe for the time being. Fitchburg and colleges like it can
continue to enroll education
students who are ill-suited to the profession. Teacher training can
continue along its desultory path of
intellectual inconsequence. And the rest of us can settle in our
comfortable old couch and not wonder about the quality of preparation for
the Fitchburg
students who did manage to pass the test.
Whatever Fitchburg's faults, I should perhaps add that, on that 1998
report card, it bested one of the other Massachusetts teachers colleges
(Springfield-- 22.2 percent passed) and better than doubled Laselle
College's score (nine students took it; one passed). And I pick on
Massachusetts colleges only because the numbers are at hand. The same
circus can be found in other states.
Clearly Congress's effort to force the teacher-diploma mills into the open
didn't anticipate this kind of brazen nonfeasance. No one will seriously
believe that a Fitchburg State College or Bridgewater State University has
suddenly leapt past Harvard College
or Boston University in the quality of its programs. But no matter. The
real point is just to nullify the reform by making the numbers seem
meaningless.
Nor does the mischief stop with the colleges and their friends in the
state bureaucracies. Recently one of the major associations of colleges
and
universities, the American Council on Education (ACE), called the HEA-mandated
report cards for
schools of education "far more difficult, complex, and costly to
implement than anticipated," and it urged a series of steps that
would bury the data in a sea of obfuscation. ACE would have no institution
"unfairly categorized" merely because a large percentage of its
candidates for teaching degrees fail the test for state licensure. In
short, ACE
is a Friend of Fudge.
President Bush is pushing ahead with education reform, but he must deal
with that coelenterate life form, Congress, as well as an educational
establishment that is out-and-out determined to
prevent substantive change. Colleges like Fitchburg State, compliant state
bureaucracies, embarrassed politicians with third-tier institutions in
their
districts, and national associations such ACE, are poised to hammer into
meaningless fragments any serious
efforts to improve teacher education. The road to our educational Gehenna
is paved with pulverized proposals
for reform. -- July 24, 2001
http://www.nationalreview.com/comm
ent/comment-wood072401.shtml
This editorial is included for educational purposes.
The Alliance does not necessarily endorse Mr. Wood's views.
==================================
SIGN THE PROCLAMATION or get a family member to:
"I proclaim publicly that I favor ending government involvement in
education."
http://www.sepschool.org/Proclamation
WANT TO SOUND OFF? Discuss education issues with fellow articulate School
Liberators. Go to
http://www.sepschool.org/Other/eGroup
sDiscussion.htm
COMMENTS OR QUESTIONS? Send us your message at
mailto:ccuthbert@fix.net
WORD OF MOUTH is the most efficient means of marketing
the Separator philosophy. Please forward this newsletter to your family,
friends and associates.
==================================
FINAL THOUGHT
"It's well past time for liberalism to be declared a religion and
banned from public schools. Allowing Christians to be one of many
after-school groups
induces hysteria not just because liberals hate religion. It's because the
public school is their temple. Children must be taught to love Big
Brother,
welcoming him to take over our schools, our bank accounts, our property,
even our toilet bowls."
--Ann Coulter from "Disestablish the Cult of Liberalism."
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/ann
coulter/ac20010615.shtml
==================================
THE SCHOOL LIBERATOR is a FREE service of The Alliance for the Separation
of School & State, 4578 N First #310, Fresno CA 93726 (559) 292-1776.
We are a non-profit,
grass roots educational organization dedicated to informing people
worldwide how education can be improved for all-not only the poor-by
liberating schools from politics. For more information go to
http://www.sepschool.org
Publisher: Marshall Fritz
Editor: Cathy Cuthbert
Copyright 2001, The Alliance for the Separation of School & State,
Inc. All rights reserved.
TO SUBSCRIBE to The School Liberator send an email message to
mailto:SchoolLiberator-list-request@fr
ee-market.net
with just one word, "subscribe," in the BODY of the message
(not the subject.)
TO UNSUBSCRIBE do the same but with the single word,
"unsubscribe" in the body.
|
