Vouchers have no clear positive impact on student achievement

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Voucher proponents have shifted their advocacy efforts from extolling the academic achievement of voucher participants to focusing on the value of school choice as a virtue in itself, according to a report from the Center on Education Policy, in Washington.

The education research and advocacy group reviewed and synthesized a selection of a decade’s worth of research and policy moves in vouchers and school choice for the report, released today. In it, the researchers note that studies generally have shown that vouchers have “no clear positive impact” on student academic achievement and mixed results overall. In response to those studies, the CEP suggests, voucher advocates have started talking more about other perceived benefits of vouchers, including more parental choice and satisfaction, and higher graduation rates.

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Keeping Informed about School Vouchers

The Truth About Teachers

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Via American Society Today

Myth: “Teachers are overpaid.”
FACT:

  • According to the report, "What's It Worth: The Economic Value of College Majors" from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce funded by the Gates and Lumina Foundations, Education majors earned the least for all college majors among 15 sector groupings.
  • According to a 2008 report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), American primary-school educators spend 1,913 hours working a year including hours teachers spend on work at home and outside of the classroom. Data from a Labor Department survey that same year showed that the average full-time employee in the United States worked 1,932 hours spread over 48 weeks. This statistic shows that teachers work about the same number of hours as the average worker in the United States. This statistic refutes the argument that teachers should be paid considerably less than other workers because "teachers only work 9 months of the year."

Source: http://cew.georgetown.edu/whatsitworth/
More Info: Teachers Work the Same Number of Hours as Average U.S. Worker
More Info: US Teachers Work Longer Hours Than Anywhere In The World, While Earning Less

Check out American Society Today for more Myths vs Facts, or follow them on Twitter.

Did Bill Gates Advocate privatizing public education?

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Did Bill gates tip his hand to his ultimate fantasy agenda of privatizing public education?

He praises the private school model for its efficiency vis-à-vis traditional public schools, noting that the "parochial school system, per dollar spent, is an excellent school system." But the politics, he says, are just too tough right now. "We haven't chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high."

Perhaps privatizing public education is too hard because of those darn "status quo" defenders he complains about.

Teachers unions can be counted on "to stick up for the status quo," he says, but he believes they can be nudged in the right direction.

We have an email into the Gates Foundation for clarification of their position on this issue.

To whom it may concern.

In a recent Wall St. Journal article, Mr. Gates was quoted as saying: He praises the private school model for its efficiency vis-à-vis traditional public schools, noting that the "parochial school system, per dollar spent, is an excellent school system." But the politics, he says, are just too tough right now. "We haven't chosen to get behind [vouchers] in a big way, as we have with personnel systems or charters, because the negativity about them is very, very high."

Given this statement, is it the belief of the Gates Foundation that Public Education would benefit from privatization if the politics were easier?

Thanks,

You can email and ask them too, at media@gatesfoundation.org

Education based on fictional movies

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We recently ran a 3 part series, taking a look at the Gates Foundations corrosive impact on public education, which you can read here:
Part I
Part II
Part III
The Wall Street Journal had an interview with Bill Gates over the weekend, confirming many of the facts we brought to your attention

One of the foundation's main initial interests was schools with fewer students. In 2004 it announced that it would spend $100 million to open 20 small high schools in San Diego, Denver, New York City and elsewhere. Such schools, says Mr. Gates, were designed to—and did—promote less acting up in the classroom, better attendance and closer interaction with adults.

"But the overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn't move the needle much," he says.

What follows in this article is deeply disturbing. Mr. Gates, seemingly from watching some fictional movies about teaching, now believes he should experiment with teachers careers and students learnging

"I watched the movies. I saw 'To Sir, With Love,'" he chuckles, recounting the 1967 classic in which Sidney Poitier plays an idealistic teacher who wins over students at a roughhouse London school. "But they didn't really explain what he was doing right. I can't create a personnel system where I say, 'Go watch this movie and be like him.'"

The article goes on to discuss his various classroom experiements, and denigrates teachers associations as standing for "the status quo" - which apperently means opposing Bill Gates movie based reforms. Most corporate eduction reformers come to the table with the same resume. Little or no education experience or expertise, a business background, an unwillingness to listen to anyone else, and to attack experts in the field as supporting the status quo. Bill Gates is no different, but what is different is his ability to wield hundreds of millions of dollars to get his way.

It's a pity Gates didn't get inspired by "Armageddon" or some other Sci-Fi movie, becuase then, instead of wrecking public education, he could be spending his money helping to build a replacement for the now retired Space Shuttle.

Repealing SB5 isn't partisan, it's personal

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Yesterday, over 600 labor leaders packed the pipefitters union hall on Kinnear Road in Columbus to discuss the next phase of the repeal effort. What is becoming clearer and clearer with each passing moment is the shear scale of the opposition to SB5. It was a mid July day with temperatures soaring over 100 degrees, yet people had come together in their hundreds for a closed to the press event, whose nature might usually attract only 30.

It's not just the numbers that should cause supporters of SB5 to take stock, but the breadth of opposition. The gathering represented over 2 million members, from public and private sector unions. While much focus has been placed on the direct assault on teachers, police and fire, private sector allies have stepped up and into the fray too, to lend their considerable support.

Everyone recognizing SB5 for what it is, a direct and indirect assault on working men and women in Ohio.

As if to punctuate this huge gathering, it happened, by coincidence, on the same the day that Secretary of State John Husted certified that voters would guaranteed the opportunity to repeal SB5 in November on the back of a record breaking signature collection effort

Secretary of State Jon Husted certified a state-record 915,456 valid signatures collected by a coalition seeking to repeal the Republican-backed law that weakens collective bargaining for public employees. Only 231,147 were needed to place a referendum on the ballot.

On June 29, We Are Ohio, the coalition opposed to Senate Bill 5, delivered nearly 1.3 million signatures to Husted's office for validation -- smashing the previous state record. Those signatures were shipped to their respective county boards of election for initial validation, and Husted was responsible for final certification.

In addition to cruising past the threshold for total number of valid signatures, We Are Ohio also collected signatures equal to 3 percent of the total vote cast in last year's gubernatorial election in all 88 counties -- which campaign spokesman Melissa Fazekas said was also a first in Ohio history.

The effort isn't massive because it's partisan, we see that all the time, it's massive because for millions of workers from across the political spectrum, it is personal.