March 17, 2010
Some Mainers just lost school choice
— In an April 18 column in the Press Herald (''Consolidated schools good for kids''), William Shuttleworth, superintendent of the new Regional School Unit in Bath, RSU 1, was full of praise for district consolidation.
His new RSU, he predicted, will save taxpayers money while improving student achievement and will provide ''unbridled opportunities'' for its students.
Shuttleworth neglected to mention that the RSU 1 merger took away a number of opportunities as well, by eliminating school choice options for hundreds of families.
Until the creation of RSU 1, students in Arrowsic, Phippsburg, West Bath, and Woolwich were allowed to attend whichever high school, public or private, best met their needs.
Education Department data from 2004 reveals that while the majority of those students attended the public high school in Bath, fully a quarter of the high school students in the four towns chose to go elsewhere.
Some attended other nearby public schools in Brunswick or Wiscasset, while others chose to attend area private schools, such as Lincoln Academy, North Yarmouth Academy, the Hyde School and Waynflete.
Those days are over, however.
Henceforth, all high school students in the four towns will be forced to attend the high school in Bath, whether they wish to or not. Families of means, of course, may decide to send their children to area private schools and pay the tuition themselves, but less-fortunate families will no longer have any choice of high school at all.
The architects of the merger plan used a two-pronged approach to eliminate school choice, a strategy that is likely to be employed by opponents of choice elsewhere as school district consolidation efforts move forward across the state.
First, it was suggested that school choice caused ''inefficiencies.'' A November 2006 report by the area's consolidation committee claimed that ''both teachers and facilities should be more efficiently employed by requiring all regional students to attend regional schools.''
In other words, too many students who were given a choice were not choosing the high school in Bath, resulting in underutilized educational resources there.
This problem could have been solved, of course, by improving the educational product available at the high school and winning back those students who made other choices. The consolidating committee chose instead to take the simpler route, eliminating the competition by abolishing school choice.
Second, understanding that many area families valued the right to choose, the architects of the merger cleverly included a ''grandfathering'' provision, which allows students currently attending schools outside the proposed new district to continue to do so, along with their siblings. This had the intended effect of silencing choice-supporting parents, making approval that much easier.
The merger plan also gives families the right to choose from among the handful of elementary schools in the new district, which allows merger supporters to claim, as Shuttleworth did in his column, that ''kids get to make school choices.''
With regard to high school, however, the choice is simple -- there is but one.
The swiftness with which a long-held tradition of high school choice was eliminated in the Bath area should cause enormous concern to those families across the state currently enjoying the freedom and opportunity of school choice.
As school districts look to comply with the state's consolidation law, choice has come under ever-increasing attack.
Maine has one of the nation's oldest and most well-established school-choice programs, the envy of parents across the nation wishing for similar opportunities.
Here in Maine, though, consolidation has put school choice in great danger.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Cost of reform math program to rise more than 40% in 2012-13
Pelhem, NY parents fight to remove reform math program.
No Wonder Johnny (Still) Can’t Read
Schools of education focus on fads, not knowledge and skills. I know that from experience.
By Larry Sand
By Larry Sand
Sunday, January 1, 2012
The Math Debate: When Johnny Can't Count
The Math Debate: When Johnny Can't Count
A new survey shows three out of four high school graduates aren't ready for college even though they've taken the recommended classes. The problem for many students is math.
A new survey shows three out of four high school graduates aren't ready for college even though they've taken the recommended classes. The problem for many students is math.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
How the feds are tracking your kid
How the feds are tracking your kid
By EMMETT MCGROARTY & JANE ROBBINS
Last Updated: 11:01 PM, December 27, 2011
Posted: 11:01 PM, December 27, 2011
Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter'€™s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son's academic performance to see if he should be €œencouraged†to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent?
Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality. The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will suffer.
How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids. To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems according to federally dictated standards. So all 50 states either now maintain or are capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.
The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.
The department’s eagerness to get control of all this information is almost palpable. But current federal law prohibits a nationwide student database and strictly limits disclosure of a student’s personal information. So the department has determined that it can overcome the legal obstacles by simply bypassing Congress and essentially rewriting the federal privacy statute.
Last April, the department proposed regulations that would allow it and other agencies to share a student’s personal information with practically any government agency or even private company, as long as the disclosure could be said to support an evaluation of an “education program,†broadly defined. That’s how the CDC might end up with your daughter’s health records or the Department of Labor with your son’s test scores.
And you'd have no right to object — in fact, you’d probably never even know about the disclosure.
Not surprisingly, these proposed regulations provoked a firestorm of criticism. But on Dec. 2, the Department of Education rejected almost all the criticisms and released the regulations. As of Jan. 3, 2012, interstate and intergovernmental access to your child’s personal information will be practically unlimited. The federal government will have a de facto nationwide database of supposedly confidential student information.
The department says this won’t happen. If the states choose to link their data systems, it says, that’s their business, but “the federal government would not play a role†in operating the resulting megadatabase.
This denial is, to say the least, disingenuous. The department would have access to the data systems of each of the 50 states and would be allowed to share that data with anyone it chooses, as long as it uses the right language to justify the disclosure.
And just as the department used the promise of federal money to coerce the states into developing these systems, it would almost certainly do the same to make them link their systems. The result would be a nationwide student database, whether or not it’s “operated†from an office in Washington.
The loosening of student-privacy protection would greatly increase the risks of unauthorized disclosure of personal data. Even the authorized disclosure would be limited only by the imaginations of federal bureaucrats.
Unless Congress steps in and reclaims its authority, student privacy and parental control over education will be relics of the past.
Emmett McGroarty is executive director of the Preserve Innocence Initiative of the American Principles Project. Jane Robbins is a senior fellow with the American Principles Project.
By EMMETT MCGROARTY & JANE ROBBINS
Last Updated: 11:01 PM, December 27, 2011
Posted: 11:01 PM, December 27, 2011
Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter'€™s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son's academic performance to see if he should be €œencouraged†to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent?
Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality. The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will suffer.
How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids. To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems according to federally dictated standards. So all 50 states either now maintain or are capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.
The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.
The department’s eagerness to get control of all this information is almost palpable. But current federal law prohibits a nationwide student database and strictly limits disclosure of a student’s personal information. So the department has determined that it can overcome the legal obstacles by simply bypassing Congress and essentially rewriting the federal privacy statute.
Last April, the department proposed regulations that would allow it and other agencies to share a student’s personal information with practically any government agency or even private company, as long as the disclosure could be said to support an evaluation of an “education program,†broadly defined. That’s how the CDC might end up with your daughter’s health records or the Department of Labor with your son’s test scores.
And you'd have no right to object — in fact, you’d probably never even know about the disclosure.
Not surprisingly, these proposed regulations provoked a firestorm of criticism. But on Dec. 2, the Department of Education rejected almost all the criticisms and released the regulations. As of Jan. 3, 2012, interstate and intergovernmental access to your child’s personal information will be practically unlimited. The federal government will have a de facto nationwide database of supposedly confidential student information.
The department says this won’t happen. If the states choose to link their data systems, it says, that’s their business, but “the federal government would not play a role†in operating the resulting megadatabase.
This denial is, to say the least, disingenuous. The department would have access to the data systems of each of the 50 states and would be allowed to share that data with anyone it chooses, as long as it uses the right language to justify the disclosure.
And just as the department used the promise of federal money to coerce the states into developing these systems, it would almost certainly do the same to make them link their systems. The result would be a nationwide student database, whether or not it’s “operated†from an office in Washington.
The loosening of student-privacy protection would greatly increase the risks of unauthorized disclosure of personal data. Even the authorized disclosure would be limited only by the imaginations of federal bureaucrats.
Unless Congress steps in and reclaims its authority, student privacy and parental control over education will be relics of the past.
Emmett McGroarty is executive director of the Preserve Innocence Initiative of the American Principles Project. Jane Robbins is a senior fellow with the American Principles Project.
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