Teacher Unions Don't Cause Schools to Fail

For San Diego's North County Times

The steady drumbeat of criticism leveled at public employee unions has become both tiresome and troubling. Tiresome because of the mindless cliches: Public worker jobs are "cushy," their paychecks "fat," their pensions "bloated," and their bonuses "hefty." Teachers are said to be greedy and self-serving, caring more about their own job security, pay and benefits than student learning. It's troubling because the overblown rhetoric makes it harder for people of good will to work together on common problems.

We can't blame unions for the greed, stupidity and shortsightedness that led to our financial woes. Mortgage industry executives, government regulators and our elected leaders had the power to prevent the meltdown.
Comparing North County city budgets and school test scores, it's hard to understand why unions get such a bad rap.

Carlsbad prospers, while Oceanside, Vista and Escondido face cuts to public services. All have strong public employee unions that are now under assault by city officials, either for threatening future prosperity, in Carlsbad's case, or for not bailing out the budgets of the other three. If unions are the problem, you have to wonder why Carlsbad has been left unscathed.

While several schools in Vista and Escondido are threatened with state sanctions because of low test scores, Carlsbad, San Dieguito and Poway schools face none. If unions are spreading an epidemic of failing schools, why are some schools immune?

Unions are blamed for denying administrators the right to lay off teachers based on merit rather than seniority. Good teaching is assumed to be easily recognized, and that experience cannot be trusted as a reliable measure.

Teaching success, like student learning, can be assessed in multiple ways. It's not possible to rank teachers precisely on their effectiveness. When budget shortfalls require layoffs, administrators could take into account the cost of retaining experienced, highly paid teachers, regardless of their effectiveness. Speaking from personal experience, I know I was a far better teacher in my fifth year than my first.

My beef with administrators arises when they hire and award tenure to ineffective teachers, removing students from their classrooms when parents complain. That's an administrative failure, not a matter of union obstruction.

I've never been a union member, but having worked with unions as a state university administrator, I learned that complaints about their obstructiveness were often related to a manager's failure to treat staff members fairly and openly when making tough personnel decisions.

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan recently convened a meeting of school officials and union leaders from across the country to consider how management and labor can develop strong partnerships to improve student learning.

A good start would be to stop the name-calling.

Charter School Test Scores Tell Real Story

Is competition the key to improving our public schools? If a business doesn't deliver on its promises, shoppers go elsewhere. If they don't return, it closes its doors.

That's how No Child Left Behind was designed. In education's survival of the fittest, schools with chronically low test scores face sanctions ranging from allowing parents to take their children elsewhere to closure.

Our 10-year obsession with test scores has resulted only in glacial-speed improvement. All students were supposed to be at grade-level proficiency in reading and math by 2014. At California's annual rate of test score increases, white students will be fully proficient by 2025, Latinos and blacks by 2030.

Competition among schools has been promoted on this newspaper's opinion page. A recent editorial cartoon depicted an elephant named "Vista School District," emitting a cowardly "Eeek!" as it perches on a chair opposite a teacher pointing to the words "Charter success" written on a Classical Academies blackboard.

If pictures are worth a thousand words, this one needed another three hundred. Its companion editorial criticized Vista school administrators for resisting an Escondido charter school's plan to set up shop in their district.

The cartoon suggests charter schools are better than other public schools. The editorial says students should be allowed to vote with their feet to find better schools. Neither compared the test scores held sacred as quality indicators by the California Department of Education.

Here's what they left out.

Seventy-seven percent of the Escondido charter school's students are white; one is an English Language Learner. In the Vista school district, 30 percent of grade-schoolers are white, 30 percent are English Language Learners.

Here's a small sample of the 2010 California Standards test scores report, comparing the charter school's predominantly white enrollment with the 5,000 white students enrolled in Vista's elementary schools.
In eighth-grade English language arts, 76 percent of charter school students were proficient at or above grade level, compared to 81 percent of the comparable Vista subgroup.

In mathematics, 31 percent of Classical Academy eighth-graders were proficient in Algebra I, compared to 72 percent of white Vista students.

National studies have shown that charter school test scores are generally no better than those of other public schools.

California's academic performance indicator for Escondido's Classical Academy ranks it above 80 percent of other California schools. But it ranks above only 20 percent of schools with similar student populations.
The Classical Academy's ability to attract students is evidently unrelated to competitive test scores, which is the only way we measure a school's success under No Child Left Behind.

RICHARD RIEHL is a Carlsbad resident. Contact him at fogcutter1@yahoo.com.

Carlsbad Going Back to the Future?

As neighboring cities in North County struggle with budget cuts and fee increases for public services, Carlsbad’s city council members spent the lion’s share of their January 25th meeting listening to a proposal to set aside $4 million to redevelop its downtown.

Gary Nessim, Vice President of the Carlsbad Village Association, laid out a plan that would create a pedestrian promenade the entire length of Grand Avenue, from City Hall to the beach. Mayor Matt Hall and Councilmember Mark Packard excused themselves from the discussion since they both own property in the area to be developed.

The presentation reminded me of my seven years in the Midwest. My wife and I, both west coasters in our early years, relished our afternoon drives on weekends in search of small towns that flourished many years ago. Each had a town square, dominated by a City Hall protected by a couple of Civil War era cannons, and surrounded by a drugstore, a department store, some specialty shops, a restaurant and a gas station. They’re sad scenes today. Boarded up windows replace bustling streets as their main feature.

The words “back to the future” came to mind as Nessim described a future Grand Promenade, linking City Hall to the heart of the downtown district, creating a bustling central gathering place for residents and visitors alike.

Grand Avenue would be reduced to two lanes of traffic, bordered by two bike lanes, and no curbside parking. Several multi-level parking garages, above and below ground, would provide an ample supply of downtown parking.

A 53-foot wide pedestrian walkway would feature outdoor art shows, access to the farmer’s market, sidewalk dining and major city events, like car shows, that would no longer require closing other city streets.
Nessim observed that recent development plans for downtown have consisted entirely of residential townhomes. He warned that if the downtown becomes primarily residential town homes with very little retail/commercial you’ll never get the bustling downtown that attracts visitors as well as locals. He pointed to downtown Santa Monica as a glimpse of what Carlsbad’s Grand Promenade could be.

Downtown businesses like the idea, according to Nessim. He’s spoken with all of them on Grand Avenue and estimated 95 percent of them have expressed support for it.

When Nessim suggested the project could be completed in a year, but that the approval process might take five years, Mayor Pro-Tem Anne Kulchin quipped, “Gary, I don’t think even God could do it in a year.”
The council listened politely to the presentation. Kulchin said she liked the plan and “we should talk with some more people about it,” before we simply thank Nessim and say goodbye. When Mayor Hall returned to his seat he said he’d been listening to the presentation “from afar,” declared it a great presentation and “a lot to stretch your mind around.”

The Carlsbad Village Association is asking that $4 million be put into the capital improvement budget to move ahead with the plan and to appoint a Village Planning and Study Group to coordinate plans with all stakeholders.

The council gave lip service support to the vision for downtown redevelopment but took no action. Here’s hoping it will soon appear as an action item on the council’s meeting agenda. I don’t think we want boarded up shop windows to be Carlsbad’s only legacy of smart growth.

Research on colleges flawed

For San Diego's North County Times

At a time of year when high school seniors and their parents are stressed out over whether they'll get into their first-choice college and whether they can afford it if they do, a story by Associated Press writer Eric Gorski about how little students learn in college is extraordinarily ill-timed and irresponsible.

It's especially unfortunate the article landed on the front page of the North County Times ("Study finds that students learn little in college," Jan. 19) with a 2008 file photo of Cal State San Marcos students, as if the story were about them.

Full disclosure: I spent the last seven years of my 30-year career in higher education as an admissions and records administrator at CSUSM.

The article reported findings of a research study, "Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses" by Richard Arum of New York University and Josipa Roksa of the University of Virginia. It followed 2,300 undergraduates at 24 unnamed colleges and universities and found that 45 percent of them showed no significant improvement in critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their second year, 36 percent by the end of their fourth year.

That means half of undergraduates showed significant improvement after two years and nearly two-thirds after their senior year. Of course, the headline, "Most students learn a lot in college," wouldn't appear anywhere near the front page.

Among other findings the researchers found appalling were that half the students did not take a course requiring 20 pages of writing their prior semester and a third did not take a course requiring 40 pages of reading per week. Which means half took a course requiring at least 20 pages of writing and two-thirds a course requiring at least 40 pages of reading per week. At Cal State San Marcos every student must write at least 2,500 words in every course.

The researchers found that those attending more selective schools majoring in traditional arts and sciences majors posted the greatest learning gains. That finding should come as no surprise. The authors earned their undergraduate degrees at Tufts University and Mount Holyoke College.

They blame students who seek easy courses and don't study, as well as a college culture that values research over good teaching. Those were the same complaints I heard when I graduated from high school a half-century ago.

What high school graduates and their parents need to hear about is the research revealing college choice does not determine your success in life, and that the more education you have the more money you'll earn over a lifetime. College degrees are worth a million dollars more than a high school diploma.

Test scores don't tell the whole story

For San Diego's North County Times

Last August, we learned that California students scored a two-percentage-point increase in grade level proficiency in mathematics and English on the California Standards Tests (STARS). Now, 52 percent of our kids are proficient in English, 48 percent in math.

At the average rate of improvement over the last seven years, all students should be proficient by about 2025. The goal of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 was to raise all children to proficiency by the 2013-14 school year. The gap separating students by ethnicity has barely budged.

Stanford economist Eric Hanushek recently compared the test scores of students worldwide who are most likely to get the best jobs in the future. As reported by the Atlantic's Amanda Ripley ("Your Child Left Behind," Dec. 2010), U.S. 15-year-olds lag far behind their peers in about 30 other countries in advanced level proficiency in mathematics. California's 4.6 percent falls short of the 6 percent national average, as well that of 34 other states.

While State Superintendent Jack O'Connell boasts of annual two to three-point test score increases, the fact that more than half of California students are unable to reach grade level in math after seven years of No Child Left Behind is alarming in the world's increasingly competitive job market.

A closer look at the August 2010 STARS results raises even more concerns about the ability of our local students to compete for jobs requiring increasingly stronger technical skills.

Algebra is a gateway subject, not only for success in college, but for occupations that may not require a college degree but call for abstract reasoning skills beyond basic arithmetic for jobs that pay more than minimum wage.

A small sample of North County school district scores shows the usual: The haves do better than the have-nots. But even in Carlsbad, with a median household income of $101,000, only 48 percent of students are proficient in Algebra I. In Vista and Oceanside, with household incomes of $68,000 and $69,000, just 35 and 36 percent are at grade level or higher.

Hanushek points to Massachusetts, the state with the highest scores, as an example of how reform has led to improvement. Meaningful outcomes are demanded from everyone in the school building ---- students, teachers and administrators.

The Stanford economist acknowledges the common "diversity excuse" for poor academic performance. "All these immigrants are dragging us down," they say, "but our kids are doing fine." People will find it quite shocking, according to Hanushek, that "even our most-advantaged students are not all that competitive."

That should be a wake-up call for all of us, regardless of our ethnicity or family income.

The Crossings on Life Support

For San Diego's North County Times and the online magazine carlsbadistan.com

This year’s $1.7 million bailout of Carlsbad’s three-year-old golf course will bring the total amount of annual subsidies since its opening to $5.1 million.  Four of the five council members who voted to tap city coffers again this time voted for each of the previous giveaways. Here’s a small sample of what three of them have said to explain their votes to save a failing enterprise.

The most creative justification came from newly re-elected councilman Mark Packard. “We’re not subsidizing," he claimed, "we’re ‘fronting’ the money. None of us on the council play golf, so we didn’t do this for our own benefit.” For him, keeping the course on life support amounts to a misnamed and selfless act.

In a variation of I’m-from-the-government- and-I’m-here-to-help, Mayor-elect Matt Hall assured his constituents, “The five of us manage the affairs of the city very well and I feel certain it will pay for itself.”

Holding environmentalists largely responsible for the ballooning cost of construction from its $11 million estimate 18 years ago, Retiring Mayor Lewis sadly predicted, “This will pay, maybe not in my lifetime.”

Each year since its August 2007 opening, the number of budgeted rounds of golf has fallen. The number for 2008 was 52,000. This year’s number of actual rounds is projected to be 42,000. That’s a 20 percent decline. Reaching next year’s budgeted goal of 44,000 seems unlikely, given the course’s track record.

Management blames the recession for the dwindling number of golfers, but the National Golf Foundation reports only a 2.4 percent decline in rounds played in the U.S. from 2007 through 2009.

Fourteen percent of Americans played golf in 2000, falling to 12 percent today, according to the NGF. Is golf a dying sport? Jack Nicklaus worries about its future. In a recent interview with foxsports.com, the golfing legend claimed young fathers are now so pre-occupied with other sports at the Little League level they have little time to hit the links or to teach their children the game. He also blamed the game's slow pace, suggesting kids don't want to got out and spend six or seven hours on a golf course.

At a September candidates’ forum, Hall was the only one of the four mayoral hopefuls indicating he’d oppose selling the course. At the council’s November 30 meeting he said The Crossings will be one of the strengths of the city, “or perhaps (my emphasis) a future swim complex and public subsidies for these will be necessary.”

On the campaign trail he sounded much more committed to “finding the money” for the swim complex. Now that he’s been elected? Not so much, it seems.

The prospects for completing the Alga Norte project seem brighter next year with the addition of Farrah Douglas to the council in January. As a candidate she consistently claimed the money was available, despite the vote last year by the council’s good-old-boy majority of Lewis, Hall and Packard, to delay construction. Ann Kulchin and Keith Blackburn were the minority voices in favor of going forward on it. With those two and Douglas now in the majority, a second community swimming pool may at last become a reality.

Dare we hope Douglas will create a new council majority that will also consider a Plan B for the gaping money pit amid the rolling hills above our Village By The Sea?