Did Teachers Win the Election for Gregoire?

Probably not, but they did get a shoutout from Kelly Evans, Gregoire's campaign manager:

Women’s groups, the environmental community, labor organizations, the education community – everyone was focused and took nothing for granted. And we saw the results in our polling. Four weeks before the election, we were losing public school parents by 11 points – two weeks prior, we were winning by a point. Same is true for union households, a move from +12 to +27 in just three weeks. Add this to the voices of Native Americans, children’s and health care advocates, leaders from communities of color, veterans’ organizations and law enforcement groups all organizing and communicating about Gov. Gregoire’s record of results for the people of Washington.

The WEA-Eastern affiliate office in Spokane had a great, great phonebanking operation set up that turned out nearly 18,000 phone calls for the Gregoire campaign, and we were only one of dozens across the state. Dino only won Spokane County by 8,000 votes, which wasn't nearly the margin he needed to make up for the hole he was facing in King County, where Gregoire won by 230,000. The road to office may run through King, but you've got to run a statewide campaign, too, and the Governor did that very effectively.

(via Brad Shannon at the Olympian)

The All New WE 2.0 Magazine

I was critical of the WEA last year when they cancelled the WE Magazine—I thought it was the best way they had to communicate with the membership—but was gratified to hear later that it wasn’t an end, per se, but the beginning of something new. The new version of WE came in the mail yesterday, and I think it’s a winner.

It’s a quick read at only 8 pages, but it follows the :30/3/30 rule well in how it puts the content together. The focus is on the WEA’s efforts in regards to compensation, and the overall effect is quite good. This, combined with the recent redesign of the WEA website, makes me feel real good about where the Association is going with regards to communication.

WASL expenses set to rise

A week before March madness approaches again, a fun story: some of those classic WASL questions have to go.

The state superintendent's office estimates that the cost of administering the Washington Assessment of Student Learning could jump by $15 million to $25 million in 2009.

That's on top of the $22 million originally budgeted.

The increase is being driven mainly by a higher demand for testing because of the federal No Child Left Behind education law, said Joe Willhoft, an assistant state superintendent of public instruction in Olympia.

Sen. Rosemary McAuliffe, D-Bothell, and chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee, said paying $47 million for one year of testing is not an option.

Instead, state leaders are pressing for changes they say would shave millions off the cost and cut the amount of time spent testing without diminishing the accuracy of the WASL.

The savings would come primarily from chopping the number of open-ended, thought-provoking questions and delaying some extra features. And even then, the tests would still cost an extra $15 million or so.

The WASL takes eight days, and uses four booklets (reading, writing, math, and science). Even at today's lower rates, it costs the state roughly $70 per student to assess the WASL, assuming that student takes all four exams. Meanwhile, the SAT costs a student $43, while the PSAT costs $12. Is either any less valid than a proposed "mini-WASL?" Maybe it really is time to exorcise our Concorde effect demons and scrap the WASL.

Update 3/5: KOMO has more, noting that now, a bill to slice the WASL has passed the House. Meanwhile, the Senate wants to bring back end-of-course exams... Not while Gregoire's in office, methinks.

The WEA on YouTube

While poking around on the WEA's website I noticed that some of their recent videos are being hosted by YouTube, which is a very good idea for them. You can go to their YouTube Channel and see what they've put out so far; it's a good start. I would say that some of their videos could use some graphics to explain what's going on--it's sort of off-putting when you jump right into the middle of what someone is saying. This video on class size gets it right:

go ahead, ask

Tomorrow, I'll spend an evening listening to Gary Alexander, Brendan Williams, Sam Hunt, Karen Fraser, and Tim Sheldon at a union-sponsored legislative forum in Tumwater. WEA prez Mary Lindquist might make an appearance, too.

If I get the chance, I have one question for the folks in charge.

Terry Bergeson is up for reelection. Would you support a change in leadership at OSPI?

If you have some music you'd like a state muckety-muck to face, suggest a question in the comments. I'll report back later.

Update: As is sometimes my custom, I'm liveblogging the event over at 5/17.

The Governor Stiffs the WEA

Alternate Title: Oh No She Di’n’t! No, really, she didn’t.

The two issues that the WEA has decided to push in the coming legislative session are class size and compensation. “Governor Gregoire is with us,” was the conventional wisdom. “She talked about our two issues at her town hall meeting, and she’ll sign what comes to her desk.”

The last part may be true, it may not be true, only time will tell. When she released her budget on Tuesday the Governor had a powerful opportunity to signal her support for the WEA agenda, and she did anything but.

The seven line items in her supplemental education budget, in order of cost:

Increase teacher salaries: $31,200,000. A .8% increase, which would bring the COLA for 2008-2009 up to 3.6%. Not bad at all—it would be the envy of many, really—but it’s half of what we’ll be asking for.

Maintain and improve the current assessment system: $17,300,000. This section deserves to be parsed hard.

The Superintendent of Public Instruction will develop tests that teachers can use in their classrooms to identify student learning needs. These tests will give more immediate and targeted information to teachers anytime during the school year. Having this information readily available to teachers will allow many of the current annual assessments to be shortened.

This troubles me.

We already have assessments that can be used at any time of the school year to measure where kids are. The DIBELS come right to mind, or the tests available from AIMS Web, or any of the 100 different fluency assessments that can be correlated with the Hasbrouck fluency table, or STAR Reading, or STAR Math, or (especially!) the NWEA. OSPI doesn’t need to “develop” anything; it would be a replication of existing efforts and a waste of money.

And really, does anyone believe that having more assessments available will shorten the current assessments (read: WASL) that we already have? This sounds an awful lot like it’s just one more thing, and it’s troubling to me that Gregoire would misread what teachers are asking for to such a staggering degree.

I’ve got a rant worked up about how many teachers are feeling overwhelmed by what the job asks for today. This idea would not help that, at all.

Keeping students and others safe on college and university campuses, $14,300,000. This is clearly and unapologetically a response to what happened at Virginia Tech this spring, but that’s OK. The college that I watch the most is Eastern, and they’ve made some great steps in upgrading their communications network to get information out to students. I wish that SVC Alum was still blogging, because he did some great writing about events there this spring.

Serve the first class of students of U of Washington – North Sound Campus, $1,100,000. There’s still some who would tell you that this campus isn’t necessary, but here it comes. This is to pay for the first group of students to come through, which will include 30 in nursing and 30 in teacher education. I’d suggest that we might not need yet another teacher education program in the state; I’m wondering why they chose that as a direction to start with.

Improve child-care safety, $435,000. Pays for five folks at the Department of Early Learning to work on redoing licensing for child care centers.

Provide services for visually impaired library patrons, $341,000. To pay for more talking books and Braille services. As the father of a deaf child, I’m all for it.

Boost achievement for English Language Learners, $250,000. Pilot program to integrate ELL and job prep training.

Adjust K-12 student enrollment, -$9,300,000. Yes, that’s negative. Enrollment statewide is going down, and this is what they figure to save by having less FTEs.

The total bill: $55,626,000.

Mainstream media coverage here, here, and here. The gist is that the Republicans are calling her new fiscally conservative streak either Rossi inspired or too little, too late.

And now, pure partisan political opinion.

Christine doesn’t have to do diddly-squat for teachers this session, because when Dino Rossi is the one on the other side there really isn’t much of a choice. Rossi shat the bed with teachers when he lead the drive to cut the I-732 COLA in 2003, and the trial balloon that he’s floating about merit pay isn’t going to play well with many. Your average teacher can’t support Dino Rossi, because Dino Rossi doesn’t have much to say to support your average teacher.

(Sidebar to Mr. Rossi: Education plays in Washington. Always has, always will. If you make an educated, reasonable, sensible education proposal, you'll will over a lot of people. If you run on platitudes, you'll not get the traction you could.)

So really, it’s not a surprise that Christine didn’t give the WEA everything they could ever hope for in her budget proposal, because she doesn’t have to. She can stand on what she’s already done—student spending is way up, and we did get a great raise this year and next—do nothing this session, and as she campaigns she can play the fiscally responsible card.

This election, we need Christine more than Christine needs us. There’s a lot that we’re going to do for her, because there’s a lot that she can do for us given four more years. That’s not a good or bad thing; it’s just one of those things that we have to do and acknowledge. For thoughts on how close this election could be, see Joni Balter’s column in the December 20th Seattle Times.

It’s going to be a session to watch.


Update: On the December 20th edition of Inside Olympia with the affable Dave Ammons it was shared that Dr. Bergeson was asking for "hundreds of millions" of dollars in additional spending here in the short session. Doesn't look good for her, either.

Contracts: Meh!

Sometimes it really does pay to read the whole article.

The Wednesday edition of the Yakima Herald had this article that talked about the top legislative priorities for area superintendents in the coming legislative session. The three they decided to focus on:

*Students who have not met state standards in reading and writing from the class of 2008, 2009 and 2010 may graduate from high school without an Certificate of Academic Achievement or a Certificate of Individual Achievement. Similar to the requirement for those who have not met the math standard, additional coursework in reading and writing would be required.

* Provide resources to extend student-teacher contact time for high-poverty schools and schools serving high numbers of students whose primary language is not English, who are known as English language learners.

* Initiate legislation to require cultural competence and language acquisition training for all new certified teachers in the state.

Well and good. It's the piece later on in the article that raises an eyebrow:

The superintendents also did not move forward with their proposal to grant some schools with override authority of negotiated teacher contracts because it was deemed too controversial and not feasible at this time.

Several Yakima teachers spoke out against this specific recommendation during a Tuesday night board meeting where Soria presented the final recommendations.

"How does this help students?" asked Aaron McCausland, a science teacher at Davis High School.

Administrators grumble about the contracts with the teachers. It's just the way of the world, a death and taxes sort of thing. Administrators getting together and developing a plan to get around the contract, a plan that they considered taking to the legislature? That's interesting. Interesting indeed.

Consider, too, that Yakima county was the worst in the state when it came to passing the Simple Majority, only slightly better than Garfield County which is 1/45th its size. There's obviously a lot of animosity in Yakima County towards the schools; are the superintendents trying to deflect that onto the unions?

The WEA Makes a Mistake

Why, why, why would you kill off WE Magazine?

The last issue came in the mail this week. It opens with a note from president Mary Lundquist on the moves that the WEA is making in the realm of electronic communication, which is a good thing. WEA VP Mike Ragan has started a blog, and Ms. Lundquist has been actively sending out her new e-chalk newsletter. Well and good.

But what about the members that you’re missing by moving to an electronic model? You could count on WE reaching the vast (I’m willing to put 95%+) majority of the membership. You could use it to push the official position on any variety of topics. Every house needs an organ, and WE has been ably filling that role for decades.

This seems pennywise and pound foolish. From an Eastern Washington perspective, too, we’ve still got wide swaths where internet access isn’t available. Beyond that, though, to get to the WEA content online you have to be proactive and go out looking for it—even the email list has to be signed up for—where WE showed up in your mailbox. WE could be put out in the staff lounge and discussed at lunch—I can’t do that with a blog.

Plus, the magazine was a member benefit. It might not have been much of one, but at least the cynics out there could say that they got WE Magazine as part of their dues. What tangible benefit do we have to offer them now?

I’m one who’s criticized the WEA for not being more active in the electronic realm (see here for an example), but the heart of what I was looking for was for them to expand their communications into different media. Here they’ve grafted on a sapling while cutting off the healthiest branch on the tree, and while that might make long-term sense at the moment it’s incomprehensible. I applaud the forward thinking, but why can't the internet outreach work on a parallel path with the old media?

This is an oops.

funding lawsuit clears next major hurdle

Big news out of King County Superior Court:

Judge Michael Heavey wrote in an opinion attached to his order granting summary judgment that uneven distribution of state money to school districts violates the state constitution because it is not general and uniform, and violates the equal-protection rights of Federal Way teachers, students and taxpayers.

The judge said he expects the case to be appealed to the Washington Supreme Court. The state has 30 days to file an appeal. A call to the state attorney general's office seeking comment was not immediately returned.

The school district's lawsuit was filed in November 2006 against the state, the governor, the superintendent of public instruction and other officials.

Heavey, a former state legislator, said he believes lawmakers had been making progress toward a more equitable distribution of school money, but there is still some work to do. For example, most school districts get $32,746 from the state per teacher, although a few get as much as $4,000 more.

The state distributes school money based on the number of students in each district. Under a formula, the money is split among teachers, administrators and other staff, with employees paid within a range for each category.

"Because of the 'ranges,' there are 258 different funding levels for the state's 296 school districts," Heavey wrote.

He called the formula "arbitrary and wholly irrelevant" and said it was left over from an old system.

This is a tentative but satisfying victory for not just the WEA,who has pressed the suit forward, but for all Washington educators. If the lawsuit is appealed to the Supreme Court, which seems all but certain, and, bigger if, it succeeds, it becomes a matter of legislative remedy. That'll be interesting.

Update: In my sleep-deprived mind, I connected this lawsuit with the other state funding lawsuit, which is still in the works.

Web 2.0 Fever is Catching

There's been a couple of additions to the chorus this month, both long overdue.

The first development is that Terry Bergeson, our own Superintendent of Public Instruction, has begun her own podcast! There's only been one so far, but it's nice to see OSPI getting with the program and coming up with some different ways to communicate their message. I might not always agree with what Dr. B has to say, but there's no denying her prowess as a speaker--you can listen to the podcast here.

On top of that, WEA vice-president Mike Ragan has begun a blog off of the association's website. I've had the chance to listen to Mike speak on a couple different occasions, and he's come across as a thoughtful, passionate voice for teacher unionism and education. There have only been two posts thus far, but if they use the tool right (a big IF that I've commented on before) it has a lot of potential. I still think that discontinuing WE Magazine was a mistake, but such is life.

I'd also be remiss if I didn't praise TV Washington for the great work on their recent website redesign. It looks sharp, and it's now a lot easier to get to the videos I'm looking for. The only thing missing is the ability to download the videos and watch them later, but perhaps that will come another day.

Happy surfing!

SVC Alumnus on Teachers Strikes

Via Northwest Bloggers, an interesting look at the question of whether or not teachers can legally go on strike. SVC Alumnus has some more thoughts on his home site.

In my district we're already preparing for the next round of contract negotiations this coming spring. It's an involved process that I look forward to sharing with you all as the year goes on!

Big Deal or No Big Deal, Union Dues Lawsuit Edition

The Supreme Court did what everyone thought they would last week and ruled against the WEA in the lawsuit regarding the use of union dues for political purposes.

To our conservative friends, big big deal. SVC Alumnus has been all over it from the very beginning, and his site has a nice overview of comments from op-ed columns around the country.

To the EFF, perhaps the biggest deal they’ve ever had, but clearly not nearly as meaningful since the passage of HB2079. The teachers vs. union blog is still going strong, and there’s some excellent commentary on the EFF homepage.

To Education Week, not a big deal. Not front page news, not front section news. In fact, not until page 29 do you find the article about the decision, and this is the second paragraph:

But the court’s unanimous ruling on June 14 will likely do little harm in the long run to the Washington Education Association or other public-employee unions, legal experts said.

To the WEA, no big deal at all. They’ve barely acknowledged it on their website, most of the rank-and-file couldn’t care less, and the fines might seems steep, but they can be taken care of. There isn’t much here that I can see that would effect change on the WEA, and I’ll leave that to the reader to decide whether that’s a good thing or not.

And it’s also left to you to decide: deal, or no big deal?

Who Says the Union Can’t Host a Healthy Debate?

Last month WE Magazine, the official newspaper of the WEA, published a letter from Dwayne Brecto of Grandview chiding the association for their support of the National Board Certification. This month there are 4 responses, 1 in agreement and 3 arguing the other side. I’ll give credit where credit is due—the WEA could have very easily turfed Brecto’s letter and kept to the party line, but they didn’t, and that’s a pleasent level of openness.

I’m very publicly on record as being anti-NBPTS, because I’ve never heard a completely convincing argument for the merits of the Certification, and it seems odd for the association to be pushing so hard and using our dues monies to promote a program that benefits so few teachers in Washington. One comment from the magazine sticks out to me:

Between the sate grant opportunities and professional growth grants provided by my district, I paid nothing but sweat, tears and time away from my family to gain my national board certificate.

The NBPTS says that the process takes between 200 and 400 hours; the cost involved is better than $2000. You might get the money piece covered, but some of us don’t want to have to spend that much more time away from our families working on the job.

That, then, is the inequity of the National Board—if you have young children, if you have family commitments, if you’re already committed to your school on the most visceral level, then you’re not going to have the time without taking away from other areas. I’d rather the WEA take the money that they’re spending on National Board certification and push it into something more worthwhile, like finding some sort of real direction for Take the Lead.

I hope that the conversation continues.