how much ya bank?

If you're a teacher, you probably know where you stand on the salary schedule. But what about your teacher friends? Or what if you're a curious civilian? Teacher pay, after all, is a matter of public record, right?

In steps The Olympian.

School district employee salaries are the latest addition to The Olympian's online Data Center, which also lists pay for other public employees, restaurant health inspection results, property transfers and other public information.

All of the databases are based on information available to the public and will be updated regularly.

The school salary database was obtained through a public-records request of the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. It includes data from all of the school districts in Washington.

The Olympian's salary database can be searched by last name or first name, as well as by district and position.

I checked it out and the data, although one year distant, is otherwise solid. Surprisingly, "not enough" isn't included in my listing.

[SNL's classic "How Much Ya Bench?" transcript found here.]

control the information, control the discourse

It's not profound, at least not anymore, and certainly not shocking that those who maintain the databases run the show.

At last night's community forum to discuss the Olympia School District's budget cuts, I saw exactly how that works. In the utter absence of malice, the district has inherited a system of budgeting that hierarchizes and decentralizes information so that only a handful of people know the scope and character of the entire district budget.

So, when 200+ people sit down to go over cuts, they're at a huge epistemic disadvantage. They don't have each building's budget in front of them--where the real details hide--and the district-provided handouts are vague, excepting the specific proposed cuts. How much cash would it save to trim 5% from every WIAA sports or activity program? How much would it raise to implement a $5 pay-to-play increase? How much does Marshall Middle School spend on photocopies? Unless we're the assistant superintendent, we don't know.

I've tried to make things easier on the average citizen by creating an interactive spreadsheet so they can try balancing the budget on their own, but I've only included proposals that I've heard about. Anything truly novel has to spring up out of the void of imagination, rather than the rational crunch of numbers.

District officials, when shown the spreadsheet, have been uniformly excited by it. My next goal is to work with them in an official capacity, to bring the power of information to the masses. Someday, I hope that every district in this state--and everywhere--would be that data-transparent.

a Web 2.0 pandemic in the making

Ryan wrote about a rising fever of Web 2.0 in education. Now the Seattle Times has caught the bug with its Digital Democracy project:

We asked Seattle public school students to submit, on video, the questions they think are most important to the district's future. We selected five of those questions, and asked each Seattle School board candidate to respond in kind. Now it's your turn to watch the results. Click play on the question to hear what the student asked. Listen to the answers from each candidate by doing the same.

A sample clip from candidate Harium Martin-Morris is provided below. Kudos to the Times and the candidates for reaching out to voters.

Washington's online schools: failing students?

I wonder if anyone out there has access to the full Washington State Business Journal article that starts thusly:

Washington's two statewide online schools are performing below state averages, according to the latest Washington Assessment of Student Learning results.

In 15 out of 20 grade levels and subjects tested, the online schools had a lower pass rate than schools with regular classrooms.

In some cases, the online pass rate was nearly 20 percentage points below that of traditional schools. In eighth grade science, 26.4 percent of online-school test-takers met standards, compared with 45.6 percent statewide.

Students in online schools also skipped the test at a much higher rate than in the state overall. In the case of online 10th graders, fewer than half took the WASL.

Assuming the stats are correct, we can guess at some potential reasons online students might be lagging, WASL-wise, ranging from least to most cynical.

1. The sample size is too small for meaningful comparison, since so many digital students didn't take the WASL.

2. Online instruction is subpar to classroom instruction, for a plethora of reasons.

3. The students who take online courses are largely a disaffected group shunted or kicked out of regular classrooms. Their WASL failure was already a given.

I hope it's #1, or something like it. Online instruction is only going to grow in popularity--and if the results are poor, students will lose out in the process.

life once again imitates parody

Me, over two years ago, in jest:

The College Board today announced the release of a new test that measures a student's ability to take standardized tests. Called the Standardized Test of Aptitude for Testing, or STAT, the new assessment allows test prep companies to target students likely to perform poorly on other metrics.

"The time for such a test is long overdue," noted Marisol Hernandez, director of public relations for Kaplan. "We can no longer rely on students' own perceptions of potential failure. It's better that they know with precision and confidence that they need remediation."

Jonas Underwood, president of Fight Against College Testing, disagreed. "Biases are littered throughout this new moneymaking scam for the testmakers and test preppers," he said. "They'll laugh all the way to the bank. And they'll drive there in those new hybrid SUVs."

High school students have begun to feel the pinch of added testing. "Whatever it takes," said Amaria Gorney, a sophomore at Rockefeller Central High. "I'd sell a kidney to get a perfect STAT score."

The Kitsap Sun, today, in utter seriousness:

With all the emphasis on the WASL, some parents might think their children are already taking enough tests in school.

But the North Mason School Board heard about a different kind of assessment this week, one that might help teachers zero in on their student's learning needs and improve their academic performance.

The board took part in an online seminar at its meeting Thursday night on the Measures of Academic Progress — or MAP — tests given by Lake Oswego, Ore.-based Northwest Evaluation Association....

"MAP is supposed to be a good predictor of WASL scores, and that is the key; we need something we can link to WASL," [North Mason union prez Vicki Hopkins] said.

Big Parent is watching you

I guess it's not enough that parents can access their students' grades online. Now, in Florida, the folks at home will be able to scour their teachers' discipline records at one handy online database. To self-policing, add parent policing.

Seattle likes to L3RN

They never use the word "blogging" to describe their activity, but it fits:

Similar to YouTube, the popular Internet video-sharing Web site, L3RN (pronounced simply "learn") is touted as a tool for professional development of teachers, allowing teachers in different schools to discuss ideas and upload lesson plans and other information.

But for students, it means they can comment on their peers' work and also show off their projects to their parents. According to Hale's Advanced Placement students, it also has proved to be a lot of fun....

This fall, the district plans to add to L3RN by introducing another online system called Medley, a social-networking site comparable to MySpace.

Medley will allow students to have personal home pages. They can create online journals and send messages to their friends and teachers.

Should be fun to manage, as well. Ambitious. Let's hope it works.

Seattle school payroll to join 20th century

It took this...

Last fall, district officials discovered a Nova Alternative High School teacher allegedly adding overtime to her signed time sheets — something she had been doing since 1992, according to the district. Of the $179,000 the district believes she stole, $120,000 was in the past five years.

...to make this happen...

This fall, the district will launch a new computer system that links its payroll and financial systems, and it is hiring an internal auditor, reorganizing its human resources and payroll departments and training managers to better monitor their budgets.

...despite this.

The state auditor recommended in 2001 that the district cut off employees' access to their signed time sheets, records show. The state made the same recommendation in 2002. And in 2003, 2004 and 2005, audits continued to warn that the district's shoddy payroll system put funds at risk. Auditors pointed out smaller losses: $1,800 in 2003-04, $12,000 in 2004-05.

To be fair:

Despite the findings, Spencer said the district is in good financial shape. She pointed to an audit of the district's financial statements over the same time period. For the second year in a row, that report found no problems. Standard & Poor's and Moody's both recently raised the district's bond ratings — another sign of the district's financial stability, Spencer said.

Still, you have to be amazed that, in 2007, the district is just now linking its payroll and financial systems via computer. And I thought my district was slacking.

Update: Ryan points out how modernization has foundered in the LA Unified School District.

school board candidate hits the blog

In Washington we could use more school board candidates like Seattle's Lisa Steubing, who's taking advantage of the new/old media to share her thoughts, unfiltered-like, on the P-I's blog. A sample:

I believe in defining what professional teachers should accomplish--then giving them the academic freedom, the support and the tools to achieve those goals.

It is terrible that the WASL has such weight because it is tied to NCLB. Teachers have practically been reduced to technicians in preparing their students. The more we script and restrict instruction the less time we have for creative, in-depth and higher-order learning.

As part of a local union effort, I'll be interviewing Olympia's upcoming candidates, and will be sure to publish their thoughts on my other blog.

Update: Incumbent Darlene Flynn joins the fun. Commentators complain about a lack of communication; maybe blogging begins the healing process?