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DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - The White House has made fundamental strategic and tactical blunders in the Balkan bombing effort and those mistakes are fair game in the presidential campaign, says Republican presidential hopeful Elizabeth Dole.
Mrs. Dole said Saturday the effort is being run largely by politicians and not soldiers, and they have made errors in targeting, intensity and focus.
``I think they could, in terms of the air war, have done a lot more a lot more quickly,'' Mrs. Dole said in an interview with The Associated Press. ``I just think the politicians have been driving it to a great extent. The military should be given its free hand.''
Mrs. Dole, former president of the American Red Cross, traveled to the Balkans and came back talking tough, arguing that NATO forces should do hatever is needed to win.
In her latest campaign swing, Mrs. Dole is broadening that argument by complaining about President Bill Clinton's conduct of the campaign.
She noted that at the beginning of the Persian Gulf War allied forces were flying 1,500 to 2,000 attack sorties a day. ``We're not anywhere near that,'she said.
In addition, she said NATO forces were tardy to target communications systems in the region.``They didn't aim at the communications and a lot of propaganda has poured out,'' she said.
Mrs. Dole has formed an exploratory committee for a Republican presidential candidacy, and she was interviewed during a two-day swing in he state where precinct caucuses next February launch the nominating season.
It's been traditional over the years that competing politicians are quiet during an overseas combat operation, to avoid sending conflicting signals to enemies.
But Mrs. Dole said the stakes in the Balkans are too high for candidates to stay silent.
``It's a very legitimate topic because it's our values and our national interest,''she said. ``I don't know how you could be not commenting on this.''
In her early swings, Mrs. Dole has campaigned alone, but she said her husband, 1996 Republican presidential nominee Bob Dole, could join her soon.
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Participation in California
Public Higher Education
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Buzz Breedlove, Legislative Analyst's Office
SACRAMENTO - The Office of the Legislative Analyst examines California participation rates in public colleges and universities and how it has changed over the past 20 years. The historical data show that a higher percentage of college-age Californians are attending public colleges than ever before. As a consequence, the percentage of adults that have obtained a college degree has increased significantly over the years.
Eligibility for Public Higher Education
The Master Plan for Higher Education, published in 1960, established student eligibility criteria that remain general state policy today. The plan calls for community colleges to accept all applicants 18 years and older who can benefit from attending. The 106 community colleges currently accommodate all persons seeking to attend. The plan calls for the California State University (CSU) to draw from the top one-third of high school graduates. It also calls for the segment to accept all qualified community college transfer students. Surveys by the California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) have found that CSU has hovered near its eligibility-rate target of 33 percent over the years. In its most recent survey of high school graduates, CPEC found that CSU was drawing from the top 29.6 percent of high school graduates.
The Master Plan calls for the University of California (UC) to draw from the top 12.5 percent of high school graduates and to accept all qualified community college transfers. The university has always drawn from a larger pool than the top 12.5 percent, and has expanded the size of its eligibility pool significantly in this decade. Based on CPEC's 1996 survey, 20.5 percent of public high school graduates obtained a 3.3 grade point average (GPA) in college preparatory courses as required for UC admissions. For various reasons, almost half of these students did not take the SAT II test, which is also required for admission to UC. (According to the university, no other college or university in the country requires this test.) Consequently, although 11.1 percent of high school graduates in 1996 met admissions requirements for UC, they were spread among the top 20.5 percent of high school graduates.
The UC Board of Regents recently voted to extend eligibility to the top 4 percent of high school graduates from each high school, provided they too take the SAT I and SAT II tests. Two-thirds of this pool already meet UC admissions criteria. Almost all of the others in this 4 percent group meet the 3.3 GPA requirement, but have not taken the SAT I and SAT II tests. Therefore, they generally fall within the 20.5 percent of top high school graduates from which UC currently draws its students.
College Participation Is Up
In All Three SegmentsIn 1997, approximately 30 percent of California adults between the ages of 18 and 24 were enrolled on a community college, CSU, or UC campus. This is the highest participation rate for this prime college-going age group in history. By comparison, 23 percent of 18-to-24 year olds were enrolled on a public college or university campus in 1977. There are many reasons for this increase. For example, rates of graduation from high school have risen over time, greater emphasis is placed on college attendance today than ever before, and the percentage of parents with a college education has risen sharply over the last few decades. In addition, state funding of colleges and universities per college-age Californian is at an all-time high, even after controlling for the effects of inflation.
While the participation rate of the prime college-going age group of 18-to-24 year olds has climbed steadily over the past 20 years, participation rates among older adults has steadily fallen. In 1997, 4.4 percent of adults 25 years old and older were enrolled in a California public college or university. This compares to 5.4 percent in 1977. This decline is due in large part to the increasing college-going and college-completion rates of younger adults. As Figure 1 shows, 26.4 percent of adults 25 years and older in 1997 had at least four years of college. By comparison, about half (13.4 percent) as many in this age group had done so in 1970. While college participation remains an option for most older adults, many more of them today have already participated as younger adults.
Community Colleges. Figure 2 shows the percentage of California adults attending community colleges from 1977 through 1997 by age cohort. As the figure shows, more than one in four Californians age 18-to-19 were enrolled in a community college in 1997. In 1977, one in five were enrolled. Enrollment among 20-to-24 year olds has increased similarly. In 1997, 16.1 percent of this group were enrolled in a community college, whereas 11.5 percent were enrolled in 1977.
In its document California Community Colleges 2005 and in testimony before the Legislature, the community colleges cite falling participation rates in community colleges among adults as a serious problem. The historical data do not support this claim. The decline in adult participation can be explained by two factors:
First, the average age of adult Californians has increased over the past 20 years as baby boomers have aged, and older adults are much less likely to attend college than younger adults.
Second, the participation rates among older adults have declined, but not necessarily for "bad" reasons. As noted above, more than twice as many older adults have degrees today than they did in 1970. Adjusting for the aging of the adult population, the average participation rate among adult Californians has remained virtually constant over the past 20 years. California State University. As Figure 3 shows, participation rates among college-age adults have risen at CSU over the past 20 years. For 18-to-19 year olds, they have risen from 4.9 percent to 6.1 percent. For 20-to-24 year olds, they have risen from 6.1 percent to 6.6 percent. Comparing participation rate histories of the community colleges and CSU, it appears that enrollment frequently shift between the two segments. Particularly, since 1990, when participation rates of 18-to-19 year olds at CSU have fallen significantly, participation rates of this cohort at community colleges have tended to rise. Conversely, when CSU participation rates for this group have risen significantly, community college rates have tended to be flat. These shifts might have occurred for many reasons, including changes in the fee differential between the two segments.
University of California. As Figure 4 shows, participation among college-age adults at UC has risen significantly during the past 20 years. For 18-to-19 year olds, participation rates have increased from 3.2 percent in 1977 to 5.3 percent in 1997, an increase of 64 percent over this 20 year period. This rate of increase is over twice that of community colleges and over three times that of CSU. The participation rate among 20-to-24 year olds has also grown faster at UC than at either CSU or the community colleges.
Participation in Public Higher Education Not the Entire Story. The data shown and discussed above are for the three public segments of higher education only. They do not include enrollments in independent colleges and universities. For example, over 30 percent of students in four-year colleges in California are enrolled in independent colleges and universities. Many others attend public and private colleges and universities outside California. Unfortunately, data on enrollments by age of student are not available for all institutions.
Growth in Participation Across All Racial and Ethnic Groups. College participation has trended upward for all racial and ethnic groups over time. As a result, increasingly more adults in all groups have obtained four or more years of college. Figure 5 shows the number of Californians 25 years old and older that have attended college for four or more years. (These U.S. Census Bureau data, up to 1993, show Californians 25 years old and older with four or more years of college, and after 1993, show those with at least a bachelors degree.) Although college experience has increased for each racial and ethnic group shown in Figure 5, there nevertheless remain significant differences in the level of participation among the groups.
Conclusion
As the data clearly show, college-going rates among 18-to-24 year olds has trended upward over time. While participation rates among older adults have trended downward, this reflects the state's success in prior years in providing college to its younger adults.
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Chinese Art of War
A sly fox ends up in Los Alamos
and the chickens
come home to roost.
By Kaye Grogan, Contributor
WASHINGTON - What happens when a sly fox is in charge of "guarding" the Hen House? The sly fox ends up in the Los Alamos National Laboratories in New Mexico, when the chickens come home to roost and we learn that U.S. nuclear secrets have been nibbled away by China, through a transferral of more than 1,000 files. Later Wen Ho Lee, a Tiawan-born scientist accused of the "espionage" tried unsuccessfully to eradicate the incriminating data.
Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, stated that some of our most top secrets have been compromised. He added: It's very apparent we haven't taken counterintelligence measures or matters very seriously in this administration. He acknowledged that this type of "national security" threat had escalated dramatically in the last two, three, or four years.
The possible arrest of Mr. Lee is pending. He'll have ample time to get out of dodge. There might even be a 747 waiting...along with a couple of million to tide him over, on a beautiful deserted island somewhere.
By the time he gets the "payoffs" (if he's not already basking and wallowing around in the greenery) from about 12 countries (including Russia and India) for the delicate, yet deadly weapons formula, he should be set for life! Don't be too surprised if one day America is blown off of the map! Once destructive information is in the greedy hands of "warmongers" there's no "magic wand" to wipe away yesterday and start over.
Senator Christopher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, stated that if the allegations are true, this is "inexcusable" and some heads should roll. Looks like a lot of potential "bowling balls" in the house... hoping for anything but a "strikeout" at their expense! Back as far as November, senior administrative officials were given the report outlining the procedures used by China to penetrate computers in the weapons labs.
This important data was handed over to Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, Attorney General Janet Reno and National Security Advisor Samuel R. Berger. Evidently these people like to "sweep' the rug and then amass the dust underneath the rug!
Governmental officials waited until March, four months later to search the computer of Wen Ho Lee. Mr. Lee was allowed to remain in his position for three years after the investigations started, without receiving any type of reprimand, while more deserving of a pink slip! He continued to have access to vital top secret codes and received his salary as if he was a top notch employee. How accommodating!
Maybe it's time for another "governmental" refresher course or seminar to update those in government about the "fundamental basics" in governing effectively. Apparently many have grown "lax" in their responsibilities, especially in securing the "safety" of the American people.
Now that the "cat is out of the bag" the "can of worms" is opened and the "self-destruct" button is only one step away from activation...who is going to return "national security" back to the United states? We can't count on "Superman" to fly in to save us, and all of the wishes have been used up by the "Genie" and President Bill Clinton appears to be too busy trying to save his own neck to help us! Besides he's passing the buck around to any and everyone he can find, but the buck stopped with him!
So, it looks like America is "dangling" by a small thread...that's just about ready to snap and send everyone plummeting down the mountainside.©1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper.
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Stadium Negotiations Suspended
Diamond Group fails to produce financials.
By Amy Williams, Assoc. Editor
FRESNO - The Fresno Council ordered City staff to cease negotiations with the Fresno Diamond Group. Stopping short of official action, the Counc+ ildirected the Fresno City Attorney to "cease negitiations with the Diamond Group" after the Council had been kept waiting for two-weeks for the Diamond Group financials, and the Group failed to appear at the Council meeting today which lasted well over an hour.
Fresno's Strong Mayor, Jim Patterson was in the audience. During the meeting Mr. Patterson spoke to the Council members and encouraged the Council to adopt the public ownership plan he signed some months ago. He also said a public vote is appropiate on such a project.
Making matters worse, the City Council set today as the "drop-dead" date for the requested information and for further explanations as to why the Diamond Group wants a five-year waiting period in the proposed deal that would required the City to wait five years before a foreclosure action could be taken to court against the Diamond Group to get the City's money back.
Instead of attending the Council meeting today, the Diamond Group had a "memo" delivered befor the start of the meeting advising the Council that if they had any questions, they could address them someplace else. The Diamond Group is not answering any questions, and couild not be reached for comment on the action by the City Council to cease any further negotiations.
City Council member Garry Bredefeld told the audience he considered, "...the memo inadequate and insulting." Then members Dan Ronquillo and Henry Perea started a move to give the Diamond Group yet another chance to save the stadium deal by arguing that "...a reserve fund" would solve the foreclosure blockage. However, Ronquillo's thinking turned out to be as unpopular with the other Couincil members as was the absence of the Diamond Group and the meagre last-ditch motion was scuttled when Mr. Ronquillo's motion died with only one other weak supporters, Council member Tom Boyajian.
Six of the Council members openly expressed disappointment with the current state of what has been loosely depicted as Fresno Diamond Group negotiations.
City Attorney Hilda Cantú Montoy to meet with representatives of the insurance company, ACA Guaranty Financial Corp. of New York, and the Diamond Group this week one final time. Two troublesome details have emerged that appear to be deal killers. First, the bond insurer has moved to improve its protection from a possible default. The change would degrade the City of Fresno's foreclosure position. And, The ACA Guaranty now wants to block City Hall's foreclosure rights with five year waiting period after the Diamond Group defaults.
Taxpayers have questioned the deal from the start owing to its reliance on a gift of $8.5 million in public funds to Diamond Group, a private for profit investment venture who would privately own the Downtown ballpark, thanks to the taxpayers of Fresno.©1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper.
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Fresno makes list of
U.S. cities in trouble
High unemployment and high poverty rates.
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
FRESNO -- According to the Clinton administration, Fresno tops the list of U.S. Cities having financial problems despite the robust national economy.
The report, Places Left Behind in the New Economy, identified Fresno and 73 central cities that are ``doubly burdened'' with continued high unemployment and high poverty rates or long-running population loss or both.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo told reporters Wednesday, "The truth is, there are people and places in this country that are not enjoying that great American success..." and Fresno is at the top of that list.
"I can tell you that the poverty, the despair, is just as bad as it has ever been. And the sense of hopelessness is just as bad as it has ever been...places in trouble such Fresno, Calif, Kankakee, Ill., Monroe, La., Lima, Ohio, Saginaw, Mich., and Laredo, Texas," he said.
Mike Bayhi of the City of Fresno told The Fresno Republican Newspaper, "We found this to be an amazing report from HUD since Mr. Cuomo recently denied Fresno's application for an Empowerment in favor of several large cities with robust economies and low unemployment."
Mr. Bayhi said, "The Empowerment Zone would have given Fresno $10 million dollars a year for ten years to engage in all sorts of aggressive economic development programs."
Average poverty rates in all central cities -- 18.8 percent -- are twice those of suburban communities -- 9 percent -- but problems are spreading to nearby suburbs, the report said.
The report noted that 116 cities lost more than 5 percent of their population between 1985 and 1996.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development identified 74 cities Fresno and other Central Valley communities because of their high unemployment rates averaging more than 15% which is far above the 1998 national average of 4.5 percent. Additonal factors such as, continued population loss and high poverty rates were included. Other Valley communities designated as "in trouble" are Madera, Merced, Porterville, Salinas, Stockton, Tulare, and Visalia.
The Clinton administration, and HUD have been criticized for selecting only cities for Empowerment Zone funding based upon selective political criteria.©1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper.
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Fresno makes list of
U.S. cities in trouble
High unemployment and high poverty rates.
By Amy Williams, Staff Writer
FRESNO -- According to the Clinton administration, Fresno tops the list of U.S. Cities having financial problems despite the robust national economy.
The report, Places Left Behind in the New Economy, identified Fresno and 73 central cities that are ``doubly burdened'' with continued high unemployment and high poverty rates or long-running population loss or both.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Andrew Cuomo told reporters Wednesday, "The truth is, there are people and places in this country that are not enjoying that great American success..." and Fresno is at the top of that list.
"I can tell you that the poverty, the despair, is just as bad as it has ever been. And the sense of hopelessness is just as bad as it has ever been...places in trouble such Fresno, Calif, Kankakee, Ill., Monroe, La., Lima, Ohio, Saginaw, Mich., and Laredo, Texas," he said.
Mike Bayhi of the City of Fresno told The Fresno Republican Newspaper, "We found this to be an amazing report from HUD since Mr. Cuomo recently denied Fresno's application for an Empowerment in favor of several large cities with robust economies and low unemployment."
Mr. Bayhi said, "The Empowerment Zone would have given Fresno $10 million dollars a year for ten years to engage in all sorts of aggressive economic development programs."
Average poverty rates in all central cities -- 18.8 percent -- are twice those of suburban communities -- 9 percent -- but problems are spreading to nearby suburbs, the report said.
The report noted that 116 cities lost more than 5 percent of their population between 1985 and 1996.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development identified 74 cities Fresno and other Central Valley communities because of their high unemployment rates averaging more than 15% which is far above the 1998 national average of 4.5 percent. Additonal factors such as, continued population loss and high poverty rates were included. Other Valley communities designated as "in trouble" are Madera, Merced, Porterville, Salinas, Stockton, Tulare, and Visalia.
The Clinton administration, and HUD have been criticized for selecting only cities for Empowerment Zone funding based upon selective political criteria.©1999 The Fresno Republican Newspaper.
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School Board To Auction
Off Empty Building
Decision will restore $7.7 million borrowed from district general fund.
By Nanette Asimov, Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO - The San Francisco school board, facing at least a $10 million budget shortfall, voted unanimously last night to auction off a vacant building that had become a $7.7 million symbol of wasteful spending to some teachers and parents.
``Given the fiscal condition of the school district, selling the building is consistent with the overwhelming consensus of the community,'' said Frank Chong, chairman of the board's buildings and grounds committee.
The decision means that the school board should be able to restore the hefty sum it borrowed from its general fund to buy the seven-story building at 333 Grant Ave. in November. The general fund is supposed to be used for academic programs, not school facilities.
The building, to be auctioned June 18, has already drawn offers of more than $8 million from two potential buyers, said Superintendent Bill Rojas.
Teachers union President Kent Mitchell reacted to the decision with relief, but could not contain his anger about the original purchase.
``What was so offensive is that the school district never was able to make any case that buying this building did anything good for children,'' he said. ``It was a total waste of money.''
The vote at last night's meeting at Everett Middle School coincided with the board's first official announcement that it will accept Rojas' resignation sometime between June 30 and July 31.
Neither Rojas nor any board members had any other comment about the superintendent's decision to become superintendent of the Dallas Public Schools. There also was not discussion of a search for a replacement.
Rojas has been San Francisco's schools chief for seven years.
One teacher called for Deputy Superintendent Linda Davis to be named as the interim superintendent. He called the veteran administrator ``a person of ability, compassion and great integrity.''
Rojas' support on the board dwindled to a slim majority after the election last November, reflecting a growing dissatisfaction among parents with the district's leadership.
But it was the 91-year-old Pacific Bell building that had been at the center of a debate as annoyed parents and teachers questioned why the board spent $7.7 million to buy it. They had flooded the school board with calls and e-mails urging its sale.
One thing about the purchase was clear: Board members did not know when they voted 5 to 2 to buy the building that the money for it would come from the district's general fund.
Rojas had said the money would not come from the general fund, but he did not say where it would come from.
Last night, several speakers reminded the board that its financial difficulties meant cutting good programs, long-delayed building repairs and other broken promises.
Meanwhile, a bill that would help the district close its budget gap -- Assembly Bill 36 by San Francisco Democrat Kevin Shelley -- has been referred to the Senate Education Committee. It would reimburse 14 school districts around the state for past desegregation expenditures, including $12.7 million for San Francisco.
The bill exists because Rojas spent the winter lobbying for it in Sacramento. But state lawmakers, teachers, parents and other budget- watchers criticized the superintendent for including the money in the school budget this year with no guarantee of reimbursement.
San Francisco was the only district in the state to do so. As of yesterday, no date had been set for the bill to be heard.©1999 San Francisco Chronicle
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Teachers' Education
At Issue
Certification vs. Knowledge
By Edward Anderson, Education Writer
FRESNO - If Fresno schools aren't producing satisfactory results, then, this problem is not likely to be solved until classrooms all over California and the rest of America are filled with teachers who are well educated experts in the subjects taught.
The Daily Republican Newspaper editors have obtained from the U.S. office of Education, a surprisingly simple yet, workable plan to achieve renewal. The good news is that America is beginning to adopt a powerful, commonsense strategy for school reform. It is the same approach that almost every successful modern enterprise has adopted to boost performance and productivity: set high standards for results to be achieved, identify clear indicators to measure progress towards those results, and be flexible and pluralistic about the means for reaching those results. This strategy in education is sometimes called "standards and accountability." It is a fundamental aspect of the charter school movement, and it undergirds many versions of "systemic reform" as well.
The old news is that states and policymakers have turned away from commonsense when trying to increase the pool of well-qualified teachers. Instead of encouraging a results oriented approach, many states and policymakers are demanding ever more regulation of inputs and processes. Other modern organizations have recognized that regulation of inputs and processes is ineffectual and often destructive. There is no reason to believe that it will be anything other than ineffectual as a strategy for addressing the teacher quality problem.
So, the regulatory strategy being pursued today to boost teacher quality is seriously flawed. Every additional requirement for prospective teachers, every additional pedagogical course, every new hoop or hurdle has predictable consequences, They will limit the potential supply of teachers by narrowing the pipeline while having no bearing whatever on the quality or effectiveness of those in the pipeline.
The regulatory approach is also bound, over time, to undermine the standards and accountability strategy for improving schools and raising student achievement.
It is a more reasoned approach, if, instead of requiring a long list of courses and degrees, future teachers are evaluated for the content and extent of discrete knowledge and related information processing skills. School principals would be free to hire the teachers they need who can demonstrate the content of the their knowledge and communication skill needed. In this way, focus may be placed student learning, finally. Such a strategy will produce a larger supply of able teachers and will tie judgments about their fitness and performance to success in the classroom, not to process or impression.
Better quality teachers are needed. Recent studies in Tennessee, Boston, and Dallas, inter alia, find dramatic differences between the performance of children who are assigned to teachers who are experts in the subject mater taught. School reform will likely falter unless teachers with the knowledge and skills to help students meet high academic standards are hired.
It is not surprising that many of our present teachers are unready to meet these challenges. According to a recent survey, only one in five teachers even feels thety are well prepared to teach to high standards. The head of Teachers College acknowledges that "The nation has too many weak education schools, with teachers, students and curriculums that are not up to the task at hand." Children who face high-stakes tests for promotion and graduation need instructors with complete knowledge and artful communication skills than ever before.
More than two millions of new teachers will be hired in the next decade. Yet our present system for recruiting, preparing and deploying them is not up to the task. We are not attracting enough of the best and the brightest to teaching, and not retaining enough of the best of those we do attract. A third of U.S. teachers report that their schools have difficulty keeping the good teachers who quickly move on to jobs in the private sector.
A shocking failing of our present arrangement is the many teachers who lack adequate preparation in the very subjects they are assigned to teach. Most public school teachers are certificated by their states, extensive college-level study majoring in various teaching specialties such as Elementary Education for grade school teachers and Social Science for high school teachers seems to be popular for
Worse still, is the practice in Fresno schools for high school teachers to be assigned to courses outside their main teaching field due to shortages of teachers with expert knowledge in advanced subjects such as math and science, or because some schools such as those in the inner city which have higher teacher turnover.
Education Secretary, Richard Riley, told reporters, this week, "Foreign education ministers who visit me are just stumped when I try to explain this practice."
One major concern with present standards for teachers is that more than half of U.S. History teachers have neither majors nor minors in U. S. History. More than half of the students in Physics classes meet with a teacher who has neither a major nor minor in Physical Science. Children attending school in poor and urban areas are least likely to find any teachers who ever engaged in the study of the subject matter taught.
Today's regulatory approach to entry into teaching compounds these problems. Because it places low priority on deep subject matter mastery and heavy emphasis on the things that colleges of education specialize in, many teachers get certified without having mastered the content that they are expected
For at least a generation or so, the dpredominant approach to state regulation of entry into the profession has been one of dereliction of duty. Yet, in every state in the nation a license and payment of a license fee are requitred to teach in public schools. However, to obtain that license, an applicant is required to have completed a state teacher education program which imposes lengthy requirements for the completion of coursework at an approved state approved School of Education. heir students are commonly required to complete a set number of courses in state law, theory, child development, the foundations of education; multiculturalism and diversity.
Most states do not require a minimum college grade point average for entry into the program and many do not even require prospective teachers to pass standardized tests of reading, writing and math skills. It is also common, at some point in the process, to test for knowledge of teaching techniques or of knowledge of the subject in which they will be certified, if any.
Almost all states require supervised student teaching, which serves as a sortof final screening device to weed out the most emotionally unstable teacher candidates. graduation from Schools of education in California.
These questionable practices predictably contributes a teacher pool that is fully credentialed in how to teach but sadly lacking in knopwledge of any signifigant knowledge worth passing on the students they are expected to teach. The regulatory strategy will intensify these trends.
In response to widening concern about teacher quality, most states are tightening their regulatory grip, making it nearly impossible for a person with subject matter knowledge to enter teaching by piling on more regulations for certification.
Now, some very prestigious education groups such as the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future are attempting to "professionalize" teacher preparation by raising admissions criteria for training programs and ensuring that these programs are all accredited by the National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE). That organization is currently toughening its own standards to make accredited programs longer, more demanding, and more focused on touchy-feelie education ideas and social and political concerns.graduation from Schools of education in California.
Those activities seem to be centralizing and standardizing the regulatory licensure process even more centrally. These moves would shift authority away from local school boards and state agencies to professional education organizations and standards committees.
The regulatory route is public education's traditional solution. Even business groups proposing to improve the quality of teaching are, ironically, offering suggestions that partake of the regulatory policy model. Many vested interests in Fresno and eleswhere are, more than likely, served and established routines are enhanced by more government regulation.
The regulatory strategy that California and other states followed for a generation and more, has failed. The unfortunate results are obvious: able liberal arts graduates avoid teaching, those who endure the process of acquiring pedagogical degrees refer to them as "Mickey Mouse" programs, and over time the problems of supply and quality have been exacerbated. When a strategy fails, it does not make much sense to do the same thing with redoubled effort. Yet that is what many states are now doing.graduation from Schools of education in California.
The present system does not even do a good job of screening out ill-prepared candidates. While some states have exit exams that appraise the skills, knowledge and competence of fledgling teachers, in many others, "quality control" occurs only at the point of entry into a training program, and entry requirements are low. In a state with no exit exam, completing the list of prescribed courses and earning the requisite degree are all that's needed to get one's teaching certificate. Though many jurisdictions now require future high school instructors to have majored (or minored) in the subjects that they plan to teach, the content and rigor of their course work are left entirely to the colleges.
Where there are exit exams, these often represent a modest intellectual threshold. Tests given to teaching candidates are commonly pitched at so undemanding a level-and their passing scores are so low-that they do little to deter individuals with limited intellectual prowess and scant subject matter knowledge. In Pennsylvania, for instance, passing scores were for many years set so that about 95 percent of everyone taking the tests passed them. Local school boards could then hire whomever they prefer, generally, for reasons quite unrelated to their mastery of subject matter.
What makes state regulation of entry into teaching dysfunctional is its self-defeating emphasis on time spent sitting in classes and rather than upon demonstrable evidence of teaching prowess, particularly as gauged by measurable student achievement. So, instead, it amounts to subjective opinions of other teachers and professors assosiated with a state regulated School of Education.
Public school teachers should be evaluated based on the only measure that really matters, whether their pupils are learning.
William Sanders of the University of Tennessee has developed a technique that uses careful statistical analysis to identify the gains that students make during a school year and then estimates the effects of individual teachers on student progress.
His technique is extremely precise and its results are statistically powerful. Originally used only in Tennessee but now spreading to other states, the technique has proven to be a powerful tool for evaluating teachers. Sanders writes,"...the top 20 percent of teachers boost the scores of low-achieving pupils by 53 percentile points on average, whilen the bottom 20 percent of teachers produce gains of only 14 percentile points."
Researchers in Dallas and Boston have found the same link: good teachers significantly boost student achievement, even for the weakest pupils.
Despite these drmatic research findings, too few states focus their teacher quality strategies on results. The instruments that states are far more likely to use in assessing teaching candidates are seriously flawed approximations of how good a teacher one will be. This is an illusion.
The regulatory strategy assumes that good teaching rests on a solid foundation of specialized professional knowledge about teaching practices that is scientifically based on educational research. In reality, however, much of that so-called knowledge base is shaky and conflicted. There is no known reliable link between pedagogical training and classroom success, however.
Making maters still worse, what little we actually do know about how those who have been certificated and who finally land a teaching job is quite troubling. There is accumulating evidence that local school boards show little interest in hiring the most academically qualified applicants.25 Districts often eschew professional recruiting and screening practices. Instead, they frequently prefer to hire their own high school graduates after they have become certified in a local education program, a practice which has been found to contribute to lower students scores on competency and achievement tests.
Personnel decisions for public schools are made by central office bureaucrats according to strict turf rules. Assignments are often based on so-called seniority. Rigid salary schedules mean that teacher pay reflects years of experience and degrees earned rather than any measure of performance, and salaries bear no relationship to marketplace conditions in the teaching field. There are few tangible rewards for good teaching.
We found that quality control focuses on the point of entry, and on-the-job teachers are protected by powerful political interests. There are fewer sanctions for incompetent teachers. Hiring and tenure decisions are often disconnected from any clear vision of quality teaching.
So, Secretary Riley said in February, "We can no longer fiddle around the edges of how we recruit, prepare, retain, and reward America's teachers."
If that is the case, then, it is high time to consider radically different public policies to boost the quality of teaching in U.S. schools. In the remainder of this paper, we advance a fresh view of how Fresno schools and those of America can acquire more and better teachers in the years ahead.
The teaching profession should be deregulated, entry into it should be widened, and personnel decisions should be decentralized to the school level, the teacher's actual workplace. Freeing up those decisions only makes sense, however, when schools are held accountable for their performance--truly accountable, with real consequences for success and failure. The proper incentives are created by results-based accountability systems in which states independently measure pupil achievement, issue public report cards on schools, reward successful schools, and intervene in or use sanctions against failing schools. In private schools today-and in most charter school programs-schools are held accountable by the marketplace while hiring decisions are made at the building level. Public schools, too, should be accountable in this manner.
For principals (or other education leaders) to manage their personnel in such a way as to shoulder accountability for school results, they must not only be free to select from a wide range of candidates, they must also have the flexibility to compensate those they hire according to marketplace conditions (and individual performance), and they must be able to remove those who do not produce satisfactory results. Everyone who has studied effective schools attests to the central importance of a cohesive "school team" that shares a common vision, and almost everyone who has studied current teacher personnel systems has witnessed the danger of tying that school team's hands when it comes to deciding who will join (or remain in) it.
Common sense also argues that teachers of subjects in short supply should be paid more than those in fields that are amply supplied, that teachers working in hard-to-staff schools should be paid more than those working in schools with hundreds of applicants for teaching slots, and that outstanding teachers should be paid more than mediocre ones. Yet today, the typical public school salary schedule (and teachers' union contract) allows for none of these commonsense practices.
There will soon be a day when great teachers, teachers in scarce fields, and teachers who shoulder difficult challenges, are paid six-figure salaries. But this is not apt to happen so long as mediocre practitioners and superb instructors are harnessed to the same pay scale.
As for the occasional incompetent teacher, the more freedom a school has in initial hiring, the more flexibility it needs with respect to retention. That's common sense, too. Yet today's school systems typically award tenure after a few years of service; thereafter, teachers are almost never dismissed for ineffectiveness. While teachers should be protected from abusive and capricious treatment at the hands of principals, they cannot be protected from losing their jobs for cause. Union contracts often allow veteran teachers to transfer into a school regardless of their instructional prowess, the school's actual needs, or their impact on the school team. Such policies will need to be changed so that principals can be empowered and made accountable.
School-level managers are in the best position to know who teaches well and who teaches badly. They have access to far more significant information than state licensing boards and government agencies. They should be empowered (and if need be trained) to appraise each teacher's singular package of strengths and weaknesses rather than having distant bureaucracies decide who should be on their team. Once hired, teachers should be evaluated based on the only measure that really matters: whether their pupils are learning.
The common sense view acknowledges that there is no "one best system" for preparing and licensing quality teachers. A review of the research on the teacher qualities that affect student outcomes is humbling; lamentably little is known for sure about what makes an effective teacher, when gauged by pupil achievement. This argues against mandating any single path into the profession; education schools certainly ought not monopolize the training of teachers. In any case, teachers regularly report that the best place to learn about good teaching practices is on the job and in the company of other good teachers.
In a deregulated environment, good teacher education programs will thrive and prosper. Those that do a poor job will not, once they lose the protection that the regulatory monopoly confers on them. Principals should be able to decide for themselves whether to hire teachers who have been trained in certain pedagogical methods and theories.
The popularity of such programs as Teach for America, which places liberal arts graduates without formal education course work in public school classrooms in poor rural communities and inner cities, indicates that the prospect of teaching without first being obliged to spend years in pedagogical study appeals to some of our brightest college graduates. Over 3,000 people apply for 500 Teach for America slots each year. Since 1994, more than 3,000 veterans of the armed forces have also made the transition from military to classrooms through the Troops to Teachers program.
Alternative certification programs streamline the classroom entry of more prospective teachers. Such programs normally require a bachelor's degree, passage of a competency test, and an intensive (but compressed) regimen of specialized preparation, often undertaken while on the job. They attract talented and enthusiastic individuals into teaching who might otherwise be lost to this calling. Teachers with alternative certification are more likely to have bachelor's degrees in math and science, two fields with chronic shortages of qualified teachers. They are also more likely to be members of minority groups.
Where personnel decisions have been deregulated, schools rush to hire well-educated persons whether or not they possess standard certification. Private schools routinely employ unlicensed instructors, which tends to increase the proportion of their teachers who graduated from selective colleges and gained academic training.
In New Jersey, for example, the first state to implement a serious alternative certification program, from 23 to 40 percent of teachers now enter the profession through that route.
The few studies of alternative certification that have been done find that students of such teachers perform at least as well as students of conventionally licensed teachers. In New Jersey, alternative-certification teachers also have lower attrition than traditionally certified teachers during their first year and are as likely to stay in the field over time.
Trading accountability for autonomy does not mean sloughing off all regulation. Every child should be able to count on having a teacher who has a solid general education, who possesses deep subject area knowledge, and who has no record of misbehavior. The state has an obligation to ensure that all prospective teachers meet this minimal standard. Thus states should perform background checks on candidates for teaching positions. To boost the likelihood that those who teach our children are themselves well educated, states should require that teaching candidates have at least a bachelor's degree in some academic subject.
States should also ensure subject matter competence. There are two ways to do this: requiring teachers to major in the subjects they teach or requiring them to pass challenging tests of subject matter knowledge. Neither method is perfect. Obliging all teachers to major in the subject they will teach may-regrettably-set the bar too low. At some universities, one can graduate as a history major without learning much of the history we'd expect a high school history teacher to have mastered. The same is true of other academic majors. And a minor is unlikely to reflect any subject mastery. On the other hand, a prospective teacher who graduates in, say, American studies may have learned ample history or literature to be an outstanding history or English teacher, even though his diploma doesn't actually say "history" or "English".
Such variation in college majors tempts us to embrace testing as a more reliable measure of preparedness to teach. The value of any test, however, hinges on its content, rigor and passing score. Our instinct is to set those cut-offs as high as possible. But since tests are an imperfect gauge of teaching ability, some applicants will fail the test yet possess superior teaching potential. We all know individuals whose other qualities would cause them to be effective with children even if they do poorly on a paper-and-pencil test of knowledge. That is why we are wary of putting all the education eggs in the testing basket or making a certain fixed score an absolute prerequisite to being hired.
Neither academic majors nor subject test scores is a faultless means of assuring that teachers possess the requisite knowledge and will be good at delivering it. But either strategy is superior to today's widespread disregard of subject-matter mastery.
The common sense strategy for improving teacher quality is surprisingly straightforward: states should empower principals to employ teachers as they see fit, and then hold those principals to account for their schools' results. Since every regulation that restricts entry to the profession excludes some potentially good teachers from public education, regulation should be reduced to the bare minimum.
States should have accountability systems operating at the student, classroom, and building levels. School-level accountability involves measuring pupil achievement and issuing report cards for schools. Such information should be disseminated to students, parents and the public. States should reward successful schools and should have-and use-the authority to reconstitute or otherwise intervene in failing schools. They may also institute market-based accountability via various forms of school choice. States must also define the role that school districts will play in these accountability systems.
Principals need accountability, too. Their jobs and salaries ought to be tied to their schools' performance. But they need the information by which to hold their faculty and staff accountable. The state can help by providing student achievement data, disaggregated by teacher, like those generated by the value-added system that Sanders developed for Tennessee.
States should empower school-level administrators with the authority to make personnel decisions.
Authority must accompany accountability. All key personnel decisions (including hiring, promotion, retention, and compensation) should be devolved to schools. Quality control should be the responsibility of school leaders, who have freedom to hire from a wide pool of teaching candidates and pay teachers based on marketplace conditions or individual performance. States should pass whatever legislation is needed to assign all these decisions to the school level.
Teacher tenure ought not be allowed to interfere. Multi-year contracts are far preferable. It must be possible to remove incompetent teachers at reasonable cost and within a reasonable period of time, without sacrificing their right to due process protection against capricious and ad hominem treatment.
States should encourage differential pay so that schools can pay outstanding teachers more. It should also be possible to adjust teacher pay for labor market conditions, subject specialty, and the challenge of working in tough schools. A flexible salary structure would allow paychecks to respond to marketplace signals while creating financial incentives for excellent teaching and practical sanctions for poor teaching.
To work well, this system obviously requires capable principals, education leaders who know how to judge good teaching and are prepared to act on the basis of such evaluations. We're not naïve about the supply of such people in management positions in public education today. But they exist in large numbers in U.S. society and can be drawn into the schools if the incentives are right. Executive training for some current principals will also help them handle this difficult evolution of their role.
States should perform background checks for all teaching candidates and require prospective teachers to have a bachelor's degree in an academic field. They should also ensure that new teachers are adequately grounded in the subject matter they are expected to teach, either by requiring that they major in the subject(s) that they will teach or by mandating rigorous subject matter examinations. (They may be wise to use both mechanisms and also let principals make exceptions when other compelling evidence is at hand.)
States should open more paths into the classroom, encourage diversity and choice among forms of preparation for teaching, and welcome into the profession a larger pool of talented and well-educated people who would like to teach.
Policymakers should take forceful action to eliminate monopoly control and challenge "one best system" attitudes toward teacher preparation. Traditional training programs should be closely scrutinized for their length, cost, burden and value. Is a two year time commitment really necessary, for example? States should publish detailed factual information about individual programs and their graduates, data that outsiders can use to evaluate their effectiveness. Information about the effectiveness of recent graduates (as measured by the value-added achievement scores of their pupils) should be made public; until this is available, institution-specific data should include the placement rate of graduates and the percentage of graduates passing state teacher tests. (Some of this information was mandated by the Higher Education Amendments of 1998.)
States should expand the pool of talented teaching candidates by allowing individuals who have not attended schools of education to teach, provided that they meet the minimum standards outlined above. States should encourage programs that provide compressed basic training for prospective teachers. States should also attract outstanding college graduates to the profession by using financial incentives such as scholarships, loan forgiveness programs and signing bonuses.
For too long, policymakers have focused overmuch on training teachers and not enough on recruiting them. They have tackled the quality problem by increasing regulation and expanding pedagogical requirements, even though this approach shrinks the pool of candidates while having scant effect on their quality. Forty years of experience suggests that this strategy is a failure. It cannot work. Indeed, it has compounded today's dual crisis of teacher quality and quantity.
We offer something different. States that reduce barriers to entry will find not only that their applicant pool is larger but also that it includes many more talented candidates. Turning our back on excessive and ill-conceived regulations and focussing instead on student outcomes is the key. To attract and keep the best teachers, states must also be willing to pay strong teachers well-and to muster the necessary resources to do this.
Raising the quality of the U.S. teaching force is an urgent priority today and some policymakers have begun to signal their receptivity to change. In his February 1999 State of American Education speech, for example, Secretary Riley proclaimed, "We must make sweeping efforts to make teaching a first-class profession. And, then, we must hold schools accountable for results.....What else can we do? We can create rigorous alternative paths to give many more Americans the opportunity to become a teacher."
We agree.
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