By Joe Enge

 

Choice for education in Nevada has long been greatly lacking. A small number of charter schools have existed, but they have been constantly and purposefully exposed and limited — for the best interests of the establishment, not the students.

Now, however, there is a major crack in the dike.

The Nevada Connections Academy (NCA), a new distance charter school for Silver State residents, was approved by the Nevada Board of Education in early March.

The school begins serving students this August and is now accepting applications for those entering grades 4-11. Grade 12 is scheduled to be offered in 2008-09.

NCA is one of a number of online public schools now operated in different states by the national Connections Academy organization, which describes itself as “a leading national provider of high quality, highly accountable K-12 virtual public schools operated in partnership with charter schools and school districts.”

“Connections Academy schools,” says a company statement, “deliver top-quality, personalized education for students that combines certified teachers; a proven, print-rich curriculum; technology tools; and community experiences to create a supportive and successful environment for children who need an individualized approach to education.”

During the 2006-07 school year, Connections Academy schools served students in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Minnesota, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

NCA staffers will be meeting with interested Nevada parents and conducting in-person information sessions around the state beginning July 23 and ending August 15. According to an online announcement, the cities visited will be Sparks, Yerington, Henderson, Laughlin, Las Vegas, Pahrump, Winnemucca, Elko, Carson City and Reno, in that order. Also scheduled are online virtual-meeting info sessions from July 20 through August 20. More specific details can be found at the Nevada Connections Academy website, which is part of www.connectionsacademy.com .

For too long, Nevada public education has operated with a “take it or leave it” attitude. This has meant that many parents, if not satisfied with the establishment’s provision of education, have been forced into either home school or private school — both at great personal cost. Now, technology, foresight, and vision have evolved to the point that families in Nevada have another option.

Although competition and choice are anathema to the establishment, it apparently found itself — like the Soviets facing the realities of their system’s failure — compelled to acknowledge a good concept that will embrace and individualize student needs.

The technology to provide education to any and all in this fashion has been around for years. What blocked it was a system that says “think outside of the box,” but at the same time feared if anyone really did.

With the approval of NCA as Nevada’s newest charter school, institutional thinking outside the box has now occurred. As a parent, former teacher, and current public school board member, I recognize the more options provided in education the better. Though I’ve tried to cut through the “take it or leave it” attitude in public schools, so far I’ve not had much success. The reason is that the key ingredient of competition has been missing.

I am personally forwarding NCA’s contact information to parents dissatisfied with my own school district, because I want what is best for the students. Even school board members cannot cut through the arrogant attitudes of administrators who know there are few other options available to their involuntary clients: the parents and students.

Any and all who claim to wrap themselves around the “it’s for the children” concept need to be challenged about choice. Pass the word and recommend Nevada Connections Academy. As a parent, I want options. As a teacher, I welcome competition. As a school board member, I see first-hand the smug “you don’t have options” attitude — that needs a really serious kick in the backside.

As Nevada Connections Academy opens its doors, we all need to appreciate the dedication that this achievement entailed and be ready to defend the educational options it provides.

We have two obligations: to pass the word and to defend, for surely the empire will strike back. The sooner we recognize that options and opportunities for parents and students are good things, the quicker we’ll see real improvement in our students’ performance and results.

Joe Enge is education policy analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

By Joe Enge

 

Teachers often bemoan the fact that they are neither seen nor treated as true professionals. It is true that teachers are not held in nearly as high a regard in American culture as they are in many others. Having taught in Estonia, I’ve experienced the difference in treatment that teachers receive there as compared to here in the United States. In fact, students don’t refer to their teachers by name in Estonia, instead using the term “teacher” as a respectful way to address educators.

It is worth considering the degree to which American teachers themselves have undermined their professional reputations through unionism. There is an inherent conflict between unionism and professionalism that operates to the detriment of teaching. Demonstrating this is the current struggle between the Clark County Education Association (CCEA), affiliated with the Nevada State Education Association and the National Education Association, and a new, upstart Teamsters local.

The CCEA is facing unrest because of its failure to represent the interests of its members and over charges of selling them out. Former CCEA member Ron Taylor is leading the revolt, providing evidence to fellow teachers and the media that the CCEA has, indeed, been selling out its members. Taylor even charges that the union asked the administration to investigate him for going public. How nice – a “teachers” union that claims to defend teachers but actually works with the administration to keep teachers in line.

This is nothing new, by any means. A strange, modern version of serfdom has evolved in American education, with the teachers’ unions playing a key role in keeping the serfs from revolting. There are four interest groups involved in this drama: the teachers, the unions, the administration and, as a proxy for the public, the school board. The interests of both the teachers and the school board/public are neglected in a system where the union pretends to represent teachers, and the administration pretends to represent the school board and public. Since contract negotiations are closed to all except the union and the administration, the other stakeholders – including the general taxpaying public – cannot see what transpires.

Taylor’s efforts in revealing the true, ugly face of the CCEA are admirable and gutsy. His solution, however, is only to replace one union with another – in this case, the Teamsters. On Thursday, June 28, the official announcement was made: “Teamsters Local 14 announces they will begin an organizing campaign for teachers and support staff of the Clark County School District. This commitment by Teamsters Local 14 will surely change education in Clark County and certainly Nevada.”

The window for unsatisfied members of the CCEA to leave is short. NSEA affiliates usually have a two-week window (July 1-15) in which to drop the union, but the rumor is that CCEA has an even shorter window of July 1-11. It’s no accident that the short drop period falls around the July 4 holiday and right in the middle of summer vacation, when many teachers are out of town. The frustration of some over the CCEA’s antics is made clear by an “in your face” demonstration scheduled to take place right in front of CCEA headquarters during the drop period. One teacher even suggested bringing a big truck to park in front of the building to show that the Teamsters are here.

The CCEA fully deserves this raid. Whether it can be taken down in so short a time is another matter.

But the deeper question teachers in Clark County and throughout Nevada should be asking is whether it is in their professional interest to be in a union at all. Replacing one union with another is not the answer, as the feudal education structure will remain. Dropping union membership altogether, however, will raise the stature of the profession. A sizable number of American teachers over the years have reached this conclusion, forming the Association of American Educators (AAE) and rejecting the union label.

The AAE describes itself as “the largest national, non-union, professional teacher association, offering educators an alternative to partisan politics and non-educational agendas of the teacher labor unions.” It also offers teachers excellent liability coverage at a great saving.

As we watch the CCEA and Teamsters battle it out, teachers should keep in mind that there is another path for teachers, a path provided by the AAE that addresses the central conflict between unionism and professionalism.

In the end, educators have to ask themselves whether they prefer being called “teacher” or “Teamster.”

Joe Enge is education policy analyst at the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

Nevadans won’t settle for business-as-usual placebos like full-day kindergarten
By Joe Enge

 

In a mad rush to jack up education spending by more than $1 billion during the 2007 legislative session — without any serious and badly needed education reforms involving choice or accountability — Nevada’s education establishment tripped over the rock of reality and stumbled head on into a pronounced credibility gap.

While most media reports painted the session’s outcome regarding education as a balanced “compromise,” the reality is that the state’s insatiable behemoth was left stunned, trudging away with only $63 million in additional funding above Gov. Gibbons’ proposed budget. 

General fund spending for K-12 ended up at $2.2 billion, or, when non-general funds are added to the Distributive School Account (DSA), $2.67 billion. The governor proposed a 13-percent increase, then accepted an 18-percent compromise. Instead of the $186 million sought for full-day kindergarten, proponents came away with $15 million. 

Such a result was not predictable a year ago as the drumbeat and chants were building to blindly increase education spending under rosy state budget predictions. An expensive and inherently flawed adequacy study with predetermined results was touted in the run-up to the session, and the study’s predictable call for a massive increase was echoed by the Nevada State Board of Education. Then the state’s 17 school boards and 17 superintendents unanimously jumped on the bandwagon with their proposed “iNVest 07” plan calling for $1 billion in increased spending. “We’re asking for programs, not money,” they told lawmakers. But did anybody really buy that?

The false assumptions of the adequacy study were exposed during an August 2006 presentation to the Interim Education Committee. Testifying for the Nevada Policy Research Institute, the esteemed education analyst Dr. Richard P. Phelps and I made clear that, despite its seemingly impressive volume of numbers and statistics, the adequacy study’s invalid premises made its numbers irrelevant and unusable. The study briefly popped its head up again during the early session but, thanks again to NPRI testimony, suffered the fate of the resident pest in the whack-a-mole game, never to be heard from again.

The push for full-day kindergarten received its first challenge during NPRI’s pre-session testimony in November 2006. The challenge clearly took full-day kindergarten advocates by surprise, exposing their lack of familiarity with the voluminous array of studies that shred claims of universal academic benefits for full-day kindergarten programs. Proponents clearly had not done their homework, banking instead on the chorus effect to drown out any potential objections. That proved to be a major mistake, as the counter-evidence NPRI offered spoke to not only the flaws in proponents’ claims, but their lack of academic honesty as well.

Things grew even worse for the establishment on the credibility front when the Clark County School District tried in February 2007 to finesse a “study” they claimed proved the academic benefits of full-day kindergarten programs. But state Sen. Bob Beers called them on some key missing data. When finally provided, it revealed that full-day kindergarten students who were not “at-risk” actually performed worse by the second grade than their half-day counterparts. The new governor, too, helped Nevadans see through the smoke and mirrors with his opposition to universal compulsory full-day kindergarten.

A statewide decline in projected budget revenues brought the hammer down on full-day pre-school, yet Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley & Co. clung to it as though it were public education’s Holy Grail. As the session neared its end, preposterous assertions, political rhetoric and hyperbole filled the air — advocates’ last refuge amid an absence of supporting research and funds.

“Buckley contended some inmates might not have ended up in prison if they had received a better start to education with full-day kindergarten,” reported Ed Vogel of the Las Vegas Review-Journal May 4. “Her comment sparked a response from Joe Enge, a member of the Carson City School Board and an education analyst for the Nevada Policy Research Institute. ‘I am not aware of one study that shows investing in all-day kindergarten will make any impact on the incarceration rate,’ Enge said. He said the Nevada education system’s problems occur at the secondary level, not in early grades.”

The lesson of the 2007 legislature is that the public wants substantial education reform and won’t settle for the expensive, business-as-usual “feel good” placebos that the full-day kindergarten push epitomized. 

Until sound policy objectives — such as Sen. Barbara Cegavske’s bills to restructure the state education system (SB 540) and provide choice for special needs students (S.B. 158) — are taken seriously, the establishment’s budget-expansion balloons will continue to be popped.

By Joe Enge

 

It was the same date, centuries ago, when a man popular to the people and dangerous to the elites walked through the Roman forum to the Senate. He would not be returning. It was the Ides of March and conspirators lay in wait.

How the Nevada State Education Association takes advantage of teachers
By Joe Enge

 

The Nevada State Education Association (NSEA) has been successful in pulling the wool over the eyes of the public, the media and its own members to the extent that most have the erroneous belief that the union’s interests and teachers are synonymous.

Yes, Nevada is a Right to Work state, but the union has rigged the education system with their contracts and cozy relationship with school districts to keep teachers in line. The Carson City School District’s contract is a good example. A number of stipulations stand out as being not in the best interest of individual teachers.

By contract, school boards agree to do the union’s work for them in organizing and collecting dues. The district agrees to provide the union with all of the new teachers’ names and home addresses prior to their first day of employment.

Lovely. Before the school year even starts the district hands over the “private” home addresses of new teachers without their permission or knowledge. Can’t the union even wait until school starts and have their moles identify the new faces at school? I guess not. It is so much easier having the district do the work for you.

The contract also turns the districts into bagmen, acting as collection agencies for the union by directly deducting dues from teachers’ paychecks. Why can’t the union collect the money themselves? Why can’t teachers send them checks? 

The union knows many teachers would not pay if they were forced to like indentured servants. If you want to quit the union in August, well, sorry. You can’t and will have to pay until next year whether you like it or not. You can only quit from July 1 to July 15 when teachers are on vacation and not thinking about such matters. I just heard the dates are July 1 to July 10 in Clark County, but have yet to confirm. 

The contract also stipulates the union will be present for all grievances, whether involving a member or not. Yes, you don’t have to join the union, but they insist on being in your private business if you have an issue, even if you aren’t a union member and object to their presence.

Only the union can take a matter to arbitration, not an individual teacher. That’s their real power over teachers. They have complete veto power over whether or not you can get an impartial, outside-the-district decision no matter how grievous the treatment. Remember, the entire contract is not with any teacher, but is owned by the union itself. Most union members think the union has to back them up and don’t know they can leave them hanging at any time. Too many teachers have found that the union sold them out the hard way after paying dues for years and feeling like suckers in the process.

But, you insist, the union would never sell out teachers. It happens more often than most people are aware. Take the case of teacher and union member Ron Taylor in Clark County. Taylor found out the union was overcharging teachers for classes and pocketing the difference. He went public and has posted all the details on his site at www.teachers4change.net.

Taylor’s revelations rattled the union. He states the union president called human resources to have him investigated. He writes, “In other words, a union official requested that a school district official conduct an investigation of a school district teacher (and fellow union member).” Taylor is not alone and is leading a revolt of indignant teachers.

Insiders believe the NSEA also worked against teachers in the legislature, helping to kill The Teachers’ Bill of Rights. You would think they would be all for protecting teachers. Not so, because if teachers are protected by statute, their Nero-like thumbs up-or-down power over teachers is undermined, and they will lose members. Administrative harassment is good for business in the protection racket.

Why don’t more teachers speak out? Many don’t know, and those who do know don’t speak out for fear of retribution. The unholy alliance between administration and the union is a powerful combination. It’s the Nazi-Soviet Pact of American education, which we ignore at our own peril.

The governor’s lack of influence has contributed significantly to our state’s education problems
By Joe Enge

Liberty Watch Magazine 

Governor's budget shorts public schools, assemblywoman contends
By Ed Vogel
Las Vegas Review-Journal

CARSON CITY -- Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, questioned why the state can find money for prison inmates when it does not have funds to expand the full-day kindergarten program to all eligible children.

She told the Assembly Ways and Means Committee that the state spends about $20,000 a year to incarcerate each prisoner and has been asked by the governor to support $300 million in new prison construction.

In contrast, she said, to offer each kindergartner a full day of class would cost $2,400 per student.

That money has not been included in Gov. Jim Gibbons' proposed $6.8 billion general fund state budget.

She said Gibbons has proposed spending just $13 million on new programs for public schools.

"What does that say about our priorities?" she asked. "That is not putting education first."

Buckley contended some inmates might not have ended up in prison if they had received a better start to education with full-day kindergarten.

Her comment sparked a response from Joe Enge, a member of the Carson City School Board and an education analyst for the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

"I am not aware of one study that shows investing in all-day kindergarten will make any impact on the incarceration rate," Enge said.

He said the Nevada education system's problems occur at the secondary level, not in early grades.

Buckley called on the committee to make a financial commitment to education but acknowledged the state does not have extra revenue.

"I don't know how much money we will have. We know the situation is bleak."

The state Economic Forum on Tuesday issued a report on state revenue that requires that the government cut at least $74 million from the governor's proposed budget.

The committee took no vote on Assembly Bill 157, Buckley's bill that calls for spending $73 million to start full-day kindergarten in all 340 elementary schools in Nevada in the 2008-09 school year.

Full-day kindergarten now is offered in 114 "at-risk" schools, those where more than 55 percent of students qualify for free or reduced cost lunches.

A decision on the bill probably will not come before legislative leaders and Gibbons can agree on a compromise that involves Buckley's bill and the governor's proposal to establish 100 empowerment schools.

Democrats oppose Gibbons' bill because it proposes funding the empowerment schools by taking $60 million going to a retirement program for teachers.

In an interview earlier Thursday, Assembly Education Committee Chairwoman Bonnie Parnell, D-Carson City, predicted that both sides will give a little and agree to a partial expansion of full-day kindergarten and add some empowerment schools.

Assembly Minority Leader Garn Mabey, R-Las Vegas, and Senate Human Resources Committee Chairman Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, expressed similar comments.

Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes said 11,000 of the 23,000 kindergarten students in his district already attend full-day classes.

"Some people believe it is a waste of time after the third or fourth grade," he added. "I think that is nonsense."

Why can’t we apply other countries’ successful vocational education programs to our situation in Nevada?
By Joe Enge

Leftist lawmakers explore aggressive tactics to derail debate about funding issues for education
By Joe Enge

 

Liberal legislators Barbara Buckley, Debbie Smith and Dina Titus saw red this Valentine’s Day when Dr. Richard Phelps and I testified for Nevada Policy Research Institute about the fatal flaws of the Education Finance Adequacy Study to the Legislature.

Nevada taxpayers paid a Colorado consultant $225,000 for a study that used questionable methods to determine an inflated conclusion; Nevada was short $1.3 billion for “adequate spending” in the 2003-2004 school year and a great deal more would be needed to become “adequate” in successive years.

Dr. Phelps completed an analysis of the study for NPRI titled “Thoroughly Inadequate: The ‘School Funding Adequacy’ Evasion,” which is available at www.npri.org. Dr. Phelps wrote, “Does their adequacy study or, for that matter, could any adequacy study, really provide ‘a definitive answer’ to Nevada’s education funding needs? What about productivity? Adequacy refers to inputs, but what about outputs? Do adequacy studies consider productivity, and if they do not, are adequacy studies themselves adequate?”

The adequacy study was intended purely for political use as a false pretext to increase funding of public education while avoiding any systemic changes or accountability. Knowing full well Nevada could never afford such an extravagant sum, the study was intended to serve a twofold purpose: First, leverage as much as possible out of the system without relinquishing any control; Second, still be in a position to blame failures on a lack of money since the maximum funding amounts would never be reached.

Hats off to the cleverness of this Machiavellian plan and manipulation. 

So what went wrong? Reality. The study’s hypothetical schools are to be paid for with “real” money, not hypothetical dollars. Rather than being a “roadmap” as the cheerleaders from the “mo money” crowd chanted and repeated, it turned out to be an educational bridge to nowhere based on false assumptions. If we aren’t lost already, we definitely will be if the adequacy study is used to chart a course.

The effectiveness and depth to which the NPRI criticisms cut was demonstrated by the reactions. Before Dr. Phelps could even touch on a few key points during the testimony, Assembly Speaker Buckley interrupted him in an attempt to get him off track. She only backed off when it was explained we were invited to testify and should be given the same consideration as the adequacy study consultants.

The questioning after our presentation turned into a grilling to distract attention from the flaws and issues of the study. Suddenly it was demanded in yes-or-no terms whether we need more funding for education. I answered that it was a question of allocation. I was charged again, as if on trial, to only answer “yes” or “no,” which is blatantly ridiculous.

As if rude interruptions and prosecutorial tactics weren’t enough, Sen. Titus weighed in and was not happy. She demanded ideas that do not include funding increases. It’s a fair enough question on the surface, but it’s also a clever “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” setup that not all viewing were aware. If you answer her question, you can be accused and chastised by the chair for talking off topic, and if you don’t, they will say you can only criticize and don’t have any solutions to offer.

There are definite solutions, and they involve doing what is best for the students rather than the system. When students are the priority, the necessity for empowerment, decentralization and school choice is clear. Those who advocate otherwise will be seeing a lot more red during the 2007 session as the debates heat up and the expensive distractions such as All-Day K and the adequacy study melt away.

By Ed Vogel

Las Vegas Review-Journal

 

CARSON CITY -- Former teacher Joe Enge is about to become a thorn in the side of Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, and anyone else who wants the Legislature to require full-day kindergarten classes in every Nevada elementary school.

"Why spend $186 million on a program that has a limited and only a short-term effect?" said Enge, a conservative education reformer from Carson City who grew up a fan of Ronald Reagan. "At that age, kids can handle only so much and retain it. Kids need to be with their families. It is critical for a 5-year-old to bond with the mother."

Enge, 44, is a newly elected member of the Carson City School Board. He has formed EdWatch, a conservative education reform organization, and become education policy analyst for a conservative think tank, the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

In this position, he will become the leading advocate for conservative education views at the Legislature.

Pupils in full-day kindergarten classes attend school about six hours a day, compared with slightly more than 2 1/2 hours in half-day kindergarten classes.

Nevada now offers full-day kindergarten only in "at-risk" schools, or those where 55 percent or more of the children qualify for free or reduced cost lunches.

A Clark County School District study released Feb. 22 found second-graders who attended full-day kindergarten performed better on reading tests than those who attended half-day kindergarten classes.

"We haven't seen data over the long term," Enge said. "Look at the timing of the Clark County study. It was released on the first day of the Legislature. It is all politically driven."

It was on that same day that Buckley urged legislators in her inaugural speech to fund full-day kindergarten classes.

He called her speech "the first salvo" in what could be a bitter war in the Legislature between education conservatives and liberals.

Assembly Education Chairwoman Bonnie Parnell said she will welcome Enge to express his views before her committee, but she can't understand how full-day kindergarten would hurt students.

"I think full-day kindergarten is wonderful," added Parnell, D-Carson City. "I don't know how giving children an opportunity to be in an academic environment for a longer period of time could hurt anyone."

Enge cites studies from the Rand Corp. and the Goldwater Institute that show full-day kindergarten initially helps students, but by the fourth grade they begin to fall behind other students in achievement.

Student achievement in Nevada ranks 44th nationally among the states.

He isn't the kind of guy to shy away from a fight. Last March he received a settlement from the Carson City School District to leave his job as a high school history teacher.

Enge had engaged in a year-long dispute with the district's administration. He charged the school curriculum required him to begin teaching U.S. history with the Reconstruction period following the Civil War.

He contended a U.S. history course needed to devote a lot of attention to the American Revolution and the creation of the Constitution.

Superintendent Mary Pierczynski and other administrators maintained that the American Revolution was taught, although the district's course description catalog described the history course as beginning with Reconstruction.

Enge received a poor evaluation. More than 1,300 residents wrote e-mail messages in his support.

At one point in his career, he won a Fulbright scholarship to teach a year in Estonia. He also had been on the team that set the state standards for history teaching and written two history books.

Rather than fading away after accepting the buyout, Enge filed his candidacy for the Carson City School Board. He won a landslide victory last November.

Buckley said she welcomes public discourse on the merits of full-day kindergarten and of Gov. Jim Gibbons' education empowerment plan, in which decisions on running individual schools would be made largely by principals in consultation with teachers and parents.

Buckley added Democrats have analyzed studies on full-day kindergarten and will give details in hearings.

Her goal is to attract teachers by establishing a pay-for-performance system that rewards them when students show increased achievement, according to Buckley. She also wants to reform high schools.

"The curriculum doesn't interest a lot of students," she said. "We need to offer more career and technical education."

Enge also wants a pay-for-performance system.

He said the current pay plan, under which teachers receive the same initial pay and then get increases for each year of service, is a "socialist scheme" that hurts good young teachers and rewards older teachers who just want to stay on the job until they retire.

Enge is a big supporter of Gibbons' empowerment plans and said that in such systems, principals and teachers could decide to offer full-day kindergarten in their schools.

Parents also would have school choice and could decide to send children to that school or one with half-day kindergarten.

"I don't doubt their sincerity," Enge said of full-day kindergarten supporters. "That is why we need greater school choice."

During his 16-year teaching career, Enge said he often met with Gibbons, who would stop by each year to speak in his classes, even when he taught at tiny Round Mountain in Nye County. Gibbons was the 2nd Congressional District representative for 10 years.

"What is so refreshing about Gibbons is his empowerment plan would bring long-term positive change by making decisions from the bottom up," he said. "What we have now is decisions from the top down."

As an example, he said a few years ago teachers in Carson City were instructed to use pens, not pencils, in filling out their attendance books.

"We didn't have the authority to erase the marks for students who were tardy, even if they had good excuses," he said. "Teachers could not make the decision. If that isn't Soviet central planning, then what is?"

Gibbons' speech calls for decentralization, choice and accountability in public schools
By Joe Enge