District rejects community efforts to help Celesta - (part 3)

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is part 3 of a series of articles on Celesta, a grade-11 student in Spokane, WA. I interviewed her for a June 4 episode of “Cut to the Chase,” a local radio show hosted by Rob Chase for the ACN Network. Part 1 of the series described Celesta as lacking multiple basic skills in mathematics. Part 2 discussed the district's response to my queries about how to help Celesta and her classmates.]


I’ve been writing about Celesta, a high school student who was carrying a 3.6 GPA, who passed her math tests, got As in her math classes, was placed into honors pre-calculus, and who – like many of her classmates – suddenly found out she was missing multiple critical skills in elementary math. She was struggling to pass her honors math class. She also has few skills in grammar.

I’ve been trying to figure out a way to help Celesta and her classmates.

The best way to help the students:

Go back in time and teach the students the grammar and the six years of math skills the district refused to give them. I need a time machine to do that, and no one has invented one – not that they’ve told me, anyway.

The second best way to help the students:

Someone at their school could work with the students and bring them up to grade level. But when I called around to all of Spokane’s middle and high schools a few weeks ago to find out how to help students like Celesta, most had no remedial programs for students who are NOT special education. Nearly all wanted to test Celesta for learning disabilities. Several expressed doubt about the veracity of her story. One suggested she might have brain damage. Few expressed interest in community members coming into the school to help with skills; almost all referred that idea to central-office administration.

Additionally, Celesta said the “homework center” at her school isn’t for remedial skills. Kids view it as detention, not help, she said. She also was denied access to remedial algebra classes, she said. As an honors student, she said, she was told she can’t go backward. She must march forward to Statistics, ready or not.

Celesta’s situation reflects the sheer depth and magnitude of the problem. She is smart, articulate, and dedicated to her schoolwork. She is considered to be an honors student. Because of her achievements in math, she was placed into honors pre-calculus, which – with a great deal of effort – she passed, with a C. But I know what she doesn’t know in basic math, and it's devastating.

Now, imagine all of the students who DIDN'T pass their math tests, and who AREN'T getting As. Just 38.9% of Spokane’s 10th graders passed the 2010 state math test, on which they needed just 56.9% to pass. That 38.9% pass rate includes Celesta. It also includes students who receive supplementation from outside the district. Take those students out of the data, and where would the pass rates be then? By itself, does the district math program get anyone to actual proficiency in real mathematics?

The complete picture is barely imaginable. Folks, in K-12 mathematics, it’s a smoking wreckage out there. This is a completely preventable tragedy. It’s persistently pushed and pressed on teachers, parents and students by an ineffective, self-interested, obstructive leadership.

How district administrators and board directors can look at themselves in the mirror is beyond me. How they can accept plaques, awards and raises – well, I couldn’t do it. I would feel ill to be rewarded and praised for such abject failure. But the people who built this failing program are still employed at the district, most received raises last summer, and the superintendent’s contract was extended last night to July 31, approved unanimously by the four board directors present. (Approval of a new contract was delayed until July.)

The school board can fire just one person – the superintendent. Nancy Stowell received nearly a quarter-of-a-million taxpayer dollars last year as she stubbornly maintained a failing academic program and did not fire these incompetent administrators.

Meanwhile, various people in the district have accused parents and community members of blaming the district while refusing to help it. That’s hilarious. I've tried to help; they keep saying no.

The third best way to help these students:

The community can step in and tutor these students in basic arithmetic. I have asked the district repeatedly to work with me on developing such programs. On May 11, 2011, I again asked Nancy Stowell, our superintendent, if community members could work with the district on developing a free tutoring program. This is her reply (quoted verbatim – just cut and pasted):


"Good Morning Laurie,

"I have looked into your request, but I don't believe we have a structure in place to support community designed tutoring proggram. The only way we have for working with volunteers in through our Volunteer Program. That program, as you know, operates thruough our individual schools, but it really isn't set up to host specific tutoring programs designed by community members. In our Volunteer Program it is up to principals to idenfity the work of the volunteers. If volunteers do work on academic progjects in the schools it is under the supervision of a certificated staff member. If community members want to set up a tutoring program, they might be able to work through the community centers or perhaps the libraries.

"Thank you for your interest. I do understand that you have a huge commitment to our students and their academic success.

"Nancy"
I asked Dr. Stowell if she would build a “structure” for offering free tutoring to the students. I received no reply. On June 13, I asked her again, noting that school was almost out. I received no reply.
 
Dr. Stowell’s response isn’t the first “no” I’ve gotten. A few years ago, I asked an elementary principal about helping students in math skills. I was told I would have to use the district curriculum, I would have to include all types of learners, and I would have to include language arts along with math. Well, that sounds like the failing district program to me.
 
I took my request to the school board. I was told it’s an issue with collective bargaining, and that, to get around it, I would have to rent the school.
 
In January 2011, I tried again. I wrote to a new principal to say this:


"As you probably recall, I asked you a few days after school began last September about beginning a free tutoring program in basic math skills for students in the … program. You said you would think it over. I have reminded you about it a few times since then, in September, October, and November.

"Each time I met with you, I explained the situation with Spokane's K-8 math program, about Spokane's high remedial rates, high dropout rates, and weak passing scores on state math tests. I noted that the tutoring would take time and dedication to fill in the large number of gaps in the students' math knowledge. I said it doesn't have to be me who does it, that the point is to get the students the basic skills they need if they are to succeed in algebra and geometry.

"I am following up with you to find out what is happening on this.

"Thanks very much,

"Laurie Rogers"
This was the principal’s response (quoted verbatim – just cut and pasted):


"Laurie

"Thanks for your email. Like we talked about in December, I am working with our teachers on identifying what our specific students' needs are how to best address them.

"Hope you have a great weekend."
Oh, sure. Have a great weekend. I hope they all have a great weekend. I hope Celesta and her classmates are having a great weekend. Want to bet that the next time we turn around, the district will again blame us for all problems in math?

The fourth best way to help the students:

The community can build its own program for helping the students. This takes organization, money, student maturity, an iron will, and careful scheduling. It isn’t easy. We must find a building and supplies. We must track down students and convince them to come in on their own time to work on the subject that drove them half crazy during the school year. We must get permissions, background checks, and supervisors.

I’ve found that it takes about two months, an hour per day, five days per week, to move a student one grade level in elementary math. High school students would need to find an extra five hours a week for an entire year. What are the odds this would work? These are children. They have other responsibilities and interests. And many have given up on math.

Spokane’s central-office administrators are accomplished at deflecting blame – onto teachers, principals, students, a fake lack of money, societal issues, and poverty. They’re good at giving themselves raises. They’re good at protecting their administrative turf, and they’re good at staying employed in this district in the face of absolute failure. They are NOT good at doing what they’re paid to do: Build an effective academic program. For that, they should be fired. But who will do that?

When it’s time for you to vote for a replacement for board directors, please keep this in mind: A vote for the status quo will be a vote for failure – for the children, for the community, for you, the taxpayer, and for this country. When you vote, please vote for someone who will hold the superintendent accountable, who understands the math problem, who will push for real math instruction and for real transparency in decision-making and finances. Vote for someone who has the will, the integrity, and the backbone to stand up for the children, who will vote "nay" to wrong things, and who won’t just "go along to get along."

And please also have a great weekend.

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is

Rogers, L. (June 2011). "District rejects community efforts to help Celesta - (part 3)." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was posted on educationviews.org at http://educationviews.org/2011/06/23/district-rejects-community-efforts-to-help-celesta-%e2%80%93-part-3/

District blames Celesta for gaps in math skills - (part 2)

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is part 2 of a series of articles on Celesta, a grade-11 student in Spokane, WA. I interviewed her for a June 4 episode of “Cut to the Chase,” a local radio show hosted by Rob Chase for the ACN Network. Part 1 of the series described Celesta as lacking multiple basic skills in mathematics. Part 3 will discuss community efforts to help students like Celesta ... and the district’s response to those efforts.]


Celesta is an 11th grader in Spokane Public Schools who carried a 3.6 GPA, got As in all of her math classes, passed all of her math tests and who did so well she was placed last fall into honors pre-calculus. Unfortunately, she and many of her pre-calculus classmates lack proficiency in basic math skills (including long division, multiplication facts, the number line, and fractions).

Over a few days, I called Spokane’s middle and elementary schools to find out how they would help students like Celesta. I didn’t do anything silly like go undercover or assume a pseudonym; I just called them all as a concerned community member, offered my first name and gave them the scenario noted above. Then I asked them, “How do (I, you, we) help these students?”

You won’t believe what I was told.

Most district employees expressed concern, but it often came out in accusatory, unhelpful ways. Most had nothing to offer students like Celesta. There usually was a long pause on the other end of the line after I described her situation. Several expressed doubt about the truth of the scenario.

“How could that be?” they asked.
“I would just be appalled if that were true,” a high school counselor said.

I don’t understand their shock and surprise. The counselor who said he would be appalled should already be appalled that his school had a pass rate on the 2010 state math test of less than 30%. Students needed just 56.9% to pass that basic-skills test, and more than 70% of the 10th graders at his school couldn’t do it. The district’s overall pass rate for 10th grade math was just 38.9%. Four of the six middle schools had pass rates of less than 50% on the 8th-grade math test; two were at less than 40%.

Either these counselors and administrators already know of the low pass rates and of the district’s policy of socially promoting students regardless of what they've learned … or they don’t know. Why on Earth wouldn't they know? It’s their job to know.

So I took a deep breath and assured them calmly that the girl is real, her story is true, and I was wondering what the district had in place to help students like her. Nearly all recommended that she be tested for learning disabilities.

I haven’t tested Celesta for a learning disability. I have only tested her for proficiency in basic math skills, and she tested into 5th-grade math. It does seem odd that she would be in honors pre-calculus, with a 3.6 GPA, having passed all of her tests and with straight As in math – if a learning disability had kept her from learning basic math skills.

A middle-school counselor said something must have “slipped" Celesta's mind before she hit the pre-calculus class. I’ve heard that wild assumption before. Other administrators claim it about other students, also without proof, and in 2010, an administrator at Spokane Falls Community College said the math problem at SFCC isn’t because students didn’t learn enough math in K-12 – it was because they’d just forgotten it.

According to Celesta, at least half of her class has the same problem. Her pre-calculus teacher must continually stop teaching pre-calculus, she said, so he can teach basic skills. He showed them long division. He showed them the number line so they could subtract a negative. I asked the district employees: Did ALL of these honors students just forget? This observation was met with more silence.

A middle school principal talked about how poverty is such an issue for the students. This is the district’s go-to answer for student outcomes. In February, a district employee stated at one of my community forums that if we fixed the poverty problem, we would fix the math problem. But I had said nothing to anyone about Celesta’s home life. I asked Celesta for her reaction, and she was offended.

“I’m not that poor,” she said. “I’ve always had everything I needed. For someone to tell me I’m failing because I’m poor, that’s a little ridiculous.”

While there are strong correlations between family income and student achievement, poverty isn’t the problem with math. We could give every low-income family a million dollars and this district’s math program still wouldn’t have enough math in it. I noted to Celesta that lower-income families have fewer resources to pay for tutoring and outside help, and she expressed frustration.

“I don’t see why we need tutoring if the school is doing their job,” she said. “Why do I need to go to Sylvan to learn what [the district] should be teaching me? Why do I need extra help? Why aren’t they just teaching [it to me] in the first place?”

Why indeed? Why do district counselors and school administrators not have a firm grasp of the depth of the district’s deficiencies in math? “How can that be?” I kept hearing. Do they not see the low pass rates? Do they not see students struggle and fail, yet get passed through – and even be placed into advanced math classes? Do they not know about the district’s high remedial rates and dropout rates? Do they not see the district-wide anxiety over math, and the district-wide dearth of procedural skill? They should because I see it, and I don’t get paid taxpayer money to see it.

A high school counselor then decided Celesta must have been cheating to get her 3.6 GPA if she now has issues in pre-calculus. Startled, I said, “Pardon me?” He said, “Yeah, she must have cheated or lied. Or, maybe,” he added helpfully, “she’s had a traumatic brain injury.”

I asked Celesta for her reaction.

“It makes me feel sad that they’d jump to that conclusion,” she said. “I know I’m a good student. I know I work hard. I know that I’m smart and that it’s really hard for me right now that I’m struggling. And for someone to tell me that I have a learning disability or my brain has been damaged because I don’t know math because I wasn’t taught? It’s pretty hurtful. It’s not my fault. I have to go to public school every day. That’s what I have to do. It’s not my choice to be there, and it’s not my choice to do the lesson plan. I’m learning what they’re teaching me. If I’m not learning it … when I am a very attentive student, and I’m there, and I’m trying … Is it my fault?”

Celesta said there never was any indication that she or her classmates were struggling, that they had learning issues, or that there were gaps in skills. This year has been a shock. It isn’t that pre-calculus is so hard, she said. It’s just become clear to her that she and many classmates are missing basic math skills that they need to be successful in that class. She fought hard and wound up with a final grade of C.

“Even if I study really hard, and I go in and get help, and I get extra help from my old math teacher,” she said, “I just seem to always hit a 60% on all my tests, no matter how confident I feel about them. … Before this year, everything was fine. I would get my tests back and maybe I’d get a 3 out of a four, and that still isn’t very OK with me. I always strive to do the best. Usually, I’d go in and try and retake, but in pre-calculus we cannot retake tests. That’s what really kills me. I can’t try again. … I just have to accept that I’m failing.”

Well, I don’t accept it.

I’ve found that it takes about two months, an hour a day, five days a week, to properly tutor a student through one grade level in K-8 math. Celesta is missing about six years of basic skills. She’s leaving for the summer, and I’ll try to help her by email. It will be a challenge. She’s 17, and it’s the summer, and she’s visiting family. We plan to connect when she comes back in the fall. It’s daunting, but I’m willing to fight for her if she’s willing to fight for herself.

Math was always a strong suit for Celesta, one of her favorite classes. Now, she isn’t interested in taking any more math classes. But if she doesn’t, her dream of earning a business degree is over.




Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is
Rogers, L. (June 2011). "District blames Celesta for gaps in math skills - (part 2)." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was published June 9, 2011 on educationnews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/157780.html

Who cares about Celesta? - (part 1)

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Note from Laurie Rogers: This is part 1 of a series of articles on Celesta, a Spokane high school student whom I interviewed for “Cut to the Chase,” a radio show hosted by Rob Chase for the ACN Network. The show is located at 630 on the AM dial. This interview will air locally Saturday at 6 a.m. and 10:30 a.m., and on Sunday at 10 a.m. Part 2 of these articles will discuss the district's response to my queries about how to help her.]



Celesta is a high school junior in Spokane Public Schools. She’s a good student – “attentive,” she says. But she’s missing basic math skills, and she’s struggling to get through her 11th-grade math class.

Celesta has a dream. She wants to be a business owner. She plans to attend university and get a degree, with a major in business and a minor in accounting. She says she wants to “run some kind of business of my own. I want to be in charge.”

Celesta has one more year before she is supposed to graduate and go to college. Without intervention of some kind, when she takes college entrance exams, she's likely to test into arithmetic. She’ll have to pay for several non-credit-bearing remedial math classes before she even begins college math classes. She'll be at risk of failing those remedial math classes. Almost 50% of the students who take those classes at our local community colleges do not pass them.

You wouldn’t expect Celesta to be in this position. Currently, she carries a 3.6 GPA. Up until 11th grade, she passed all math tests and got As in all math classes. She’s always been considered to be a good student. In fact, because they all did so well in their math classes, she and more than two dozen other students were placed into honors pre-calculus. There was never any indication before this year, she said, that they had gaps in math skills, or learning issues, or that they were struggling in any way. None was considered to be a special education student.

Celesta said she and many of her classmates aren’t proficient in algebra or geometry, but the problem is deeper than that. Their pre-calculus teacher must continually stop teaching pre-calculus so he can teach basic math skills to his class.

“Pretty much every day I hear him say, ‘Well, you should have learned this already, but we have to go over it,’” Celesta says. “It makes me feel stupid … He’s not really that sweet about it. He’ll be like ‘I’m teaching this lesson and half of you are gonna get it and half of you won’t, and a quarter of you will never get it.’ And I just feel like that quarter that’s never gonna get it.”

I tested Celesta a few weeks ago using a basic skills test, and she tested into 5th-grade math. However, her lack of proficiency with multiplication facts and division puts her into 4th-grade math. This year is the first year she’s ever seen long division, she says. Her pre-calc teacher showed the skill to his class, but there hasn’t been time to learn it to mastery. A deficiency in division inhibits students in any number of mathematical procedures, including determining averages, isolating variables, and simplifying fractions.

Celesta also doesn’t know her multiplication facts. This honors student couldn’t tell me what 6x8 equals. She didn’t know what a radical is. She expressed doubts about her ability to convert from fractions to percents to decimals. On the pre-algebra portion of my test, she got one answer out of 20 correct.

“I wish that I would have got direct instruction in the first place,” she says. “I feel like it is a better approach to math, and that if I did learn it that way in the first place, I would be very successful right now. But because I don’t know that, I need to sit there and pretty much have someone baby me, as much as I hate to admit it.”

If Celesta tests into remedial math at Spokane Falls Community College, she might not get direct instruction there, either. Not long ago, SFCC began offering its remedial math classes with an approach that looks a lot like the approach that has already failed Celesta.

How many young people in our communities are in Celesta's position? The district implies that Celesta's story is rare, but Celesta isn't alone or even unusual. In fact, students in her position are now the norm in America's public education system. I hear stories like hers all of the time. Every day. All day.

When I talk with younger people in my community -- in restaurants, fast food venues, and businesses around town -- they'll eventually confide -- somewhat sheepishly -- that they dropped out of college because they couldn't get through remedial math, or that they struggled in school but hope to go back. It hurts my heart to hear their doubts about their own abilities. I know those doubts were fostered in them by a self-serving bureaucracy that refuses to acknowledge its massive error in math. I try to reassure them, but it's a lot to explain in a few minutes. They go away, still certain that they just couldn't cut it.

Whenever I pay for purchases and wait for change, I watch the younger crowd stumble to do it correctly, often making mistakes, then not understanding as I count it back for them. And math isn't their only weakness. Their handwriting (usually just printing) is atrocious, their spelling is imaginary, their punctuation and grammar non-existent. This is not their fault. This is the district's fault.

And Spokane Public Schools isn't alone in having failed these people. The problem is mirrored across the country - from border to border and from coast to coast. When I talk with others about this -- teachers, parents, students, advocates -- their stories are the same as mine. They saw the problem, many spoke up, all were patronized and dismissed, and their district's administration just rolled over top of them. And the children in their communities continued to be failed.

Who cares about Celesta and all of these other poorly-educated children? Caring about them means caring about our communities and about our country. They are the face of our future, and they are not prepared.

 
 
Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is
Rogers, L. (June 2011). "Who cares about Celesta? - (part 1)." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

This article was published June 6, 2011 on educationnews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/157609.html

Help students by rejecting the self-interested

By Laurie H. Rogers

[Updated June 8, 2011]

With few exceptions, Americans spend more on public education than anyone else in the world, but we get some of the worst results. The reason is that most of our public education systems do not properly teach students what they need to know.

That's it. There is no magic. And the federal takeovers, the jazzy new technology, Bill Gates’ money, the data-gathering, reform, transformation, national initiatives, removal of teacher seniority, blaming of parents, hand-wringing in the media, and budget shifting won’t change that simple fact.

In all of the local, state and federal plans for reforming and transforming public education, I see the bureaucracy growing, the taxpayer bill exploding, the people’s voice being eliminated, good teachers being threatened with firing or public humiliation, and students not being taught what they need to know.

A May 25 Wall Street Journal article says some schools now charge parents fees for basic academics, as well as for extracurricular activities, graded electives and advanced classes. Those are private-school fees for a public-school education, and that’s just wrong.

At some point, one comes to think it’s hopeless, that the current system is too far gone – too corrupt, too self-serving, and too shamelessly ignorant to live, that it must collapse. Excuse me while I duck – but that’s actually a reasonable thought. In systems theory, it’s expected that systems will work for a time, then become corrupt, fail to be productive, and be allowed to collapse. New ones are then built in their place. It’s how systems evolve or progress.

That doesn’t happen in government, or in sprawling bureaucracies. And especially not in sprawling government bureaucracies like public education, which are hideously corrupt but which are not allowed to die. Instead, they’re hoisted around the dance floor like some macabre corpse, propped up with self-interest, ego, loopy ideology, and some 700 billion taxpayer and corporate dollars.

How does this help children academically? That question should drive everything, but it doesn’t. So many policy makers and administrators are completely self-interested. They cherry-pick data, withhold information, and misrepresent results and intent. They argue using innuendo and personal attacks. Everything begins with their money, their pet programs, and their certainty that they’re right.

We talk about academics; they talk about money. We talk about outcomes; they talk about process. We talk about freedom of choice and the free market; they want everyone to be the same. We talk about tutoring; they talk about rules. We say, “Stand against this.” They say, as a Spokane board director did in February, “It wouldn’t be good for me.”

At the May 23 Spokane Public Schools forum, administrators talked about cutting several million dollars from the budget. This definition of “cut” is used with impunity by number-crunchers everywhere. Here’s how it works. The district says it has cut $54 million from the district budget since 2002. But the district budget has GROWN by $60 million since 2002. What they did was “cut” from programs we want and add to things that are mandated or desired by others. It’s a money shift. On May 23, the district presentation didn’t mention budget totals, which would have clearly shown the public this phenomenon.

How will their proposed cuts or proposed programs help the children academically? Most won’t.

On May 23, a board director talked about the local levy, which grew from $36 million in 2002 to $59 million in 2010. He asked the public whether the levy should be spent on enrichment (which is how it's generally sold to taxpayers) or on regular programs that allegedly are "underfunded."

The assumption there -- not proved -- is that the regular programs are necessary as constructed. Much of the levy already is diverted to pay for them. The director didn't mention that some of last year’s levy paid for administrative enrichment via raises -- an expense that the board approved unanimously.

At its May 11 regular board meeting, a new math resolution also was approved unanimously. On May 23, the district presentation mentioned this resolution, but not in detail. So, here's some detail.

The new math resolution delays replacing the district's core K-8 math curriculum, currently two of the worst math programs in the country, while locking the district to the national Common Core State Standards/tests/curriculum initiatives. These CCSS initiatives represent a de facto federalization of public education. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan claims these initiatives are "state-led," but the truth is all there in the federal funding for these initiatives, the federal punishments for states that don’t kowtow, and in the federal pushing of these initiatives as the answer. Sec. Duncan says there should be a national curriculum in all subjects, “including literacy, arts, foreign languages, and the STEM disciplines.”

Sec. Duncan also is funding common testing (to be done online, thus requiring hardware and software), and a national database on our children that will span “cradle through career,” that will connect various government agencies, and that will share information without parental consent. Don’t believe me? I don’t blame you. It isn’t pleasant reading, but you can see all of this on the Department of Education Web site and in Sec. Duncan’s speeches.

This de facto federal takeover will probably cost each school district $100 million before it’s all said and done, in materials, hardware, software, training, travel, and “professional development.” Multiply that by the number of school districts in this country (more than 14,000). In its May 11 resolution, the Spokane board estimated up to $3 million just for the adoption of the unwritten, untested, unpiloted, unfunded, and completely unsupported national K-8 math curriculum. It’s a mere drop in Duncan's federal-mandate-bucket.

Spokane’s board also neglected to mention that its new emphasis on “data-driven decision-making” apparently doesn’t apply to the CCSS. The board has agreed to adopt a national curriculum for math that isn’t even finished, much less tested. There is no data behind it. As administrators and board directors complain that federal mandates steal budget dollars, they all agreed on May 11 to spend millions of dollars on Duncan’s unfunded federal mandate. How will this new and massive mandate help our children academically, driven as it is by Bill Gates, Pearson Education, and other institutional and corporate interests?

Moving directly from the problem (students aren’t being taught what they need to know) to the solution (students need to be taught what they need to know), you immediately see that fixing the problem doesn’t require - and is unlikely to benefit from - massive infusions of money, nationwide transformations, expensive data systems, software, new buildings, Bill Gates or – good lord, a federal takeover of public education. It requires only that schools teach students the academic skills they need for postsecondary life. And that requires four things – which I call the “Square of Effective Learning.” This holds true for students living in million-dollar homes as well as for students living in the dirt. These are the four corners of the square:

1. An effective and motivated teacher.
2. An efficient, effective, and sufficient curriculum.
3. A prepared and motivated student.
4. An efficient and effective learning environment.

Our schools already have many good teachers. They are prevented from doing what they need to do. They're also constantly pulled out of the classroom for the inaptly named “professional development.” Administrators complain that students aren’t motivated, which becomes true as students struggle and fail because of the awful curriculum, missing teachers, and distracted learning environment.

Alas, public education is a massive and unresponsive bureaucracy. With the coming (and arguably illegal) federal takeover of public education – it's about to become more so. Bureaucracies don’t exist to run programs or teach children – they exist to:

• Grow the bureaucracy
• Defend all gained territory and gain more territory
• Obtain more funding, and develop and implement programs that require more funding
• Satisfy people who are higher on the food chain
• Report good results regardless of what the data actually say
• Show perpetual motion (because rolling stones can’t be held accountable)
• Gain community allies who can smooth over bureaucratic problems and help with bureaucratic goals
• Smash down all dissent before it threatens the bureaucracy

Does any of this look familiar? If it is ever to be fixed, public education must repair itself or collapse – pushed from without or from within. Meanwhile, students MUST be taught what they need to know. As you know, but the bureaucrats don’t, academic skills are the point of public education.

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is

Rogers, L. (May 2011). "Help students by rejecting the self-interested." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/  

Why I quit teaching math at SFCC

[Note from Laurie Rogers: School is almost out. Many high school graduates will be eager to begin college. Most graduates will test into remedial math, however, and they will have to take one or more non-credit-bearing remedial math classes BEFORE they begin college-level math classes.

Knowledge is power, so I'm republishing with permission an article about remedial math at Spokane Falls Community College. It first appeared (edited) in the Jan. 19, 2011, edition of The Inlander.

The first time I spoke with Clint Thatcher, last fall, he told me that remedial math classes at SFCC had changed -- to something that sounded similar to the failed reform/constructivist approach we see in Spokane Public Schools. I wanted to confirm his story, so I called over to SFCC and talked to a woman in the math department. She seemed surprised that I would be critical of reform math. She said the problem at SFCC wasn't that students hadn't learned math in Spokane Public Schools; it was that they had forgotten it.

I drove to SFCC to look at the new textbook for remedial math. An instructor there loaned me his copy, and after I confirmed Clint's impression of it, that instructor and I chatted about this new approach. The instructor suggested (for example) using a hot air balloon model in place of the number line model. (You put sand in and numbers get bigger, and you take sand out and numbers get smaller.) I asked him where the zero was in his balloon model, where negatives and fractions were. He couldn't say. Why can't students just learn the number line? I asked. He didn't say.

Heads up, folks. Pay attention to what's being taught in any remedial math class -- in K-12 or in college. -- L.R.]


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Why I Quit Teaching Math at SFCC


By Clint Thatcher, retired Air Force bombardier and retired math instructor


The time to quit the best job in the world is right before you get tired of it.

After spending 20 years in the B-52s and retiring from the U.S. Air Force, I spent the last 16 years as a math teacher. I can truly say that teaching mathematics was the greatest and most emotionally gratifying experience of my life. I certainly did not want to quit teaching but I was told to change my traditional approach to teaching math to a group-centered, intuitive and discovery approach. I refused to change my successful method and quit the job I loved so much.

I have been teaching developmental algebra for 12 years at Spokane Falls Community College and have had a 95% success rate with the students. Nine out of ten students that enroll at SFCC are placed into developmental math. It is sad to think that 90% of all entering college students didn’t retain enough algebra skills to pass the math assessment test to be placed into a college-level math class.

By the way, completing the developmental math series does not count toward a degree program and has no bearing on the student’s GPA. Developmental math classes are five-hour courses and cost the same as a college-level class. It takes some students three or four attempts to complete one class.

The dean of Math and Sciences (and a former teacher), stated that only one in three students completed the dev-math series. Failing to complete the series effectively ends the student’s college career. It is apparent that something must be done to change the current outcomes. Money was secured through the Title III program and was used to change the dev-math program at SFCC. The new program replaced the Math 91, 92, 99 series (which implemented the more traditional lecture approach) with Math 93, 94, 98. With a change in numbers also came a change in book and teaching methodology. All teachers had to go through professional training in order to teach the new series.

The new curriculum style is for students to collaborate in groups to find the best way to answer or solve a particular problem. This method reduces -- and for some teachers eliminates -- lecture altogether. It took brilliant men and women decades to formulate the laws of math that we have today. Now they want our students to formulate these same laws in a 50-minute class. This methodology is also the darling of the local and many other school districts, and we wonder why our children are graduating with minimal math skills.

Many of my students would be absolutely lost without a calculator. They have lost the basic skills of adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing real numbers. They have essentially zero skills when it comes to dealing with fractions. We have strayed so far away from learning basic math skills that our college-bound students are entering a world that is totally foreign to them. So what does SFCC do? They change the math world to match what the students had in K-12.

I say we must first teach our students time-honored procedural mathematics that produces step-by-step methodology, and then introduce basic-skill problems that use these procedures. When their skill levels reach a certain proficiency, then introduce real-world problems where group collaboration can be of great benefit. The new method is to reverse the process and it is terribly inefficient. Students will not only become frustrated but will learn very little mathematics when it is all said and done.

I am enormously concerned for the future of our students to have the necessary math skills to fulfill the high-tech positions that have made this nation what it was. Oh, it is still a great nation, but we are importing a large portion of our high-tech workers to maintain our high status. We know there is a problem when we are rated 25th out of the top 30 industrial nations in math skills.

A Dec. 4, 2010, article by John Barber in The Spokesman-Review titled “Math ‘reform’ fails our kids” has spurred me to write this article, not only as a concerned teacher, but also to open up the eyes of parents who realize the system is failing their children. Where better, than in Spokane, to start a movement of parents and teachers to change back to the traditional and proven way of teaching mathematics?



Note from Laurie Rogers: If you would like to submit a guest column on public education, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net. Please limit columns to not more than 1,000 words. Columns might be edited for length, content or grammar. You may remain anonymous to the public, however I must know who you are. All decisions on guest columns are the sole right and responsibility of Laurie Rogers.


This material is copyrighted.
For permission to republish or quote from this article, please write to Clint Thatcher at clint_christhatcher@comcast.net .

Tutoring desperately needed; please help us

[Updated May 14 to add a reply from the superintendent and a comment from a math teacher]


By Laurie H. Rogers


People have said to me: “Laurie, you sure seem upset about education. Your articles are angry.”

Well, yes, some of them are. My anger springs from a deep well. When you see the deceit in the education establishment, the lies, the arrogance, the selfishness and self-serving behavior, when you realize how our children are being betrayed, when you hear sad and shocking stories from parents, students and teachers, and you fully understand how lacking our children are in math and grammar, when you realize that our children are “graduating” without the skills they need to be successful in their postsecondary lives, when you realize that good teachers are at risk of being fired for “ineffectiveness,” when you go to meetings and hear well-paid administrators dismiss the relevance of a 38.9% student pass rate as they ask taxpayers for more money …

One does get angry.

Yesterday afternoon, I sat with a high school junior – a bright, articulate young lady. A friend of mine suggested I meet with her. On Monday, she and I talked for an hour before she went to work. This student has a dream. She wants to someday own her own business and be her own boss. Listening to her talk, you can see her doing that. You can see her running things, making a difference, being a voice of concern and compassion in her community. As I listened to her, my heart went out to her, and yes, I became angry on her behalf.

This student is having trouble in her pre-calculus class, and she didn’t understand why. She’s always gotten As in her math classes. She carries a 3.6 overall average. She passed all of the math tests given to her and always felt confident about her abilities in math. Up until this year.

This year, the pedal has hit the metal, and she must actually use her math skills for this pre-calc math class. She was startled to discover that she doesn’t have much in the way of procedural skill.

“You should know all of this,” her pre-calc teacher tells the class. His comments confuse her. She always learned what she was told to learn. All indications to her through grades and testing were that she was successfully learning it. Somehow, she got to her pre-calc class without proficiency in skills like long division, multiplication facts, radicals, fractions, negative exponents, the number line, algebra, or proper math vocabulary.

Hearing her teacher say, “You should know all of this,” makes her feel stupid, the student says. It makes her feel unmotivated, and it worries her. The teacher is trying to stuff K-10 math skills into his students while he also tries to get through the pre-calc material. The class struggles to manage. They depend heavily on their counselors, nearly all of whom recently received layoff notices from the district.

The student told me how much her counselor means to her. “[The counselor] keeps me motivated,” she said, adding that she and her classmates were devastated to hear of the layoffs. Meanwhile, they struggle to pass a math class that demands they have skills no one has taught them.

The student fretted about the impact this math class will have on her GPA, which she has fought hard to maintain. She’s a good student, she says, and she hates not doing well. “I don’t care whether they’re right or wrong [about math],” she said. “I just want to go to college. Why wouldn’t they teach us these things?”

Although this student is thoughtful and articulate, she also knows next to nothing in terms of grammar. She couldn’t define for me a preposition, participle or adverb. When she applies to go to college in just more than a year, she will almost certainly test into a low level of remedial math AND into remedial English. These will all be non-credit-bearing classes, and she will have to pay for them.

Two hours after talking with the student, I went to the last meeting for the year for Spokane Public Schools’ Citizens Advisory Committee, where I listened to the superintendent and various administrators talk about cutting money from district programs. One potential source of cuts, they said, are the counselors – those people that the student and her classmates depend on for support and motivation. Another potential area is curriculum improvements.

The administrators talked about various kinds of expenditures. They talked about cutting $54 million since 2002. And yet, the budget has increased substantially over that time. What’s up with that, I asked them. As it was explained to me last night, it’s a money shift. They “cut” programs in one bucket of expenditures, shifting the money elsewhere to a different bucket of expenditures. Therefore, the budget isn’t really “cut” in terms of overall dollars – the money is just spent differently. That’s why the district can cut teachers and counselors, while adding legislated distractions (and giving themselves raises and better benefits, apparently).

At the bottom of this shell game, are the students who don’t have the curriculum or the instruction they need. Why are they in this position? How is it that the community must fight district administrators on behalf of academics? Why do administrators keep getting raises as our students keep failing? How is it that we’ve handed over our wallets to people who obstinately refuse to provide our children with the academic skills they need? How did we get to this ridiculous place? More important, how do we get out of here?

[Added May 14: A math teacher who is a friend of mine told me that, of 60 pre-calculus students in his district (another large district that does reform math), NONE could pass an 8th-grade algebra assessment that was purely basic algebra procedures. Most had 3.6 and above GPAs. The story is equally sad in reform districts across the state.]

It seems that we’re going to have to help these students ourselves. They’re staring at a bleak future. They need help now, right now. There isn’t a moment to lose. The junior I spoke with must pick up at least six years of math skills in just over a year. It isn’t good enough to help her and her classmates with homework. It isn’t enough to sit down with them a day a week or even two days a week. It isn’t enough to just show them the math skills – they must learn them to mastery. They must go back to somewhere around fourth grade and pick up the skills the district administration refused to give them.

Despite all of its bleating for community help, the district appears disinclined to accommodate this tutoring in basic math and basic grammar. I’ve asked repeatedly to be allowed to begin free tutoring programs in math at various schools, including the school my daughter's at now. I’ve been turned down repeatedly, or had impossible restrictions placed on me. Now, I’m not even getting the courtesy of a reply from the superintendent. [Updated May 14: The superintendent replied today. She said no.]

We will have to find a different way to get this done.

I’m looking for a few good people to help get these kids the math and grammar skills they need. If you’re interested in tutoring, or in financially or practically supporting this tutoring, please write to me at wlroge@comcast.net . Provide your name, contact information, and what you’re willing to do. You can help anonymously, if need be.

We’ll need textbooks (I can buy them secondhand locally and online), paper, pencils, erasers, and most of all, a place to tutor (church, community center, etc.).

Folks, please get angry about where these students are. Then, turn that anger into action. We can’t save 28,000 students. But, working together, we can help save some of them. We also can work on systemic change and on properly informing the community. Together, we can turn things around for our children and grandchildren and help them earn the future they envision.

Thank you all for caring, and while you’re up, perhaps you could ask the Spokane school board to stop the district superintendent’s contract from automatically rolling over this month.


Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is

Rogers, L. (May 2011). "Tutoring desperately needed; please help us." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/

Good golly, our schools desperately need new leadership

[Updated May 10, 2011, to clarify language regarding the board vote.]


By Laurie H. Rogers

When our school administrators speak to the public, we often hear one or more of the following:

• Blaming of others – Typical targets include teachers, parents, students, poverty, and a (fake) lack of money.
• Deceitful presentation of student outcomes – They’ll speak glowingly of some stray statistic that supposedly shows them in a slightly more positive light, but which also depends on the public not knowing the entire truth of it.
• Astonishing ignorance or accidental honesty. Sometimes the truth comes out of them – in shocking or comical ways.
• Requests for more money, on the heels of low student achievement. As pass rates go down, the expense per student continues to increase.
• New policy that will serve their ulterior purpose, but which will make life more difficult for students, parents and teachers.

And so it went, at two recent gatherings for Spokane Public Schools. Teachers were blamed. Administrators praised themselves. The superintendent’s comments caused a stir. And the school board voted to have the option to increase class sizes and cut 90 teachers.

Blaming of Others

Spokane Public Schools' Citizens Advisory Committee is a parent group that is actually run by the district. At the monthly CAC meetings, administrators do most of the talking, and an administrator writes a summary.

(No one takes actual minutes, which would have to include parent questions and concerns.)

At the April 11 CAC meeting, district administrators were enthused over new, “prescriptive” evaluations for teachers and principals. These evaluations will entail four tiers - like standards-based grading - and will be based partly on student outcomes. Such assessments would be valuable tools if:

• Teachers had the freedom to teach and supplement as they deem necessary
• Teachers weren’t constantly pulled out of classrooms for non-academic activities
• Teachers’ professional development contained real content
• The district’s choice of instructional materials were sufficient and dependable
• Principals had the freedom to allot money, modify curriculum, and hire and fire as they see fit.

Alas, this is Spokane Public Schools, and teachers and principals will be assessed on student outcomes over which they have little control.

At the CAC meeting, I asked: Do these new evaluations mean that teachers will gain academic freedom? I received three different answers from the same administrator.

• Staci Vesneske said teachers might be awarded that freedom if they hit the top tier of the evaluation system. (Answer #1)
• I asked, What if they need that freedom in order to hit the top tier? She said teachers already have academic freedom. (Answer #2)
• I persisted: Will teachers gain academic freedom? She said it will all come down to collective bargaining. (Answer #3)

Later, I asked: Will principals gain the freedom to allot money, hire and fire, and modify the curriculum? Dr. Vesneske didn’t fully answer this question, saying only that the board makes all decisions on curriculum and supplementary materials.

All school employees should be assessed based on achievable, measurable goals. Considering the heavy boot our administrators place on district employees, it seems fair that upper-level administrators be assessed partly on student outcomes. (If they were, most would be fired.) Our superintendent's own evaluation is done by the school board. Our board directors use a “summative evaluation” form for her that is so general and vague, their evaluation must be based largely on opinion.

Self-serving statistics

Nancy Stowell, Spokane superintendent, seems happy about the district’s “improved” graduation rates. But here are missing pieces she neglects to mention.

Students don't have to pass a state math test to graduate from high school. They don't need to know much grammar, pass a state science test or know how to write in cursive. Sure, they’re allowed to leave, but college remedial rates consistently indicate serious and widespread gaps in knowledge – particularly in basic mathematics and grammar.

Additionally, her “improved” numbers don’t include families that chose to transfer out. Full-time enrollment in SPS dropped by about 2,650 (net) from 2003 to May 2010. A 2008 district survey indicated that about 33% of those who left did it mostly because of the curriculum. (The survey excludes students who went to a private school.) The district didn’t publicly release the survey; I heard about it and asked for a copy.

Increased expense for unproved programs

Taxpayers pay for scads of district and community programs devoted to reducing dropout rates and increasing on-time graduation rates. As district expenditures skyrocket, parents are still staring at students’ low pass rates, high dropout rates, high rates of college remediation, and low levels of basic skills.

Dr. Stowell praised the district for obtaining a multi-million-dollar grant for Rogers High School, which suffers from particularly low graduation rates. (Please note the illogic of awarding grants to failing programs because they are failing. Failure thus results in more money.) Dr. Stowell said the grant will pay for longer school days, extra teacher pay, a homework center, and – you knew it was coming – a pilot evaluation for teachers.

Astonishing comments

Dr. Stowell said the federal Race to the Top initiative “required” that 50% of a teacher’s evaluation be “based on student growth.”

• Weird. The state always said the percentage of teachers' evaluation that would be based on student outcomes would be just a small part of the total assessment. Fifty percent doesn’t seem small.
• But Dr. Stowell said Washington State isn’t “going in that direction,” anyway, so she’s trying to work in the 50% herself, by bargaining with the teachers union.

Here’s an April 11 quotation from Dr. Stowell on removing teachers:

“First of all, we do get out lots of teachers. We do it very quietly because the litigation is so expensive. So, we don’t litigate. We try to talk to teachers. We give them the data that we have. We look at the information our principals have collected. We look at that person over time, and then Staci works to move them out. You know, the conversation that, “You know, things aren’t going very well here for you.” (Laughter from the group.) “This might not be the profession that you want for the rest of your life.” (Continued chuckling from the group.) Over the years, we have lost not only teachers through that process, removed them, but we’ve also removed principals through that same process.”

Dr. Stowell then asked CAC members to push legislators for help in removing people.

Unhelpful district policy

At its April 27 meeting, the Spokane school board voted 4-1 to have the option to increase district class sizes by up to three students. Along with adjustments for declines in enrollment, this vote reportedly also could result in the elimination of 90 full-time teaching positions. How would this help students, parents and teachers? Well, it wouldn’t.

On the district Web site, Dr. Stowell explains the need for cuts: “Over the past 10 years, facing enrollment decline and state funding challenges, our district has already made tens of millions of dollars in cuts to programs and support staff, leaving us with no easy ‘fixes’ outside of the classroom to solve this budget challenge.”

The Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) Web site says:

• Overall expenditures for Spokane Public Schools increased, from $252 million in 2004-2005 to $298 million in 2009-2010.
• Per-student expenditures increased, from $8,158 in 2004-2005 to $10,406 in 2009-2010.
• Enrollment decreased, from 30,923 in 2004-2005 to 28,712 in 2009-2010.
• The district’s on-time graduation rate decreased, from 85.1% in 2004-2005 to 62.1% in 2009-2010.

Regardless of how the Spokane superintendent is assessed, the student data cannot be seen as “success.” Her contract will roll over in June unless the school board says “No.” Dear parents and teachers: Please ask the school board to say “No.”

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is

Rogers, L. (April 2011). "Good golly, our schools desperately need new leadership." Retrieved (date) from the Betrayed Web site: http://betrayed-whyeducationisfailing.blogspot.com/  

A version of this article was published May 2, 2011, on EducationNews.org at: http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/opinions_on_education/155271.html