Breathing a slight sigh of relief...

Today, the state of Mississippi released scores for the latest round of MCT2 tests. Scores across the state took a dip when the state changed the format from the MCT to the MCT2. But apparently things are looking up, according to the preliminary reports for 2010. There are more High Performing and Successful schools than the previous year and the number of Failing and At Risk of Failing Schools has dropped. This is great news but we are still not out of the water yet. Check out the press release and report from the MDE. While I was a little disappointed that the final accountability rankings will not be released officially until Sept 10, (for example, I cannot tell whether my home high school has moved up from At Risk of Failing) however, I am still glad to see that the state as a whole is looking better.

Education Jobs and Medical Assistance Act

I tuned in to CSPAN yesterday to watch the debate on the House floor regarding the Education, Jobs, and Medicaid Assistance Act. Much to the dismay of several House Republicans, Speaker Pelosi summoned everyone back from their summer recess to vote on the measure which passed the Senate last week. The Education, Jobs, and Medicaid Assistance Act provides $26 billion in funds to states who are struggling to keep their teachers employed. Also written into the bill was the closure of a tax loophole for American companies that ship jobs oversees. By closing this loophole, the majority hopes to be able to pay for this bill. But, as Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) pointed out, this bill pays for 6 months of Medicaid over the course of 10 years of tax increases. Now, as an English major and not an Economist, I cannot tell you if this is true or not. However, I can tell you that this debate on the floor started as every other debate on the House floor. The democrats stand up and blame the republicans for everything that is wrong with the world, and more specifically that they refuse to invest in education. Then the republicans fire back by calling this a “teacher bailout”, as if by attaching the word “bailout” to anything, they can automatically make it sound like a bad idea and just another of those terrible “entitlement” programs that we can’t afford right now because our military is underfunded. I was actually shocked at the amount of time the congressmen and women from both parties didn't spend talking about teachers, or even strategies states can adopt to prevent teacher lay-offs other than just throwing money at them.

However, by the end of the day the bill was signed into law by President Obama, and according to the White House’s website, there are 2,000 teacher jobs in Mississippi that are going to be saved.

Senate HELP Committee Takes on Fraudulent Recruiting Practices

Yesterday, the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (or HELP) held a full committee hearing on questionable recruiting practices within for-profit colleges and universities. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) sent undercover “prospective students” into 15 different institutions across the country. These 15 institutions were not picked because there were rumors of fraudulent activity, however, they did receive a lot of federal dollars through the Pell Grant program. The GAO armed their “prospective students” in with hidden cameras and sent them in to talk to recruiters, admission officers, and financial aid officers about the possibility of enrollment. Their results were shocking, and slightly reminiscent of the ACORN scandal. While there were some of what the GAO would call “good practices” taped by the students, every single one of the universities engaged in some sort of fraudulent or questionable activity in regard to recruiting. There was everything from misrepresentations of the cost of the program, to the misrepresentation of the time it takes to graduate, to the misrepresentation of job availability after graduation and even recruiters prompting the complete falsification of FAFSA forms for federal grants. One recruiter suggested the student claim three non-existent dependents or at least lie about the $250,000 the student had in the bank and another recruiter hinted that a federal grant is not like a car payment where there are consequences for not paying it back. In a couple of cases, recruiters tried to make students sign admission papers before they were even allowed to talk to a financial aid officer. One admission counselor even ripped up a student’s application, charging that he “was not yet ready for this type of commitment” because she didn't want him to go back to talk to the financial aid officer.

The GAO concluded that these cases of fraud could be more widespread within the IHL community because all 15 of the randomly selected institutions, even though this was not a statistical sample, proved to be engaging in some form of questionable activity. This all seemed very shocking and odd to me, having never run across anything like this at Mississippi State University, a public institution. Senators from both sides of the aisle were equally upset that federal dollars are being sent to these for-profit universities that would deceive students into a multi-thousand-dollar commitment within a billion-dollar, for-profit industry. I highly suggest you check out the podcast on the HELP committee website, and at least sit through the first witness from the GAO. It is very important that every college student is aware of the accreditation level of the college/university in which he/she is going to enroll and how much their education is going to cost them and even what type of job market they can look forward to once they graduate.

President's Speech to the National Urban League

Last week President Obama gave a speech about education at the 100^th Anniversary of the National Urban League. This was a strategic move on his part because the black community has been up in arms about his education policy, specifically Race to the Top, which many civil rights groups (7 to be exact) do not support. The NAACP and their legal defense fund, the National Urban League, the National Council for Educating Black Children, the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Schott Foundation, and the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights have banded together to offer an alternative policy agenda called the "National Opportunity to Learn". The campaign was created because these civil rights leaders feel that Race to the Top (RTTT) is going about reform all wrong. They argue that an emphasis on charter schools, closures for failing schools, and competitive funding will do nothing but hurt impoverished areas and minority children.

I watched the President's speech on YouTube the other day. It was 45 minutes well spent. I tend to agree with these civil rights groups when they say that President Obama and Secretary Duncan are going about this the wrong way. My biggest contention is their argument that Race to the Top will not encourage states to lower their standards in the same way that No Child Left Behind did. With the incentive of higher salaries or even staying open, why wouldn't a state or a district want to water down their tests in the hope of higher scores? President Obama argues that by forcing states to compete for funds, they will revise their policies and become more progressive. That way, even the states that do not get funding through RTTT will have benefited from the process. I think this is a carefully worded acknowledgment of the fact that the education system is once again ripping off those already at the bottom.

President Obama wants to encourage states to be progressive, but he is not encouraging them enough. In its RTTT application, the state of Mississippi tried to make the case that they were already being progressive and proactive in their policies, citing numerous examples of existing policies. They did not really change anything. And now that Mississippi has been kicked out of the pool for RTTT funds, nothing else is going to change. Mississippi is going to remain at the bottom of the list when it comes to teacher salaries and test scores.

Another issue the administration is approaching from entirely the wrong direction is the issue of teacher salaries. Good teachers (smart teachers) will shy away from bad districts if they know that the students are going to under-perform and that they, the teachers, will be penalized financially because of this. I know that I would much rather teach in Booneville or Pass Christian (districts with the highest test scores in the state) than one of the eight already failing districts in the state- not to mention the other 45 at risk of failing. Teacher salaries shouldn’t be a reward for high test scores. Higher test scores should be the payoff from the investment in higher teacher salaries, despite the fact that Arne Duncan seems to think that high test scores should come first. If Obama wants to talk about how education is the economic crisis of our time, let’s talk about some investment. I think if you raise teacher salaries, the profession itself will become more desirable. You will have more competition, and instead of begging for teachers districts can take their pick of those that they think are the most qualified. THEN and only then will you see test scores start to increase.

For example, when I walked into chemistry class in the 10^th grade, my teacher instructed everyone to transfer out of her class if they really cared about chemistry because she didn’t care about it one bit. I sincerely wish I could make that story up- almost as much as I wish that I had followed her advice. If my high school had a bigger pool of applicants for the open position in the Chemistry department, I don’t think this travesty would have occured. The teaching profession should not be a “safe job” or an “easy job”. It should be a job that pays enough to attract the applicants it deserves.

Now back to the issue of impoverished areas and under-performing children, I think Obama is failing to utilize his biggest asset and that is his ability to inspire people to action. It is not by forcing our districts to compete with other states- we are already failing as it is. I see people every day wearing t-shirts with Obama’s profile on them. I just wish that everybody would perhaps take 45 minutes out of their lives to watch the President talk about education before the National Urban League. It is a powerful thing when our President says “Yes you can overcome. Yes you can persevere. Yes you can make what you will of your lives.” Only through nurturing, inspiring, and enabling our teachers and students to take their jobs and education seriously will we really see a turn around in the Mississippi education system.