Wayzata candidate forum avoids debate

On Monday night, the candidates running to represent residents of the Wayzata Public Schools district at the state legislature met in a forum sponsored by the school district's Legislative Action Committee. The district overlaps Minnesota Senate Districts 32, 33, and 43.

I attended the session for SD43, which had about two dozen in the audience. All of the endorsed legislative candidates in SD43 were present: the incumbent Sen. Terri Bonoff (DFL-Minnetonka) and Republican challenger Norann Dillon (Twitter: @dillon4senate); HD43A incumbent Rep. Sarah Anderson (R-Plymouth) and DFL challenger Audrey Britton; and HD43B incumbent Rep. John Benson and Republican challenger Brian Grogan (Twitter: @bwgrogan).

A forum like this is not a debate. The moderator read questions and allowed all candidates to respond in turn. Afterwords, the audience was invited to ask questions, to which each candidate had a set amount of time to respond. The format seems designed to avoid confrontation, which is probably appropriate for the venue. Still, there were insights if you knew how to listen for them.

Bonoff said early in the forum that education is her top priority. This was an interesting statement in light of Bonoff's response in a recent debate:

"While I speak a lot about education because I serve on the Education Committee and I serve on the Transportation Committee, I think the environment is first and foremost."

Bonoff promoted the idea of "regionalizing the business" of school districts and touted her "shared services" bill. Dillon stated pointed out that while some economies of scale could be had by pooling purchasing for example, districts should be aware of whether such arrangements are voluntary or mandated by the state.

The audience question about early childhood education prompted the most controversy of the evening. While most of the candidates expressed support for early childhood education, it was Grogan and Dillon who had the courage to say that the emperor has no clothes (Dillon's aphorism was, "This dog don't hunt"). Grogan pointed to research revealed by Karen Effrem, governmental relations director for EdWatch, that demonstrates the same or lower academic achievement level for children who enroll in early childhood programs, compared to children who do not. Dillon said that the return on investment must be considered when allocating scarce state revenues to any program, including early childhood education, and questioned the overwhelming ROI cited by Bonoff. Dillon wondered with all of the dollars spent since the 1960s on Head Start and similar programs, why is there still such a large achievement gap?

Although "local control" was a safe point of consensus among the candidates, Bonoff said that there must be some set of uniform academic standards, otherwise there would be a patchwork of curricula in which there could conceivably be schools that teach their students to deny the Holocaust, for example. If you have been reading this blog since its beginning, you probably know that the rub is in who determines the standards (anyone remember Christine Jax?). That is why state academic standards, like state funding, are so politicized. For example, who should decide whether viewpoints critical of evolution or global warming theory should be heard in the schools: the state or local school boards?

Speaking of local control, all of the candidates agreed that unfunded mandates are a problem, but Benson basically said that fully-funded mandates are the solution (example: the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or "special ed") , while Grogan called Benson for removing mandate relief from a bill. The DFL must think that mandates are a problem only until they are fully funded.

I did not have a chance to ask any provocative questions before the forum adjourned, but I had two ready:

• K-12 education funding consumes nearly 50% of the state general fund budget, yet almost no one understands in toto the Minnesota Nightmare of per-pupil formulae, categorical aids, and other minutia that determines the amount of state aid that each local school district receives. What reforms to the funding formula would you support to increase the transparency and fairness of K-12 funding?
• Homeschool and private school parents pay double for education. Would you support tax credits or funding that follows the child to level the playing field for these double-taxed taxpayers, and raise Minnesota's quality of education by increasing competition among education providers?

After the forum adjourned, Grogan commented to me that of the various education forums he participated in, this forum had the best moderator questions and most engaged audience. Effrem, who was also in the audience, shared with me EdWatch's concerns about whether Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer is in agreement with its positions on academic freedom reforms.

Preschool actually harms reading achievement

By Karen R. Effrem, MD
Director of Government Relations, EdWatch

INTRODUCTION - Education is a very big issue in the state of Minnesota and across the nation this election season, as it should be for comprising 40-50% of many state budgets. Using Minnesota as an example, all three gubernatorial candidates in their budget plans, debates, and speeches are discussing the importance of “investing” in early childhood education.

Democrat Mark Dayton and Independence Party Candidate Tom Horner constantly discuss the importance of early childhood, with Horner boldly calling for “cradle to grave” government education. Republican Tom Emmer, to his credit, has been emphasizing the importance of literacy and school choice regarding preschool, especially for poor children to close the “achievement gap.”

However, none of the candidates seem to understand the miserable failure of early childhood education in improving literacy or closing the achievement gap. In fact, they all seem to have been taken in by the usual suspects in the preschool cabal into believing that “kindergarten readiness,” however subjectively defined, is equivalent to improved reading performance. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Reading is the most fundamental of academic skills and if especially poor children are not taught well how to do so, they are doomed to life of failure. By 4th grade, when the effects of preschool should be most apparent, Pre-K actually at best, leaves reading scores unchanged and in the worst case scenario finds them to be lower than the national average. The news is even worse for poor children, making the achievement gap worse.

National averages and states with universal programs

Despite a huge growth in the national average of roughly 20% to 70% of 4 year olds joining a pre-k program between 1965 and 2001, 4th grade reading, math and science scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP test) have remained basically flat over roughly that same period.

Oklahoma is the state with the highest percentage of children in the nation enrolled in their pre-K program and the highest quality rating scores according to the National Institute for Early Education Research (NIEER).The program started in 1980 and went universal in 1988.  Oklahoma went from having NAEP 4th grade reading scores above the national average in 1992 to being below the national average every time the test was taken since then. The 2010 graphs from the NAEP organization showed that 72 percent of Oklahoma fourth graders are reading below their grade level proficiency.Why would Minnesota want to follow the same road for the same dismal results when there is no money?

Georgia's preschool program began in 1993 and went universal in 1995.  It overall ranking for quality and access is 3rd in the nation according to NIEER with 58% of their children participating in the government program.   Before, during and since this massive and expensive 15 year preschool expansion, Georgia’s 4th grade reading NAEP scores have remained below the national average. State data through the first grade showed that children involved in a private program or those who were raised at home did the best academically.

Poor children

Since the passage of the Elementary and Secondary Educational Act and Head Start back in 1965, the difference in achievement between poor and minority and middle class children, the achievement gap, has been talked about and measured. Billions, if not trillions, of state and federal dollars have been spent on millions of poor children across the nation over the last 45 years and nothing has worked. Minnesota is notorious for having the largest or among the largest gaps in the nation. Data show that preschool seems to exacerbate the achievement gap in poor children.

National Head Start - A Congressionally-mandated national evaluation of Head Start released in May of 2010 followed the progress of three- and four-year-olds entering Head Start through the first grade. The program had little to no positive effects for 4 year old children granted access to Head Start after the first grade year. There was actually harm to the math skills of three year old children in Head Start compared to those who did not participate. An investigation in the Spring of 2010 by the Government Accountability Office resulting in a congressional hearing found fraud at selected Head Start programs where false income data was not verified or was doctored and families were committing fraud and encouraged by the Head Start programs.

Georgia – State data, (p. 70 of PDF) showed students enrolled in the [Georgia] Head Start program “consistently tested below the national norm and significantly behind their peers” by the end of first grade.

Oklahoma – In this high quality, high access, universal preschool state, a 2010 national study reported by the Tulsa World found that “more than four out of five children from low-income families fail to reach the proficiency level in the 4th grade reading, according to the National Assessment of Education Progress.”

New Jersey – That state has been offering court ordered preschool to low income children since 1998. Yet, the number of poor children scoring below basic on the 4th grade reading NAEP test, meaning that they were illiterate, increased between 1992 and 2007.

What does close the achievement gap?

According to Researcher Dr. William Jeynes at the University of California at Santa Barbara, there are three sets of factors that actually erase or significantly improve the achievement gap:

• Intact Families and Religious Faith – Dr. Jeynes found, “data from the National Educational Longitudinal Survey to examine the impact of student religious commitment and living in intact families on academic achievement among black and Hispanic 12th graders. Students with intact families and high levels of religiosity scored as well as all white students on most achievement measures and higher than their black and Hispanic counterparts without intact families or high religiosity. “(Emphasis added). Believe it or not, these two combined ERASE the achievement gap and is the only thing known to accomplish that feat. For all the billions and billions, if not trillions, of dollars spent on education at the state and federal levels, this is the only thing that actually accomplishes that noble goal. When we discuss welfare reform, we need to not penalize Dad’s involvement as families wean of the program and we will reap many other important benefits.
• Phonics Instruction – There are significant improvements in reading scores for poor and minority children taught with phonics. This has been known for a long time from many other additional studies and is just common sense, but unfortunately for our nation’s poorest children, is not being adequately implemented.
• Real Parental Involvement - The positive effects of parental involvement hold for both White and minority secondary children on academic performance. We do need to empower parents as much as possible.

The future ability of our children to read and become responsible, freedom minded citizens in the global economy combined with the peril of our economic state cannot allow us to believe the lies and empty promises of invasive, ineffective, harmful, preschool programs. We must urge our policy makers and candidates to reject early childhood programs and support ideas that actually work such as:

• Cutting taxes so that one parent can afford to stay home and raise children
• Support intact families in welfare and divorce policy, which as Dr. Jeynes data points out ERASES the achievement gap and much other research prevents many other childhood and adolescent social and emotional ills.
• Teaching children, especially poor children, to read early and well in elementary school using intensive systematic phonics,
• Promote authentic parental involvement.

This post originally appeared on the EdWatch web site.

The manufactured crisis in kindergarten readiness

The good news is that the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) evaluated a random sample of children entering kindergarten in the fall of 2006, and found that only 3-10% of this cohort had not acquired a skill, knowledge, or behavior in a selected "developmental domain."

The bad news is that the kindergarten readiness industry, led by the powerful Ready4K lobby, is still pushing its aggressive, "it takes the government to raise a child" takeover of parenting.

Ready4K's mantra is "Only 50% of Minnesota’s children are fully prepared for kindergarten." It is based on a glass-is-half-empty view of the 2002 counterpart to the aforementioned Minnesota School Readiness Study: Developmental Assessment at Kindergarten Entrance Fall 2006. If you count only the "Proficient" group, then yes, about half are in this group (in 2006, between 52% and 71% in the five domains studied), but if you count the "In Process" group, then you could also say that "between 90%-97% of Minnesota's children are fully prepared or almost fully prepared for kindergarten."

You won't find the following table on the Ready4K web site or in its TV advertising, even though it is the foundation for its entire legislative agenda. Look for yourself and see if you can find the kindergarten readiness crisis:

Domain	"Not Yet"	"In Progress"	"Proficient"
Physical Development	3%	26%	71%
The Arts	6%	36%	58%
Personal & Social Development	8%	35%	57%
Language & Literacy	10%	36%	54%
Mathematical Thinking	9%	39%	52%

Ready4K also doesn't show you this statement from the MDE study:

Because children develop and grow along a continuum with great variability, the goal of these studies is to assess children’s proficiency within and across these developmental domains and not establish whether or not children are ready for school with the use of a composite "ready" or "not ready" score. [Emphasis added.]

What you will find featured quite prominently by Ready4K is its legislative agenda, i.e., government funding wish list, which in its original form in 2007 totaled an even $300 million.

While state spending targeted to at-risk populations makes sense (for example, the $6 million signed into law this year for Governor Tim Pawlenty’s early childhood scholarship program for families of at-risk pre-kindergarteners), Baby Ed programs like universal preschool or all-day kindergarten aimed at all Minnesotans are at best an unnecessary expansion of the nanny state.

Minnesota: The Nanny $tate

In “All-day kindergarten funding overdue (April 25),” Sun Newspapers Minnetonka Community Editor Joe Kieser chastises the state of Minnesota for falling “behind states like Mississippi, Alabama and most of our neighboring states in funding all-day kindergarten.” He says that “Minnesota is also in need of more special education and early childhood funding. We are leaving our youngest and most vulnerable students behind.”

Kieser’s rhetoric of fear would grow the “nanny state” government by transferring evermore responsibility for childrearing from parents to the state. Proposals now at the Legislature would take all-day kindergarten to its logical extremes, advocating universal preschool and psychiatric screening, and infant home visitation programs that undermine parental autonomy and authority, while increasing the state payroll and budget to unsustainable levels.

Kieser says, “Studies have shown that kids who are enrolled in an all-day, every-day kindergarten program benefit academically and emotionally more so than their half-day counterparts.” He seems to imply that there is no controversy among these studies. How would the all-day, every-day kindergarteners stack up against their peers who stay at home with one of their parents?

“The Association of Metropolitan School Districts estimates,” says Kieser, “that it would cost the state $160 million annually to fully fund an all-day, every-day kindergarten program if every student enrolled. That is a lot of money, but can you think of a better way to spend it?”

As a matter of fact, I can. Reduce taxes on all Minnesotans to give parents the freedom to stay home and raise their young children as they see fit, instead of making them wards of the state from cradle to grave. Do you really think that the government would do a better job of raising your children than you could?

Pawently's education agenda preview

Our approach when it comes to early childhood will be to focus on kids who are at risk and disadvantaged. —Gov. Tim Pawlenty

Governor Tim Pawlenty gave a preview of his education agenda to Star Tribune columnist Lori Sturdevant in yesterday's Strib. Presumably, Pawlenty will give a more detailed overview in his upcoming State of the State address.

About the best way to improve education: "We'll have a robust set of offerings in education. It will certainly include high school redesign and reform.

"The data are pretty compelling. School performance on average chugs along pretty well in grade school and middle school, and then with the exception of the high performers, it tanks in high school. We're putting a lot of money into a four-year experience that is not producing much academic ROI. We have to find ways for children in the middle, and certainly those who are at risk, to be engaged, passionate, on task, and advancing well in high school. We'll have a significant proposal when it comes to that."

What happened to putting 70 percent of school funds in the classroom? "We are going to do 70 percent whether the Legislature passes it or not. We'll make sure the department [of education] makes sure there's a rigorous, uniform measurement of where the resources go, and make that available to the public in a user-friendly form."

The stakeholders to whom Scholar has spoken say that these "x% of funding to the classroom" proposals sound good, but it is largely an accounting gimmick: like when you go to the doctor's office, whether insurance pays for it depends on what code they assign to the procedure. A more meaningful reform in this area would be to scrap the UFARS accounting system for a more straightforward, transparent system. Paging Pat Anderson!!

And early education? "There's an endless number of things that are good ideas in education. You could construct a list of 75 things that would be really good to do. But it has to be prioritized, in the context of the resources that we have available.

"For example, all-day kindergarten. It's a nice idea, and something we are open to. But if you do it full-blown, it's $320 million a biennium. The data says it helps, but in an era of limited resources, doesn't it make more sense to dial in resources to disadvantaged kids? Our approach when it comes to early childhood will be to focus on kids who are at risk and disadvantaged."

Perhaps the state of Minnesota's slide into cradle-to-grave, nanny state socialism at least won't accelerate during the second Pawlenty administration (statewide smoking ban aside).