Time To Stock The Shelves With School Supplies

During the 2012-2013 school year, teachers spent an estimated $1.6 billion on classroom supplies, a national average of about $485 per teacher, according to a recent report produced by the school supply industry trade group National School Supply and Equipment Association. Many teachers will go into their own pockets again this summer to ensure all their students have the resources they need when they start school in August.

You can help.

STEM Fellows Connects Teachers With Major Industry

Southwest High School science teachers Janis McDonald and
Jim Von Steen look on as their mentor, Dr. Cheryl Beste,
a Syngenta analyst, discusses the procedure they're about to conduct. 

Guilford Education Alliance welcomed the STEM Fellows class of 2013 earlier this month. STEM Fellows is a three week program designed to provide the opportunity for Guilford County Schools’ teachers in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to work in a STEM industry to experience real-world applications of their subject matter. With this experience, they will be able to make their classroom lessons more relevant for their students.

Budget Talks Near An End...But To What End?

This is, without question, among the most frustrating budget seasons in North Carolina history for supporters of public education. And the slight concessions that lawmakers have made seem so pale in comparison to the terrible hardship those lawmakers are set to unleash on our children and teachers. It’s hard to consider any concessions as victories.

Guilford County Commissioners are expected to vote on the county budget in just a few hours, including local funding for our schools. The Guilford County school board, you may remember, requested about $24 million in additional local funding, in large part to offset current and expected state budget cuts. On Monday, commissioners moved to revise their proposed budget to include about $1.5 million in additional funding to our schools.

Award Honors Arbuckle And Sets Standard For Leadership

Retiring Executive Director Margaret Arbuckle poses
with school board member Rebecca Buffington.

Guilford Education Alliance announced this week the creation of the Margaret Bourdeaux Arbuckle Award in honor of our retiring Executive Director Margaret Arbuckle. This annual award will go to a community member who exemplifies the qualities Margaret is best known for, a passion for education, leadership for the greater good and a tireless work ethic.

This award seeks to honor Margaret’s influential work as a community leader, not just for her eight-year tenure with Guilford Education Alliance but also as a Guilford County commissioner, Associate Director of the Center for Youth, Family and Community Partnerships at UNCG and an indefatigable advocate for children. Margaret has dedicated her life to advocating for children and human dignity and in the doing set an amazing example for generations to come.

Why Your Voice Matters Tonight

This evening the Guilford County Board of Commissioners will open the floor to hear from you on their proposed budget developed by the County Manager. That budget does not include additional funding for our schools, despite a request for a $13.6 million increase in local funding from the school board.

That's a big mistake. Our commissioners have held local funding for schools steady over the last several years while many county's cut their local support. That's applaudable and shows the kind of level-headed leadership needed during difficult times. But, like in any race, there comes a time to put all those miles of conservation to use by breaking into a sprint. And make no mistake, Guilford County is in a race and it can't be won without developing the best educated workforce possible.

Raleigh Passes The Buck, Not The Test

Researchers studying voucher systems in communities like Cleveland and Milwaukee where they have been in place for years, have found no significant academic improvement between students using a voucher paid with tax dollars to attend private schools and their public school counterparts. So if vouchers don't fix academic problems why are so many in Raleigh pushing so hard for them? Because it passes the buck.

Senate Budget Proposal Fails Our Students

The state Senate approved its budget proposal this week and as expected it offers nearly no support for education.

The budget, approved along party lines in the Republican-held Senate, falls about $135 million short of what's needed to keep current standards. Standards, we remind you, that were already drastically lowered during the Great Recession by about $1 billion.

Here's a quick breakdown of the damage the Senate budget would do:

Raleigh Might Fail Our Children But We Shouldn't

Guilford Education Alliance takes its responsibility as the county's leading non-partisan, education advocacy organization seriously and advocates only for those things that are proven to be in the best interest of our public school children. On May 11 the county board of education approved its 2013-2014 budget, including a request for $13.6 more in local funding from Guilford County. We urge the Guilford County Board of Commissioners and citizens to do all they can to honor this request.

For several years now, while the state legislature cut millions from our schools and other county's cut their own local education funding, Guilford County Commissioners held their contribution to our local schools steady. Guilford Education Alliance applauds our county commissioners their strength and courage during those dark economic times.

The Education Alliance, like the school board, fears that our state legislators will fail again this year to justly support our schools. But we are optimistic that our local elected officials can do better.

Bills To Watch

We've written about the numerous legislative proposals being considered in the North Carolina General Assembly and how they could devastate public education. We thought it might be helpful to create a few lists of those bills, what they could mean for public education in our state and where each is in the process of becoming law.

Hold The Line No More

Over the past five years, Guilford Education Alliance has applauded the Board of County Commissioners for maintaining local funding to Guilford County Schools. Our county commissioners did so while their counterparts in other counties, particularly in sister urban districts, cut into the local funding of their schools.

And remember, these cuts were being made at a time when the state cut millions from education funding as well.

Guilford Education Alliance applauds the Guilford County Board of Education, Superintendent Maurice “Mo” Green and his staff as well. Because of their leadership our schools maintained stability and earned amazing growth in academic achievement, in spite of the almost $75 million in state funding the school district lost in cuts and redirections since 2009.

During these incredibly lean years Guilford County Schools still managed to kick off new initiatives as outlined in the 2013 Strategic Plan, such as Character Education and Service Learning, a program that has received national recognition; having traditional high schools lead those across the state in graduation rates and Middle College/Early College high schools with 100 percent graduation rates; launching and building new schools; maintaining support for arts/music education and initiating the African American male initiative; and lifting up teachers and principals to North Carolina recognition levels.

We must not let this growth and achievement be threatened by continued cuts. We must begin to restore the impact the cuts have made such as adding 60+ more teachers for our students, and beginning to restore class size to previous levels.

Added to the pressures of having fewer resources for academic programs have been the increasing costs of line items such as utilities and retirement benefits and health care coverage for employees. And these are just the expenses to keep the doors open. Enrollment continues to increase in Guilford County Schools while Charter Schools siphon funding away from our public schools.

Guilford Education Alliance regards the Annual Budget for our schools as the “meat and potatoes,” the central ingredients for our district’s success. Funding public education is necessary to ensure each child gets the instruction and attention he/she needs to be fully prepared for success in life.

Guilford Education Alliance agrees that IT'S TIME for our community to STEP UP and support our children, parents and teachers with action. Guilford Education Alliance is calling on our county commissioners and school board to be visionaries once more and approve Superintendent Green's request for appropriate funding of Guilford County Schools.

The school board is expected to adopt a budget during its May 14 meeting, including a request for local funding from the county. A public hearing on the proposed county budget, including the school board's request, has not been scheduled yet.

Voucher Advocates Want Public Dollars For Private Schools

House Bill 944, which would create a school voucher program in North Carolina, looks set to sail through the House and on to the Senate. Supporters, which include Rep. Marcus Brandon (D) of High Point, are calling it “Opportunity Scholarships” but the only opportunity that's being offered is for our tax dollars to pay for private schools. Thanks, but no thanks.

Brandon joined Darrell Allison, president of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, and others last week at a school voucher rally held at War Memorial Auditorium. Parents and students from religiously affiliated schools from across North Carolina were in the audience but voucher advocates seem to be targeting High Point residents in particular with their rhetoric, including a recent guest column in the High Point Enterprise written by Allison.  

In the column, which you can read here, Allison makes the same tired arguments we've heard for decades. “Private schools will save the day! Just don't ask how,” is a good summary of the column.

For example, Allison uses misleading data to make it appear low-income students are performing worse than they actually are in Guilford County public schools. Allison cites a five-year average for low-income student performance on end-of-grade tests. That makes it appear that less than half of those students pass their EOGs.

The numbers Allison doesn't cite are 2012 EOG scores, which show across the board improvement for low-income students, with 63 percent of students passing. And he certainly doesn't talk about the academic growth that those students experienced.

Every year many of our students, low-income and otherwise, begin school well behind their peers academically. And each year trained, licensed, professional public school teachers begin their work with students where they are and have success moving them forward. Growth is charted and measured. Learning happens. Not all of those students will catch up to their peers within the school year but that's an argument for funding more time with those teachers, not sending them to a private school with almost no oversight or mandates.

Also, note that Allison doesn't explain how private schools manage better results for low-income students. Maybe he left that out because the data shows they don't. In fact, studies have found students do worse than they did in their public schools.

What a voucher system will do is pull money away from public schools, giving it to private schools, some of which will no doubt pop up overnight. Those private schools will then spend our tax money with little to no oversight, teaching whatever they like. Simply put, vouchers will create chaos, an unaccountable mess and leave children behind. Our children deserve better than that.

Public Schools Offer Flexibility, Choice

By Margaret Arbuckle

Executive Director, Guilford Education Alliance

Free public education that is available to all students is one of the magnificent civil rights of our country. Our society’s commitment to provide this opportunity, built on principles of democracy and what is best for the common good, is the foundation for our economic prosperity and our civil society.

For generations, education was provided through a standardized curriculum that all were expected to achieve. But thankfully, throughout the decades, public education has evolved to meet the needs of individual students and the larger needs of our society as we have moved from agrarian to manufacturing to a knowledge-based economy, and as our citizens have become more diverse.

Art For The Sake Of Art

On Stage! is tonight and we couldn't be more excited. This the seventh year Guilford Education Alliance has produced the talent show and it's set to be one of the biggest. There are more than 500 students scheduled to perform from schools all over the county, ready to show off their abilities in the visual and performing arts. And don't think we're overselling it when we say the stars of tomorrow will be on stage at War Memorial Auditorium tonight. These kids will really bowl you over with what they can do.

Guilford Education Alliance has always taken the opportunity to promote the importance of arts education during On Stage! We support Guilford County Schools' efforts to encourage our children's involvement in the arts with magnet programs like the Penn-Griffin School for the Arts in High Point and Morehead Elementary, as well as general arts education in all of our schools.

Supporters of arts education will point out data connecting student achievement and involvement in the arts. A 1998 UCLA study found that arts education has a tremendous impact on the developmental growth of children across socio-economic groups. Arts education advocacy group Americans for the Arts claims children who participate in the arts for at least three hours, three days each week are four times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement and participate in a math or science fair and three times more likely to read for fun and volunteer in their community.

Those are some wonderful figures but they're easy to question. Is it painting or the violin that encouraged a student's love of books or are all three passions emblematic of a larger focus on education by the child's sphere of influence?

That's essentially what two researchers working with Harvard's Project Zero found in 2000. Project Zero is a research entity dedicated to improving arts education. The 2000 study, which you can read more about in this New York Times article, found that art classes did not improve overall academic performance.

Not surprisingly the findings caused an uproar among educators and supporters of the arts. There's plenty of research conducted before and since that 2000 Project Zero study that refutes its findings. But what the study's authors, Ellen Winner and Lois Hetland, argued was that trying to connect students participation in the arts and their academic performance is unfair to the arts. Instead, Winner and Hetland asserted, arts education should be supported because of its own intrinsic value.

You could bury the Project Zero findings under a mountain of contrary research but the reasoning behind the effort shouldn't be dismissed. Isn't, after all, the accomplishment of braving an early freeze to play clarinet in the marching band for a crowded high school stadium worth supporting on its own? Do we have to prove that an eighth grader's love of photography has something to do with why she's so good at math or can we encourage her passion for an art form simply because it brings her joy and a chance to express herself?

At On Stage! Tonight you will see and hear a wonderful sampling of the skill and talent our public school students are learning and honing in classes across the county. You will also see smiles, bright, hopeful eyes and earnest effort. There isn't a better summary for what education looks like.

An Argument Against Free Reign For Charter Schools

For more than two decades many in North Carolina fought the wrong-headed notion that the free market is the ideal tool for education reform. Those in the state that battled advocates of charter schools and vouchers were able to turn back the tide that flooded other states like Minnesota and cities like Washington, D.C. and Chicago. So you would think the battle was won, with volumes of research data now available of such programs in the United States and abroad proving that charter schools at best provide no better academic performance than their public school counterparts and at worse set their students back, often failing financially in the process.

Why is it then that we find ourselves staring down what is arguably one of the most aggressive pro-charter schools legislative agendas not only in North Carolina's history but the nation? Senate Bill 337 would, among other things, create a separate governing board for charter schools, eliminate the requirement that all teachers be licensed and maybe the most unbelievable, eliminate background checks for charter school employees. Oh, and if your public school district has a building it isn't using, the school board would be required to lease it to a charter school for a buck.

The Senate Education Committee will take the bill up today and if approved it will head off to Appropriations.

The bill is being championed by Sen. Jerry Tillman of Archdale and backed by Senate Majority Leader Phil Berger, who represents our fair community as well as his home district of Rockingham County. So be sure to click their links for contact info to share your thoughts.

There is a ton of info already out there about what the bill would do and why those elements are a terrible idea. From the Charlottee Observer and Raleigh News & Observer. You can also read here about how Tillman is also winning the fight to create a separate state school board to govern charters.

What we need to think about is this free market idea. Here's what Tillman told the News & Observer last week about why the bill works.

"...the market only works where you have choice. If you don't have anywhere else to go, you have no choice and the marketplace can't work," Tillman said.

This idea that market economics can be applied to public education shows a complete misunderstanding of both education and economics, which is scary considering Tillman retired from the public school district. Marc Tucker is a national leader in standards-driven education reform and president of the National Center on Education and the Economy which does a wonderful job of dispelling the myth of free market education reform in this Washington Post piece from late last year.

Tucker notes that, among other major factors, the free market theory doesn't work because at its core is the assumption that parents will choose to send their child to a school with the best academic record. This isn't the case. Academic performance falls behind safety, proximity to the family's home and even how well the school's athletic teams perform, according to Tucker.

“If [parents] have met teachers at that school that seem to really care about their children, take a personal interest in them and seem to be decent people, they are likely to place more value on those things than on district league tables of academic performance based on standardized tests of basic skills, especially if they perceive that school to be safe and it is close to home,” Tucker explains.

And what about academic performance? Education reform, after all, is supposed to be about ensuring that every child receives the highest quality education possible.

Tucker notes that studies show that students who perform well continue to perform well in charter schools, average student performance is unchanged but most disconcerting is that students who are low performing do even worse in charter schools. Charter schools widen rather than close the performance gap, the exact opposite of what public education reform is meant to do.

In that same News & Observer interview Tillman goes on to say, “Public schools, for the main, are doing a super-good job,” noting that dropout rates across the state are at record lows. But, he continues, there are still places where progress isn't being made.

There is no doubt that shifts in our economy and culture has played a role in lowering the dropout rate. Those factors are nothing compared to the monumental effort public school districts put into addressing the problem. An effort, importantly, backed with resources from the state; this could change with the state cutting resources.

If you read Tucker's piece, and you absolutely should, you'll see he outlines common qualities among nations with public school systems that produce high academic achievement, including Singapore, Finland, Australia and Canada. Here are a few that should be highlighted:

• They have much less poverty among their children.
• They have much more equitable systems of school finance.
• They pay their teachers much better than we do.
• They insist teachers are well prepared both in the subject they will teach and the craft of teaching.

Guilford Education Alliance does not oppose charter schools, but it does believe that a safe public school, whose oversight and governance are transparent and regulated and that is staffed with qualified educators is the best choice any child can have. Because unlike charter schools operating in a free market, failure isn't an option for our public schools.